Diablo 3 Beta First Impressions and a brief tirade on statistics

[Kevin]

Here's another impression - I love the visual and sound feedback you get in D3 when you kill things. Dead things fly across the room leaving a trail of weapons/body parts. Dungeon paraphernalia explodes. My speakers emit a lovely tune of "SMASH BOOM BANG!"

It's very rewarding to kill stuff in Diablo 3.

It is, though it was more impressive on the Barbarian than the Demon Hunter those are the only classes I've run through so far, Barb is beta capped, Demon Hunter still has a couple levels to go.

Of course I don't think the dual wielding barb ever got below 75% health. I did actually see the demon hunter drop down to about 40% once earlier on in her career. I've never drank a healing potion in the game yet. I'm going to just to see how they work after standing and letting some stuff beat on me.

But hearing the thuds and watching the bodies fly around, and even getting rewarded for breaking enough environmental stuff quickly enough is quite fun.


I do have some negative impressions though. I really don't like the limited active skill slots. While I had a few variants in D2 that only used one to four skills at a time, I generally enjoyed being able to use different skills whenever I felt like it. Some of the skills I've only used just because I wanted to see them. The beta being so short there was no point in changing from what was working so well. Of course I've still pulled out the capped barb a few times just because so I'm still having fun, even if I pretty much only use cleave and the increase damage shout on him (by the time he was about L9 I was seeing 100+ damage hits at L13 ninety damage hits are about the smallest I'm getting) and I have fun pretty much one shotting everything.

I also still find the bright and blurred coloring not as appealing. I feel like I'm playing in a water colored painting. That's OK, but it's not something that is appealing to me, and it doesn't always work for what the setting is supposed to be. Of course they nailed the music and unlike many other games I leave the music on in this one and it can help set the mood that the shiny blurred graphics sometimes fail at.

It is Diablo though. Sure it's not the same as either D1 or D2 but it does feel like Diablo, and it is fun.

Like Loki said I'm a little bothered by lack of randomness, but I've also heard that will be different as you progress in the game. The beta is basically the tutorial portion of the game. If it stays as fixed as that moving forward, then yes it will impact replay. The limited skills are going to impact that more for me though.

But this game is going to be fun to grab a couple of friends with and just go smash things up, and grab some loot. I'm also actually happy that inventory tetris is pretty much gone. I didn't really like that aspect of the older games, and while loot isn't all the same size, you generally only run into needing to move one or two items around. This is a good thing for me as that is something that just slowed me down and added no value in the old games. It was so annoying that inventory mods were often high priority for me if I was making a single player toon. Again to each there own, some might miss it.

Again just a few impressions for me. Though I'm not really saying anything anyone else on the forums hasn't yet, I know it's pretty similar to what Bolty posted months ago.

I do hope the barbarian stays as much fun going forward. I tended to prefer the ranged classes in D2, some of that was due to bugs in some of the skills I liked on melee toons, some of it was just the way targeting worked/didn't work in that game. In D1 the warrior was not as powerful as a rogue or sorc, but did bring a very interesting set of fun and tactical challenges that I enjoyed and the click click click attacks worked fine on that tile based map. I'm liking the melee combat mechancis in D3 much better than D2 and the Barbarian really does feel like a crazed human wrecking ball. Looking forward to trying out the monk (I decided to just go from top to bottom on the classes for the beta) since that looks like it will be a different kind of melee than the barb.

The Demon Hunter has been, eh, so far. Definitely some fun skills and the mechanics of the class aren't bad, perhaps it just doesn't feel as right in the environments available in the beta since you are in confined spaces a fair bit. Or perhaps it's because it's tutorial mode and the nice kiting skills that class has really aren't all that needed, even if you do try and grab way too many mobs. So could end up being a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong I had fun, but I didn't feel nearly as epic on the DH.