h/t - @repub9989
Diablo 3 Review As It Happens...
A
mere 12 years after the last game, Diablo 3 is here. We’re aiming to
get our review up at the start of next week, and until then we’ll be writing our impressions up here.
2 hours in
I’m playing Wizard, and I’ve just finished the first big story quest, which was as far as the beta went. Before I delve into the unknown, here’s what’s struck me so far:
- Combat: still incredibly satisfying. Frost Beam! I get Frost Beam almost immediately! This was a high level skill in the beta, one I never earned, and it’s as frosty and beamy as I could have hoped. With this, I will stop the world.
- The new skill system is bizarre. Even as someone who played the beta 10 times, I find the mess of different windows, menus and categories bewildering at times. They’ve tried to make it simpler for new players by telling you which slots you should put certain skills in, but they’ve done it in a way that makes it hard to get an overview of what you have access to. You can turn off this restriction, but it still presents your skills as if they’re in these mutually exclusive categories.
- Case in point: how do I, er, attack with my weapon? I could do it at level 1, but now that both my slots have skills in them, I have no ‘attack’ ability to put anywhere. If you’re using Magic Missile, it’s not too much of a problem: that does 110% weapon damage and costs no energy. But if I’m using Charged Bolt and Frost Nova, neither of those skills can hit something far away. I have a bow in my hand and no way to fire it.
- Good news, I’ve found a way! Bad news: you have to turn of the skill category restrictions, then put a skill you already have equipped into the wrong category for it, and the old slot will default to ‘attack’. But you can’t use it yet, because skills have to cool down after you change them around. And now your other skill is in the wrong slot. Yaay!
- In practical terms, I realise I won’t often need my weapon with all these powerful, no-cost skills to choose from. But it really does underline how much less interesting loot has become in Diablo 3. For my Wizard, weapons are literally just numbers. A battleaxe that does 12 damage is identical to a bow that does 12 damage. Later, the Wizard gets a skill called Magic Weapon – maybe that’ll help.
- The first runestone you get as a Wizard is the most unexciting runestone. It adds a percentage damage to Magic Missile, the skill that’s already almost identical to firing a wand.
- The third runestone you get is phenomenally cool. It makes enemies killed with Charged Bolt explode with an electric blast, killing more enemies with charged bolt. This means chewing through a mob with it sometimes triggers this spectacular crackling chain-reaction that fries them all. I also love how slotting a runestone subtly changes the sound effect for the skill, so my charged bolt has this portentous little pre-crackle before it fires now.
- Whoa, actual difficulty! I whined a lot about how easy the beta was, even for an opening chapter. Final game has teeth. I ran into a boss mob of Wretched Mothers: a whole crowd of ultra-fast hags who vomit zombies onto the ground, spawning a horrific tide of undead it was genuinely tough to plough through. At this level none of my skills penetrate enemies, so it was like an advancing wall of dead flesh I had to smash through with my Frost Beam to get to the horrible things spawning it all.
- Charged Bolt stops working. Frost Nova stops working. The zombie I’m
fighting keeps groaning and flailing his arms at me, but nothing
happens. We’re both impotent. I run around and nudge some other zombies,
also moaning but also unable to strike. My first disconnect!
I alt+tab out to check my net connection, and it’s working fine. When I get back in, the game’s quit to the main menu with an error saying there’s been an error – it has a number but no specifics. When I try to get back in, it throws up another error that says to make sure all of my party is ready. I’m playing single player. In a few minutes I’m able to log back in and play again. I’ve lost all my progress through the current zone and the world has reset and repopulated with monsters, but my character, items and quest status are intact.
There’s a lot to say about the fact that this can happen even in single player, but I’ll keep it brief: this is utter bullshit.
3 hours in
- God, it’s nice to be in an area I haven’t played through ten times already. As you stray further from Tristram, the environments get much prettier too: I’m in autumnal orange fields, mossy green temples and burning red villages now.
- The monsters are cooler here too: huge trees come to life and start punching me, huge four-legged beasts scrape the earth with their hooves before ramming me violently, and bleating mobs of goatmen make meaty Frost Beam fodder. Yes, I’m still using Frost Beam.
