After wrapping up my Phantom Liberty playthrough, my coworker finally convinced me to try Diablo 4. I’ve never played any Diablo game and did not understand the whole “action RPG” thing. From the beginning, I was impressed by the cutscenes, but skeptical of the gameplay.
Many times I didn’t get people’s obsession with the game. In the end though, not only did I finish it, but I plan on preordering the Vessel of Hatred DLC. I get it now and I can suggest the best way to have fun for skeptics like me.
Being a Diablo 4 Skeptic
I did not really get the whole action RPG appeal of Diablo games. For so long, I gravitated towards first person games. After playing more isometric RPGs in recent years, I was open to finally trying a Diablo game. My coworker talked it up over the hours he spent playing with his wife.
With Diablo 4 dropping onto Game Pass, I really had no excuse. Right from the opening logo, I loved the art style. I chose to go with the Necromancer class to raise the dead. Seemed fitting with the occult theme.
There was a whole explanation of the lore of the game. It’s a battle between angels and demons. There’s heaven and hell, but then Sanctuary, a land in between, created by the demon Lilith and angel Inarius. I guess that means the game world is basically purgatory.
It was clear the game was special from the opening cinematic. The Hellraiser style sacrifice scene was brutal and I loved all the occult theming. Not sure what it says about me that I enjoyed the brutal Pagan-like summoning ritual to raise Lilith.
The isometric view actually looks great with all the graphics settings cranked up (now with ray traced shadows and reflections).
Frustrating Default Controls
Controls threw me way off. It was click fest with the mouse to interact or move anywhere. Pressing the WASD keys, as any PC player would for movement, opened up various menus. It was off putting and weird to me.
I played about an hour that way before I figured out there is an option the menu to turn on keyboard movement. Attacks flew in the direction of where my mouse pointer was on the screen, regardless of where my character was facing after the WASD movement.
When the action is flying around, it’s sometimes hard to see where my mouse point was at, but it was miles better than the default controls.
Having Fun in Diablo 4 as a First Timer
From the start it was a very simple loot and click fest. Once I fixed my controls, It was even better. I’d constantly check newly picked up loot and equip the better stuff. The gameplay is really easy to pick up and go.
I loved once I unlocked the ability to summon the dead early on. I could carry a mini army with me. If they perished, I could summon more from corpses. They helped surround enemies and keep them distracted from me.
It was fun to summon a bone cage around enemies and let me bone army bombard them. That was a bit easy mode early on. part of that ease was that I did leave the difficulty on default which I guess is considered “World Tier 1”.
I never died until I moved up in difficulty to “World Tier 2”. Too easy can get boring, so moving up in difficulty enhanced my fun. There was not much point in gathering the health potions until I did that. The added challenge was harder, but not to an annoying degree.
Traveling Faster in Diablo 4
I started out a bit bored with the branching paths and constantly running into enemies. For those that want to rank up fast, that’s great, but not when trying to advance the story. I fought a flood of enemies to rank up early, but then selectively avoided them.
When I moved from one town to another, I’d limit the amount of enemies I’d attack. I could easily run from most monsters and use bone cages to block them from following me. It was much more fun to fight enemies when I wanted, then get back to b-lining to the story objective.
I also liberally used the fast travel system. Whenever I’d reach a new settlement or town, I’d activate the fast travel rune. The story missions ensured I’d need to investigate new parts of the map. When I had to double back to a previous location, I wouldn’t hesitate to use fast travel.
About halfway through the game, I received my first horse and that helped my non-fast travel time a lot. I could more easily just gallop past enemies. The higher speed also ensured getting from point A to B was accelerated. It helped me speed up the latter half of the game.
Focusing on the Diablo 4 Main Story
My coworker did warn me to be selective about the side missions (blue exclamation points) before I played. It seemed worth skipping the minor side missions to focus on the main story. To many fetch or kill quests. There was a separate, important set of “Priority” side missions that I made sure not to skip.
Those priority missions teach game mechanics like using jewels, tempering, etc.. They were typically fairly short and worth the reward of the knowledge of new mechanics. The real draw is the main story though. I enjoyed following the path of Lilith.
Meeting all the characters along the way and fighting through the dungeons was fun. Having an actual overarching story enhanced the crazy action spectacle of the fights. Lilith is a great villain and it was a fun ride following her path before dispatching her and her minions.
In my early hours, I’d go from having fun to just meh. Fighting too many monsters as I mistakenly started another side mission fetch quest wore thin. When I almost strictly followed the main story though, it pulled me all the way in.
Diablo 4 is as Simple or Complex as You Want
For the Diablo 4 veterans out there, I’m guessing that Diablo 4 is easy to play, but hard to master. It’s as easy as clicking on things to move to or fight or activate. There are plenty of systems to play with beyond that. There’s several equipment slots to mix and match various pieces with different properties.
Every piece of armor, weapon or other equipment, have their own stats and perks. It’s easy enough to compare an item against what’s currently equipped to see whether it’s an upgrade (green arrow up) or downgrade (red arrow down). I did perfectly fine using just that for awhile.
Later on though, it’s clear that some of the perks items have makes the choice more complex. An item that shows as an downgrade, might have perks that enhance my playstyle and therefore an upgrade. A perfect example of that was a piece of armor I “downgraded” too because it vastly enhance my bone attacks.
I’m guessing people go real deep with mixing and matching equipment like this. Later on in the game it added the concept of socketed gems, tempering and some other mechanic I’m forgetting about. I played around with all that, but that seems like another set of rabbit holes. Great the choice is there for those that do want to go deep.
Permanent versus Temporary Upgrades
Beyond equipment, there’s a whole skill tree that unlocks new abilities or attacks. That whole tree seems very complex, so I mostly focused on bone based upgrades for my character. There’s just so many different paths there to take, then pair them with enhancing equipment.
There’s also a whole potion crafting system. I only dabbled once, but I’m sure there are plenty of variations there. I can only imagine their are hardcore Diablo fans that are able to use all the things I mentioned above to stack and multiple their playstyle stats.
As I mentioned, I didn’t spend a ton of time on these systems, but I could have. I was perfectly fine completing the Diablo 4 story without worrying about them much. My guess is as the World Tiers advance, the longtime players likely need to synchronize all those things.
For those that dabble into new characters for the seasonal content, there’s even an option to skip the main story for that character. I guess it’s great for those that just want to rank up quick and unlock things. They can just jump into live service content.
Surviving my Way to the End
I’m happy I was able to complete the game without deep diving into all the upgrade systems. It’s sometimes great when systems like that are more optional to enhance your experience as you see fit. The fact that Diablo 4 invited me try them out, but it was not forcing me to keep using them.
I enjoyed the Diablo 4 story and look forward to the Vessel of Hatred DLC picking up right after. In the meantime, I could go and create a new type of character to chase seasonal content or partake in live events. No time for that now though. There’s other games to play.
I’m definitely more here for the story, but there’s plenty in Diablo 4 for people that like to grind/chase things.