Why yes, Blizzard. I *do* have a phone, thanks for asking.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Introduced the GF to it this year in fact, but without more players, you can't really get very far. It's designed for a 4 team party most of the way, later expanding to 6 then 8.

She could pick up some heroes from Nightfall and then go back to Prophecies et al. It’s a bit messy narrative-wise for sure, but the heroes are much more helpful than henchmen. If she plays through the entirety of Nightfall first she might later struggle to enjoy the slower pace of the original.

Honestly, so many of these companies ask stupid questions throughout signup or even during use and it's annoying as heck.

Phew, been a strangely computer-free Xmas -- Genshin dumped a big update, and...actually that's been pretty much it.

Anyway, going backwards:

"

YiggityYuh wrote:

Honestly, so many of these companies ask stupid questions throughout signup or even during use and it's annoying as heck.

I am asked to fill out an in-game survey pretty much every play session. I don't mind -- I mean, this is an alpha, right? They should be seeking feedback at this juncture. I'm somewhat impressed there's even an option to receive an email for further correspondence, but I've opted not to try that. Happy to just click a few boxes and give a few bits of feedback (quest rewards are underpowered right now, for example).

"

Sarno wrote:

She could pick up some heroes from Nightfall and then go back to Prophecies et al. It’s a bit messy narrative-wise for sure, but the heroes are much more helpful than henchmen. If she plays through the entirety of Nightfall first she might later struggle to enjoy the slower pace of the original.

Considered this, but I think for proper game and story appreciation, it's best to start with Prophecies. Also, running around pre-Searing Ascalon as a couple is a lot of fun. I think jumping straight into Heroes by way of Nightfall would make going back to doing Prophecies or Factions really...really difficult in terms of the step backwards.

It's all moot now -- we're geared for a GW2 return in a week or so, when the necessary component for her Cintiq to work with her new vid card comes in...

"

Jerle wrote:

I can’t stand playing an ARPG on a phone or a tablet. Just feels way clunky.

I imagine it would on a phone, but on a 10" tablet? It's not so bad. It's a different experience to m+k or controller, obviously, but I see benefits to all of them these days. As long as the game is designed with its native control system in mind I'm open-minded. And Diablo Immortal is 100% designed for tablet. I'll take that over a clunky port any day.

"

DoubleU wrote:

Question: Is it really a phone game or a tablet game?
Phones just seem too damn small for decent playability.

As I noted above, I wouldn't bother with it on a phone. 'You all have phones' was a stupid call, but I doubt anyone in the true target audience was listening. I MIGHT DL it to my basicbitch samsung edge 9 (pretty old now) but if my tab s 4 is only able to handle 'low', I don't have high expectations. OTOH this could be alpha lack-of-optimisation. Hard to say.

Visually it's just not something I think you could appreciate on a phone. It's not far beneath D3 honestly. And aesthetically, it shits all over D3 with its darker tone.

"

Morkonan wrote:

OT Questions:

1)(revisited) What do you see in terms of multiplayer possibilities or development focus? Has it come into play, yet?

2) How linear or rigorously structured is Campaign Play?

3) Is "direct" on-screen trading possible between players? (IF multiplayer is enabled)

4) How many "dupe-bugs" have you found? (No Diablo game has ever been free of a dupe-bug. Not one. :))

(A few days off is great for letting longer tangents trail off, but we may revisit some of them at some point!)

1) Okay so I started a few other characters now that my main (Wizard) is up to Rifting and I noticed that the game is single player for the first handful of levels. Once you've cleared a certain quest, the first 'town' has people in it. You can party with them (the game encourages it, in fact) or just ignore them. I feel okay soloing so far but my few deaths HAVE been when I've been doing a quest boss and other players are nearby -- so I figure the boss might scale up in difficulty OR their version of it was also in play. I can't quite say. All I know is that if I have any problem with the multiplayer it's that it does seem to affect the difficulty for quest objectives at times. That aside, it's clear other players are hitting invisible enemies most of the time. So maybe I'm going against the development by not partying when I should.

Keep in mind this is an alpha in a very focused location. I expect population in town and even open world areas to be much denser in the released product, unless they shard the crap out of it. Which they just might.

2) Starting new characters helped me see that it's the same as Diablo 3 -- you have defined story quests but random events along the way. So while I recognised the main beats, I definitely had different experiences on each character. This is nothing revolutionary (even D1 had a pool of optional quests per run) but for a mobile game, it's not standard. I appreciate it. But for the most part, you are being pulled through a series of vignettes that connect Diablo 2 to Diablo 3.

3) I don't think so. It's all about the marketplace, but so far I've not seen many things for sale there. Gems mostly. Partying from what I can tell is purely about helping each other get through the game. I just checked a few web resources, and they all agree: this is a loot-kill-loot game, and all you can trade on the marketplace is supplementary gear like gems; there is no interplayer trading. I also appreciate this, as a SSF player.

4) *snerk*

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

As long as you don't like Warhammer: Chaosbane its fine.

Never did try that one, but it was close. I was pretty thirsty for ARPGs for a while there -- Wolcen was languishing, Last Epoch didn't have its rogue, Grim Dawn just DOESN'T DO IT FOR ME FOR SOME REASON...now I didn't hate Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor (which surprised me with its po-faced commitment to the grimdark setting), so if Chaosbane is anything like that, I...might have liked it? Either way, there was in the end no need to try it.

__

Okies, all caught up!

So I really do like that the first third of my experience so far has been Diablo 2 related locations: Dark Wood and the Tower, and most of the enemies were familiar women and a very familiar big bad who likes to bathe in blood...

Westmarch is more of a D3 location but your main contacts there are from D2.

Learning the origins of the Demon Hunters is okay although I was fundamentally against that class from the start, perceiving it has a needless import from Warcraft. I'm familiar with the name Valla from HOTS though, so there was at least some little twinge of recognition there.

Looser tie-ins aside, the sheer abundance of Mr. Stay Awhile And Listen should be a selling point for Diablo fans, platform notwithstanding. That's a huge notwithstanding though, I admit.

The classes are a little too restrictive for my likes. The monk is always some weird generic Asian archetype; the Barbarian is always a lovechild of Bul Kathos and Bul Kathos. And the Demon Hunter is some snarky British Garrett-from-Thief type. Gear-wise, the Barbarian always dual-wields, the Wizard always uses a weapon+catalyst, and so on. But there's plenty of customisation, which is essential for any Diablo game.

Playing the classes feels different too, which is important. Wizard is essentially pew-pew city, Barbarian demands you think more about positioning and getting into range, and the Monk is sort of a midway. I haven't played much Demon Hunter yet. Did I mention I don't really like the class?

I haven't mentioned the music yet. It's really good. I always play with earphones in (which is really unusual for a mobile game for me) and again, if not for the platform, it'd feel like any other Diablo game in terms of sight and sound.

Some targeting issues with channelled skills -- disintegrate and ice ray should be more effective but eh, MIGHT be alpha issues. I have to keep resorting back to that, for obvious reasons. I'm not keeping up with the patch notes or documentation. I never have with Diablo games, and I don't plan to start now. I'll take it as it comes.

Ultimately, it's been a very entertaining alpha/closed beta style experience but I felt the same about the Diablo 3 closed beta, so take that with half a grain of salt. I'll definitely be playing the full version either way. Curious to see how the Necromancer works...

I watched Quin69, LlamaSC, and someone else play it, don't remember who. It seems like a dumbed down D3.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

...
Ultimately, it's been a very entertaining alpha/closed beta style experience but I felt the same about the Diablo 3 closed beta, so take that with half a grain of salt. I'll definitely be playing the full version either way. Curious to see how the Necromancer works...

What you've described sounds like a couple of older MMO's I've played. I can't remember the one that more closely resembled "fantasy," but Anarchy Online had some similarities with what you described. IIRC, mobs were instanced/obscured in the "newbie" area. So, one could hunt "leets" as much as one wished while watching other players fight "invisible" mobs. (It's been a very long time, so my memory there is a bit fuzzy.)

It does sound like it's strictly a beta right now, though.

An added question: What "social" features does it include? Chat channels? Private messaging? Any sort of "Lobby Chat" or similar? VOIP?

"

innervation wrote:

I watched Quin69, LlamaSC, and someone else play it, don't remember who. It seems like a dumbed down D3.

And for a mobile ARPG, that is more than enough. You may be ignorant to how awful most mobile arpgs are. I am not.

"

Morkonan wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

...
Ultimately, it's been a very entertaining alpha/closed beta style experience but I felt the same about the Diablo 3 closed beta, so take that with half a grain of salt. I'll definitely be playing the full version either way. Curious to see how the Necromancer works...

What you've described sounds like a couple of older MMO's I've played. I can't remember the one that more closely resembled "fantasy," but Anarchy Online had some similarities with what you described. IIRC, mobs were instanced/obscured in the "newbie" area. So, one could hunt "leets" as much as one wished while watching other players fight "invisible" mobs. (It's been a very long time, so my memory there is a bit fuzzy.)

It does sound like it's strictly a beta right now, though.

An added question: What "social" features does it include? Chat channels? Private messaging? Any sort of "Lobby Chat" or similar? VOIP?

A chat window, which I promptly turn off even though they are very nontoxic during early public tests. Global, party, local, etc. Same as d3 from memory.

VOIP isnt really a focus for mobile games in my experience.

Might have PMs. Again, I am strictly solo where possible.

Ran an Elder Rift last night. I assumed theyd be balanced for mp since it has a find party button before entering but I handled it okay. Rifts drop runes as set reward. Runes craft into legendary gems, which are where the shenanigans begin. Procs and whatnot.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

...
Ran an Elder Rift last night. I assumed theyd be balanced for mp since it has a find party button before entering but I handled it okay. Rifts drop runes as set reward. Runes craft into legendary gems, which are where the shenanigans begin. Procs and whatnot.

It'd actually be smarter for them to pre-balance for single-player and then bump up the difficulty for multiplayer - That way, they don't end up content-locking their game.

"The Elder Scrolls:Online" "levels" content. It's a weird system, but everything in the game is leveled in difficulty from the players PoV. So, yeah, a level 5 guy whacking a raid mob with a stick is doing "their part" in an outdoor open multiplayer sort of encounter. (It's really a fascinating sort of system.)

There are dungeons (non-instanced) that are meant for groups, but most players can solo them once they've got their builds more-or-less put together. There are dungeons that are instanced and group-only, but a sufficiently advanced player can solo a good many of those. Top-Tier or purpose-built solo builds can likely solo most of them. Instanced "Raid" content is certainly not soloable by many, if at all.

The point of the comparison is that TESO pushes multiplayer, but only up to a point where it doesn't terribly lock out content for solo or small group/couples players. That's smart. It maximizes their work-hours and the tactic is a value-added one in that players get to experience more challenges no matter what style of play they adopt.

In D3, at least when I played, there wasn't really any content that was decidedly multiplayer. It also has a leveled sort of system in Rifts, though groups with dedicated multiplayer/buff characters could progress further.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

"

innervation wrote:

I watched Quin69, LlamaSC, and someone else play it, don't remember who. It seems like a dumbed down D3.

And for a mobile ARPG, that is more than enough. You may be ignorant to how awful most mobile arpgs are. I am not.

Technically ignorant? Yes, I haven't played any. But I've played enough mobile in general to know the average quality and the various monetization. Specific to ARPGs, seeing the control scheme in adverts is enough to know they're not for me. But the reason I watched 'diablo streamers' play the early access is because if there were ever going to be a title that might make me change my mind I expected it to be DI.

It's looking like my attention span and gaming time will be safe from this endeavor.

"

innervation wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

"

innervation wrote:

I watched Quin69, LlamaSC, and someone else play it, don't remember who. It seems like a dumbed down D3.

And for a mobile ARPG, that is more than enough. You may be ignorant to how awful most mobile arpgs are. I am not.

Technically ignorant? Yes, I haven't played any. But I've played enough mobile in general to know the average quality and the various monetization. Specific to ARPGs, seeing the control scheme in adverts is enough to know they're not for me. But the reason I watched 'diablo streamers' play the early access is because if there were ever going to be a title that might make me change my mind I expected it to be DI.

It's looking like my attention span and gaming time will be safe from this endeavor.

You are an Exile. This was a given.