@efesell: It's 2023. Do both.

And these tabs are 50 items each, and there's like 4 of them. 200 sortable items is a nightmare? It seems extremely manageable to me. But you can offer both trivially easily.

I have now finished the story portion of the game.

I think this game started as a 9 out of 10 for me and slowly slid down to like a 7.5. The storytelling is the best they've ever done in Diablo but I don't think it's the best overall campaign, and boy did it get monotonous for me towards the end. Maybe it'd be better in co-op, probably, but a lot of people play it single player.

The always connected world is a huge flop. Towards the beginning of release people would team up with me for world events a little bit, but a week in and everyone is just politely avoiding one another.

The skills are all pretty boring, as are the items. At leasst in World Tier II. Maybe they get better in World Tier III. I did too much side stuff but I wasn't level 50 by the end (48) so I didn't do THAT much.

I felt like the ending REALLY dragged. It was just fight fight fight pseudo boss rush, fight fight, weird interlude where you literally just walk while characters talk at you, fight fight, big boss, and then a very pointless end stub where you have to visit a few places to do some minor chores. Very little mechanical variation, kind of boring enemies, and again the best the designers can think to have you do when you're not fighting is WALK AROUND DOING NOTHING.

As for the story itself: It had some great moments. The cut scene where the Cathedral faces the forces of hell while Lilith fights Inarius may be one of the best cut scenes in all of video games. Just a spectacular pieces of work that filled in one of my major issues with that whole section up to that point, which is that we never got to see a big conflict of armies, except in that great cut scene. On the other hand, the Cathedral basically disappears from the story after act one only to reappear as a major force at the end. And I remain BAFFLED by the main character's arc, which feels like it's missing. So some great moments and performances in service of a kind of bad story.

It's a great looking version of Diablo that does the basics very well. It has actual characters and memorable moments. It's a very solid foundation to continue building on. There are at least 2 expansions being planned. And maybe the postgame stuff will be compelling for me.

I've complained a lot in this thread and in this post, but that's because the things it does well aren't that interesting, But it's a good game that I enjoyed a lot at the beginning and didn't totally hate at the end, even if I thought it lingered a bit. And there's a ton of postgame stuff. I could see myself trying another class, or messing around with postgame for awhile, and I'd definitely be interested in expansions, which could really improve things with some more gameplay wrinkles. But 7.5 or 8 our of 10 seems about right for my feelings right now.

@bigsocrates:So, a few thoughts about the overworld, since you've mostly dwelled on the negatives.

First thing is that two of the three endgame activities that become available at tier 3/level 50 are specifically designed to make doing random stuff in the overworld more rewarding.

Helltides are actually the most rewarding activity in the game as far as acquiring gear. Basically a chunk of the map turns red for an hour, and while it's there, defeating any enemies in the area will get you a special currency to use to open chests with very high odds for legendary gear, and they're labeled by gear type. So if you're looking for a good helmet, you can open up a helmet chest and probably get something that'll help you.

Then there's the Tree of Whispers, which adds some new activities to the map on a 90-minute cycle, or in some cases just gives more rewards for activities that are already there, like those brown circle, obol-giving world events. When you've done enough of these, you can go back the Tree and pick between one of three caches of stuff, which again have decent odds for some good items (though not as good as Helltides).

Anyway, these activities seem... fine? Nothing's perfect, but I ain't mad at it. Seems like a decent enough justification for the world to me. I'm enjoying doing that stuff just fine, more than I am doing the instanced dungeons. To that point, I definitely don't pine for the overworld to be all randomized again. I like that I can lift all the map fog and it stays lifted, and that I can get to know the ins and outs of a persistent world.

Also, not for nothing--and I've had it in the back of my mind to write a blog about this for a while--I like overworld maps in RPGs in general because they give you a sense of place and can help you feel like you're actually occupying a world, that it all coheres. I even (mostly) don't mind some hoofing it to places for much the same reason, especially when you've got your horse and it's faster. It makes me recall how averse to fast-travel Dragon's Dogma was, and that it made me appreciate its world way more.

All that said, I do agree that the overworld map Blizzard has crafted for this game is... not amazing? You're right that the regions are pretty one-note, and the game as a whole is fairly monotone.

But as you've alluded to, mostly I just like these types of games and D4 has pretty much hit the notes I've wanted it to hit. I play these games either to chat with friends in multiplayer or give myself something fun to do while second-screening a TV show or listening to a podcast, and it does that just fine. I think would say that I started playing the game with a fair amount of anticipation, but not expectation of a lot of evolution from the established formula, so I think I'm someone who was pretty easy to please. So, sorry some of you guys aren't enjoying it more, I'm having a good time!

@atheistpreacher: I know about those activities and they seem fine but they're more of something to do with the overworld than a reason for it. You could still do that stuff with a randomized world it would just be...random maps. The game tries to do random instanced events during the campaign too, and they're supposed to be places for players to join together but as I said they seem to have stopped doing that.

I think the PVP zone is a better argument, since there it really helps to have one consistent place on the map where you can go do that stuff.

All that being said, I don't think having a static map was a bad choice per se. Diablo got a lot of out of being randomized when it was released in the 90s and that was super novel ("You mean I can keep playing this game forever because it's different each time? MIND BLOWN") but I think by Diablo III it was pretty meh and I don't think it will be missed. I think the bigger problem is that given the opportunity to make a great and memorable map for a huge game they just...didn't really try. There are a few interesting features and places but it's mostly just like the random maps but static. Very boring. And not enough waypoints.

I wouldn't say I'm "not enjoying" the game. I think I've been clear on that. It's solid. And I didn't have huge expectations either I don't think. I'm just surprised that after 10 years they didn't think to try a few wrinkles or change things up. And I do think it's pretty stingy with the interesting loot for a Diablo game,

I realize I've been talking about this game like it's a 5 when I really think it's more of a 7.5 or 8, but there just isn't much interesting to say about the good parts. Its a well made Diablo game. If you had asked me before release what the lowest hanging fruit for the franchise was I would say "how about making the story not suck in your alleged RPG and maybe giving us some memorable characters." And they did that. One of the greatest video game cut scenes ever. A really strong antagonist. Some solid side characters and emotional moments. In a DIABLO game!

If you mean drop rates, it does the thing that's pretty usual for these games and increases the drop rates massively later on. Have you played any tier 3 yet? Because it positively showers you in legendaries. I don't remember the drop rates being high for D3 early on, either. If anything, I was a little annoyed in D3 when I got a really good one while still leveling up, because it felt like a bit of a waste that I would eventually outlevel the item.

I care so little about story in these types of games that even though I did read all the dialogue (didn't listen to all of it), I was still only half paying attention until right at the end of the game, and then that cutscene you're talking about played. Damn, that thing was really something. Too bad they didn't have more like that.

@atheistpreacher: Well with this game's ability to save the effects of legendaries it's a little bit less of a problem, though I wish you could keep recycling abilities.

I'm going to try some of the post game stuff probably tomorrow. It's a good fit for playing while doing cardio, which is a big reason why I bought this at launch. It's also one of the reasons the inability to easily stop playing annoyed me, though that's less of an issue with postgame content when you don't get stuck in long story dungeons (there are longer dungeons but you don't need to do them to advance the story.) We'll see if my opinion changes.

As for the story...I admit that I'm more into it than many people for games like this, but I really do think Diablo IV does a decent job. It has major supporting characters who show up a lot and all have decent arcs. It has some big moments like the various deaths, Neyrelle's arm being chopped off, Vigo showing up to save you and redeem himself, most of the stuff around the Tree of Whispers, especially Elias' head being taken, and Lilith's last words where she remains defiant and nasty to the end unlike so many villains like her who get a final redemption.

Yeah many of the cut scenes aren't great, and it does go on longer than it needs to, but at least you're not just following a bunch of journal audio logs.

You know I was giving it a break in period just because I was so used to Diablo 3 that maybe there were just some slight changes that were throwing me off...

But the console targeting in this game is just absolutely fucking terrible. The number of times that there have been two dozen enemies in front of me but this barrel that is sitting to my left is giving my character such an evil eye that she must destroy it no matter what.

Or I'm facing down a group and getting ready to use an AoE but oops I nudged the stick with all the force of a feather drifting onto to it so obviously it's going to decide to shift target so the single enemy standing behind me.

Need to focus down the elite fighting inside of the pack? Good luck, you can use the lock on if you can manage to focus on it long enough but in this game it's a toggle and not a button you hold down so for most situations it's a complete waste of time.