The itemization just killed the game for me. Not even tempted to come back until they address it in season 4, but I'm skeptical they'll be able to nail it in one try.

If anyone is looking for an isometric ARPG fix I can highly recommend Last Epoch. I've followed it's development for about 5+ years and I'm not a huge early access fan so avoided played early, but decided to jump in finally a couple of weeks ago since it's going live on 2/21 and man, this hits pretty close to exactly what I want in a game like this. It's somewhere between Diablo IV and PoE as far as complexity goes. Really great itemization and crafting is exceptional. It's got me as excited for an official launch of a game as I've been in quite a while.

Season 3 was okay but not great. Didn't take too long to level to 100 (almost too quick) but the loot is still questionable. Lilith is still too ridiculous in my opinion, but it wasn't required to kill her to finish the season. I agree that the barbs dominated this season. The one-shotting the world boss was ridiculous. Once I finished the season, I had no desire to grind out anything else.

I haven't even turned on season 3 because this season of PoE sucked me in

Coming to Gamepass on March 28.

Well, the itemization changes sound very promising. Hope it's good in practice. I'm still not sure there's enough of an end game, but they are definitely trying to add more each season. Helltides changes sound good, makes it more like the vamp stuff in S2 which was vastly superior.

Blizzard added some Last Epoch into D4

They definitely did. Last Epoch was made by people who loved isometric ARPGs so it's a good group to borrow ideas from. I'm convinced the vast majority of the Diablo IV team never even played one. These season 4 changes look encouraging, I hope they make the game worth playing again. I still doubt I'll be coming back for season 4 because of how much I'm enjoying Last Epoch though.

I'm also not joking when I say the change I'm most excited about is the camera zoom out.

Anyone tried the PTR? I'm thinking about installing and trying it out at some point this weekend.

I've seen various streamers' videos about the changes, and it definitely looks like a huge overhaul. I just have so much time to invest in games, so don't want to spend hours in a PTR when I may just end up playing the season to try it out.

Anyone starting season 4 tonight? I finally got a laptop that can play it and battle.net has it half off, so downloading the game now. Been wanting to play since release.

I forgot it was already coming out today to be honest.

Didn't play the PTR and only logged an hour and a half tonight, but already the loot system feels much better.

Seems like necros have a few strong builds this go around. Seems like frozen orb sorcs might also be good.

I played long enough yesterday to make it to T3 but then my computer died

Have to run to microcenter at lunch and buy some parts!!

Leveling is a lot more fun with helltides being available and being able to upgrade gear a lot more easily with the streamlined system.

So far so good, but end game is where we'll really see!

Not gonna lie, I did update last night... I might give it another shot this season once I wrap up this playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake on Hard mode to gear up for whenever Rebirth hits PC.

I was excited to see they were allowing you to zoom out more finally, but I've seen mixed comments about that on Reddit since yesterday and whether or not it is even noticeable. For any of you that play that played previous seasons, I'd be curious what your thoughts are on the camera. It drove me crazy how zoomed in you were on your character in the past.

Cromagnum said:

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Seems like necros have a few strong builds this go around. Seems like frozen orb sorcs might also be good.

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Going to run the frozen orb this season for the D2 memories.

I started a Necro last night as that's what I really enjoyed playing in D3. I am going to level up through the campaign though as I never have played through it. Made it to level 8 or so last night.

Running Barb for the first time on D4; need to work out some of the gameplay issues; can't figure out how to assign specific weapons to skills on the Xbox and haven't quite nailed the landing on Leap. I have already died like 5 times on Tier 2 before reaching lvl 15 so not getting the 'swing'; if you will; of the Barb yet.

No cutscenes just dialogue?

Minion Necro seems a bit boring already (although it's very strong) so I may go frozen orb sorc instead for the D2 vibes.

If you don't play the campaign, they cut out the cutscenes.

Can't wait to get the fractured winterglass. Frozen orb is already solid without it and will be nuts with it.

100

Cromagnum said:

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Can't wait to get the fractured winterglass. Frozen orb is already solid without it and will be nuts with it.

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And it is. I am steamrolling stuff 40 levels higher at level 80.

Getting my Shako was a huge buff, as well. This is the first lvl 100 i've had playing D4, and I'm happy with the time it takes to get to 100. My notes for the changes and season 4 would be:

Helltides

The changes to Helltides have been fantastic. I love the leveling from 1-60ish, using Helltides. This mechanic is very unique to D4, among the other ARPGs out there, and I think they need to continue expanding on it. There are so many ways they could make them even better.

Item Changes

The overhaul of Affixes for loot is a godsend. The itemization is much better than it has ever been, but still a ways to go. The removal of all the ridiculous and useless affixes to have to sort through has been so much better. Every affix is now useful, and it's really up to you on which one is best for your build.

The tempering system is a fantastic start. I don't like how messing it up can potentially brick your item, and have a couple of ideas on how to change that. I definitely don't think it should be a simple "click button to reset" because I'm fine with some kind of gamble to it. I was thinking either an item you can find that will re-roll a tempered power to it's max. In that situation, you can still brick your item, but getting the lowest roll for the power you want doesn't mean you will always be stuck with that roll. I was thinking make this item a drop from a rare Tempering Goblin or something.

Unfortunately, tempering has made many uniques and uber uniques kind of useless for some builds. There definitely needs to be some rebalancing of those, but they are taking steps in the right direction.

Masterworking is still something I haven't spent much time on yet because I have just started running the pit.

End Game

This is still an area I think Blizzard needs to work on. Maybe this is just the nature of ARPG's, but just running the pit over and over again to get the mats I need to masterwork is boring. I'm not the type that simply wants to buff my character to be able to run through a room of enemies that was harder than the last. There's nothing fun about that for me, and I don't see me playing more after I complete the seasonal quests. I think the devs need to focus even more on Helltides and building an endgame around that mechanic. Don't focus on just clearing higher level stuff, but make the game more fun to simply log in and play.

I think helltides need even more random events or rare spawns that make it even more fun exploring the Helltide. One of my favorite aspects to D3 were the many goblin variants. I think they should bring those back and give us many rare goblin spawns that drop special mats and such, on top of other events and spawns.

I'm okay with tempering "bricking" you item if you are allowed to choose to keep your original affix vs automatically overwriting it. I've gotten in the habit of tempering first before I waste money rolling enchants.

Yeah, you definitely need to temper first. But even doing that, you could potentially brick a godly 3 greater affix item. That is really punishing, in my opinion.

DallasTeleAg said:

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Yeah, you definitely need to temper first. But even doing that, you could potentially brick a godly 3 greater affix item. That is really punishing, in my opinion.

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Yeah. I wish you could either find something to reset the temperature, or it just takes progressively more mats.