Dark 4, start with queueing

Whether it is a series of things such as withdrawing from the Chinese market and expelling Chinese Hearthstone, or the poor and weak development capabilities shown by Blizzard's new works such as "Warcraft 3 Reset Edition" and "Overwatch 2", it makes Diablo 4 an attractive but embarrassing work.

But for Dark Fans, Blizzard and even Microsoft, Dark 4 is another work that cannot be missed - it is Blizzard's only new work in the past decade; it represents the latest interpretation of the brush by LOOT genre creators; it carries the beautiful hopes of Activision Blizzard shareholders for the stock price; it may also indicate the future results of the acquisition case.

Fortunately, the first public beta of Dark 4 was not bad. Although it did not make a surprise appearance and made people shine, it can also be called the name of Darkness, which is enough to allow the experiencer to leave hope to the future of the sheltered place.

For the first time I entered the game, Dark 4 gave me a little dark shock.

In fact, from 0:00 on March 18 to the end of the test on the 20th, it always needs to queue whenever I enter the game. When the server was launched on the 18th, the queue time was even as long as 180 minutes, and the server was bombed once, which shows the world influence of the "Diablo" IP.

Fortunately, although it is even more difficult to break into a shelter, the network status in the game is still quite stable. After turning on [NetEase UU Accelerator], even if the game needs to be connected to the entire network, I did not drop the line during the entire trial stage, the characters were hit and the skills feedback delay was also very low, and the online service performed very well. Considering that Diablo 4 has considerable multiplayer content, if you want to buy the official version of Diablo 4, then I still recommend that you choose [NetEase UU Accelerator].

I blanch, dark immortal?

In this trial, Blizzard opens the first chapter of the game to players and about 1/6 of the free exploration area in the open shelter.

Although this area is not big, there is actually quite a lot of playable content - in addition to the complete plot of Chapter 1, the trial content also includes more than 20 side dungeons with exclusive rewards, dozens of side quests similar to Dark 3 rewards, numerous collection elements and random world quests, and refreshing the world boss once a day and a half.

Yes, these contents look very dark and immortal at first glance...

In fact, the first 3 hours of Dark 4 are almost the most jail stage of the entire trial process. Players only have 2-3 skills to use, there is no linkage effect between skills, lack of effective means of returning, and most powerful AOE skills are also available.Cooldown time of more than 10 seconds.

If you encounter a wave of elite monsters at the beginning of the process, you can enjoy a jail feast. Facing the elite monster group, after the player's character plays a complete set of output, he has to CD the skills such as running position, and then slowly scratch the basic attack that cannot be returned to the blue. In the early stage of the plot, the difficulty curve of the game is steeper than that of the plot stage of Dark 3, and the pleasure is completely insufficient.

What's more serious is that the most effective way for players to improve at this stage is to do random events and side tasks widely distributed on the map. Since these activities are multi-player content and are relatively difficult, the more efficient method of solving problems is to find a team of players from the same industry.

So, Dark 4 at this stage is more of a 3D top-view MMORPG than a brush game.

Yes, it all looks like Dark Immortal until I dropped a legendary item at level 20.

Finally the taste is right

The dark smell in the Dark 4BD construction system was revealed when I dropped my first legendary equipment at level 20.

In the trial version, Diablo 4 provides a set of professional skill trees with a more "stitching" feel.

First, we followed the design of Diablo 3 and classified the skills of each profession according to functions. Each profession has basic skills that do not consume resources and energy-consuming core skills that are the main output means. And each skill has an enhancement system similar to the runes of the Dark 3 skill. Players can spend skill points to customize the form and additional effects of the skill.

After that, Diablo 4 designed a linkage relationship similar to Diablo 2 for each profession's skill tree.

Take the Ranger who I mainly experienced in the trial stage as an example. The Ranger's skill tree has three independent damage-increasing systems: "Stealing Backstab", "Vulnerable" and "Critical Strike". The skills are interrelated. Players can freely match skills and choose different combat styles. They can not only use long-range weapons to kill explosive AOE when facing large groups of monsters, but also rely on close combat skills to experience the pleasure of instant killing in the BOSS battle.

To be honest, this skill tree is not very impressive, and it is much less customizable than the skill links of "The Road to Exile" and the professional mastery of "Dawn of Terror". However, with Diablo 4's brand new equipmentAfter creating the system, this easy-to-understand skill tree still burst out with considerable playability, making people feel the scent of "qualitative change" after the formation of the Dark Game BD.

Just like the profession suit saved the crude skill rune system of Dark 3, the equipment creation of Dark 4 also made the Dark 4's profession skill tree shine.

Dark 4 deleted the profession set and added "Legend" level equipment under the dark gold items. The legendary equipment will have a legend affix that can be stripped (similar to the Magic Cube Extraction Power of Dark 3). The effects vary from damage increase, energy return to change skill forms. Players can add the extracted affixes to the yellow equipment at the specified location to create a "unique equipment" that belongs to them only.

This system is similar to the Rune Word system of Dark 2. However, compared to the rune words that can only inherit the substrate panel and fixed affixes, the handmade equipment of Dark 4 will completely retain the various attributes of the substrate, which has stronger randomness. The end result is that even if the legendary affix variables of the two pieces of equipment are exactly the same, the final product will have huge performance differences.

Thanks to the creation of the system and unique equipment of Dark Gold, players can build a complete BD style in the early stage of the game, customize their characters from multiple dimensions of damage, survival, and cycle, and gain the pleasure of "qualitative change" when the Dark 3 profession set is formed. Due to the continuous improvement of equipment level and enemy strength, in the official version, players may have to carry out multiple rounds of equipment to successfully pass the plot, and can also experience a variety of different BD types.

This new equipment creation system greatly expands the depth of Dark 4BD construction, making the game more sustainable playable, and is quite in line with the production team's needs to create a continuous operation product. But considering the free trading attributes of Diablo 4 and the disastrous consequences of Diablo 3 cash auction house, it is still hard to say how this design performs in the official version of the game.

Does your next Dark-like Dark-like must be Dark-4?

To be honest, even after 26 hours of trial version, my current attitude towards Diablo 4 is still very ambiguous.

As an old player in the series, the strong single-player gameplay experience of Diablo has always been an important feature that attracted me in this series. I can ignore my teammates' routine and preferences, fight with the monsters alone in the sheltered land until dawn, and then take away the golden light all over the ground.

Therefore, I am still resistant to the strong social MMO elements such as random events of maps, periodic world bosses, and free trading.

But, the core system of Dark 4 still conveys that to meThe familiar pheromones show me the unique charm of this IP that has lasted forever. It may no longer represent the most advanced understanding of dark games, nor can it point out the way for imitators, but it seems that it is indeed on the right path.

The official version of Dark 4 is still worth looking forward to. Your next Dark 4 game may still have to be Dark 4.