Can we take a moment to appreciate that this video was done in a single take. Well done sir.

Streamers are supposed to be good at holding a conversation over hours. Not everyone can do it. Zack is just a natural entertainer. It's not a job for him.

​@ysonline might take some time to get to this level. Might be a few takes for less experienced streamers (or even him). We only see the finished product.

it also looks like he showered, PROGRESS

he speaks like this everyday on stream tbh, he's just built different :P i know i can't

That's how you can tell he's a twitch streamer. If he was a YouTuber there'd be a jump cut after every other word.

I love all the insight and worries you bring to the table.

ممتاز

👍

nice

Good

💯💯💯

This will be my first Diablo game. I had a lot of fun playing the beta, and I'm interested in how the story plays out. That cutscene with the priest was so brutal and one of the sidequests shocked me - the man who runs off into the forest with a woman and you help his wife (I think?) find him and when you do, oh boy was that something 😅 I want more quests like those. I'm looking forward to the release, though!

ok

That quest is huge Hellraiser reference, and it's awesome!

U cant play this u first need to play d2 then others I really get annoyed blizzard put zero effort in game

@MoonsunEu Touch grass. It's perfectly okay to start with 4.

@Blind Pumpkin imo, the guy is right. There is plenty of time to finish other diablo games, at least 2 and 3, they are true Blizz-like games, like Starcraft and Warcraft. Too good to be ignored. Becides, they are kinda short!

We need more original content like this. No drama bait, just genuine takes.

7Yes , truly great! @AsmongoldTV I too am similar in age range and have used this franchise as well as many other great games to bond with my Father, and nothing has yet beat Diablo 2 LOD during its first few online years.

true brother

What would lord bald be without his drama bait videos though?

and no pretending to never have seen a red grape as opposed to a green grape.

this outside videos are Zack talking and not the Asmongold persona. I like them better too.

This was so nice and entertaining.. easy to understand. I can't wait to play and watch the playthrough. Loved seeing you outside, you seemed relaxed and natural. Thanks so much.

Fella, I love content like this. I know your more dramatic Twitch react content is your bread and butter, and I can see your critical process mixed in with some of the edgy-energy. Stuff like this is way more my wavelength for what it's worth. Way more human. Way more relatable.

Asmongold is the only streamer that can talk about computer games whilst sitting in a treehouse, and everything completely makes sense.

He's the content god of our generation

He is such a Mesajah bruh the GOAT

*while freely talking about compuzter games. Him just busting out so much real talk shows how much he mirrors the average mmo players mentality/thoughts

@marcohundINV "You know it, I know it, everyone knows it."

What tree house?

I played a rogue and my original intention was to make him melee but I picked up a bow and started shooting stuff and had more fun with a range melee hybrid (mostly range) build. I felt my character get more and more powerful each time I got an item. It was a great experience!

That was me too. Started out using twisted blades, then all of a sudden its the weapon throw skill, and rapid fire.

i ended up having the exact opposite experience, the bow combat felt very slow and unrewarding for me, throwing knives did solid damage but degenerated my playstyle to spam clicking. Played necro as well and even tho i had less apm, i felt like i was doing significantly more and rewarded for doing less

Awesome video. Thanks for your honest, unbiased, spoiler free opinions. We need more content like is on YouTube.

I enjoy this video format. It's like tea time with Asmongold. All in one take. More of this please, and thanks for the info.

Asmongold is just a character he plays this is how he really is.

ok

Well said! I hope the devs do take into consideration the experiences of the beta and fine tune things accordingly. I feel the game has potential, cant wait for release.

It's always good to watch Asmon's thoughts about games. For me D4 have been a fun experience, I enjoyed the game so far. Next weekend I'll try to play with some friends and see how it works with a party. I think the D4 beta is a solid 8 so far, hope the definitive version keep the rhythm with a improvement to the dungeons.

Likewise, man I had an issue regarding party request during the world boss. A player invited me to their party but I do not know what button to click in order to accept their invite. I am playng on console (ps5) by the way.

agreed, and also some improvements to the UI overlay :D

Seems to me a lot of people, including Asmon, are assuming too much. Itemization could end up quite interesting upon full release. The beta was a successful teaser, and I'm betting Blizzard has some good surprises and more complexity up its sleeve. Not POE complexity because thats not what they're going for, but this beta and Blizzards' insistence on a heavily supported game going forward tells me there's more on offer here.

Game feels way too easy similar to D3 i'm bored to tears before challenging content is unlocked

I love this straightforward, earnest, spoilerfree take. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Asmongold.

sorry mate, tree time happy friends is Zackrawr

He did literally spoil the twist with the villagers at the start of the game tho lol

i also love the villagers' cameo. and the eater egg plane. xd

@Bravadorado lmfao yeah. i was like wtf you mean

I've never seen a video of him not joking or not being super hyper. I know that's the charecter he's created for YouTube. But how clean and straightforward this video was I'd watch more of his content.

Thank you :) I really appreciate your videos and honest take on things. I had fun playing sorc (x2) for 4 days, and ridiculous amount laughter on my poison rain rouge playing with friends. Hope that end game gives us enough variety to keep it interesting.

I love all the insight and worries you bring to the table. I 100% agree. Im a newer to the Diablo fanchise and my wife and I started with Diablo immortal and can see a lot of similarities to immortal in the beta and I really hope they fixed a lot of the flawed systems that were in immortal cause then I think it will make the game real fun. PvP is another thing that if they nail it it will bring something new that can be built out in end game content. Also a robust clan system with open world features like fighting a world boss with all clan mates etc.

I was disappointed when they didn't take the pvp and clan based aspects of Diablo to a higher ceiling. Especially after the success of WoW, and the initial robust community of clans and pvp centric player based rooms that were a part of Diablo 2. There was so much more they could have done to improve those features in D3 and hopefully it will find a landing zone in D4. Until then I've just become a former hardcore fan of D2 turned hardcore skeptic that D3 and beyond is nothing more than a shortsighted cash grab of the Diablo name.

I am hoping the difficulty settings for D4 will help a lot with allowing more casual gameplay and the higher difficulties will allow those who are looking for a challenge to be challenged.

Asmond is so well spoken and this review is 100x better than almost any scripted review out there.

So you're bricked up?

Well spoken? He said very little of substance for 20 minutes. Complete waste of time.

@NB I suggest you don't go to this channel anymore

when you get out in the park , take a moment to take in the nature sounds and clear your mind then you can actually properly speak :)

@Armant Warokka Yeah unfortunately his videos always pop up in the search when you look for gaming videos. When in fact he's one of the worst gamers in terms of skill in the business. Watching him play Wo Long or Sekiro was cringe worthy.

Never played a game like this before and am very excited to be giving this a try. Being overwhelmed with a feeling of progress is exciting.

How about starting on not d4

​@ShaboPaasa how about stop being goofy

When it comes to itemization, I think the problem you experienced with gear just feeling like a number bump is the frantic gear pacing and item drop scaling. Within every level I played, I replaced almost every piece of gear I got. Some pieces twice. There are no highs and lows when it comes to leveling and feeling strong or weak based on how long its been since you upgraded. Feeling undergeared and struggling through content makes the highs of finding a huge upgrade that much better. There are no peaks and valleys, frustration and catharsis, or any sort of contrast when it comes to gear. And that's what kills me about D4.

This comment kinda doesn't make sense, in the beta once you hit level 25 the gear you got was item power capped at a number that scaled to around level 25 so once you hit this point in time there was literally 0 reason to replace gear besides needing to imprint a certain legendary aspect or getting better sub stats on another piece of level 25 gear. Due to this, I don't see how it's a problem that you need to replace weaker gear that doesn't have an item power or DPS as good as a level 25 piece. Furthermore, the problem that you have of feeling there are no "peaks and valleys" is exactly the problem a lot of people are complaining against as many players did feel undergeared and struggled, and they found that needing a certain legendary aspect or build to enjoy their character a problem which also didn't make sense as it was simply just a beta and many builds needed more upgrades that well you just couldn't reach as we were level capped, its also important to note that gear besides legendary aspects is not gameplay defining that role would mostly fall upon skills/build in general. If you still have an issue with replacing gear before hitting the max level then to each your own but hopefully you better understand what you experienced throughout your gameplay as from lots of complaints I see from other players is simply just from them not understanding or knowing what they are talking about to the right extent.

@ッOriju The point is everything scales so tightly within every level that the trip up to whatever cap is feels relatively uneventful with gear contributing nothing but a formality. When full level cap X is here, X-10 is going to be just as uneventful and overpolished as 15 is in beta. Everything I said is looking at the leveling experience which really suffered going from 2 to 3, and it looks like 4 is going the same way. Feeling like you need a legendary is an endgame/cap problem, and experiencing the lack of meaning to gear before cap killed my interest in grinding out some optimal setup. Oh and before I forget: "hopefully you better understand what you experienced throughout your gameplay". I've never had someone unironically suggest I didn't understand my own experiences. That's some impressive levels of arrogance

​@Richard Stamm The idea that with every new piece of gear is just an upgrade to quickly replace from your current set of gear like I said simply isn't the case, if you get a piece of gear that happens to have more armor but worst sub stats than your current gear then it's entirely optional to replace it, and well a smart player wouldn't replace their good sub stat gear just for an extra 25+ armor as it just doesn't have enough value or weight to the piece that warrants an instant replacement of said armor. The only time I can see something like this making a difference is if the armor as a base stat is largely higher than what you currently are using, which would indicate you have entered a new threshold in leveling and gameplay which gives you such gear that highly out weighs what you currently have on despite possibly having bad sub stats. Gear is by no means just a formality in the later stages of diablo 4 it's just the case that it doesn't make a major difference at the early stage of the game (level 1-25) as you are only just beginning. The main focus up to level 25 would be things like skills, as that's when you're just finally starting to have a real form to your build. After level 25 is a point in which yes, gear starts to become an impacting factor as the sub stats on singular pieces of gear is additive but when you have a collection of gear with good sub stats on it will then feel multiplicative as it gives major increases of damage to your entire character in itself alongside things like legendary aspects helping out your build/skills in major ways. An example of this situation would be like feeling the difference between 50% critical strike chance and 70%, which is a very heavy damage increase that would be gained by having good critical strike chance on most of your gear. You will also start to notice the want of good gear/legendary aspects as you increase world tier levels, and the difficulty of the game itself increases as enemies gain all forms of resistance by whatever % the world tier will make it, not to mention the introduction of nightmare dungeons and nightmare sigils that you can further use to increase difficulty in the game which then again the demand for better gear sub stats or aspects will increase. My confidence in this topic or arrogance as you would call it very easily stems from people like you with replies like these that further supports the idea that you don't quite understand what you're talking about.

@ッOriju "Gear is by no means just a formality in the later stages of diablo 4 it's just the case that it doesn't make a major difference at the early stage of the game (level 1-25) as you are only just beginning" And everything you wrote past that about playing at 25 has no bearing on anything I'm saying. My point has always been about the absurd level of gear churn which you keep passively confirming while handwaving it away and telling me I don't understand. So I'll restate it again in some of your own words. The gear along the way is constant little upgrades which don't have a large impact in how strong or weak you feel, unless you stop churning your gear between every large pack. Leveling doesn't need to feel this way, or constantly break up flow, item level scaling while leveling just needs to back off and allow for more high and low points. When it reliably bumps by some small 1-3% upgrade 10-20 times per level, it just becomes background noise paying tribute to games where you find gear for a specific build. But by all means, go on about how I just don't understand how important specific legendries and stats are when optimizing your level 25, it really does fluff out your meandering walls of text.

@Richard Stamm if you have watched the live stream from diablo today it will further prove my point in clearing up the issue that you have with the game that didn't exist to begin with. As they actively spoke about how a level 50 item can definitely still be very important to a level 70 character.

The Lunge Core skill for the Barbarian fixes the running after mobs. I played all 3 classes, maxed 2 (full legendaries), Barb to 18. Found all of them to be great in their own way including Barb. Lunge/Upheaval/Thorns Barb was really fun.

Off of my general experience on barb in the beta. Some of the legendary effects I got were alone not super cool, but when combined with like two or three it didn't just raise my damage by a nice margin, but it absolutely spiked because of how well they meshed together.

I´m really excited for D4. I love the darker tone and I expect not much but hundreds hours of fun. I don´t care about unbalanced things or seasons or any such crap. I just wanna have a good time with my sorceress.

Love those birds chirping in the back, so calming. Also Asmon just explaining everything in a very realistic way, kind of hits all right spots.

I'm glad you enjoy asmon hitting your right spots

IKR lol, halfway into the video I stopped listening to the guy and focused on the background Also love that it's either this or a dark room crammed with garbage.

It freaked me out for a second 😂 thought the birds outside my place were up a little too late and thinking it was loud for the night

im actually happy to see him this happy

ok

I agree with pretty much all of your insights here. I too am concerned that the level of customization, build specialization, and that sense of a accomplishment of progressing toward a build's end-state may be lacking or short-lived. I would probably still come back and do seasons, even if it did wind up that way, but instead of doing 2 weeks+ of season play, it would likely be more like a single weekend.

Just wanted to touch on what kept me playing Diablo 2 for so long. Building gear sets for different viable builds and reaching new attack speed/cast rate/hit recovery breakpoints for those builds. Hunting down items myself and also stumbling across trades. While hunting items I’d always have my eyes peeled for that proper rolled rare that would slot into one of my many specific PvP builds. Dueling and trading were great pass times in D2. Creating flashy looking cosmetic sets that were also PvP viable was awesome too. PK in style.. Hopefully some or any of this stuff exists in D4

I love your honest and openly insightful takes. We need more of this in the community.

I think as far as the longevity I think it comes down to how they do GRs. They have an option to basically make it Diablo's m+ and do a lot of interesting things. As those leaderboards were a lot of the reasons friends or I continued on D3 as long as we did.

This was my favorite Asmongold video. Agree with everything he had to say except I'm more hopeful and positive about the end game. I feel like they are taking a lot of notes on what doesn't work in D3 and what is great about POE. Enjoyed the beta, excited to dive back in this weekend too.

I like the outdoors talk video setting. It's very nice and relaxing. Keep up the great videos, gaming, and reaction videos. You really brighten my days. I can't wait to see more upcoming mmo videos. Keep the good vibes going.🙂P.S. not a Diablo player, but I enjoy watching you play it. 8.5/10 seems perfectly accurate to me.

You should try going outside yourself.

@DeusVult damn bro he isn’t your dad. He’s not the one that SA’d you no need to be mean to him for his positive comment.

@DeusVult maybe he likes the outdoor setting videos because he prefers to spend his time outside? You ever stop to think outside your tiny bubble?

He's not lying though, if watching an asmongold -video brightens your day you're missing out in life .. Don't take this as an insult..

@Nimbus LMFAO 💀💀💀

This is probably the best Asmongold video I have ever seen. Honest gamer-to-gamer opinion. Love it!

Agreed on your review, I am new too the Diablo series and I will say it was challenging but doable to understand the game, with some help from seasoned players. But I did have a tremendous amount of fun grinding and upgrading the character, definitely looking forward to this next weekend and the eventual release.

I've been trying to think what the dungeons were missing since they all feel the same with a different type of lock before the last boss. i think they should have 1-2 dungeons on every main map act area (additional to the ones already available) which are designed as an wow/ff dungeon. multiple bosses with trash and mini bosses between the main bosses and unique environment(not just the theme (they do this one good tho) but the traversal of the map and unique stop gaps to be able to proceed further ) and story in them that is linked to the main or a bigger side quest story. ff14 ties in dungeons to the main story which is very nice and would fit in good in diablo. Maybe they have this in higher levels? But nothing in the beta at least.

I actually enjoyed that the legends I found made me stronger but only slightly. They made an ability easier to use or synergize with another skill without making my character a god. I know I’m probably in the minority but I actually liked how the game scaled to where it was never necessarily brain dead play. Things could always kill you if you didn’t pay attention.

Game is great so far. My only issue was the world boss. The fight was amazing, but the fight depended on the level and number of people participating. The butcher was terrifying, I never could kill it as a Rouge. I wonder how a majority of people dealt with it. Like Asmon said, I am worried about the end game. Also I wonder how PVP will be. I can imagine doing a hard-core run then getting jumped by another player ending it all.

I havent played the beta as of yet (playing the second round) however this is one of the best "real talk" videos on a game impression Ive ever seen. Hats off to you! Amazing job. One comment i had was, while watching the opening tutorial of the beta, i get a very strong dungeon siege vibe.... not sure if anyone else feels the same, but its basically all i can see when i watch the opening of the game.

Open Beta has been great, ripe with errors and disconnects so far. XD Sad only one open beta and people can't even play it.

I always hope that the next Diablo captions that same high moment when a high rune drops for you or you roll a perfect anni or torch. However even if that’s not captured in d4 I’m feeling optimistic about the initial gaming experience. Maybe not so much the replay value but just have to wait and see if they do the necromancer dirty.

It's nice to see him take a sit down review it outside that is handled and articulated with such care. He even showered, got dressed, put his hair up, and touched grass. I'm proud of you lol. I'm just kidding I love you man keep up they great vids and streams.

I freaking love the way he's just being mature and talk about exactly what he things and what he likes or don't like. Was going to play anyways. Still love to watch his reaction.

acting like he's a God but he's literally just talking. relax sheep

@Smoke stop watching then sheep

@OMIM Reacts never did kid

@Smoke oh. your opinion is invalid then

@OMIMreacts  me stating that there are words coming out of his mouth is not an opinion. keep talking child, it's amusing now!

Not an Asmongold watcher but this is a very great video. Well thought out well said. Fair enough that it doesn't have to be so complex but ultimately it will disappointing for me that after such a long time you get a game with no replayability where enemies scale with you so there is never any relative advantage or sense of progress (zones too hard, zones that become easy).

I love watching this type of content from you. It is much different from your gaming videos. You're so much calmer. LOL. Not that I don't love your other content, but these are my favorite.

That's because this is Zack. He's not sitting in front of a camera to overreacting to things to entertain people

I never understood what is there to love about watching other men unless your a twinkle ✨

Gaming videos? You mean react content

didn't you know the one you see here in the wild is asmon, the one you see on streams is zackrawr, his twin ;)

@Josh Rodecker Yeah, tamer eyebrows too

Really well thought out take on Diablo 4 and ARPGs as a whole right now. Easily my favorite form of your content.

What I really miss in D4 is the group play. It feels like none of the classes or abilities are actually designed to play together. I really enjoy playing Hardcore D3 with my friends, but I think it gets stale kind of fast when playing solo. Now, on gameplay, I think the game could benefit hugely from being more group-oriented (or at least having the option) because that can give so much potential complexity. A class might be simply by itself, but things can get very interesting when classes and abilities start to interact with one another. In fact, those interactions are often the most well done in 'simpler' games and can also make D4 stand on its own -again-, away from PoE.

Doing combos like in Marvel Ultimate Alliance would be awesome. Big opportunity missed by a lot of games these days in that aspect, I agree.

Great analysis, Kripparian also dives into the technicalities and issues he had with it. I personally loved the world and soundtrack. Story has been very good so far as well. The towns feel alive too.

First of all, well done on a single take, beautiful review of Asmongold, it's a real pleasure to listen.. Diablo 4's story seems compelling, especially with cutscenes, so that might make it worth a try, it's fun enough and animations, combat are nicely done. But the game feels way too predictive, it's too easy. I have played enough Diablo Immortal to know that diablo 4 is based on it, or rather the other way around, and that one is more of a brainless effort. Although music and environments are really nice, they have tried to make them more impactful, so you would feel more constricted, kind of like in diablo 1. But somehow even though Diablo 1 was way simpler, in terms of skills and customizations, it was still a much harder game, it sent shivers down your spine and was much more interesting. One thing that developers do in the newer games is, they provide you with all the ease, you can't REALLY learn from your own mistakes, I mean, one thing with bosses they could have done is, remove the circles where the boss will impact, and have another detail that you would notice, because you became more mindful with actually being hit. So much of diablo 4 is still automatism, except fighting a bear in the woods, because it hits hard, and because it hits hard you will absolutely make an effort to be more careful, oh yeah, one more thing.. health and health potions, you start with 4 and as you use them they are dropped with the mobs you kill, so very easy to stay on top health and most of the time you will have and keep 4, just like it is in diablo immortal, I had really wished they learned from their collective past, all the way down to Blizzard in its infancy, but unless the game expands beyond beta, I seriously doubt it will keep people and attract the true fans or veterans of the franchise.

What I like most about Diablo 4 based on the beta, is that is seems very casual friendly but at the same time you can grind it like any other diablo game. Very well built for people who only have a few hours to play the game at a time.

That treehouse is like something out of a survival game. Is it weird I keep expecting to see a zombie creeping up behind Zack?

Wdym? Isn't he the zombie tho? ;)

@Spicy Punk Rocker Sounds like you might be needing a sick bag soon. lol

@Lumpossum Now you mention it 😆

Buddy looks like Alvin and the chipmunks

yes it is weird.

I completely agree with you, the beta was a 8.5 for me as well. Blizzard is doing what they do best here, taking systems and a genre and just improving on it. Nothing new or revolutionary just quality and smoothness. I hope itemization turns out better especially for endgame but they really nailed the combat and immersion

I loved this review, I played barb too but felt the same about having to chase. I played rogue melee with the double dash ability so with good time I had three dashes/dodges and it felt great. Switched to necro since I played necro in d3 to paragon 446ish and it felt really good with the DoT abilities with summons but definitely won’t be as broken as the summoner build in d3 with the army of the dead ability span and op summons. Excited for the game to release, but also very worried about it’s longevity with the simple ability system and weird itemization

Funny how you went from melee to ranged and had more fun, for me it was the opposite I always start with sorc or some sort of mage but when I tried barb I had way more fun.

I love Asmongold Honest Thoughts Videos, since they are sincere and straight to the point without bullshit and ads in some other dudes videos

I played POE and Grim Dawn before I played D3, I only played the demo when it first came out and I joined rather late in 2021 and I pretty much loved it so far. The game could be improved still if there was more activities, other than grinding for gear and XP. I hope they don't completely abandon D3 because it's a great game with a great potential.

I liked the story and gameplay in D4 a lot more than previous games. D1 & 2 will always be my favorites since I've played them for over 20 years, but when I was playing the beta, wow, I was really drawn in to how great it was. The sorcerer was by far my favorite class, that might be biased since I've always played that class in every game, but I found it much more fun that Barb and Rogue.

Oh wow you were a Sorc fan? No way! Not like 99.9% of the playerbase play Sorc or anything... The game shouldn't even have classes at this point when everyone just picks whatever the strongest meta build is.

I 25'd Sorc and then started Barb...Barb felt well more powerful. I got to 18 with Barb and it was well easier. They were both so fun Edit: Hydra/Blizz/Fireball soso & Hammer/WW/ Leap Barb

D2 I was generally Soso and Dudu, some Necro or Pala D3 mainly DH and WD, tho almost entirely DH as all else felt less powerful

@Ro7ardEveryone must start as Sorc 😂

I've never played Sorcerer up till D4 and it's def my favorite. I'll see how other two classes go for me the next weekend but i'm pretty sure i'm landing on the sorcerer

Wow - tightened up the look - works for ya. Your dissertation on D4 sounds about spot on to me; D4 is definitely trying to manage the middle of the road and that's most definitely a valid approach, but in the future maybe a custom build system could be employed allowing players to choose the cookie cutter leveling system or an instance where they can opt to apply skill points; etc. manually employing a system like Baldur's Gate where yyou click a button to auto apply skill points based on the character arch type. Good vid btw.

The gauntlet comparison was great. As an older gamer, that's basically what I've been looking for. Warhammer and D&D (and MERP) was a huge part of my life in my teens and I hope this game hits those notes.

So here's just an idea. One thing completely missing from all these games is skill combos. Just as an example, what if you dropped a meteor into a blizzard and it turned the blizzard into a fire storm or the blizzard turns the meteor into an icy comet. Or maybe you could detonate your ball lightning with chain lightning or fireball. Maybe you could use an attack while leaping as barb to make it do more. Or have druid spells do different stuff WHILE transformed. I think there's a huge opportunity here.

I loved playing D3 until the endgame. I even pushed GRs for awhile before I just got tired of them and then realized there was nothing else to do. I had like 10 toons and still hit that wall of boredom with pushing GRs. 100% agree with you about hoping there's more than rinse/repeat content at endgame and I'm going to hold off on D4 until I learn what the endgame is like.

Hey Asmond, the drops you were getting are regular legendaries, not uniques. Uniques only drop in world tier 3 and 4, with more of them being locked to 4. After legendaries come sacred legendaries, then ancestral legendaries. Sacred items only drop in world tier 3 and above while ancestral is world tier 4 exclusive. The world tier statue has all this info when you check the difficulties. Also, the occultist is where you craft sigils to do the Poe mapping end game (nightmare dungeons).

Shutup

@Samuel Brunet he's telling facts? why are you being so negative???

​@Samuel Brunet he was informative

Sounds alot like diablo immortal

@SafetyPinLoL there is telling facts and trying to correct people to feel better about yourselve and it was clearly that.

Love the nuanced analysis. More of this 🔥

This is the 1st video of you that I do not immediately hate you. Your well spoken and not goofy. Honest and relaxed. No major bias. Honest. Thanks

Diablo 4 made me feel like a kid on christmas. I completed almost 100% of the entire act 1 (inlcuding the shrines). I like that Blizzard took notes from Lost Ark and PoE. Unless we have to do it every new season. :D

Hey Zach, got a nostalgia kick the other day playing Realm of the Mad God on Steam based on a buddy's recommendation when I was bored. You might want to give it a look in your down time, especially if you enjoy bullet hell. This was a good overview of D4. After immortal's monetization fiasco I've been having a hard time getting excited about the next Diablo but I'll check out the open beta. Thanks!

I felt like D4 is the most authentic Diablo experience but also a really newer version with massive changes I mean cinematically it feels like an actual story with the cut scenes improved. The graphics are gorgeous easily the best since D2

It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Diablo game. It's a new Diablo game. And from what we've seen and play so far, it's pretty well done overall. Can't wait to see the whole game. We know they plan to add new systems (like runes) in times, so I think we could expect surprises from new seasons over time. Let's hope they've learned from Diablo 3 as far as seasons goes.

@Daimon you’re too defensive, he didn’t mean new to the series just that they’ve announced plans to add things to the game later down the road to switch things up. Runes, uniques, new legendaries etc, y’all D2 Johnson Riders need to calm down.

​@FadedSelf diablo 2 made blizzard. You casual andies can go back to minecraft & leave the demon slaying to the real gamers

@FrequentSee based. Blizzard hasn't made a single good diablo game after firing blizzard north. They could easily take lessons from diablo 2 but it eats at them because they know that they didn't create that masterpiece and to take ideas from it would destroy their ego.

@Daimon It will be a new system in Diablo 4, clearly. This is not Diablo 2 and we are not talking about Diablo 2. Please.

@dimkacracker  Holy shit preach . They've almost said this verbatim in interviews as well. David Brevik was Diablo. But every new game dev has to just put their own spin on it. The ego. Who let this happen? Unbelievable

During my time in beta I found 2 hydra items on my mage that allowed me to summon 14 heads at a single time. It was an absolute power boost.

From what I've experienced, the only issues I've had to deal with is invisible walls rubberbanding and only 1 time coming across an error when I'm trying to log in and 1 crash. Other than that obviously I've only done 1 class and that's necromancer and it's really broken but outside of that the combat is very fun. The bosses have been challenging which is what I expect even on adventure mode. Overall I have to agree with everything he said that is about the core game play

Definitely found legendaries that caused a very big power spike. Sorc, getting double hydra felt huge. Barb, all the ww mods to pull mobs in, cause sand storms, and a ghostly echo that also whirlwinds.

I think you mean the Ancestral Echoes for the ancient that comes flying in when you cast ww, upheaval or leap, right? Did it trigger pretty frequently for ww? I only tried it with upheaval and leap. Satisfying, but I wish I could trigger it more.

I dunno man, a few of the legendaries did have that "game changing upgrade" For example the Sorc staff that lets you summon TWO hydras at any given time. Really amped up the firepower.

I think it stands alone as its own game but it has lots of good D2 feels to it. D4 is more of the 3rd game the franchise series and D3 is a stand alone. I really liked it.

It’s crazy how fast the story falls off a cliff for me in this game. Opening cinematic is amazing 10/10, Lilith is fucking bad ass! Two missions later she’s just some random npc and I’m mashing through her dialogue.

Cinematic was good but you play games to play not listen to some made up bs. For the past decade every game I play I've skipped all cinematcs.

Over exposure of main villain

Great analysis. I am one of the guys who's very critical over poor itemization and monsters scaling to character level, but despite these poor design choices from Blizzard I still had a blast with D4 because the things they do well, they do really well. The combat is better and more tactical with more interesting interactions (for example the Barbarian Kick) and the lower monster density works out well for D4. The graphics are gorgeous too. I would prefer to see itemization closer to D2 or PoE though. Getting items in D4 that give you a small boost in power is meaningless when you're just going to level up in 20 seconds and get weaker as a result of everything scaling up to you. I would rather see larger power spikes; real paradigm shifting moments of power for your character, where sometimes an item is so good that you'll keep it on you for days to come. The small and steady power spikes should be coming from level ups, not items. But like I said, monsters scaling up to you defeats the purpose of level ups making you feel stronger. Despite all this, still looking forward to the next beta phase this weekend, and even more so to the full release. Still tons of fun

I had no idea Zack played games He really is a man of many talents

I haven’t played d4 yet but your review on elden ring had me agreeing to your review to almost the exact feeling I had. So I definitely take everything you say here for real fact and I’m glad you took time to think about every aspect for the start of d4

I'm just curious....did he love Elden Ring or hate it?

Itemisation was my main complaint about the Diablo 4 beta. I was playing sorceress and 80% of the gear drops had either dex or str. There needs to be a smarter loot system where the gear has a higher chance of rolling your main stat.

8.5 is exactly how I would rate it. It improves upon a lot of stuff, but nothing innovative. There are some big drawbacks as well that were also present in D3 such as too much railroading in terms of trading and level scaling.

Asmon is just an all around great dude. Not many people in his position are this down to earth.

As someone who played a Barbarian... I felt like I was too slow.. I know while I was playing, I definitely kept an eye out for stuff that made me faster. Also wasn't until level 21 that I realized theirs a stat to upgrade your basic speed... Also when it came to "upgraded weapons"... I didn't feel like I got a lot of bang for my buck... Anyways, interesting to have your perspective on things.

I think a game out there that bridges the gap between PoE's complexity and Diablo's simplicity is Grim Dawn. That game allows you to make fairly complex builds with lots of fun interactions, but doesn't require a PHD course to figure out how they all work. Last Epoch seems like it's also in that spot, but I haven't played it myself yet. But I plan to in the near future.

Hard to follow the story unless you read.

@Chay Warburton I would take that for any other genre except ARPG where math and reading comprehension are key aspects of the moment to moment gameplay.

Ty Asmon for covering all these games for us. appreciate it. -One thing I noticed is that on larger screens it can really make all the details shine for D4. I had pc hooked up to 40" screen and was really great. Normally I do prefer more intimate, smaller displays for PC gaming in general, but I think ARPGs are perfect for larger/TV size displays. I was even compelled to use the wardrobe and clean up my character's looks because they were so big on screen. ;p

I am also wondering what the endgame is actually gonna look like. Only doing rifts is not gonna cut it and keep players engaged in this game for a long time. They need more. I also want some sort of index for all the characters in the game lol. It would be cool to have something IN GAME, rather than having to go to a wiki website...

Last Epoch is perfect example of complexity sweet spot. You can literally make work anything you want/you liked. No need to check if everything is done exactly as in your POB, but also you can't just wear and build random shit, you have to read your skills, stats, use ingame guide.

I really like last epoch man, i do hope they will not get stuck forever in this alpha/beta state. They need to release the game soon :)

last epoch= better poe d4= better lost ark (or the other way)

@cccbbbaaa110 last epoch has nothing to do with POE. 2 things are important for arpgs, concept of pacing (how much mobs put a fight). Its the main issue for most arpg player, oter than itemization. POE its zoomy, just like torchlight. Last epoch its middle of the road in zoom. DIablo2 its slow pace, like grim dawn. Thats how arpg are kinda divided by pacing. D4 its like a ARPG lost ark... with slow pace. Becouse lost ark its a mmo with isometric can. Diablo its a ARPG with masssive mmo elements. It will be good? i dont know... the itemization so far its fine, the pacing its fine, but that SKILL twig... its terrible.

But Last Epoch has terribly boring combat. D4 combat feels amazing!

People look up builds even for D3, a game that has zero complexity and zero punishment for mistakes. It's a disease of the times. Games should never even consider these people, they just need to make their games with internal consistency and add enough information to guide the player. WoW lost that battle with addons and their raids are now cancer because the old stuff became so trivial due to addons.

As someone who enjoys these kinds of games and I guess a casual player. I personally found d4 pretty fun thus far. Not too intense but not too simple. I do wish they had a bit more to the talents than 5/5 main spell and 2 upgrades

Our man knew us well. And that's why we love Asmond. Thank you for your honest feedback. We appreciate it.

I think my biggest fear is that the devs stop listening, like I pray that if Diablo 4 gets the chance it can have an expansive variety of content like PoE and Lost Ark the Devs just need to keep searching for player feedback and make the right choices based on said feedback

nice review by asmon, i agree too with the end game stuff. I hope there are allot of cool bosses to farm for legendary gear that's hard to get or something.

What it comes down to is not only endgame and item depth, the most important thing is seasons, and adding new stuff and depth in with every season. This is the main reason that makes PoE what it is and so distinct from other games

Playing as a ranged rogue I had a decent time precisely because it wasn't too easy to beat the bosses. Doing the world boss and clearing lvl 25 fortress with that add spawning caster boss at the end was so much fun. Hope the end game has hard bosses as a core feature.

rogue, mage and last place is barbar in my opinion from the gameplay.

Melee rogue. Life on kill and faceroll.

Diablo is dead BLIZZARD Is Dead

Nightmare dungeons will 1 shot on bosses guaranteed lol

@Kaissaz Saw wudi steam roll the cave blood boss in seconds though. it was all the barb and no skill. seconds.

I so agree that a game doesn’t have to be ultra hard to be good. I like to have fun. I like to win. I like some challenge. I played a little Diablo 3. I really loved playing the Diablo 4 Beta. Immersed myself and had fun.

Just finished the beta weekend with my necromancer. The beta was fun and I’d give it an 8/10, mainly because the difficulty just wasn’t there, and I’m kinda bummed there isn’t a crusader but it’s only act 1 and things can change after release so I’m trying not to be too critical. I hit level 25, did probably 95% of the dungeons, finished Act 1, & did all 3 strongholds. The only boss that gave me problems was the Den Mother at the end of light’s watch as it was super tough to zone the boss. Once I got corpse explosion and the few legendary items which removed blood mists cooldown and added a corpse explosion nuke mechanic I was literally crushing everything I literally cleared the whole Kor Dragan courtyard with one bloodmist. If I had too pick my favorite thing about the Beta it would be that the game feels a little more alive with the MMO aspects. While I appreciate the loneliness/bleak nature of Diablo it’s nice having co-op plus 10 other players raiding a massive event or boss.

That is a really interesting point you bring up about barb melee in D4. I havent played it mind you, but from what you are saying, it would lead me to believe that there is no way to "attract" mobs with a taunt or cry? And/or no way to quickly cover ground to a mob via leap? Thank you for this run down btw. Anyone who has played, feel free to enlighten me on this topic.

This is how I'm going to review my games from now on. Thanks Asmon. We salute you. 🖖

One of the Barb legendary affixes pulls enemies to you while you're casting whirlwind. So long as you can get a little fury, you won't have to work too hard to chase down enemies.

12:55 that feeling of being temporarily OP from a great loot drop is also one of my favorite things about D3 and was specifically something i left feedback about back in the D4 invite-only closed beta. appreciate you bringing it up and hope that blizz pays attention.

Uniques will be those items, we just don't have access to them yet.

I believe they've said in several interviews that they don't want itemization to get out of control like in D3. So we'll have to see where it ends up.

Love the setting in which you're reviewing the game here. Keep up the good work.

I played the original Diablo on PS1 as a kid with my dad and REALLY loved it. Got Diablo 2 on my PC when I was a high school freshman and I no lifed the hell out of that game. Took some time off before revisting a few years later when in college. To me Diablo 2 was the pinnacle of an ARPG. Diablo 3 launches and I had fun playing it but once you beat the game a few times I just had no desire to return to it. And I think a large portion of that was that it wasn't Diablo 2. I was a lot older when I played Diablo 3 but wanted that same emotional connection I had to Diablo 2 as a teenager and I really think that wasn't fair of me as a consumer. To this day I still dabble with Diablo 2 (Resurrected anyways) but I'm really going into Diablo 4 looking at it like it's it's own game and not some long awaited fulfillment of what I wanted Diablo 3 to be as a young adult. I don't think any game will ever feel the same way Diablo 2 did as a kid, doesn't mean it's a bad game though, so I hope I can give it it's fair due.

The beta was a lot of fun. Playing so much POE the last few years I forgot how nice it is to be able to put skills together in a build that works intuitively without having to use extra learning tools. I do think they need more skills, more skill options, more itemization options etc ..but as Az said in a stream video, POE was extra simple in the beginning too. D4 has a great foundation so far, I'm glad I pre-ordered.

This was my first diablo game and tbh I had a blast. Pretty much maxed out my sorcerer with legendaries. Played for around 25 hours. Can't wait for the release. Did have a decent amount of rubber banding and random shit. Hopefully gets fixed a bit.

Hot take: Wolcen has fantastic skill trees for theory crafters and was actually a great game that just got passed over as a d3. Not saying it isnt a d3 clone; but it is a damn good one. Edit: Gonna have to admit Wolcen had a lot of game breaking bugs that ruined any chance of a fair economy if one was to ever even exist. Also, havent watched enough to know how trading works if it works at all in d4.

Loved the beta. My only concerns were some minor UI annoyances and I feel like the dungeons aren't procedurally generated enough, plus you do a bunch of backtracking to get keys to open doors.

Pretty sure they said it wasn't procedural generation anymore for maps ? Or maybe was that only for the open world ?

Only the open world.

yea i would hope they touch up the UI a bit more, could be possible to touch up since it comes out in 3 months

@nekogami87 the end lvl rifts are random

@Sebass G I'll be honest if I had to choose, I'd prefer they fix all the freezing issues I had during game :x all of my death were because game froze just after I engaged :/

I agree with you on everything. Except I hated D3. I'm a diehard D2 player. I especially loved your view of endgame and how the greater rifts at end game with nothing else to do is a game killer. They said they had big plans for expansions and content. So we'll see. Great vid.