Hey guys, enjoying the game so far as a lvl 23 primalist and lvl 20 mage and up to lvl 5 with the other classes. Wanted to share some of my initial feedback because glancing through the forums it looks like a lot of people here are long time players and fresh brand new beginner feedback might be valuable to devs.
I’ve played D2, D3, D4 beta, and lots of GD. POE was way too complicated for me. LE seems to be a similar sweet spot of complexity and depth between Diablo and PoE as where GD was, and I really appreciate that.
I really, really love the LE skill system. I play ARPGs for the dopamine hit when you level up and can make your skills stronger. I’m still very new to this but this is the best skill system implementation I’ve seen. It nails what I’m looking for in an ARPG. It’s fun to level up a new character and get to play with the new skills and figure out your character’s playstyle before you lock in a skill for specialization. I like the pacing here. I’m excited to keep playing just to see how all of my characters’ skills develop.
I am not very far in the campaign yet, only several hours in, but I’m a little lost on the story and world, and I’m not invested in it yet. Part of this is because the quest givers say a line of dialogue different than the text you’re reading, which is jarring. The characters also haven’t seemed to have a lot of personality yet. I’ve looked around the world map and been to three time periods so far, which is cool, but the world map is pretty big and cluttered for a newcomer. I’m not getting a strong sense of character, narrative, or style from the game world yet, compared to how strongly GD and D4 beta communicated their apocalyptic themes. (I do know it’s early access and those details of presentation are lower priority than getting the main systems working).
I really liked how GD filled up the map with secrets, lore, and hidden power ups. It encouraged exploration and filled out every nook and cranny of the world and made me excited when I found a power up shrine or secret area or elite dungeon. That’s something that I’ve seen others comment on that is missing from LE so far, and I would love to see that filled out eventually.
Totally understand that the game is still in development, and that I haven’t seen anything beyond the very early game, and that not everyone has the same priorities in a game as me, and I totally expect the game to continue improving exponentially as it has been.
But I figure that feedback like this from a new player’s perspective is what can help devs polish out the early game presentation and the fun of exploration to hook new people like me and keep us playing until we get invested in the underlying game systems. Keep up the good work guys.