For those of us who did not pay extra for early access, yesterday was launch day. After all these years it was finally time for Diablo IV to launch. It had perhaps the most strange launch time in the US I’ve ever played for a game. It was on a Tuesday at 7 PM. That was just strange.
I had already pre-downloaded the game earlier in the week. I’m quite glad they allowed people to do that. Nothing more annoying than launch day to need to download a massive game. They however have had quite a few patches and I’ve been checking daily to keep the game updated.
Some people paid extra to get a head start. While I was hoping they would not have many issues since they did some closed and open betas. I was not going to pay extra to be their final beta test on the early launch.
I ended up showing up about half an hour late on launch day. Thankfully the queue was next to nothing. It seemed to just be the normal authentication time it takes to get into the game. Everything for at least a couple of hours was easy sailing as well.
The plan was to go Sorcerer and hope they did not mess too much with it. I decided to make some changes to my skill lineup. I’ll still have a heavy focus on fire damage. I did want to try out some skills others have been swearing by.
One of them was using Arc Lash as the basic skill. So far I’ve found that I don’t like how closed-ranged the damage is. It has some nice damage and AOE. Most importantly I picked up Flickering Arc Lash which gives me an increase in movement speed when it hits creatures.
Since I’ll be doing quite a lot of exploring and level-up. I wanted a quick build. This was further reinforced when later on I picked a fire shield and upgraded it to give me a movement speed bonus when I had it active as well.
While many are focused on rushing the storyline and trying to level up as quickly as they can. Since some people had an early head start on leveling up I see zero reason to try and rush things by joining a couple of days late at this rate even if I started right on launch day.
For the first day, most things would be quite familiar to me. As they are mostly what I did during Beta testing quite a few times over. While I was hoping to get a bit further than that. The game ended up crashing a couple of times, requiring a couple of updates. Further, me calling it a night after I got a disconnect when I was almost done with a class dungeon.
As far as launchers go they still had a lot better of a launch than most games I’ve played over the years that required you to connect to services and be in an online world. I however feel Server Slam went a lot smoother than launch day did.
I also stopped from time to time to work on any events that I found out in the world. I thought why not start farming for Murmuring Obols already. I’ll need loads of them anyways for better gear at some point.
I also find just running into these events feels random despite them having a static location around the world. To give me a nice break from whatever quest I was working towards. Since I don’t know their locations by heart It’s a nice surprise when I run into them getting to somewhere.
One big difference I noticed from Beta to release is just how much rarer the rare and up items feel drop-wise. I was quite shocked at how far in I was still rocking normal and magic items. I was also getting further upgrades still as magic items even after hitting level 15.
I’m also working on quite a lot of side quests in the first area of the game. Since I have plans to do them all anyway at some point. I don’t feel there is any real reason to not get a good head start on them. Most of the time I’d run into their locations on the way to a main quest anyways.
One thing I have been doing at just about every chance is jumping into every little cellar I can find on the map. While they don’t feel as buffed as they were during the Server Slam. They are quite shorter than a normal dungeon and give you a chance at getting some loot.
I also just love jumping into them to see the different kinds of zones and environments inside them. I’m still very much at a point in this game where I can’t help but get excited over exploration and finding new-looking areas.
Most of the time the cellar loots have not been that amazing. I can only assume once I get up to higher levels and start to change the difficulty of the game. That will start to change. Sometimes I’ll loot some magic items out of them and other times just total trash.
So far all the lower-level main quests have been easy. Once I unlocked Hydra as a fire Sorcerer I knew these things would not be much of a challenge. Even more so since I’m taking my time.
The only thing I was not expecting is the weak weapons I’ve been looting for my main and offhand. For quite a while I was stuck just using random magic weapons. Only past level 15 did I loot my first yellow rare weapon. Even then it did not look that great compared to the stuff I was finding during Beta.
So I do feel that has slowed down my progress somewhat. As my damage feels a little lacking than what I was getting in the beta even after the nerfs. I do however feel it being my first character in this game that it’s right around what I would expect compared to other games.
So far I’ve looted a single legendary item. It was some lame ring I did not care anything about. When I do crowd control I get a little more main resources due to the ring. The good news is it’s not wasted. As my arc stuns on occasion and unless I’m incorrect that might count. It won’t be something I have plans to hold onto.
Final Thoughts
While I was expecting to go a bit harder for the first few nights this game was released. Network and other issues this first night have caused me to take it easy. There is zero reason if they are having issues I should get annoyed trying to push myself to play.
I’ll just be super chill and check back the next day or hours later when things start going wrong. It has been quite a long time since I’ve felt Blizzard has come out with anything I’ve wanted to play. I’m going to enjoy it. I have zero need to rush or put myself into situations where I get annoyed with the game.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Diablo IV. This was during the early access beta. Things are subject to change.
