I expected that threads offering complaints about "it's too easy" or "it's too cartoony" or a million other things would start showing up. Therefore, I figure it would do good to set some expectations of what the beta is in line, as I've been in it since closed beta release and seen a couple of extra things thanks to having a couple of friends that work at Blizzard down in Austin.
1. The beta is the first act of the game, and it's not even the entirety of that act. The beta is set to the easiest difficulty, which is the setting it has been set to since the beginning of the closed beta. The reason for this is because IT'S A BETA! People are supposed to be tooling through it repeatedly in order to look for bugs that Blizzard can fix as well as give a glimpse of the basics that the game has to offer.
2. The look gets plenty dark and dreary, but it's not going to be the same dark and dreary as previous Diablo games. That's because...surprise surprise...the world has evolved beyond that. If people can't deal with that, then maybe they should go pick up Lineage or Path of the Exile.
3. The stuff in the first act does not employ much strategy...on easy difficulty. That is correct. However, once you get past that act...and anything on the highest difficulty setting, you will DEFINITELY need strategy and patience. That shit gets brutal hard, especially on the boss fights which can quickly become akin to something like a WoW instance fight (except actually challenging) when you have a full party going.
4. A lot of stuff has been streamlined (Town Portal, crafting, etc) since the beginning of closed beta. There used to be three items: Cauldron of Jordan, some stone for Town Portal, and another thing item for selling stuff without returning to town. Since then, they turned Town Portal into a skill with a cooldown while crafting and salvaging is back at town. It is SERIOUSLY worthwhile that they did this, as it leaves a lot of freedom to actually...ya know, dungeon crawl!
5. There is a REASON why they offered this progressive look to your character in terms of loot, gear, etc. Did you pay attention to the story AT ALL that was going on? Obviously not, because it literally EXPLAINS WHY! If that wasn't enough, Blizzard has talked about this in extensive detail.
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I really wish people would remember what the word "BETA" means. It's not a DEMO! This is literally the same thing as the beta client many of us have been playing for months on end now. Use it for what it is meant to be: a way to report bugs to Blizzard so they can polish it up before it gets released.
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