When Blizzard revealed the new trailer for Diablo 4, long-time fans of the series were excited to see the return of the Druid class its absence in Diablo 3. PC Gamer recently had a chance to play the class and have released a twenty-minute long gameplay video revealing more details about the Druid.
Gameplay First With Instant Shape Shifting
There are several new details now apparent after watching the gameplay video, and above all else it seems that the design of the class focuses on fluid, uninterrupted gameplay through the animations that shift the character into wolf or bear form. The switch between one and the other appears to be instantaneous, making the focus on gameplay rather than visual presentation.
The pair of wolf companions that accompany the Druid appear to be summoned automatically. In Diablo 3, companions were summoned in different ways. The Witch Doctor for instance would often need to use a skill with a cooldown to summon forth some of its pets like the Gargantuan, or certain abilities would proc their summoning, as seen with Fetishes. Others were summoned automatically if certain conditions were met, such as the Demon Hunter’s six-piece Marauders set. It is reasonable to assume that Diablo 4 will again feature a mix of these design elements to deal with pets.
The three players commentating in the gameplay video noted that gold was not automatically picked up by the wolf pets, and that players needed to manually direct the Druid to run over the gold to pick it up. The same is true of Diablo 3, although players can use certain non-combat pets to have gold picked up automatically, which is likely to be the solution in Diablo 4 as well.
Overall, the gameplay video shows a high level of polish, and Diablo 4 is sure to be impressive among its core player base. However, a main point to keep in mind right now and during these initial gameplay reveals is that their content both reveals some new information, and at the same time, reveals nothing at all.
The Real Diablo Lies In The Endgame, So What Does That Look Like?
The process of leveling up a character and playing through the main story is a small portion of where players will spend their time, especially a few months after the launch of the game. Right now, these videos of relatively slow gameplay look exactly like how Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 look during the process of leveling.
Instead, the endgame is where most players spend their time. This involves characters at their level caps and slowly working to optimize their gear, or to have entire class sets for pushing the limits of available content.
While these sorts of gameplay trailers are certainly interesting, they do not reveal much about how players will be spending most of their time. For other types of games, it may seem odd to want to know exactly what lies ahead for the endgame, but Diablo as a series has primarily evolved towards this in the past decade, especially with Diablo 3.
Even now within Diablo 3, we see this is evident in the most popular game modes. A player might go through the main story once or twice, however Adventure Mode is where most players spend their time, because it is far more efficient to farm their gear, and provides bounties with materials necessary to use Kanai's Cube.
With that in mind, it would be great to know if the gameplay will also have the slower pace as seen in this video, or if players will be blasting through in no time at all like we have now in Diablo 3. Will something akin to Greater Rifts be the focus for endgame play once again, or will there be a more gradual progression-based system involving weekly quests and the new inclusion of World Bosses?
These are the real points that most players would benefit from knowing, rather than a video of game play that is only representative of a small portion of how players will spend their time. Otherwise, these types of videos are only useful if Blizzard were planning to do a major reversal in how the game is played, though a regression back to story mode over the more efficient newer modes used in Diablo 3 would be strange, to say the least.
Source: pcgamer.com