Kripp’s Take on Diablo 4: A Mix of Pros and Cons with Potential for Greatness

Diablo 4, the much-anticipated installment in the popular action RPG series, has garnered both praise and criticism from players during its beta phase. Renowned streamer and gamer Kripp recently shared his thoughts on the game’s current state, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. This article aims to provide a balanced overview of Kripp’s opinions on Diablo 4, touching on its graphics, combat, character depth, UI, and dungeon mechanics.

You can of course watch the one hour long video below, but we’ve attempted to pull out the most salient points, in case you are more of a reader! Thank to this helpful post on Reddit for making sure we got everything useful out of the video.

Positives

1. Graphics: Kripp commends the game’s stunning visuals, noting the impressive textures, shadows, and attention to detail. The overall artistic direction and technical fidelity contribute to an immersive experience.
2. Combat: Kripp praises the crisp and satisfying combat system. Attacks and abilities feel weighty and engaging, indicating that most aspects of the combat are well-designed and enjoyable.
3. Character depth: Diablo 4’s character depth seems surprisingly deep, with a skill tree requiring thoughtful choices, unique class mechanics, upgradable gear, and a complex Paragon board system. This depth, Kripp suggests, may take players by surprise and draw comparisons to Path of Exile’s character design.
4. Gold requirements: Kripp appreciates the game’s balanced approach to gold, making it a valuable and meaningful resource. Players must carefully manage gold to upgrade gear, change aspects, and more.

Negatives

1. UI: Kripp considers the user interface to be one of the game’s weakest points. Issues include scrolling item windows, slow window transitions, a lack of map overlay, a small and unhelpful minimap, and indistinguishable quest markers on the map. He argues that the UI needs significant improvement.
2. Dungeon mechanics: The endgame content, which involves upgrading existing dungeons for increased difficulty, leaves much to be desired. Kripp criticizes the need to kill all monsters before reaching a boss, repetitive boss fights, anti-melee mechanics, and the tediousness of retrieving and placing items in dungeons.
3. Melee viability and balance: Kripp asserts that melee characters, particularly Barbarians, are disadvantaged in boss fights due to resource constraints and the game’s mechanics. He also points out numerous balance issues in the skill trees, with some numbers appearing off or nonsensical.
4. Level scaling and party system: Kripp takes issue with the level scaling and party system, which often make characters feel weaker as they level up. The automatic grouping of lower and higher level characters can create imbalance, and the constant scaling of monsters detracts from a sense of character progression.

Kripp’s assessment of Diablo 4 is a mixed bag, with the game currently earning a 6/10 in his eyes. However, he believes that with proper tuning, significant changes to the dungeon mechanics, and improvements to the UI, Diablo 4 could potentially become a 9 or 9.5 out of 10 game by its second or third season. As the game continues to evolve, fans and critics alike will be eagerly waiting to see whether the developers can capitalize on Diablo 4’s potential for greatness.