Foreword: It's an honor to experience the latest beta version of Diablo Immortal ("Immortal") with players around the world, and we'll talk about the actual trial experience in this elite test that began in late November and share some of the details of the review. Our biggest feeling in this test is that the completion of the game has been very high, but the official is still doing a lot of optimization and improvement work. So in this article, you usually see the analysis of "how the current version is", "what do you expect to optimize" and "how do we see".
Diablo Immortal ontology: Nearly complete and easily extendable
Let's first review the progress that "Immortal" has completed in the setting, after several tests this year, we have affirmed that since the release of this game in 2018 and our first trial so far, the setting and framework of this game have not changed much, and it can be seen that the R & D team has been working on the completion and optimization of the content with a clear goal.
From the first three classes, several play scenes, to the current barbarians, warrior monks, magicians, demon hunters, holy sect army, necromancer six major classes gathered, the whole process covers the 55 level of the mission flow and map, the peak level settings, and a variety of PVE, PVP gameplay, all clearly show that the core content of "Immortal" is solid enough.
At present, the game timeline is located between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, that is, after 20 years after the defeat of Mephisto, Diablo and Barr in the 20 years, the Sanctuary has many secrets worth discovering. The gradual corruption of kingdoms and city-states, the whimsy of the demon kings, and the opportunity for players to be born as Nephilim can all unfold slowly, which gives the "immortality" the best stage to show.
The story of the "World Stone" and its fragments throughout the main line of Diablo still maintains a sense of existence in the "Immortal", as the players grow and evolve, for the completion of the "Diablo" world, it has become an important mission of "Immortal", we did not experience the story and even the details in the previous plot, those legends and stories that only exist in the name of the equipment or the plot text, this time can be restored very completely through the mobile terminal. This is not to be missed by all the "D-scholars" who are passionate about this.
Next is the game's art style and game experience, which have a certain correlation and let's put them together. The art style of "Immortal" is closer to that of "Diablo 3", which the production team has deliberately followed up, so that the style and setting of the entire game are more in line with the impression of players of this generation, plus some sound effects are used in the 3rd generation, which will be more familiar to many players who have played the previous game. Of course, in order to ensure the performance and experience of the game on different functions of the mobile platform, Immortal put more energy into adaptation and innovation.
And in this test game, players will also have such a feeling: although it seems that this mobile game has similarities with the 3rd generation, but specific to the game UI, the main line process, the battle form, the equipment system, and even the monster's attack, the design of the skill, such as the details, are "immortal" for the mobile terminal to do the independent design, definitely not take -- this is also the current players generally affirm the "immortal" the most important reason, that is, no matter from the experience of hand control, screen sound, process rhythm and other aspects, "immortal" Can be called the standard line of all levels up the mobile game works, in addition to the "Diablo" sentiment bonus, excellent game quality is enough to allow players to make each other amway, rather than simply relying on the concept of consuming the original IP to earn heat.
Of course, there are still some players in the expectations and unsatisfied content, such as the current task process is very complete, but for the players who open the service level, there are still halfway card levels, which must be crossed by brushing the threshold problem - this can be understood as the current game process set by the stage goal, to align the players' game experience within a certain period of time. But this can also be solved by a more fulfilling quest content, after all, the Diablo series has maintained freedom and openness on this level throughout the generations: allowing you to see the true meaning of the difficulty of purgatory, the peak level, and then come back and fight BD honestly. We believe that in mobile games, there are also ideas worth pioneering and innovating.
For another example, the current equipment system has made a huge amount of optimization and innovation, which is different from the previous game and different from other ARPG mobile game products. To put it simply, the current "immortal" equipment system is divided into six core equipment (this part bears the most important BD system of core values and legendary equipment affixes), and ancillary equipment, gem settings, enhancement attributes, and suit bonuses, which together with the derived breakthrough attributes form a BD system that is difficult to completely copy by thousands of people, because the equipment system relies on personal understanding and objectively owned equipment base, and it is likely that there will be many "strongest" BD schools that players can see but generally cannot touch in the future.
In this point of innovation, it can be said that there are pros and cons - after all, the previous "Diablo", as long as the corresponding equipment of BD is brushed, the slight difference in value only affects whether it is enough "needy". But in the long run, these designs are definitely beneficial to the construction of "immortal" game content, with a hundred flowers and different strengths, and players can have more collocation possibilities. But this also has higher requirements for balance and player viscosity, or hope to develop a relationship that can balance it in the future. After all, the equipment system is said to be the lifeline of Diablo, and it is not an exaggeration.
Diablo Immortal Experience: Fluid comfort is yet to come
In this section, we will review some of the more imaginary things, after all, in our opinion, it is still too early to talk about the "final quality" of game values, level design, and even future update progress at this stage. As long as R&D is optimized, these problems can be better and better.
In this test, we basically did not do the rushing thing in the first two days, but made a rough comparison of the first one-hour to three-hour experience of the current six occupations, which can be said to be very satisfactory, and the initial process of each occupation did not encounter major problems, and the speed of advancement was basically similar. What is particularly good is that the current "immortal" six classes have made a very obvious style division in the design of the initial skill template, and you can experience completely different operational pleasures when playing different classes, the flavor difference is very strong, the barbarians are open, the thickness of the Holy Sect Army, the agility of the demon hunters, the outbreak of the magician, the balance of the warrior monks, and the cunning of the necromancer are all vividly reflected - at the same time, they are all suitable for the operation of the mobile terminal.
Of course, we also feel some places that need to be optimized, in the initial stage, the players' attention is completely based on the task process and the novice tutorial to advance, rarely find surprises; the operation of skill replacement and equipment replacement can often not be completed with one key, and it is not optimized at present, and the drop of equipment lacks the "first excitement point" of the previous "Diablo" series, whether it is gold equipment or legendary equipment is too late, often the first hour players are still gray and blue, We can't say that all players can't accept such a setting, but the charm of the Diablo series and the enthusiasm for continuous play often come from a sense of accomplishment in the growth of equipment. How to make players continue to feel tangible growth in the initial time (rather than forcing players with some simple equipment color and numerical benefits) is something we think needs to consider.
In the process of advancing the process as a whole, what we feel is fluidity and comfort. This feeling is continuous, whether it is the gradual unlocking of the main line mission, the various new monsters in the scene, the triggerable mechanisms and interactive rewards, or the gradually increasing strength, the gradually unlocked MMO gameplay, and the multiplayer team experience, which makes us feel that Immortal is really trying to do a mobile Diablo, rather than eating Blizzard's old book according to mature experience. From the progress of the main line task to the setting of each skill, you can feel the intentions of the project team.
In terms of the current "immortal" setting, the player's single character can reach the level of 55 (the test version is full level) after about 20-25 hours of game process, which is not a liver, or even very fast. Although after that, it is the beginning of more intense character growth, and it is also the initial level of PVP content to a large extent, but we still want to say: the current beta version of "immortality" is not clear about the laying of advanced content and the ultimate goal of players, after all, the current mobile games generally rely on long-term operation, and the ceiling height of character growth is likely to be proportional to the length of time player growth, but it is closely related to player stickiness.
According to the chat communication we have with some of the same players who are also involved in the game, many of them still show their concerns about the length of the game, afraid that they will not be able to keep up with the progress of the "big guy". There are also some players who are hesitant about whether they should level up or casually brush when the game is launched.
Of course, this content, according to previous experience, season is a good solution. We expect "Immortal" to have a better idea.
According to the content of this test, it is still difficult to judge whether the ultimate goal of "immortality" is the player's PVE (peak level, secret ladder) or PVP (SOLO or battlefield), or both. This kind of question has actually existed in Blizzard's various game works in recent years, such as "Hearthstone" gives a good answer, each game mode, each gameplay has grown in tandem. But for Immortal, which has a more traditional game model, handing over the deepest game progression route to PVE or PVP gameplay is the most crucial challenge for the free mobile game genre. This is naturally also a matter of great concern to players.
In addition, there are many payment problems of player relationship games, although this test is a "delete file payment" mode, we carefully reviewed the various paid content currently in the game, and finally did not choose to pay, the reason is that these contents really do not affect the progress of the game, players do not need to pay to unlock new content, nor do they need to obtain higher level gems to clear the main line. Of course, paying can effectively speed up the game process, and we also need to put this judgment into a longer unit of time to measure and confirm, to know whether the current concept of payment will affect the player experience - but it is not good and then optimized, right? Therefore, everything may also need to be left to the public beta for the players to judge themselves.
epilogue:
Finally, we would like to talk about the "direction" of the problem, we feel that "Diablo: Immortal" must be the future development of Dark IP, and even the development of ARPG mobile games is the best direction, adding a new road sign for this mobile game category that has been dormant and solidified for a long time, pointing out the direction. The ladder to the gods has just begun, and from the perspective of evaluation, we can agree with the concept of the mobile terminal of Diablo and be satisfied with the quality of the current game. I hope that this direction can get the recognition of more players and form a satisfactory reputation and evaluation of more players. Maybe at that time, we can see that "Immortal" is the biggest benefit to Blizzard's golden signboard for the world of Diablo.