Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred

I am so glad I replayed the base game campaign with the first expansion again, it definitely made playing this one feel more impactful.  The music and just over a world building in this expansion is just so much better than the base game which I really enjoyed a lot of the world building especially in the base game but now it makes me actually not use my horse as much and just walk around more to just take in more of the world and enjoy it with the music that builds the vibe. This makes me feel the way I did when I first played the base game. Which is a shame that the first expansion wasn’t quite at this level. I enjoyed seeing Kurast realized in modern graphics but I realize now what was missing was the vibe made by the music. Even if they took the less effort approach of just remaking the music from D2 for Kurast in act 3 I feel that would have improved the experience greatly.  My favorite track for the Lord of Hatred OST is definitely the theme for Vision's End.  When I first got there and heard it, it was the first time in D4 that I stopped what I was doing and just listened to the song.  It's peaceful and serene yet introspective and thought provoking.  

When it came to progression with the changes to the game, I found I enjoyed it more at the beginning like during the first 30 levels or so.  They changed the game with the skill trees being completely redone which made it feel like every time you level was more exciting because instead of having to read through a bunch of passive minor skills where you don't feel much of a difference from, they now have it where every level for the first half of progression always unlocks a skill modifier that actively changes your selected skills so it felt like there was more fun in exploring the character builds while leveling in the early game.  Sadly later on you then just use skill points to just add power to your skills which matter but make the process of leveling not feel as impactful.  But I'd say overall the process of leveling is still better than what it was in the game before the update with this expansion.

When I pre ordered the expansion after its announcement at The Game Awards last year, I played the Paladin and thoroughly enjoyed it and how it translated to D4.  The only thing I wish the Paladin had more of was more auras to choose from in the skill tree but I still have yet to make a new Paladin with the new skill set up as the update mentioned above wasn't actually implemented in the game until the actual release of the expansion.  So when pre ordering it you had a version of the Paladin made for the vanilla version of D4 which updated with the rest of the classes upon the release of the expansion, which I think is an interesting choice by Blizzard as that requires a lot more work to essentially create two different versions of the character but also explains why the Paladin was so OP upon release with the pre order because that build they obviously didn't put as much time into balancing the class with the others, which I'm not complaining about because at the end of the day the Diablo games are meant to be a power fantasy with the character you build.

But upon release of the expansion I played the other class it added, The Warlock.  I was very excited for this class since I played the Warlock added in D2 and thoroughly enjoyed how the summoning Warlock build was done so I wanted to try to recreate that build in D4.  At first using the Demonology skills, which is D4's version of the summon warlock build, felt a little underwhelming but then over time I found a good build with them that was pretty fun to play.  With that said, I'd say I still like the warlock in D2 more than the one in D4 but for future seasons I am excited to try out the other classes with the new update, especially the Necromancer.

I really enjoyed the story in this expansion with it feeling like a more proper continuation of the base game story than the first expansion.  The one works but this one was just more compelling.  But another thing I really liked with this one was its subtle exploration of grief with Lorath's character development, done so subtly that I wouldn't blame anyone for possibly missing it.  It connected with me personally because over the last year and a half, I have been dealing with health issues that seemingly came out of nowhere.  I've had plenty of tests done and the specialist doctors haven't been able to find anything physically wrong with me so now the focus has been on seeing if there is something more psychological that was possibly causing these which so far has felt more promising as I've been doing the best I've done since the beginning of the health episodes I have been dealing with.  Without going into spoilers, Lorath deals with debilitating health issues that also seem to come out of nowhere and at one point has a breakthrough of coming to terms with and expressing grief he has been dealing with and bottling up for pretty much the whole story.  Once he confronted it, the health issues went away.  This part of the story feels like a quick and maybe for most a simple throwaway line he says but for me it just hit.  I can only hope that confronting my psychological shadows can bring such relief to me.  But that in itself is something that makes this story different from what you typically get in the Diablo series.  It has more of a glimmer of hope in spite of so much going wrong.  So with this expansion it is just further validating my opinion that so far D4 is the best story in the series.

Only other thing I want to discuss is what's been the lifeblood of pretty much all modern ARPG's, the endgame.  This specifically being what was added with this expansion, the war plans.  I like the war plans and I felt with the added skill trees added for each endgame event which lets you modify and add to the rewards you get for each different event type, it gives a lot more motivation to play more in the end game.  Of course I felt that until I got my build to a good place and then noticed what was really the biggest motivator for me personally with the D4 seasons has been getting a pet or maybe a player title that can be used with future characters I make.  For me personally, I lose interest once my build is at a level of being complete and the grind becomes slower to just make the building incrementally better.  This season there wasn't anything that caught my attention in the season and with that, it meant the war plan trees were barely done with only one of them having a full single pathway completed.  So I guess with that the war plans wouldn't be as much of a motivation in itself for me to play the game but do help make the endgame feel like less of a grind while working towards whatever reward I'm aiming for in the season.  But one other thing I did enjoy was the added cow level.  Not as comedic and great as the D2 one but I don't think anything will ever get to that level.  But I'm just happy it got added in general.  I know there's more to explore with the expansion but I'm happy to do more of that with the future characters I make for the coming seasons.