Beta 5 Begins, NDA Lifted!

Hence the official forums being down. =P

But yep. Rejoice everyone! That being said, here's my impressions from being in all of Beta 4:

THE GOODS

• Diplomacy has a lot of potential. A lot. I think it can become very engaging and the Dark Elf Diplomacy quest is very fun... but... they need to add a Diplo trainer to Leth Nurae STAT.
  
• Beautiful Environments: Leth Nurae is amazing. So is the entire High Elf area. The Dark Elf area is bleak and rough and perfect for the Dark Elves. I love Hathor Zhi. There are a lot of interesting characters.
  
• Quests from 1-10. Good. Leveling almost seems a bit to quick but once you hit 10 or 11 you slam into a brick wall basically. Can you solo past that? Sure, but it takes a little while longer. Expect to grind grind grind.
  
• Decent dungeons. Granted I've only done Aeokar Zhi & Vault of Heroes, but I found both dungeons to be pretty swank personally. I can't wait to see what the future has in store.
  
• Epic / Legendary crits. O.M.G. epic crits rock, but Legendary Crits? Jesus, lets just say they ARE really Legendary. Nothing like casting some lowbie spell and them BAM like 650 dmg. You sit there at the screen going, WTF was that?
  
• Dual-Wielding Casters is pretty swank (by this I mean having a main-hand item, and then an off-hand item like a wand). Unique approach, though it begs the question to Arcane Casters having itemization to fill their 'ranged' slot with. I'm assuming stuff like bows and ranged weapons will have stats of some sort on them; so I guess it seems like a minor balancing issue to me.

THE BADS

• Diplomacy. Yes, I know a lot of folks don't want to hear this, but as engaging and fun as I think Diplomacy is (generally all the good points listed out in my good section), the system has been overly simplified it seems. I can name 5 cards that I carried with me all the time that basically made winning any diplomatic situation a cakewalk, and really? It shouldn't be that way. I was hoping for a system that had a range of difficulty and in some cases it does; but for the most part when I can win every parley with the same five cards, something needs to be changed. THis is not to say that they have some plans for it in an upcoming patch or whatever, and I hope they do. =) Overall Diplomacy is fun, but this is the part that draws heavily from it.
  
• Area imbalances. THis is very noticable. The gear and drops I could basically guarantee myself by grinding in a certan spot in the High Elf area hands down kicked the crap out of drops that were in Hathor Zhi area.
  
• Grouped with a Necromancer in the dungeon near Hathor Zhi, Aeoker Zhi. Group wiped twice because the "fear button icon looks like the pet taunt icon". I can't be 100% sure on this but it seems to me that this could be a future issue later on down the road with Necromancers and grouping. Granted the guy coulda been a bad Necromancer; but it still would seem a source of confusion somewhere down the line.

THE WHAT THE..? (Not Good, Not Bad, Just In Between Somewheres)

• Bards. I'm sure a lot of you have heard the rumors that Bards are disgusting, and this is pretty much the case right now. Bards destroy things solo and in groups. I'm sure they'll be knocked around with the nerf bat at some point and can probably use it, but in some way it makes me a happy camper, haha.
  
• Sorcerers. I apologize to people who want to make Sorcerer's and I think it's a solid class foundation, but I really dislike how minimal their group utility is. It'd be okay if their Damage was insane, but it's really not that well balanced. Necromancers and Druids provide more group utility, and Psionics? That class was BUILT for groups with their CC abilities. As someone who loves casting classes, the Sorcerer made me a sad panda. I liked their self buffs, but I also disliked the fact that by level 10 they still have only one castable spell, all of their other damage spells are instant-cast. And speaking of the castable spell, I hate the fact that the Rank 1 spell costs 38 Energy and the Rank II upgrade you get at Level 6 costs 39 Energy. What? Makes no sense to me. Overall I did have fun on the Sorcerer but there are some slight issues I'd like to see corrected.
  
• Hit Points. HP scales a lot faster than Energy does, and for you caster classes, this is your biggest downfall. A Sorcerer unbuffed at Level 10 has 537 Health; 350 Energy. You're thinking, that's not too bad, right? 98 Health, 198 Energy. Those are the HP/Energy numbers at Level 1. Not much change in Energy yet a huge change in Health. Yes, the Health is necessary, but I just would like to see Energy gained naturally without having to get a bunch of +Energy/+Wisdom gear to boost up the pool to useable levels for us caster types.

Other notes:

• People are hating on Sorc's hardcore early on. You have a lot of instants and people have been using them to tag mobs that Melee has to run up to to tag. Been a huge issue in several starting areas.
  
• From every high level I've spoken to caster DPS is almost forsaken in groups. People would rather take an extra Bard or Ranger than drag along a Sorcerer (since Sorc's have little group buff viability).
  
• Bard songs are SICK. When you can make songs that last forever that add a crap ton of dps, oh my god. The speed boost song Bards get basically make them save the 12s50c it costs to get a mount. Trust me @ Level 10 my speed boost song has +33% to run speed whereas the basic mount gives +30% (though this can be boosted by spending more coin on horseshoes and stuff). Still... saving the money is very helpful.
  
• My ranged weapon dmg is crazy as a Bard. I fear what kind of dps Rangers can do with those things.
  
• Dual-Wielding shortswords or daggers = incredible DPS as a Bard. That's about all I can say there.

Concluding, I like the game a lot. Sigil's done a good job and they'll get my money!