I got a beta key to Seraph yesterday, and I've been grinding pretty hard due to the events underway. Unfortunately, the window for joining the beta is closed (I barely made it), but I wanted to give my impressions of the game so that people are ready for when it releases next year.

What is Seraph?

It's Diablo 2 with NFTs.

No seriously. That's what it is. Sure, the monsters are reskinned, the names are changed, and there are a lot of quality-of-life enhancements in the game. At it's core, though, it's D2. I created a Valkyrie (Amazon) and made a multishot bowazon and was right at home.

For instance, here's my bow skill tree:

There's Barbarian, a necromancer, sorceress, etc. Even the character creation screen gives me nostalgia.

Monster slaying feels good at the moment with multishot. Mowing down mobs and rushing through the story to try and level up (the event: more below). The story is broken up into acts. There's the jungle, desert, hell, but there are 10 acts in total. The first four (through killing Diabl- er I mean Satan) play out as expected, but then there's more to do. They've taken the Path of Exile approach where you don't just re-play the four acts at a harder difficulty but instead continue through additional acts/story.

Upgrades

Crafting is better. There are recipes, and they feel decidedly more like D4 than Path of Exile. There are amulets (charms), but now you have separate inventory for them that you unlock by clearing shrines in game.

I'm getting to a level now where the amulets are having a noticeable impact on my damage. Early amulets were things like +1 hp.

Wayfinding is another big quality-of-life upgrade. Click the quest and footsteps will show you where to go. This means you spend much less time finding dead ends in dungeons. However, it's not smart about town portals and warp gates. If you click the last quest in the act while in town, for example, it will point you to the exit into the first area of the act. That's a long walk!

NFTs

Diablo 2 + NFTs seems like such a no-brainer. This game requires you to install ActPass on your phone, but the plus side is that it's a separate wallet so none of your other $$ is at risk. It also gives a nice market place for the games NFTs and streamlines the sales process. The current NFTs are stupid expensive. I chalk this up to an extreme lack of supply given its just beta.

In game, apparently there is a chance for NFTs to drop for F2P players, but as you can imagine (due to botting) the rate is VERY low. My impression is so low that while it might happen for someone, it won't happen for you. You can play the entire game for free, but if NFTs are your thing, you need to buy and equip them. Having them increases your chances of finding more.

Of course, this means that NFT inflation will happen, but as in the original D2, as long as the inflation rate is low enough (e.g. Stone of Jordan), the NFTs can hold some value. Of course, I expect them to fall from current prices. I'm also not aware of any sinks planned for them.

Leveling event

They have a community event running that rewards you for reaching various level breakpoints in game and sharing it to social media. For example:

Level 30 is the first milestone to hit, and I hit it within ~7-8 hours of play time. Oddly, leveling got pretty slow in the mid 20s but has speed back up. That's good, because 50 is the next target. Then 70 and then 90. However, with only 7 days left, I'm thinking 70 is probably as far as I can get. Just depends on how much it slows down.

End Game

I don't know much about this yet, but I heard from kingamantv that the end game right consists of levels you can repeatedly grind for NFTs, the game's token, or gold. Apparently the story ends around character level 60, so hopefully I get to try it out before the end of the beta.

Conclusion

I put in 1000s of hours into D2 back in its prime. Being able to quickly join a party of 4 (and being encouraged to do so unlike D4 which is basically single player) and slay mobs is nice. I got slightly addicted as a young kid to the thrill of loot drops looking for that one rare unique. I'm older and wiser now, but NFTs are also sweeter, so we'll see whether I can resist playing unhealthy amounts of the game.

Anyway, if D2 + NFTs sounds up your alley, keep this one on your radar!