First of all, I know the risks of this thread being buried, but I believe that this deserves being discussed.
Given that D4 will be a MMO, does it make sense having a “only-one-life” mode?
I already think that it doesn’t make too much sense in the current “always-online” D3, however, it has its people, so I respect it, but would It still apply if going deeper? I mean, every single letter of the word “MMO” looks like a problem for a hardcore mode. The “O” means that the main reason for good players losing their chars would be network issues. Even if their connection is stable, a DDoS or whatever on Blizzard’s side. The “M”'s mean that that the fate of your char it’s not just in your hands, as you will depend on other players way more than now.
Add to the mix the DLCs, microexpansions, and all those things that happen in the world of today that make the games evolve more than before, so they’re also even more unpredictable (=more dangerous). PoE expansion “Betrayal” comes to my mind, which at release it has severe season theme balance issues which caused huge peak damage: you could be deleting mobs like a god and suddenly get 1-shotted by the season flavour.
So, my question to HC players: would you still be that interested in a HC mode in a MMOish D4? (Supposing it goes beyond PoE and it’s not just “town hubs”). I mean, I can’t imagine a “single-life” WoW…
If we’re using the broad term of MMO to mean “any game with a shared persistent world” then that doesn’t really say much about what the game is actually about and other than that, Diablo 4 is not really going to be like World of Warcraft.
The reason why hardcore would never work in WoW is because that is a game designed around the fact that you will die at some point. It’s next to impossible to avoid. High level raiding is about throwing yourself at the same boss over and over again until your team gets the mechanics right.
Diablo 4 is going to be a game that the devs have already assured us we will never need to group up for, which makes it a largely single player experience aside from the world events that are likely to be extremely easy just like they are in WoW.
I don’t play hardcore but it’s a staple of Diablo. I would hope that it’s there.
I think the 8 player thing is just what that author saw during his demo experience we can potentially see more. That is the first time I’ve ever seen up to 8 players mentioned by anyone.
Yes, same for me. Also don’t play hardcore, but it’s iconic in the franchise, so I think It needs to be preserved.
My point was that always online doesn’t look like a good travel mate for it and, due to not being the most popular Mode, things look darker for It everyday.
The WoW comparison, yes, just a “pedagogic exageration” in order to show the idea.
Diablo 3 has always online and it’s got a hardcore mode, and plenty of people played Diablo 2 hardcore online despite that game having pretty shoddy netcode.
They could just do it like WoW used to be with their PvP/PvE servers.
Though, with D4 you would have a SC and HC server.
It’s actually a good question imo. I don’t consider what we’ve seen of D4 to be an MMO, but the open world similarity does raise some of these concerns.
I don’t play a lot of HC, but I do enjoy it from time to time. It just wouldn’t feel right without it.
Hardcore is pointless and always has been.
In D2 you could restore your save files, so it didn’t matter.
In D3 you can die though no fault of your own, so it also doesn’t matter.
IMO they should not include it at all, no point splitting up the players.
world event had 12+ players at Demo.
i believe your group will be limited to 4.
Patrolling the world, you’ll probably see 8+ players over all of Sanctuary. But dungeons (private), it will be just your group (max 4 from what I understand).
Based on the latest quarterly update, you should rarely run into other players unless you’re doing a World Event or maybe pvping. So You probably won’t see 8+ players out in Sanctuary.
Once story moments are complete and towns turned into social hubs, you’d run into a few people in town. While on the road, you’d sometimes run into a player here and there. And then finally, if you went to a location where a world event was happening, you would see a larger congregation of players trying to defend against an attack by a cannibal horde or trying to take down Ashava, the demonic world boss we showed at BlizzCon.
That said, I don’t see why HC wouldn’t return as Diablo 4 is an arpg with mmo aspects, not a full blown mmo.
It’s honestly not a great term to describe Diablo 4 because it gives people a rather specific idea.
Even though technically all you need to be a MMO is a shared persistent world, a lot of people immediately think “World of Warcraft like game” and it’s not going to be that.
This actually is a good question and I really don’t know the answer. I guess it ultimately depends on how the final D4 product works. If it’s more like an aprg version of WoW HC might now make sense. But if it’s more like standard Diablo games just with social hubs then HC probably fine.