Multiplayer Illusion

General Discussion
1

I remain convinced Diablo 3 fails to deliver an optimal multiplayer experience and will explain my observations, thoughts and suggestions for Diablo 4.

First of all and the most obvious is the plain fact so many players ask for an offline mode, implicating they aren’t fully satisfied with what multiplayer offers. I don’t hope for any effort done in regards to offline D3/D4 because it wouldn’t be supported anymore by Battlenet and become hackable, piratable, seperately patchable and far more uncontrolable for monetisation purposes.

Would we players rather keep-on urging Blizzard to break their own well established rules and goals or else support their work by guiding them through what a Multiplayer only mode should be ?

I set an exception for all players suffering from unstable internet connection but would others like to share their thoughts about this ?

Multiplayer features and their flaws :

  • High level Grift Metas are locked into few builds offering a boring leaderboard and offering rather a challenging gearing pattern, boring parangon leveling, boring gem upgrade, boring gear upgrade and all these time grinding requirements don’t really require Multiplayer. I believe D4 tries to solve the Grift experience, no clue how the Metas, leveling and gear grinding experience will be improved.
  • Rifts are sadly very poor and over-redundant with Grifts as experience with slight gear tweaks and the worst imho is allowing speedfarmers and slowfarmers in the same game. One player rushes and closes rift while the other player stays far behind and wants to clear it slow. Shouldn’t both of these players be allowed to seperately experience the game with players that share their game vision ?
  • Bounties seem like a well balanced Multiplayer feature allowing all players to provide and benefit from others. The problem is AFK players, ungeared players and maybe the bounties could be more difficult and rewarding instead of the same boring grinding experience.
  • Helping newer players to level, gear and progress towards Grift Meta is one of the most important Multiplayer aspects of the game with nothing supporting it, no advantages for the helper and empty ghostowns chat channels where some very nice souls sometimes accept to help. Maybe a player sponsoring feature could add a pleasant experience to all of us.
  • I’m mentionning Trade here and wasn’t happy with it in D2 or D3 and would really enjoy complexe crafting to give D4 a better experience trading.

Lacking Multiplayer features :

  • PvP with several different experiences within openworld or arenas.
  • Clan emphasis : Leveling, events and just about any feature worth playing with a friend or to make new friends through a shared gaming experience.
  • Challenging world boss events or basically any high level only content.
  • Early game, low level only features that would give new characters or even class only dedicated content. Instead of or in addition to Set Dungeons a feature allowing classes to use every newly unlocked spell in a mini dedicated dungeon.
  • Metas lack usefull Tanks because screens are overcrowded with elemental dmg DOTs or AOE and not enough elite/boss game mechanics complexity. I rather kill a difficult enemy using skillfully planned tactics rather than just letting my gear stats calculate the battle outcome.

Solo features dominating the game :

  • Campaign mode is dead and never should have died. The feature is way too heavy and slow leading us through a story overcrowded with videos, dialogues with NPCs and boring tasks to accomplish burried somewhere in the stonage of Bounties. Adding a speed-campaign Conquest was a good step but once again stepping away from the Campaign pace. Make it lighter in interractions story related and let the story reveal itself by the actions we perform, the places we visit and the enemies encountered. Give us a NPC diablo-encyclopedia Deckard-Cain style instead of shoving it on our screen. Videos are wonderful and should be used as transitions like in D2 between Acts or enterring a boss fight for the first time only and skipable forever after.
  • Not enough usefull sinks for more or less anything starting to stack sleep in inventory.
  • Some of the Kanai Cube recipies should be more difficult and rewarding. The Cube itself has too many random features when it should concentrate on a few unrelated to Artisans or Kadala maybe runes only in D4 ?
  • Kadala is only a low % chance to add a usefull item and her mechanics could somehow add up to a upgraded grindrewarding Cube.
  • Crafting is bound to Bounties and should be a seperate feature of the game allowing any player to find something usefull aywhere, anytime and unrelated to gear.

Useless or exagerrated features :

  • Achievements seem to me exaggerated because they fill your screen sometimes overlapping for whatever reason and I’ve always hated being applauded for gaining a level, gearing or killing a one-shot boss. The Achievements are a relic from Campain mode where everything was set for a slower progression and are unrewarding.
  • The player’s flag/banner feature is fine with me but there are too many random designs that fail by their unrelated, childish or basic art and theme. I like marking the map and dropping the flag when pressing G.
  • The Chat Channels are fine though allowing players to create and host their own Channel should come second after a list of Blizzard hosted game aspect related Channels are preset.
  • Upgrading the Blacksmith, Jeweler and Mystic with so much work on each level of upgade was such a waste of time besides they don’t gain much to offer and would’ve deserved receiving the Kanai’s Cube features distributed to them.

I must’ve forgotten many other features you may want tomention below in your comments.

Feel free to express your disapproval of what I’v written above it’s all a matter of opinion.

Thanks for reading.

3 Likes
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The thing about people wanting an offline mode is that many people ask for it because they simply have zero interest in playing multiplayer. For those people, pushing the game more towards multiplayer will just have the effect of making them not want to play the game.

Diablo 3 is already disadvantaging solo players pretty badly by screwing them over on drops. If anything, Diablo 4 should be more solo friendly.

6 Likes
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I believe you are fishing for posts to quote for your blog.

One of your mentioned “Lacking Multiplayer Features” was a major focus of the D4 demo.

That lack of knowledge (to me) shows you have no knowledge of what is planned for D4…or even what has been discussed by Blizzard.

To turn things around:

  • Do YOU thing that a “non-linear story” will fix the campaign problem?
  • What about the fact that the campaign is no longer a separate feature from “adventure mode”?

I do have other (more pollite) answer/thoughts. I"ll try to get back to them later.

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Improving Muliplayer could devide those of us with zero multiplayer interest into two categories. Some might want to experience a better Multiplayer experience afterall.

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A game being designed more around multiplayer also hurts the solo experience. It doesn’t divide the players as much as it entirely alienates one group of them.

When you start talking about things like tanks and the holy trinity that’s worrisome for solo play because a single player can’t be both a tank and a damage dealer at the same time. The holy trinity should never come to Diablo.

Making better multiplayer should not come at the expense of a crappy solo experience.

6 Likes
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I apologise if what written above seems redundant or even a copy of previously written posts. I absolutely admit being influenced by what I read but haven’t intended to copy/paste anything.

Where D4 stands today is Alpha and as we all know might change severa times before BETA. Please reveal to us what I’ve skipped in D4 Alpha and how it contradicts my post?

I don’t think i offer solutions but suggestions, please debate or post your own suggestions. I would like the campaign and adventure mode to blend together wisely.

Thanks for your ideas they’re absolutely welcome here and elsewhere.

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I stopped reading at so many players ask for offline. You have no idea what percentage of the players that bought the game ask for offline.

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D3 was designed to be a solo game first. I sure as heck didn’t buy D3 expecting a rich and rewarding multiplayer experience. If I wanted a multiplayer experience i probably would have gone to WoW.

I’m sure many would be turned off by D4 if it forced required grouping to accomplish tasks. Many old Diablo players are grown up and have lives and prefer to jump in and out of a game without having to wait around for groups.

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9

Pretty much this.

One of the greater points for me with the Diablo franchise has always been the fact that whether you play solo or multiplayer; you’re able to take part in just about every and any content the games have to offer.

Now Diablo 4 does have me a tad concern with the addition of the World Bosses, but it’s still early and so long as they don’t offer any unique rewards (like a legendary item that you can only get from them); then I can get past that.

2 Likes
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On this note I’m also concerned that with always online in a pseudo-MMO world, world bosses, and what basically amounts to mythic+ dungeons that Diablo and modern WoW are both slowly becoming more or less the same game.

Which I quit playing modern WoW because I wasn’t having fun with it. It’s basically just a series of mindless activities designed to give you a reason to log in every day.

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D3 is probably the ARPG that encourages and rewards multiplayer gameplay the most. In general the genre tends to be more singleplayer oriented but Blizzard stand out with their heavy mp focus.

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Less to do with MP features and far more to do with the fact that D3 is run on servers made from potato mash.

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What do you mean? Drop in D3 is crazy, any solo players can get full gears half ancient in less than a week. Except you’re forced to run bounty and more exp for group run (you can run bounty solo but it’s excruciating experience). Doesn’t mean it’s unforgiving for solo. Any unless you demand something like solo should run more efficiently than multiplayer, which is honestly a terrible idea in any universe.

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I’ll list a few gripes that I have with your points.

Many?
No.

They’re an overwhelming minority.
They are many only by raw numbers - relatively to the playerbase as a whole, they are few. They’re just vocal as hell - as is natural and understandable when someone is dissatisfied with something.

Diablo has always been a single-player game for most people.
Online DRM doesn’t make multiplayer features mandatory.

That’s true.
What you miss, however, is that the majority of players never reach the point where it becomes important.

Meta builds are a fake notion.
More importantly, there will ALWAYS be meta if there is hard enough content to push the tops of player performance. Diablo 2 didn’t have a meta solely because it’s difficulty curve ended with Hell Baal that was killable in trash gear and underlevelled character - after that, any build was viable.

All I can say that they’re far better than it was without them.
Suggest another infinitely-farmable end-game gameplay option that will be less redundant and boring than fully randomized rifts.

Erm… no.
It’s one of the things that makes the game boring for the new player and robs them of bonding with their character and a ton of content/hours.
Boosting skips the part of the game that offers the most unique experiences and rewards, and drops players straight into repetetive drind.

“helping new players to level and gear up” shouldn’t be improved. It should be removed. At best, it should be replaced with some kind of level-boost mechanic, where each max-lvl character makes all consequent characters get 5% more XP, stacking and never resetting.
This way veterans can skip the boring levelling, and newbies would not be robbed of their experience by having a generous high-level friend.

This one’s tricky.
On one hand, I agree that having PVP for those who want it - is a good thing.
The problem here is that Diablo is a type of game that is nigh impossible to balance for PVP. So any PVP experience will be completely and utterly imbalanced at the core. There will probably be a single class that absolutely shreads all the rest.
Now comes the problematic part - if balancing PVP means they make any mechanical or numerical changes to PVE skills - I say “no thanks” to that.

All content in Diablo should be solo-able.
Do not try to make it an MMORPG or something in-between like Destiny.

Diablo game should never devolve into tank-healer-dps meta.
Every class needs to be self-sufficient, able to both survive and kill enemies at the same time through its own power.

It is NOT a MMORPG.

2 Likes
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Why? Yondo not need to group up with anyone, you can just go in and poke it while others around. There is also no verification that they cannot be soloed. I’m sure if one is skilled enough they could take one out alone but it would take a long time.

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Yup. Classes can bring support utility, but if one has to tank/draw aggro and another has to support while the rest do damage it no longer is an ARPG. One can be more tanky and one can choose to mostly support, but yes, once you get dedicated roles it becomes an MMO.

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There is no heavy MP focus in D3. It’s an option. Nothing is required, there are no separate MP modes or content, just the option to group up with up to 3 others to tackle the same stuff you can solo. No unique gear or gems come from MP either. So I fail to see how D3 is MP focused. It is no more or no less MP focused than 1 or 2.

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It’s always possible that if a group (or even a single player) takes too long to kill a world boss, then then either of the following effects could take place:

  • The world boss would disappear
  • The world boss would become enraged, with it’s stats being amplified
  • The world boss may began to heal itself in small increments.

If the world bosses can do any of these things, then it may be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to solo them. As such if they’re not solo-able, then I would prefer if they didn’t have any special rewards (as in unique to only the world bosses). But once again it’s still too early and it’s best to just wait for further information.

1 Like
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Being very new to D3 what rewards does one reap from MP over single? I have always found the Diablo series to be more SP focused with group options. Were i to want MP focus i would try WOW.

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I think this is not impossible, easiest to explain with the existing set system, but it can be achieved with individual abilities and legendaries.

Excessive power creep can make it troublesome, since a fully kitted out damage dealer might be insignificant.

Each class can have a setup focusing on either of the 3-4 roles (look at Heroes):

  • tank - a hero allowing you to go ham, ideally also producing threat
  • healer - focusing on regeneration, probably leech fits the genre best (similar to a Smite priest or past Holy Beam paladin in WoW), meaning damage dealt is transferred as healing and/or shields
  • support? - not sure it’s needed, it’s more about controlling some aspect
  • damage - glass cannon, nuff said
  • solo - a balanced setup, which isn’t the same thing for everyone

Details are funny, in D3 some classes are inherently tanks (or rather bruisers) from the get go - compare melee and ranged playstyle. It’s possible to focus on class fantasy instead. Not sure how a healer barbarian would work, that’s where the support idea comes in (barb = stuns, mage = shields for everyone).

Having trinity or not is more of a decision as opposed to solo-friendly. Guild Wars 2, if I understand correctly, has been designed without the trinity, while WoW relies heavily on it. Both are MMORPGs with open world, dungeon and raid. GW2 in fact has tons of world bosses. Simply, all classes have abilities. My hunter can summon a spirit that adds leech, I can conjure a healing area and also heal myself quite a bit.

I agree that focusing on solo balance enables easier grouping. Random strangers in GW2 can group up and kill a boss, while in WoW you spam LF tank for long.