So MMO features in D4 - Are we happy or not? (Not a rant) My thoughts

General Discussion
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It was confirmed that SSF mode (solo self found) is not even considered in Diablo 4. (source: Quin69 interview with dev.)

Game is online only (noone is suprised I think)

Game is open world with “above ground” maps being shared between multiple players. (Like in MMOs you can bump into other players while exploring the world)

Dungeons are instanced.

Clans/coop is big focus. Blizzard is gonna try to balance the game between solo/coop players but said that if they will meet any difficulties with that coop will be their priority. (source: Rhykker interview with dev.)

So here are my two cents. Game looks and feels amazing. Back to dark, gritty roots of D1/D2. Skill tree and talents are step into the right direction from barebone system in D3 but it’s still to early to tell how impactfull decisions are gonna be.

Itemization looks ok, but simplyfing stats looks… terrible. I hope they’ll fix that.

But now with MMOish features. (just my personal thoughts)

I play 90% of the time solo. I group sometimes, especially during early days of each loot based game to get the “feeling” of all the hyped fans that are exited to play. It’s great and fun. But once that first “honeymoon” period is over I like to get deep into the character creation, build speculations etc. I like to spend time at my own pace looking into character stats, discussing builds on forums etc.

I don’t like the rush feeling of MMO. Like a timer in the corner “world even will begin in 02:05!”. It kills sense of expolration for me due to the fact that game starts to look like "hub > world event/daily mission > hub > world event/daily mission > hub… " and so on.

Then there is my fear about endgame content that will apprear on launch or after launch in one of the patches.

Raids with forced COOP.

So in recent years I see trend, especially in younger gamers, that looks at Raids as the “go to” endgame content. Like nothing else exist. I myself am way more impressed by Path of Exile and/or Grim Dawn endgame content, and it’s IMO way more challenging than, let’s say, Destiny/Division 2 raids. Firstly, as hard as it is, both PoE and GD have endgame that is possible to complete solo. Sure, your build need to be great and top notch but it’s possible. In Destiny/Division 2 however no matter how good your build is, endgame Raids are blocked behind pre-planned coop groups. Not even matchmaking is avilable.

Then there is an issue with shared world. Diablo 4 is being quoted by Blizzard itself as going back to it’s darker roots. Awesome. But it somewhat contradicts with having multiple players running around the same map clearing mobs and collecting resources right in front of you. The feeling of being “alone againts major evil!” is gone.

I’m not a huge fan on PoE. I really like it (but I LOVE Grim Dawn) but their approach for social play is great. You can do all content solo. Hubs are shared so you can interact with anyone, and trade freely but the world is instanced so you can play with your mates or alone without interuptions, and there is even SSF for most hardcore players that makes PoE almost a single player game. Great stuff. And all that in the most popular isometric aRPG in the world right now. So clearly a lot of aRPG players don’t really want those games to be MMOs.

TL;DR

I’m exited to see direction Blizz took with D4 but I’m worried as hell that in order to please younger players not familiar with isometric aRPGs, they’ll try to shove a lot of MMOish features into the game in order to market it as “shared world experience” and therfore leave a lot of hardcore, solo players who want to create those god builds that can clear all conent solo. Those guys are real hardcore audience. Also I’m afraind that, since huge part of community thinks that Raids are the only endgame content in the world and it’s “must have” in any game nowadays, Blizzard will give them exacly that, and lock that behing forced coop.

What do You guys think? Are you happy about the direction of social features of Diablo 4? Or you’d like more solo game like Grim Dawn or maybe mixture of both - like Path of Exlile?

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You will not see other players on the map.
They added already Asia iso arpg mmo autopathfinding with the green dot on map. 100% sure with a horse you get 100% safe autorunning with no demon attacks.

It is a standard concept in asia mmo.

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Yes you will. You can watch it on Rhykker stream and his interview with Blizzard dev. Maps will be shared between other, random players - just like in MMOs.

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No, you do not understand my joke. You see the players, when you active look to the screen you play.

But in Asia mmo, you use autopathfinding (already in demo) and the option for save autorunning, for running save and with no risk to the spot on map were your quest is.

During the run you actually do other things, like coffee, pizza, wash Maschine :grin:

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TBH i like the mmorpg thing, diablo lore is amazing and they can expand it a lot more in a mmorpg like game.
Also considering how popular are mmorpg games nowadays, this means that diablo will have a lot of players if they do it right, which means regular expansions and overall constant support for the game, unlike d3 which was a dissaster.

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I think it sucks. Bethesda did the same thing with fallout76 and that game has been a digital colostomy bag since (granted it IS Bethesda and their games take at least a year to simmer before they become great games). That being said, this has all the makings of the shameless cash grab that D3 was on release…which I PRAY TO GOD isn’t the case. I miss the days of single player PVE non-internet required games, but those days are gone and I’ll have to suck it up.

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Yeah, I’m with you on that. However I woudn’t mind at all system similar to PoE.
Want to go solo? There it is! You can even go into SSF mode if you like.
Want to go coop/mp? Also great! Here are all social options.

But it looks like Diablo 4 is leaning more towards full MMO features with always shared map and huge clan focus.

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Everything that I’ve seen looks pretty good, certainly some thing were in an early state and need additional polish.
Not sure I like the shared MMO aspect of this - I won’t say more…

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The difference is Bethesda seems to be trying to screw up so they can sell the company. Adding a paid subscription for services that are broken is beyond bad.

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The shared environment is probably going to be similar to how chat works currently in Diablo 3. There are different servers so only groups of people see what you see in chat and not everyone who is currently playing. I guess a better analogy would be like Destiny 2. You can do quests and things yourself in an open world but you’ll see others from the same server sharing that world with you who will also be doing the same things you’ll be doing. They can help you with public events, quests, world bosses etc…Not entirely sure but that’s my guess anyway.

On a personal note I’m excited to finally get something new to look forward to Diablo wise but idk if I’m excited because it’s been so long that we haven’t seen anything or if I’m excited about the actual game. I thoroughly enjoyed the cinematic and I think Blizzard should be making movies and shows because their animation is that good imo but the actual game is kind of worrying me. I know there are a lot of new elements as well as elements taken from previous and current games but I hope it’s something that works well because I do want to see D4 succeed.

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Waiting for more info. So far so good. Not sure on world bosses yet. As long as I can join people killing one and get loot, without having to queue. It will be ok. If only formed groups get loot. It will create the wow nonsense. 1st gear score, than I level, finally raider IO. I don’t want to apply to play the game. I doubt that’s the direction. At least I hope not.

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Install on you free time games like:

-Mu legends
-torchlight frontier
-lost ark

Or watch English steam about them.
Diablo 4 is a 100% copy of Asia iso arpg concept, in diablo art styl.

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As long as it’s optional, I wouldn’t mind. If they make it mandatory, no. I prefer playing solo.

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This.
I don’t mind social features at all as long as they’re optional and all conent is duable solo.

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I don’t get why asking for an optional way to play the game solo, or with other people is so hard of a concept to grasp, or so insane of an idea to balance. They literally did it with Diablo 2 and 3, years ago, and both those games turned out fine, whatever grievances you may or may not have with the art styles.

It’s not like people are asking for there to not be any multiplayer at all, because that’d be ridiculous. I even think there was multiplayer in the first Diablo game, it’s just every Diablo game up until now has been for people who enjoy solo content, and gaming online/with friends BOTH, not one or the other, and forcing a sudden paradigm shift like this, where Blizzard is saying that they’re not making Diablo with solo/singleplayer in mind, at all.

Sure, you can go through the campaign by yourself, only seeing other people on the open world map, but it’s going to be a game entirely balanced and focused around multiplayer/co-op, with some manner of shop to purchase, for real money or ‘in-game currency,’ cosmetics.

Why can Blizzard not make a game that has two methods of play, appealing to a wider audience in the process?

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Yup, I agree. But I think it’s due to pleasing more casual players. Diablo 4 on surface looks great but there is still a lot of cutting content from more complex ideas (weapon stats are clearly showing that).
Then someone mentioned the GPS system - very cool that game allows you to mark waypoints on the map but yeah… With mounts I woudn’t be surprised to see “auto travel” like in MMOs :confused:
So in short - There are still years before D4 is gonna be released but It looks like D4 is trying to be jack of all trades master of none, while majority of hc fans wanted it to be deep, customizable game with fantastic loot.

Anyway, we’ll see. In two weeks GGG is gonna show Path of Exile 4.0 - Hopefully Blizzard will pay attention. It’s no longer the case of indie vs AAA company since GGG has money directly from Tencent.

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Did you watch the Systems and Features panel? Very good explanation of their take on shared open world. I am less nervous about shared open world.

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TL;DR: on the whole, no, I’m not particularly happy, I have major concerns about certain regions getting the short end of the stick when it comes to any content that necessitates a group to play, but I will acknowledge that it’s still early days and that the impression we’re getting now may not be indicative of the finished product.

I’m currently living in Australia, so I’m particularly nervous about some rumblings I’ve been hearing about certain content not being solo friendly. ANZ players technically have their own server in D3, as part of the US region, but especially as the game has aged, and the ANZ player base has dropped off drastically, it’s become a necessity for me to move to the US server if I want to play with others or to complete group bounties, GRs, etc. This means that on top of Australia’s already notoriously crappy internet, I’m also dealing with the additional ping that comes with connecting to the US server, which tends to make for a sub-optimal gaming experience. No one wants to play with someone who dies to things (blood springs! furnaces!) that they can’t see because they haven’t yet appeared on their screen :joy:

Maybe the ANZ community will stick around longer with D4, I can’t really say with any certainty. But if and when the community contracts, it’ll mean my options for doing any of this (potential!) content that necessitates a group shrink too, until I’m likely forced to move back to the US server and deal with an average connection, or miss out on a portion of the end-game entirely.

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I know I’m probably sounding like a broken record at this point but personally I don’t want to ever see another player in my game at all. I’ve always loved the solo Diablo experience.

Quite frankly the story will not make sense if you’re supposed to be the chosen one hero to stop Lilith while there’s a few hundred other chosen one heroes running around insulting your mother and spamming you with trade or party requests.

This is tantamount to them saying Doom Eternal will be online only and balanced around 4 players. Players will automatically enter the game with you but you can totally just solo the content if you want.

Sure, Diablo has always had multiplayer but it hasn’t always been only about multiplayer to everyone - and I would even wager to most. The only time I have ever played D2 or D3 multiplayer was with a group of good friends I know IRL. I have never, ever, even once once entered a public game and never will.

Further, there’s a reason PoE added SSF mode. It wasn’t just some random idea they had but was created after intense demand that players just wanted to play alone.

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thats a rant dude, and its not d1/d2 skill system. Its a D3 skill system 6 tabs 4 skills per tab and you can only choose 1 skill per tab. But… you can pump points into those skills. Either way it would be ok except their implementing cooldown skills from D3. RIP pvp