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

General Discussion
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I keep repeating myself in all these threads, but I absolutely agree with OP and others here - MMO features don’t sit well with me.

Diablo at its best is about being alone, being lost, being hopeless. That whole atmosphere is all but guaranteed to disappear in an MMO type game. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against MMO as such - I just don’t see it working with Diablo.

Also:

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25

Yeah I’m not going to play that. There are a thousand failed mmo like games out there that had massive budgets and huge worlds and Blizzard has learned nothing.

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Multiplayer is not necessarily any more or less challenging than single player. I think you’re looking at this through the lens of Diablo 3 where multiplayer was purposely made to have advantages. But this is not usually the case in games with raids.

And in fact, if all else is equal, I’d argue multiplayer is more difficult because coordination is required. A mechanics screwup by players in WoW often leads to raid wipes (this is called individual responsibility… IE on Baron Geddon in Molten Core if you get hit with Living Bomb and don’t move, you probably kill 10 people).

Destiny is usually even less forgiving… if one if your 6 dies and you don’t outgear it, you’re screwed. There was a mechanic on King Oryx for Destiny 1 that required precise platform jumping while running. If whoever you assigned to do it messed up any one of the 4-6 times you needed it done, then everyone died.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only “group content” we’ve heard about thus far is world bosses.

Given the tech that is possible today, I fully expect that if D4 has “raids,” they will scale them from 1 player upward.

I feel like I should point out that Grim Dawn is fully capable of a multiplayer experience. There are a lot of class abilities that affect you and players near you… but most people play (or are forced to play) solo due to mods, the level range, the lobby nature of the game, and just the fact that there are far less players overall because GD isn’t well known and only sold a few million copies. It’s nearly impossible to find anyone else to play with.

Me, I love multiplayer. Build and ability synergy in good multiplayer games makes it so you can do things in multiplayer you otherwise couldn’t in single player. For example, in D3 classic I had a Meteor Wizard who could just endlessly drop Meteors, which was great for damage but the build sucked at taking damage. Multiplayer helped that by letting others debilitate and debuff mobs and buff me.

Plus, there’s just something about killing reasonably tuned bosses with other players that feels good. You joined together and you triumph and reap the benefits. D3 unfortunately lost much of that by getting stuck in power creep and making the only goal to go FASTFASTFASTFAST. In Torment games, for instance, there’s no sense of coming together to help each other… there’s just speeding around from elite pack to elite pack.

I really hope D4 recaptures the sense of fun and challenging multiplayer.

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Im just curious if anyone has told the OP that a rant IS a collection of thoughts yet!

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Exactly how alone and lost can you possibly feel when you’ve got enough power to take down what are essentially the gods of the world? The very first Act in D2 ends with you taking down 1 of the 7 most powerful beings in Hell, and it only escalates from there.

You aren’t alone and lost. You’re a superpower waiting to happen.

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I’ve played D2, D3, PoE and Grim Dawn. I hate the online only requirement. It makes the gameplay feel slower and less responsive (compared to D3 on console which I have found a better experience due to this) and compromises my ability to play whenever I want.

Just connecting to servers was an issue when lots of people were playing. Why should I queue to play a game I own when I want?? Especially on launch and after new expansions are released! That’s when I want to play MOST!

I don’t like the idea of forced online and multiplayer. I prefer an offline solo experience with local co-op amd I resent having those choices forced on me.

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100% agreed.
I hope blizzard is watching and listen this time, many here including myself dont want open mmo.

Stop changing D2 formula !

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31

Well personally I do not want either always online or mmo.
I was fearing this ever since d3, that the next game would be in the style of WoW.
We are many that do not like this direction, just as there is many that want this direction.
Not really sure what to say anymore…

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32

Okay, merely having central hubs and some world bosses doesn’t mean the game is an MMO.

I don’t get why people are so against central hubs. It’s just like a game lobby, except the characters are already in the game with you and you won’t have to waste time scrolling through a bunch of games to find people to play with.

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Just a little reflect of your points.

  1. open world. They’ve stated it isn’t like an mmo where there are tons of players, it is very limited and i think they said around 8 max but the total other players is still in flux. That being said, personally I would rather only run into other players when in town or while entering a world event and not just out in the map, as diablo to me is a lot more solo focused or a small group of friends. Multiplayer is really more end game, and power leveling, but being able to have many solo experiences when i want is important too. SO maybe they can find a nice balance between when you want to solo and when you want to group.
  2. Clans.
    clans aren’t exactly confirmed, they said it was an idea they were considering. I watched that Rhykker video where he has an interview with a dev, and the main take away is that a lot is still in flux and subject to change, and while he does say that difficulty in coop would have priority over solo, that doesn’t mean solo will be unbalanced, but more that things may be harder solo due to the expectation that players will more often be in a group coop.
  3. Looks.
    You didn’t really say much about this, but more just touched on it. Personally, I think it looks okay. I think it looks better than PoE in that PoE looks very muddy and has issues with visual relation making it hard to identify some things or things visually meld together. This game doesn’t look like it will have that. Darkness is good, but contrast is important for both the player and the atmosphere/environment. Contrast makes the darker places feel darker while still being readable from a gameplay perspective. I hope they don’t shy away from having some vivid colours and lights in some places or as some effects, as these would really pop in dark spaces.
  4. Itemization.
    From my understanding, they’ve mixed attack increase by % and by flat + into attack as a means to make it easier to see exact damage increases without having to do all the math, ie. is 10% of 500 better than 4% + 30? and so they just made it is it +60 damage to your 500 or +62 damage. And I think it’s the same with defense. Where gear customization comes in is with the affixes, which provide other damage boosting attributes such as crit chance/damage, attack speed, elemental, etc. so as an example you could be comparing an item that gives +40 damage and +5% attack speed or a piece that gives +45 damage and +10% crit damage.
  5. MMO.
    They’ve said that the game is not really classified as an mmo. the comparisions will obviously come up however because they mentioned they wanted to take mechanics from mmo’s that they think would be suited to diablo 4, but the goal is not to make an mmo, it’s an arpg. While I agree on your point of disliking the rush feeling of an mmo, such as event timers and the idea of a “here is your daily grind list” series of activities, i think the amount they are taking from that aspect is minimal. The world events obviously use timed event systems, but I think the way they’ve been explaining them, you have no obligation to do it unless you want to fight a big random boss with randoms, and if you do and no one shows up, if you’re good you can do it anyway. I do hope they stay away from the mmo type of directed grind where it tells you what to do to be optimal and doesn’t just let you go and do stuff you want to improve.
  6. Raids.
    during the same interview with Rhykker the dev mentions that raids aren’t exactly planned unless the community really wants them. the dev mentions too that they don’t want to make content that is required to be coop necessarily, and while they make take some ideas from raids, it isn’t exactly a focus for them as it removes some ability to play solo.

Final thoughts. I agree that I much prefer social hubs being a thing for towns and such over a global open world, but since they are limiting the number of players at a given time, it may be negligible in the long run and have nearly no effect on mobs spawns or negatively impact you farming and gameplay. I am also quite excited to see where blizzard will take diablo 4 as it already looks like they’ve taken a lot of aspects in the correct direction and have been listening to fan critic of diablo 3 and the interest in more diablo 2 rejuvenation. One thing I am personally hoping for is more/ all classes getting their new adaptive weapon swapping system that the barb can use. I wouldn’t want it the same as the barb, but just like a sorceress you can have a sword and shield then quick swap to a staff for some spells, or have some bow skills that you snipe a target with then switch back to melee for the nearby targets.

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i dont mind open world, but at least make it really open then.

lets u climb anything not just certain spots for example. let us ride from one area to the next without loading screens etc.

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I’m just going to say, Diablo 4 is looking like a MMOARPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Action Role Playing Game.), or at the very least, like a MOARPG, rather than just the ARPG of all the other Diablo games, with multiplayer as an option for people who wanted it. They’re removing choice by forcing everyone to play a multiplayer only game, whether you can complete content solo or not, it won’t change the nature of the game from being a multiplayer designed core.

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This is really polarizing fans but I really think it could be perfectly fine IF its done right. I am a way bigger d1/2 than d3 fan but I am not opposed to this idea. A lot of people are freaking out about it but honestly Blizzard North’s initial concept for D3 actually included a lot of these elements so I don’t know if people freaking out that this is totally off base for what Diablo was intended to be by its creators is really accurate.

The lack of social systems in D3 was one of my biggest criticisms especially when its only 4 players. It can still be a fun game to play solo with lots to accomplish and different systems for solo players to have fun and succeed and still have these MMORPG elements again IF its done correct.

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This is false, you do see other players in the world while not in town who are not in your party

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It is a joke which I wrote.

In the demo from diablo IV, you can put a green dot on the map, were you want to run.
Than you get best walking route in the demo from character to green dot.
You also get yellow quest marker on the minimap, so you can always run best possible way to your next quest.

In Asia for mmo in diablo styl, it is common, when you mount up, to activate autorunning to the end of you autopathfinding green dot.

During your time on horse, you are actually immun to demount and attacks, so you can save travel away from computer to your quest location.

No player to watch, because you drink coffee during auto travel.

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It’s been confirmed during Diablo 4 Panel by Lead UI Designer Angela Del Priore - campaign areas are going to be private. You will be able to play through that entire thing solo.

Angela even mentioned, she is the kind of person who likes to play solo… Also all the best items, content progression will be available to all players regardless of whether they play solo or with group and it’s been confirmed too by Angela.

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Ad.1 There was nothing set in stone about how many players are in the open world at the same time but it’s more than 8 for sure. (You can even already see that during world event fight)

Ad. 2 Clans are officialy confirmed. I have no idea where did you gather information that they are not confirmed. As for balance - Rhykker video -> Kim said himself. They’ll try to balance solo/coop as good as possible but if they will stumble upon difficulties they are more bias toward coop.

Ad 3. Nothing to add. Looks is personal preference. IMO D4 looks great and gritty as it should.

Ad4. Itemization and stats. Well it’s rubbish for now but it’s all placeholder so I’m sure we’ll se a huge change in that.

Ad5. MMO. Yeah, Destiny avoided the term for a very long time… Until Bungie admited that it is, in fact, an MMO. Therefore removing a need for balance SOLO play.

Ad6. Raids. That’s my fear. Just because they are not in D4 AT THE MOMENT doesn’t mean that buch of crybabies won’t demand them in D4 “because that other game has them!”.

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I’ve also never ever entered a public game and never will in D3. I have only ever played it solo or with my husband. I could tolerate only seeing other people in hub towns but not while I’m out in maps actually playing. I spent far too many years playing MMO’s and I’m sick to death of dealing with the drama and griefing, which is why I mainly stick to solo games now or only co-op with people I know IRL.

Basically for myself and my Husband other players outside of hub will make D4 a hard NO for us.

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43

I think that shared world NEEDS to be optional. It may be enabled by default - fine. But there needs to be an option to turn your game completely private, with only yourself and those you explicitly invite.

For me, seeing other random players is a HUGE turn-off and an immersion breaker. I dont want to see them at all - not in towns, and definitely not in the wilderness. I want to play alone. Simply ignoring other people like Blizzard suggests is NOT satisfactory.

On that note, all content needs to be soloable. That raid boss from the demo? Needs to be soloable. I dont want to kill it with others. I dont need massive events with other players.

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44

That is already one too many in my book.

And if you dont want to find people to play with? Yeet this information clutter is still on your screen?

If i dont want to play with anyone, i shouldnt be made to always sit in a public lobby.

They were confirmed during systems panel. Its still a long way before release and nothing is set in stone, of course, but clans were confirmed as much as anything else was, really.

You DO realize that finishing campaign in Arpg games and Diablo in particular is less than 5% of content?
And once you finish all the story quests in the region it becomes shared forever.

Yeah. And her proposed solution to playing solo - is just ignoring all the clowns that run around you and pretending they arent there.

Its not quite about what you can or cannot do solo (although its still an important matter). The point is that perely SEEING other players is immersion-breaking and is a detriment for many people.

All we ask for is an option to play 100% privately.

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