Diablo 4's Open World Strategy

PC General Discussion
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Listening in on an interview the other day with Jonathon Rogers from GGG (Path of Exile), he made an interesting comment about Blizzard/Diablo 4’s approach to being “open world”.

His comment generically stated that their approach sort of “validated” what he thinks about aRPGs being open world.

If you look at open world games in comparison to Diablo 4, it definitely feels empty. We have helltides, but our focus is only on getting cinders and opening chests. The introduction of the threat level and summoned boss to not make it “complete an event, go to next event, repeat” definitely made helltides feel less grindy. And I didn’t forget the worms randomly just vomiting up mobs, which I thought was a cool side addition.

The next thing we have are world bosses, which lets be real…they’re a joke. Once there is at least 1 person who has their build figured out, the saying; “Ant meets boot” becomes applicable.

Outside of running to the various dungeons to fight Duriel, Andy and etc, there’s no real reason to explore or go to some of the towns.

I thought back to the days when I played an MMO called Rift. For those who are not familiar, the high level is that world events called “Rifts” would appear in an area. Once triggered, these rifts would start spawning monsters. It was up to players to defeat the enemies and close the rifts. If the rift was left unchecked, it would start to expand. Monsters would start growing stronger and eventually start to over run towns.

I really think with Helltides or another feature, D4 could take this idea and run with it. Helltides spawning an elite uber-boss that roams the Helltide. If it isn’t defeated before the Helltide ends, the Helltide doesn’t end. Instead, demons and hoards of monsters take over the capital town in that area. There’s no using vendors, no waypoint, no capstone dungeon, etc. It is up to the players to defeat it. The longer the roaming boss is alive, the stronger it gets. But the potential for better loot is increased.

Also, I want to get swallowed by a hell worm and be taken to hell, where I have to battle and take on a series of challenges to escape. Give me some risk/reward that isn’t just avoiding one-shot deaths!

Anyways, just some 10am thoughts while sitting in a meeting I don’t need to be on.

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Great post, and how Diablo 4 was labelled in the beginning.

Look at what it’s lead to… Same dungeons from lvl 1 to lvl 100 and beyond. Still. since day one, same exact thing… lol

Even the Pit is the same old thing as mentioned. MORE HP MORE DMG. That’s the blizzard way unfortunately. Limit builds (can’t even make a tanky build, everything is timer based or you just get 1 shot anyway).

The next few seasons will just be OMG Pit 180 NOW I DO MORE DAMOOGE… Then season after that 200, then they’ll increase pit depth, and we will still be doing the exact same thing. ha

Rift was a great game!

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Rift is still around too! The idea of having to band together to retake the town and defeat rift bosses was and still is a clever mechanic.

I think Pits are a good start to end game, but cannot and likely will be endgame. I would love some more dynamic world events that leverage lore behind things like Helltides, and some of the bosses. Imagine a snow covered and skeletonized Andariel, rising up in Fractured Peaks, and laying waste to Kyovashad. To defend it, you and others have to be able to arm catapults, ballistas and etc in the town, while other teams have to wade through front line enemies that are as strong as high level pit enemies and elites. When you finally get through them, there lies an elite uber Andariel where everyone has to pitch in to defeat her.

Not to mention, during this event, Kyovashad is unusable. No vendors. No waypoint. No dungeon. No stash. No wardrobe. Not until you defeat her.

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Interesting idea. I’m not against it, but it does still lead to the issue that you’re secluding a specific part of the map that people will only go to when an event is up. Ignoring everything else in the open world as we do now.

Looking at it from another standpoint though you also couldn’t have it take over Cerrigar, Kyovashad or Gea Kul as each town has specific systems to interact with for other activities. Changing World Tiers, the Pits, and the Gauntlets.

I like the idea don’t get me wrong, just playing devils advocate here.

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All solid points, honestly. I think the key system locations being taken over could go both ways, in this scenario.

1.) The opportunity to band together people to defend it, to restore those key systems. The biggest issue would be cross-shard networking, and how the event ties into their instancing operative. The idea that you have to defend and defeat to recover those systems makes it more important. Puts something at risk, so to speak.

2.) On the flip side, to your point, how do you get people to participate if they do not want to? The first thing that comes to mind is a timer to complete it. Which initially defeats the purpose of the event, but I can see how it would detract from the experience for some players.

I am sure there’s a balance there, but the open world mechanic they have has a lot of opportunities. I would love for them to get really creative and implement some new and innovative ideas with it.

Or at the very least, let me get eaten by a hell worm.

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Man you had to bring up Rift. I loved that game at launch. I had so much fun.

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It’s still going strong too! I loved the rift mechanics, but man. Their class/talent customization was another level. So much you could do with their class trees.

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I am not sure an open world in an A-RPG is automatically bad.
But in D4 the open world is meaningless. It might as well not be there, since it isn’t used for anything. It was just a ton of development hours that could have been spent elsewhere.

Open world games generally tend to be bad imo. So even if I think you could theoretically make good open world A-RPGs, it doesn’t seem worth it to try.

A try would have to involve more reasons to roam and explore the game world though.
And not just on a sense of “go to this zone over there for an hour”. It should be the case everywhere in the overworld, at all times. Then you can have those timed events “on top”.

Helltides specifically feels bad imo, because it replaces the existing content in the game world. Makes them feel more generic, uninteresting. They could be spawning in their own dungeon instance instead, and it would make zero difference. Their placement in the overworld doesn’t matter.
Boost the existing monsters in the area, and make each Helltide zone feel like its own thing.

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That’s a great callout. Helltides in an area are just “there”. They have no tie in to their area, so area specific mobs are pointless.

I didn’t necessarily say that an open world aRPG is bad, was just reiterating what I’ve heard. I think it’s a different idea, but it needs a creative team to really expand on how to make it relevant. I like the idea of helltides still, and I do think they have come a long way from where it once was.

As for exploring the world and having a reason to, I think we lost that when we are no longer required to play the story every season. I felt the story was really great, and wouldn’t mind having to play through it at least once per season.

However, endgame is where it becomes more difficult to make each zone relevant. Tying specific crafting options or shops just irritates players, because they don’t want to travel to places. They want to automate their endgame process.

To your point, the areas need to feel significant to something. Big events that last longer than world bosses dying in a single hit every 3 hours, or helltides that are just repeatable content being dropped on top of it. Maybe we bring back the big named bosses from each area as an aspect of each helltide? I can’t claim to know the answers, but I think it’s safe to say they have some content to work with.

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That‘s community’s feedback. People prefer slashing spiders in a straight road and then one shot boss.