Are they not having followers at all in Diablo 4? Or is this another ‘not at launch’ thing like no set items.
Always liked gearing a merc…
Haven’t seen anything about one so I’d imagine not anytime soon.
Hey! Yeah! Good point, Ace.
Have they said anything about this, or no? Whether they help with stat boosts, mana regeneration, slowing mobs, having a follower still was very beneficial.
Not mad about as I am not even sure if this is something official or not, I just want to know as well. 
The system is half way there. There are quests with followers, but no real damage dealing companions though the first act.
I wonder how intuitive it would be moving through some of the dungeons though. My D2 companion got stuck a lot and my D3 companion was always so on top of me that I had trouble seeing what I was a doing at times.
I got this from ginx tv article, Published Mar 28th, 2023
Diablo 4 will not have Followers/Mercenaries at launch on 6 June 2023. This has been confirmed by Diablo 4’s Lead Class Designer, Adam Z. Jackson, as reported by PCGamesN. While NPCs will sometimes help you in a dungeon or a story quest, that’s what they are confined to for now. Adam Z. Jackson states:
For the launch version of the game we do have some places in the story in particular where you will have certain named NPCs following you and helping you out as you figure out what Lilith is doing in the world. We don’t have anything to announce about the Diablo 2-type follower that you hire – we’re sticking it to the campaign for now.
In the chat with PCGamesN, the developer clearly said that followers are confined to the campaign “for now” leading us to believe they might get added to general play in the future. The developers, according to the report, further noted that: “stay tuned, we may have something in the future to announce but no promises.”
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I read this also, but thanks for laying it all out there.
I get they want to change up some things about the Diablo franchise, but man…taking away some core features that have always been there seems like change that really isn’t needed.
For me, followers were always a way to expand gameplay, help with your characters weaker points(follower tanks as a player caster, follower range support as a barb, follower freeze mechanics, etc).
Story NPCs helping you out for quests really doesn’t do it. You have no way to customize them and you really don’t care about them at all. Really more of an annoyance.
Overall, meh.
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It might come back.
Diablo 2 classic/vanilla was way harder. You could try to run a Diablo boss run with sorceress and hadn’t any mercenaries in act4, and then if you only was specked with two magic types, you could come across two mini bosses you had to kill with 100% immunity to both magic types, before Diablo.
I don’t think D4 has this difficulty
As soon as any game has multiplayer there are always those who want to force people to group up, so they can find groups easier.
This seems like it is catering to the people who want groups to be a [forced] thing.
“If you had followers why would you need to group up?”
Would be the whine.
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I don’t know how I feel about followers, I think I’m fine with it as long as it adds value in some way beyond stat slots if that’s makes sense.
In D3 I didn’t really care about the follower since I could hardly see them amongst all the enemies and without the immunity item they didn’t matter. So for me they were basically just extra item slots (when they emanated) or triggering off my abilities, like if “crowd controlled takes more damage” and the templar is slowing monsters occasionally. But it’s not like I controlled that anyway so it was more of an occasional happy accident. If D4 had a voodoo doll in Kyovashad I could hang armor and weapons on and it would count as extra stats, that to me is essentially bringing the D3 follower system over.
But if they added some reason for the follower to matter to me or have a substantial role in my build or strategy (controlled like a pet? I don’t know) then that could be interesting. Otherwise if it was all the same I’d just rather have them add more slots or something instead. Give me 10 rings, 1 for each finger vs. a follower that is just more stats lol.
I think D4 is online open world with other players. So having followers would be a negative. We will all be partying and questing together, no npc’s needed.
However it would be cool if we as players could learn skilled trades in D4. Like one player could learn blacksmithing. Another learn gem crafting or rune smithing. But each payer character could only learn one trade to level up. If you don’t have that skill, then you will need to pay an npc or another player to gem, socit, or rune your items for you.
You will be in the minority. Many Diablo players don’t want to group with other players to do content since the Diablo franchise never focused on organized MP. Most MP you had in D2 was Baal runs.
Also, you can only party with 3 other players in Diablo 4. Hardly a huge party like Diablo 2’s eight players.
Diablo 4 will have no group finder, no auto join…not really a compelling grouping environment. You just will see others running around occasionally. In town is your best chance to try to emote your way to groups.
What game would that be? Haha, that’s not going to be in Diablo 4, at all.
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Be careful! You guys are talking about things not included in d4! I sense the angry forum rats are coming soon to rain down condescending remarks on everyone!
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Fully expect it. Truth hurts sometimes.
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Who remembers the days in D2:LOD when you could teleport around with an Act 1 merc and it made you immune while teleporting because its hitbox took the place of the character model? This was great in PvP. I’m pretty sure this was fixed. This was so long ago. 
I’m kind of on the fence when it comes to followers. I think it would need to be some kind of middle ground between D2 and D3. In D2, there was a good variety of mercenaries that complimented different playstyles, but the down side was that unless they had very good gear, they would die to certain elite affixes in seconds, especially in nightmare and hell difficulties which made them a huge gold sink after a certain point. In D3 it felt like the opposite, they couldn’t die but weren’t really much help.
In D4, it doesn’t really seem like it’s designed with followers in mind because many of the boss mechanics require thinking to overcome and I don’t see the devs programming them to be good enough to do that. They would just charge in like always and get killed. Either way, I’m not against it, but I just don’t see them adding them anytime soon when, as many have suggested already, there are other actual players to try to group with if you feel you need assistance.
TStorm Sorc. Hostile on. TP as fast as you can around the map to find other players. They had no chance other then to ‘Exit game’. 
Dragging the merc to get the aura at your TP spot and that bug you mentioned. Unstoppable.
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Yes! haha great times!
D3 followers were useless.
Can’t die token, still useless.
Only reason they became useful was because they made it so certain legendary affixes could benefit you as well if equipped on your follower. Just ended up being a power creep stat stick with some minor buffs for you.
Don’t really care about D3.
D2 followers were essential and were fun to gear.
Eh, to be fair they only became essential with runewords.