I’m playing along, I decide I want to do the Citadel. Now, instead of just going and doing that, like EVERY other activity in D4, I have to go into group chat and find someone who is willing to do it now.
Then, I have to meet up with them. Then, I have to play at THEIR pace, instead of the one I enjoy. I might have to wait for them, or they might have to wait for me.
I just want to PLAY. I don’t want to have to coordinate with others.
Whether you feel that way or not, KNOW that for many people this is NOT fun. If most people found it fun, Diablo wouldn’t make it required to group up.
I play with my gaming buds at the start of every season.
I also play more than them as well.
Co-op is already an option for the “can make a friend” crowd.
This is a manipulation for profit. To entice the multiplayer game crowd, aka “Fortnite Gen”. This should be ok as a trick for more players, as long as the game at the core still retains it’s true soul as a Diablo game.
We will see, and can put the “phone” down anytime things get unsavory.
People used it all the time. Especially for Bounties. Always matchmaking groups going for Bounties .
Also it was common when you finished leveling to find a group of 3 others of your class and gear up, since you could trade with them within 2 hours of items dropping. So everyone would say what they were looking for and drop whatever they didn’t need in town for everyone else.
Grouping was also a great method to find rings and amulets since there were so damn many compared to the other item slots. If you were looking for a Unity or another all-class item, good luck gambling or upgrading rare items.
There were always groups racing through Rifts at whatever the max Torment level was too for either drops or just farming Greater Rift Keys.
All the speedsters in Seasons used grouping. Not just for leveling, but Paragons since you for a bonus for grouping, and for finding Pools of Reflection for that bonus.
Finally, grouping was the go-to for Greater Rift pushing. Not that I like it much. The roles were highly specialized there, and I think they went a bit too far with that.
I’m not entirely surprised you weren’t aware of most of this.
I’ll grant you, most of that wasn’t exactly what I envision “multiplayer” to be, excepting the Greater Rift groups. That required coordination and communication. The rest of it was more “Go through whatever you’re doing at breakneck speed with no talking.”
But to say nobody did multiplayer at all? Nah. That’s you not paying attention.
It CAN be fun. But “random people speeding through X” isn’t.
All my best memories of multiplayer are grouping with people and chatting while farming and/or doing more challenging content. I used to group for hours in EverQuest, just sitting back chilling and chatting and killing things together. Same with WoW, although WoW also unfortunately started the trend of shorter, faster dungeons.
Diablo as well. Lots of memories of getting a group together for a bunch of Lazarus runs in D1, or just clearing the whole thing. Didnt play D2 as much, but got groups together for cow farming, Baal runs, etc. Early Diablo 3 was especially fun as well, before the philosophy of power creep killed it and the challenge became “kill everything on screen in 3 seconds or you die.” Not that grouping still couldn’t be fun - but it was much harder when everyone was mostly there to race through things.
Never understood that point of view. You don’t want to see, play with, or interact with any other players at all - but you still care about how you’re doing in relation to them? In games that are in no way competitively balanced? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
That’s because the rewards also increase with the difficulty. Case in point is D3’s - and soon to be D4’s in VoH - Torment system. D3’s “ideal” Greater Rift for speeding running was level 100, too, out of 150. Why? Cause the rewards didn’t increase after that. You got more experience going up, but less efficiency.
Hordes are a good example too. Most people do T7s right now. Why? Because even though T8’s rewards are technically better, T7 is MUCH more efficient and easier to complete.
Lilith too. Nobody does Lilith more than once, unless they’re carrying someone else. Why? No rewards, and nobody likes 1 shot mechanics, some of which you can’t even see clearly with the crapstorm going on from some player effects.
I feel that’s more because of the way multiplayer has become in a lot of games. It’s less about grouping, making friends and coordinating anything and more about “Heyletsgetthissh*tdoneASAP GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”
Even I don’t care for that.
I don’t know that I agree about DC being the only endgame.
And IF it is, that’s certainly not what I want. One of the GOOD things about D4 at the moment is that you have a decent choice in your activities. Yeah, you have to do certain stuff for certain things - but I can run Pits, Hordes, 3x Mindcage Helltides or even Nightmares if I want to. With some bosses mixed in for good measure.
But I do have to ask - if what you say is true, why are people buying VoH?
Oh, you refer to the high score game rankings that nobody ever paid attention to except to laugh at the offensive names or that #1 was currently held by “AAAAAAAA”?
Yeah, that’s a fantastic point. Can’t believe I forgot about that.
(That was sarcasm, by the way.)
And once they were ported to the home consoles? Seriously, how many people actually paid attention to the high score on their home version of Street Fighter 2? Nobody.
The only time I remember paying attention to a high score was in my NES Pinball game. Or Tetris. But that was kind of the sole point of those games. Even that was me trying to top my own score. Or my friends at home with me in the same room. Sometimes playing on the same screen, if the game did that. You know, like multiplayer.
Please don’t call it the Fortnite Gen.
I like multiplayer, but I HATE battle royale games.
Shouldn’t really be an issue, right? If 85% of people play solo and they’re going to force endgame grouping, that’ll be 85% less people.
I’m sorry for this but…
I actually still look at high scores at arcades, and wonder about who and how it was earned.
Must be a Gen gap thing, but scores in games are a thing that is intrinsically part of the human nature to evaluate and compare our efforts.
Fortnite Gen may not have some of the instincts previous Gens had…
Yeah, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. You know, when there were arcades. At the laser tag place. At the movies. At the mini golf course. Inside Pizza Hut. Hell, At my dentist.
Pac-Man was one of the few at my dentist’s office. I don’t ever remember paying attention to the high score. Granted, I was mostly playing the other game, which wasn’t high score based. I had Pac-Man at home.
But my point was more that the only reason we paid attention to high scores, if we did, was because that was the whole point of 99% of those games - to get a high score.
Having a high score didn’t even make sense for a lot of the ports to the NES, Genesis, SNES, etc.
Good luck on that not sure Buzzards still capable of making good games remember their last good game Diablo 2 Resurrected was farmed to a THEN Independent company
Please tell me how you need to do that coop dungeon to progress your character? Get real. This is like complaining about "forced PVP’ because of the PVP zone. Neither are needed to progress your character in this game.
Nothing you listed were facts. These are just opinions. The fact remains it existed at the beginning of gaming, it’s not new. You’re just being a hater.
That other “content” is one time only. I meant half the content that is meant to be played repeteadly, which are Undecity (for leveling and getting runes) and DC (the end game content of the expansion)
So, half the content that you are supposed to repeat, is forced grouping
Of course some people grouped, but even in D3, most people played solo
EXACTLY. SO let those that WANT to play in groups, do so, and those that do not play the same content solo, like all the previous Diablo games did
Dont ask me, i never cared about leaderboards in general. Again, I play for fun, and ONLY for fun
Again, false, and i gave you specific examples
In Space Marines 2, the path of least resistance would be to play the game in the easiests difficulty. You get NOTHING extra from playing it in harder difficulties (specially the campaign)
And yet, those people that like more challenge, pick harder difficulties, because its more FUN to them
Here Blizzard is trying to force people into group, even when its already more efficient to play that way and people still doesnt group
A lot of people bought it before this was announced, a lot of people bought it because its a Diablo expansion and dont even know whats in it, some people bought it with the hope that this get changed, etc
Plenty of reasons. I didnt buy VoH for the sole reason of forced grouping
It’s not a big deal to me, but I can understand why some people like to avoid group play. I worked in a super toxic and almost violent work environment and after work and weekends, I wanted as little contact with other people as possible.
Maybe they want it to be? Just because D1, 2, 3 wasn’t an MMO doesn’t mean they can’t branch out. Stop putting D4 in your little box of what defines an ARPG. Just like I haven’t touched Gauntlet, you don’t have to touch the raid.
Well D4 kinda is an MMO Meaning Major Money opportunity to some haha… I don’t care just don’t nerf those drop rates!!
RMT: Blizzard the drop rate are way too high you must nerf them Now! Skills too strong Nerf!!
Non RMT Player: Blizzard you did it again, Nerfed the drops now i canz not find any gearz!
Blizzard: ??? Wut???
Where are you getting this misinformation from? Most people will not be spending their endgame with the coop dungeon. The majority of endgame will be in the pit for glyphs and NMD and IH for gear and masterworking. Dark Citadel gives you none of that. All you are getting is cosmetics and a temper scroll. Thats it. This isnt WOW where best gear gets locked behind the raid.
remember their last good game Diablo 2 Resurrected was farmed to a THEN Independent company
