Diablo 4 launched with a vast open world that allows you to occasionally meet other players, interact with them, and even party up or complete events that spontaneously appear across its zones.
These features bring it much closer to MMOs than any prior entries in the series, but its existing social features haven’t proven satisfactory for everyone who’s exploring Sanctuary.
Diablo 4 Lack of Social Features
Speaking about their perceived lack of social features in a Reddit thread that’s received plenty of attention from the community, user addicTix notes that Diablo 4’s world “just feels kinda lifeless,” explaining that “even though the cities are full of people, you will meet random people doing events and what not, but there’s just not really any interaction to it.”
Comparing the latest entry in the series to Diablo 3, they say that in the latter, “people were constantly chatting in global, posting dropped items, talking about the game or even real life stuff. You could search for groups to play with just a few clicks, even with filters, and just have a good time. Also, you could inspect profiles of others, see all-time statistics of their account, see their gear and characters stats.”
The lack of a general chat and option to quickly group up with people looking to complete specific dungeons or quests comes up frequently in the discussion. These social features are some that a set of players are hoping to see added to Diablo 4 once its seasonal content starts rolling out.
“This is the most anti-social, online-only MMO-lite game I’ve ever played,” user cubes158 wrote. “No group finders, no auction house, no trading culture, no global chat, no guild hideouts, no raid events, no group instances, no trade-api for trade sites.
“The game design is clearly online service to its core; but why all the trouble? For 3 inconsequential novel world bosses?”
User PleaseMuteMe followed by saying that they’re “a hardcore introvert and even for me it’s lacking enough social interaction.”
But while the apparent lack of enough social features in Diablo 4 is a pain point for some members of its community, not everyone shares the sentiment.
“I just emote wheel and greet everyone. Sometimes they greet me back. As social as I care to be before I spin off screen never to be heard from again,” user DiscombobulatedTap30 wrote.
“As a Diablo fan and WoW enjoyer, I would very much prefer them to stay different. What I want most of all is the ability to play D4 alone in a private world,” user DevilsTrigonometry added.
Others also value the single-player experience and would dislike MMO features like raids to be added. While they could encourage more social behavior, they also require players to stick too tightly to a schedule.
Diablo 4’s social features do include world bosses that seem to spawn at set times alongside events that periodically pop up throughout its world, but they’re systems that offer quite a bit of flexibility right now.
You can invite players to parties both by interacting while out in the world and via the Social tab in the menu. Local chat is also available.
It is, however, true that I’ve never seen anyone actually use local chat during my time with the game. My interactions with other players have also been limited to trading emotes or spinning around in places near event spots alongside seeing them in towns or, occasionally, out in the open world.
There’s certainly truth to both sides of the argument, though. Expanding its social features and multiplayer interactions could very much be one potential direction for Diablo 4 to take.
At the same time, preserving the current/single-player experience is also an important part of the game’s identity and one which, personally, I’d rather see Blizzard focus on in the future, albeit not to the full detriment of group play.
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