Why Diablo IV Is an MMORPG

Good Morning Friends! First I wanted to start off with a quick notice that if you have the Battle.net client, you can begin preloading the Diablo IV Open Beta now. Technically you could begin preloading yesterday afternoon, but suffice it to say by the time you read this post it will still be available for loading. The Open Beta itself begins tomorrow at 9 am PDT, and I fully expect that the servers are going to be wildly overloaded again. I would not take off work to play in this beta, because more than likely the first 24 hours are going to be unplayable. However, I do suggest that if you have been interested in Diablo and ARPGs in general, you give this game a spin to determine if it works for you personally. I definitely do not hate this game, but when I shared my thoughts earlier this week I largely shared that it just was not the game I was expecting it to be. Since it is a rather expensive purchase and since the refund policy on Battle.net is not as clear and hands-off as it is on Steam, you might as well try it while it is free.

Sometimes content lands in your lap. This happened to me last night when my good friend Wininoid asked me why exactly I thought Diablo IV was more of an MMORPG than an ARPG. This caused me to really clarify that stance, and I thought this morning I would share some of those thoughts with you. You can of course just read the short-form response, but you can only cram so much nuance in a 500-word reply.

The Character Creator

I guess first let’s start with the character creator. This is not exactly something that I associate with an ARPG, though I would dearly love them to offer more options. Please note that none of the things that I am going to highlight in this post are necessarily bad things, just what I would consider trappings of an MMORPG. In MMORPGs, I absolutely expect to have a pretty robust character creator, and the Diablo IV options would align to the bare minimum that I would expect for that sort of game. I created a “beefcake murder hobo” as I called it but one that aligned well enough with my sensibilities. Black hair and a beard, and has some sort of nonsense going on over the left eye… which is effectively the minimum requirement for being a “Belghast”. ARPGs would be so much better if they offered character creation options, but given that most do not… and even more, have gender-locked character classes… I am going to throw this in the bucket for MMORPG traits.

Open World and Passive Player Interaction

Next up we are going to flow into a “twofer” in that this game features an Open World with at least theoretical seamless shifts between towns and the surrounding areas. More than this however when you are out in the open world, you are surrounded by other players who are also taking part in content alongside you. The game features permissive tagging, in that you can help fight creatures and you will both get credit for the kill and your own copies of any rewards that come from those fights. Of note what I mean is that without formal grouping, you can actively participate in content with other players and there is no way to turn this off that I am aware of. You cannot venture forth into the world completely alone and you will always be at least indirectly impacted by the actions of other players and be competing at least passively for kills.

This is not something that I associate with ARPGs. Occasionally there are shared hub environments like the cities in Path of Exile, but once you start venturing forth you are doing so only with your party. Passive interaction with other players is a tenant of the MMORPG genre, so I am throwing this trait in that column both for the big open world with seamless zoning and the forced existence of other players in your world. Of note I consider Lost Ark to be an MMORPG, not an ARPG because it also has all of these traits and there have been folks calling Diablo IV a Lost Ark clone.

Respawning Mobs and Events

Here come another two traits that are connected. In an ARPG you generally clear maps from one side to the other and the only time you ever see something respawn is when it is directly connected to some sort of a ring event. In Diablo IV while you are venturing into the open world, everything respawns. If you stand still in an area long enough, the same static spawns will keep popping back up. This has led players to just hang out in the location that a named mob spawns, and farm it over and over. This is absolutely a trait that I associate with an MMORPG because traditionally an ARPG is more map-based with its own population of spawns and you can clear from one side to the other without seeing any of it repopulate. Sure there are ways to FORCE a respawn in an ARPG, but these generally are centered around discarding your current map and forcing an entirely new map with all of its spawns to appear, not just single packs.

The other piece of this is that Diablo IV has zone events that happen in fixed locations and on a reoccurring schedule. In the above screenshot, there is an event centered around filling the pillar with blood by killing monsters on top of specific pads. If I roam around that same area long enough, I will keep encountering the same event. Again if there are players in that area you all can participate in that same event or even stand around and farm it over and over. This again is a behavior that I associate with an MMORPG and not an ARPG.

Hub and Spoke Side Quests

This one gets a little hazy to be honest because it isn’t like I’ve not encountered this behavior in ARPGs before but it is more the totality of the features rather than a single trait in particular. Diablo IV progresses in a hub and spoke model when it comes to questing. The central quest will lead you to various areas of the map, and once appearing in a town a bunch of blue exclamation marks will show up offering you side quests that continue to force exploration of the surrounding area. These quests align with the central tropes of an MMORPG such as:

• Kill X Monsters
• Collect X Drops
• Go to Location and Kill Specific Monster
• Go to Location and Collect Specific Thing
• Take Item from Point A to Point B

In truth, MOST quests in any game align with that model, but again it is the totality of traits and not any single trait. The same could be said for The Witcher 3, because its questing also feels very MMORPG at times.

Predictable Equivalent Loot

This one is probably a little esoteric but hopefully, you can follow me. When you kill named monsters and open chests in Diablo IV, you seem to get roughly the same loot quantity every single time. For example, every time I killed this monster I got an amount of coin, two yellows, two blues, two whites, and the potential for a single legendary item. Chests similarly drop roughly the same items every time and the only real difference is based on what type of chest you are looting. Fixed loot tables and the regularity of loot drops absolutely tick the MMORPG checkbox for me.

In a traditional ARPG, it is a complete crapshoot that you are going to get on any given map. The potential for drops is more tied to a specific zone and less to specific encounters… apart from intended zone bosses. Drops are very feast or famine and you live for those big loot explosions. I’m sharing an example of a very lucky explosion of loot from Path of Exile for reference, but I saw something like this maybe once in every ten maps… rather than something that was predictable on every single outing. Sure it is mostly just a difference in methodology because it isn’t like I am getting MORE loot… I am just getting it all at once rather than rationed out in equidistant drops. I definitely associate predictable loot as an MMORPG trait.

No Map Overlay

Now this one is more of something that it is lacking and less something that it features. I have come to associate ARPGs with playing with my map up at all times so that I know where I am going. This is more a case that the individual combat interactions are less important than the totality of clearing a map or finding a specific exit. When I am playing Path of Exile, Last Epoch, or Diablo II… I am essentially playing with the map overlay at all times. My eyes are sort of fuzzed out a bit watching what is happening with the actual encounters but also the lay of the land at the same time.

This is not something that you can do with Diablo IV. When you bring up the map you get the traditional MMORPG opaque “hand-drawn” feeling map with fog of war for areas that you have not discovered yet similar to World of Warcraft. This sort of map is absolutely something that I associate with MMORPGs because while helpful, it is nowhere near as mechanically functional as the overlay. ARPGs tend to be more about mechanics and combat interactions than immersion and roleplaying… and Diablo IV absolutely seems to be trying to focus on immersion and story over raw mechanics. Again these are things that I chiefly associate with the MMORPG more than I do with the ARPG.

Factions Grind and Alternative Currency

Every region of the game has a faction associated with it. Completing quests and events in the area rewards you with a currency called Obols and standing with that faction. Over time you gain benefits by raising your ranks with that faction at specific predetermined break points. The currency is used to buy items from a gambling merchant located in each area called the “Purveyor of Curiosities”. While this maps pretty closely to Kadala and Blood Shards from Diablo III, the gaining of factions with groups of NPCs and the collection of alternate currencies are absolutely things that I primarily associate with MMORPGs. Faction grinds in general… are not something that I generally see in ARPGs. Instead, I am more used to trying to keep doing harder and harder content for better rewards, rather than accumulating an amount of renown to unlock something.

None of this is Necessarily Bad

Again I am not necessarily saying any of this is a bad thing. However, these are the reasons why I have said this is more akin to an MMORPG like World of Warcraft than an ARPG like Path of Exile. We also have no clue at this point what the end game for Diablo IV is going to look like. I am not thinking it will really scratch the itch for the folks who live by the schedule of the Diablo II Ladders, Diablo III Seasons, Path of Exile leagues, and eventually Last Epoch Cycles. I might be completely wrong however and there may be systems within systems that we have yet to see. What I see is an MMORPG masquerading as an ARPG, just like Lost Ark is doing the same thing. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have World of Warcraft redone in the Diablo universe… and in truth, I guess we now have that answer. To be fair Diablo Immortal did most of these things so I legitimately should have set my expectations accordingly.

I don’t even think that Diablo IV is a bad game. There were absolutely some parts of it that I really enjoyed. However as I said at the start of this post, sometimes content falls in your lap. After getting the question from my friend I decided to further expand upon why I think Diablo IV is an MMORPG, and I think at this point I have done so. I would have liked to have seen something that more directly continued the lineage of Diablo and created a product that could compete with the current king of ARPGs… Path of Exile. Ultimately I am getting that in the form of Last Epoch, but I wanted to see what Blizzard had to offer in that genre as well.

I highly suggest that you don’t take my word for any sense of finality. This weekend you have your chance to get into the game free and try it out. Maybe it clicks in ways that I did not expound upon, and I would love to hear your thoughts after having played it yourself. I am likely going to be playing some more of it myself. I suggest you save the rush and preload it today. I think I am probably in the minority with the amount of side-eye I am throwing at the game, because for the most part everyone seems to be enjoying it.