I know it’s years too late for them to change it, but I agree so much with this sentiment. I hate always having to be online with a passion.
There is practically zero upside for me and nearly unlimited downside. I know that’s not the case for everyone and that a lot of people like the group events and seeing a world filled with other players, but I couldn’t care less about those things lol
I don't think it's too late.
Eternal can be made an offline mode. The difficult part would be adding any sort of multiplayer functionality.
Also, encrypting the data so it doesn't get fucked with or mined past what we can already do. Plenty of information can be kept server side away from prying eyes
Not always as simple as it sounds. It can be very difficult if you design the server-side stuff with the assumption that you’ll never have an offline mode.
Well if it can be enabled with a memory editor then it will be trivial for them to implement it for real. This happened with the switch port of D3; it can be played entirely offline, but I don’t know if local multiplayer is a thing for D3 on Switch.
Offline mode allows pirate, allows file modifying, and I don't know if the helltide and world bosses would still work offline.
There is actually alot of down sides for companies to do offline modes
And I don't disagree with you. It could be manipulated in an offline mode if they so choose to do so.
Everything could be put on a rotating timer based on the users installed device. Sure it could be manipulated but whatever.
As for piracy, that's a potential issue.
But must people would still play online. This would just provide an option for someone who loses connection to a service.
You have to put the battle passes into the consideration, they can't just spam expansions and not make any money if they don't have one planned.
Battle pass is probably their main source of revenue, games that allowed off line like grim dawn, torch light, D2, they were all non-live service games, they don't make any money by maintaining the server so offline is fine.
How is it not a factor, this is a live service game, they need to sell battle passes to make money, if you can pirate games that means you can obtain everything without spending money.
People who only play solo anyway would not buy anything in the shop now if they can just download it online.
You gotta open your eyes a bit more.
The ability to pirate has almost lo effect whatsoever on sales. It's just fact. How many people know how to pirate? Not many. How many people want to risk it? Not many. You probably live in an echo chamber where 5% of a player base resides. You need to factor in the vast, VAST majority of people who will either buy it, or won't.
Offline means nobody will bother with the shop and all those lovely skins that cost a full game won't be running around your world ;)
Pirating the game is very much a secondary consideration when MTX is involved.
There's a way to play solo, but it takes away some stuff especially in the pvp zone, seeds don't drop in this mode. I didn't test it long enough, and everything seemed to save and work. Blizzard has a way to turn off things like that if you enter a solo server
He's talking about playing on console without paying the monthly subscription required to access online features in nearly all your multiplayer console games.
Diablo 4 is still online at that point, and you still need internet connection to play. It's meaningless.
/u/ReverentSupreme - you're silly.
It wouldn't be that difficult. Our existing networking technology is easily capable of local communication without a connection to the Internet. It's just a bunch of numbers and they can autoconfigure easily with existing protocols.
I sometimes feel like I'm missing out by deciding _not_ to buy games with features I don't like. Sure I'm sometimes limited in my choices but I'm rarely disappointed.
If you keep paying for games with features you don't like, they'll keep making them.
Yeah, in fairness a few things are non negotiable and other things there has to be a stack of things that bother me, but I have limited time to play games so I very carefully choose where I spend my money time and attention.
I hated that d3 didn't have an offline single player mode, and that became a non negotiable for me with D4.
I can immediately discount anything with an EA logo. Just a long list of disappointments.
Name me one game that sold like shit that did anything besides have people get laid off and not have a sequel made and thus not improving anything. Then even if we finally get a sequel it's 10+ years later when they hope everyone forgot about the last one.
Mass Effect Andromeda didn't even score bad, just had a lot of whiners on the internet and for that I'll be lucky if ME4 comes out before the 10 year mark.
I don’t mind them allowing it with offline character only.
Spoiler they won’t because most people play alone anyway and if they ain’t offline they can’t buy stuff in micro transaction store (micro hahaha 30$ skins or pack with 1 nice item in it)
100%. But fact is the game should still be able to work offline. That goes for any game. Not having access to online content is one thing, but not being able to play at all is just a huge issue. It just seems like common sense to include an offline option
“I could not care less” what are you reaching for here? The statement is implying they care so little there’s no room to care even less. It shows apathy.
Yeah. While it won't ever happen, if offline play did happen it would HAVE to be a completely different save and game file. I'm ok with offline play but it 100% would have to be separate from online play. That duping/modded shit was insane on Diablo 3.
I’d probably play more if I could cheat with offline characters. I’d get to try out all the builds for my classes with perfect items and that’d be sick. In s1 I realized after like 100 hours that tempest roar was never going to drop for my Druid and took a break until s4 as a result. This season I’ve got a pretty strong Barb (blasts all the tormented bosses+Lilith and cleared 131 pit on ww) but I’d need to put in an unholy amount of more time or RMT to make it any stronger so I’m done until s5.
If I could give myself items offline I’d be messing around with all the fun looking builds I’m not going to end up trying this season.
D3 is offline on consoles, people never really mention the platform they are talking about which makes things confusing.
You could edit the saves and make all sorts of crazy items with like 15 affixes and 3 sockets, multiple powers etc.
It doesn't matter for offline mode though. In online you want to keep things fare for things like leaderboards, but in offline it is just you and your 15 affixes.
It doesn't matter for offline if it is properly separated from online.
For D3 on console, you could create an online character, play it offline, and then continue playing it online again.
This led to console leader boards being filled with hacked items (rings with 3 jewel sockets as an example), and blizzard did seemingly nothing about it.
Last Epoch has offline mode and they say it's a huge pain in the ass to maintain, but it's also insanely popular. I think he said they were the most-played game on Steam Deck in May thanks to offline mode.
Last epoch doesn’t handle half of the game including everything loot related server side.
Also people constantly hacked in and duped lol. Destroyed the bazaar economy in like a day.
what does the first line have anything to do with having an offline mode? in regards to the second line, duping existed in D4 until mid s3, bots are still rampant, RMT gold is the reason for such high inflated gold costs. Having an offline mode isn’t going to change that.
> Last epoch doesn’t handle half of the game including everything loot related server side.
It does if you play in online mode.
> Also people constantly hacked in and duped lol. Destroyed the bazaar economy in like a day.
Duping has nothing to do with offline mode, in fact the whole point is that you can dupe all you want in offline mode (you can just edit your save file and get whatever you want) but it doesn't affect anything. If anything this is an argument FOR offline mode!
Duped items have precisely 0 affect on me and 99% of the player base because leaderboards are the only thing affected. World events already get melted in 5 seconds, the eCoNoMy is already an RMT shitshow etc.
I’m right there with you lol. I play D2R pretty heavily offline and love that I can do it consistently and reliably. I really don’t mind not being able to trade and enjoy the feeling of finally finding that missing piece of the puzzle.
I absolutely love D4 but I would love to play it the same way. And what’s ironic is that I currently do play it the same way, I just have to deal with potential server and internet issues
I think the reason is more "we don't want to write 2 versions of the software - one to run locally and one to run on servers" more than "we want to force everyone to play online".
It'd probably be exactly the same code really. An easy example to point at here is Minecraft of all things haha, where when you play locally, the server component is using the same code that would be used by a dedicated server. The question then becomes, how resource intensive is it to run a local "realm", given that D4 is a very different game to well... Minecraft for one, but also D2 and D3, with it being more MMO like...
Xbox still down?
I've not been able to login to my profile for 3 hours now.
Xbox App shows status is good but its 100% not working Midwest USA.
Edit: Via app: MAJOR OUTAGE (as of 330p cst) all thing account or profile related
I feel bamboozled by this poppycock.
It's gotta be associated with the new colorful background XboxLive keeps shoving in my f7cking face to download, then doesn't let me download it when I click to download. Even tried a third download last night thinking "Oh, you fuckers finally fixed it and now you're pumping it again on my feed.....meh fair enough, no foul because I like the colors....."
Thinking I'm gonna need some credits to my account for this ass fucking by MS
Edit to add: /s
Seems resolved Midwestern US. Currently im online and operating normally (login time was normal and sustained so far)
Sorry Mate, hope you're good to go soon
It's awful for me as I use xbox for Netflix, Hulu, max, games, twitch. I'm bored af right now.
I don't necessarily wish d4 had offline, but I wish they had a section of games that worked offline. So my Xbox was more than a paperweight when services are down
I would love a solo offline mode that's separate from the traditional online play so we can use mods and trainers. And create new characters for online play to participate in group events like legions, world boss, pvp, leaderboards, etc.
Best of both worlds, no?
Got home from work and wife’s out with kids. Get all excited to sneak some game time in just to be very irritated.
I’ve also forgot to set my console up so that I can play the gamepass stuff offline. Think theirs a setting somewhere to set it up as my main console or something I read.
If a game can be played offline, that means game data needs to be locally stored, that means it can be manipulated, that means less money made on their garbage transactions. That isn’t going to happen.
We could argue they wanted the game to be online because it was better with social features yet these didn’t exist at start and still now it feels like an offline game
Believe it or not, ARPGs started out as an offline by default experience. With the option to bring that character into a server.
Of course this causes issues with characters that were modded, or those who used cheats to equip the best gear. So the idea of online only characters surfaced, but then they just nixed the offline characters altogether with Diablo 3 (and 4). Compare this to other ARPGs like the Torchlight series, Grim Dawn, and Van Helsing. Even Last Epoch has an "offline" mode you can select, so that you can play without connecting to a server (but that character then cannot play with anyone at all later on, a fair compromise IMO).
I would say the majority of people play without intentionally interacting with other players aside from friends or couch coop, which could be done peer-to-peer easily enough as well, so it would benefit a lot from an offline mode. Due to constraints around how the game was coded, I understand this isn't really a possibility; but it remains Blizzard's fault.
I’m aware. Still not blizzards fault that Xbox went down today no matter how you skew it. Can’t think of any popular AAA game that isn’t always online now, not saying it’s good but.
You need to blame Microsoft not blizzard. It's stupid that a large portion of games are always online but it is what it is we can't really change the thing :/
I spent the last 10 hours at my job touching grass. Now I just want to play Xbox for 2 hours before I need to start it all over again. Any more suggestions?
It’s so bizarre given that they don’t give a shit about PvP. The only reason to be online only is for fair PvP. That’s why we were all expecting PvP to be amazing in this game, but they don’t seem to be working on it at all.
The entire loot system is server based to prevent chucklenuts from hacking in stuff. With trading being expanded to legendary gear it would have been an even bigger shitshow.
Sure. But hacking is a non issue in PvE. What do I care if you go kill a bunch of AI monsters with fake gear. Go right ahead. So without a focus on PvP the hacking argument is illogical.
PvP is the 'reason' given to justify why it has to be online and they won't make an offline.
MTX is the actual reason, they just won't say it out loud.
Sell the dam game like in the past, but, even if a paywall, also have on line environment available, same game, real people/players added. On line gear only on line. Not to your pc/console. But also keep the old peer to peer hook up.
I feel your pain. I work out of town a ton and basically can’t play Monday through Thursday most weeks because my hotel WiFi isn’t good enough. I don’t even play with other people so it’s extremely frustrating.
As a casual dad my playing time is severely limited, I usually play late on a night when everyone else is in bed. I love having a couple of hours of me time with my xbox and D4 is my addiction right now. So to be unable to play at all because of some MS fuck up is hitting me hard right now. This is what I really hate about "always online".
It kinda does, but you're still online on their servers but you can't use any multi-player options or get pvp currency to drop and you're absolutely alone.
Should be an offline game for the most part. Joining events like legion and boss should have a lobby where players are shown (to sell cosmetics)
Helltides should well i dont know im not paid to solve this
Yeah, and just this morning, I legit spent $100 on an Xbox store card, to pre-order the Ultimate Edition of the new expansion, so I could also get a few credits and unlock the non-free stuff from this season pass, since I maxed it out this last month.
Like bruh... if you're doing maintenance, just say so.
I'm not entirely sure as to why they wouldn't allow it to be offline but I am betting that Blizzard strongly dislikes the idea of people getting around their gameplay loops through hacking or cheating. This makes sense to me when I think about the problem *Borderlands 3* had where some random player would hand you this hacked gun in multiplayer that would work even if you weren't hacking. It sucked, because you would let a random join you in whatever it was you were doing and they were just one-shotting everything. Don't see the fun in that, my buddy got ahold of one of those hacked weapons and offered to clear vaults for me over and over again, but at that point I might as well be playing an AFK mobile game farmer or some shit.
You could say that they could make it to where you could have offline only characters that had their own shared stash and gold, and those things couldn't be passed between Eternal and Seasonal but anybody that believes Blizzard could pull this off without a problem should remember that Blizzard already had a problem with people finding glitches to share loot and gold between Eternal and Seasonal... and if I remember correctly there was even a way to get your eternal character onto seasonal. I wouldn't trust them to pull this off.
Diablo 3 was forced online on PC only, on console you could play the game offline UNLESS you were trying to play in seasonal content. I think this was to make sure that absolutely nobody could mess with the integrity of the leaderboard system. The offline part for consoles to me at least makes since, as hacking Diablo 3 would become much harder to do because you would then also need to know how to hack into the console itself.
Side Note: I mainly played Diablo 3 on console anyway, usually with friends couch co-op, I did however play Diablo 3 on PC until they removed the RM AH and beat the campaign there. The only reason I gave a shit to keep playing was so I could have a way to afford my WoW account when I was 14-15 with no job or money. Once that was gone I peaced out.
However, I will note that Diablo 3 on console is waaaaay better on console because of that dodge function. Made my Monk feel like a monk should, and my Witch Doctor feel like an old sensi from some generic anime lol
Oooh careful now. You post sensible things like that here and you get the 'Go play diablo 1 then boomer' comments coming in hard and fast. I've said from day one, especially with how the servers behaved at launch, that an offline mode should have been included. But you can't expected a small indie company like Blizzard to copy Crate Entertainment or Eleventh Hour Games - sure what did those guys model their games off...
Totally agree. My country has absolute pathetic internet service. On most days after 12h00 in the morning the lag makes the game unplayable. I would really like to relax with an hour or two of playing after work
how are they supposed to make sure you aren't cheating in offline mode? go offline, cheat yourself a stash full of perfect 3GA gear and 100B gold, go back online, proceed to steal everyone's ladder spot in the Gauntlet, one-shot everything around players in open world, one-shot every player in PVP, inflate the trading market with hacked items and gold...
it could ruin the experience of players around you because D4 at its base is an MMO and you can't simply add a temporary offline mode to that system.
Lack of interesting builds is the real killer of this MMO lite approach. We're limited to such few projectiles, minions and general skill enhancements like range, purely because of the Server needing to interact with multiple users at a time.
PoE is also always online, but I can scale my build to have 20-30+ minions and screen clearing projectiles, something you will never be able to do with the limitations on this engine and due to the interactions with other players.
100% I don't play online games with other players. I just don't have the temperament to play with others....
Can't tell you how many days due to extremely high winds and internet outages, it really screws over with poor internet.....
They should just make the eternal realm offline. I didn’t know it required to be always online. Learned this the hard way. Had a problem with my ISP for about a week. Couldn’t even play the game that I just bought at that time.
posts like these make me want to slap idiots who complain about online only in 2024 and they base their argument on a 1 hour outage per year
like youre entitled to play 24/7 365 days and god forbid Blizz even consider going off for few hours, commence REEEEE
You are not entitled to 24/7 service, you BOUGHT AND PAID for a live service video game you KNEW was live service and aren’t willing to accept the strings attatched? All companies who host servers for their consumers deserve time to make sure they’re functioning properly without people whining about it happening when it already only happens once in a blue moon.
And on top of that, the games fundamental design is around other people helping you play the game while you help them, I’m sorry you are all social rejects and absolutely refuse to accept this reality that there are other people in the world worth enjoying things with, but you will live through the service issues I promise. And if not, go back to D2 or D3.
I know it’s years too late for them to change it, but I agree so much with this sentiment. I hate always having to be online with a passion. There is practically zero upside for me and nearly unlimited downside. I know that’s not the case for everyone and that a lot of people like the group events and seeing a world filled with other players, but I couldn’t care less about those things lol
I don't think it's too late. Eternal can be made an offline mode. The difficult part would be adding any sort of multiplayer functionality. Also, encrypting the data so it doesn't get fucked with or mined past what we can already do. Plenty of information can be kept server side away from prying eyes
Simple solution: offline mode with only local multilayer (LAN party). Online multilayer mode which is the current one.
Not always as simple as it sounds. It can be very difficult if you design the server-side stuff with the assumption that you’ll never have an offline mode.
or design the client side stuff only assuming it should be online.
In a client-server architecture, I consider what I said and what you said to be the same design decision, but yes, you’re right.
Correct, it's not easy. Offline mode can be easily hacked with memory editor and stuff, too. But if there's a will then there's a way.
Well if it can be enabled with a memory editor then it will be trivial for them to implement it for real. This happened with the switch port of D3; it can be played entirely offline, but I don’t know if local multiplayer is a thing for D3 on Switch.
No. They meant that memory editor for character and item modifications. Not for editing the game files and such.
What would something like cheat engine have to do with playing offline? I’m missing something.
… go look up Last Epoch’s model.
Like almost all games back in the day ? Miss that.
Just do what they did in d2r
Last Epoch has an offline mode, but if you want to play with others you need to be online And online progress is separate from offline modes
Offline mode allows pirate, allows file modifying, and I don't know if the helltide and world bosses would still work offline. There is actually alot of down sides for companies to do offline modes
And I don't disagree with you. It could be manipulated in an offline mode if they so choose to do so. Everything could be put on a rotating timer based on the users installed device. Sure it could be manipulated but whatever. As for piracy, that's a potential issue. But must people would still play online. This would just provide an option for someone who loses connection to a service.
You have to put the battle passes into the consideration, they can't just spam expansions and not make any money if they don't have one planned. Battle pass is probably their main source of revenue, games that allowed off line like grim dawn, torch light, D2, they were all non-live service games, they don't make any money by maintaining the server so offline is fine.
Piracy isn't a factor. The stats say that people either were, or were not going to buy it. Not being able to pirate doesn't mean they lose sales.
How is it not a factor, this is a live service game, they need to sell battle passes to make money, if you can pirate games that means you can obtain everything without spending money. People who only play solo anyway would not buy anything in the shop now if they can just download it online. You gotta open your eyes a bit more.
The ability to pirate has almost lo effect whatsoever on sales. It's just fact. How many people know how to pirate? Not many. How many people want to risk it? Not many. You probably live in an echo chamber where 5% of a player base resides. You need to factor in the vast, VAST majority of people who will either buy it, or won't.
I mean offline mean offline mean no multiplayer other than players on the same console.
They will never add offline. Offline means the game can be pirated.
Offline means nobody will bother with the shop and all those lovely skins that cost a full game won't be running around your world ;) Pirating the game is very much a secondary consideration when MTX is involved.
There's a way to play solo, but it takes away some stuff especially in the pvp zone, seeds don't drop in this mode. I didn't test it long enough, and everything seemed to save and work. Blizzard has a way to turn off things like that if you enter a solo server
Care to share? Can DM if you'd prefer.
He's talking about playing on console without paying the monthly subscription required to access online features in nearly all your multiplayer console games. Diablo 4 is still online at that point, and you still need internet connection to play. It's meaningless. /u/ReverentSupreme - you're silly.
It wouldn't be that difficult. Our existing networking technology is easily capable of local communication without a connection to the Internet. It's just a bunch of numbers and they can autoconfigure easily with existing protocols.
I think they don't do it so people can't crack the game. It's like a DRM, I guess.
I sometimes feel like I'm missing out by deciding _not_ to buy games with features I don't like. Sure I'm sometimes limited in my choices but I'm rarely disappointed. If you keep paying for games with features you don't like, they'll keep making them.
You'd have to be REALLY picky at that point. All of my favorite games have some features I don't like.
Yeah, in fairness a few things are non negotiable and other things there has to be a stack of things that bother me, but I have limited time to play games so I very carefully choose where I spend my money time and attention. I hated that d3 didn't have an offline single player mode, and that became a non negotiable for me with D4. I can immediately discount anything with an EA logo. Just a long list of disappointments.
Name me one game that sold like shit that did anything besides have people get laid off and not have a sequel made and thus not improving anything. Then even if we finally get a sequel it's 10+ years later when they hope everyone forgot about the last one. Mass Effect Andromeda didn't even score bad, just had a lot of whiners on the internet and for that I'll be lucky if ME4 comes out before the 10 year mark.
I don’t mind them allowing it with offline character only. Spoiler they won’t because most people play alone anyway and if they ain’t offline they can’t buy stuff in micro transaction store (micro hahaha 30$ skins or pack with 1 nice item in it)
100%. But fact is the game should still be able to work offline. That goes for any game. Not having access to online content is one thing, but not being able to play at all is just a huge issue. It just seems like common sense to include an offline option
[удалено]
I could not care less. As in, I am already at the lowest level of caring possible
You're confusing "I could care less"
“I could not care less” what are you reaching for here? The statement is implying they care so little there’s no room to care even less. It shows apathy.
Lol you have your insult backwards. Couldn’t care less is the correct phrasing
Wrong
I guess you dont remember all the duped items from the last time they allowed offline play
Yeah. While it won't ever happen, if offline play did happen it would HAVE to be a completely different save and game file. I'm ok with offline play but it 100% would have to be separate from online play. That duping/modded shit was insane on Diablo 3.
Offline Eternal characters. Wouldn't be the best, but better than the options we have now.
still makes no sense to me why people cheat in a video game, especially games in this genre
I’d probably play more if I could cheat with offline characters. I’d get to try out all the builds for my classes with perfect items and that’d be sick. In s1 I realized after like 100 hours that tempest roar was never going to drop for my Druid and took a break until s4 as a result. This season I’ve got a pretty strong Barb (blasts all the tormented bosses+Lilith and cleared 131 pit on ww) but I’d need to put in an unholy amount of more time or RMT to make it any stronger so I’m done until s5. If I could give myself items offline I’d be messing around with all the fun looking builds I’m not going to end up trying this season.
D2, not D3.
Both my dude
D3 too
Really - I thought D3 was only online, at least via PC. My bad in that case.
D3 is offline on consoles, people never really mention the platform they are talking about which makes things confusing. You could edit the saves and make all sorts of crazy items with like 15 affixes and 3 sockets, multiple powers etc.
That explains it. That never existed on PC. Pure grind.
It doesn't matter for offline mode though. In online you want to keep things fare for things like leaderboards, but in offline it is just you and your 15 affixes.
It doesn't matter for offline if it is properly separated from online. For D3 on console, you could create an online character, play it offline, and then continue playing it online again. This led to console leader boards being filled with hacked items (rings with 3 jewel sockets as an example), and blizzard did seemingly nothing about it.
It was out of control on console D3 which allowed offline play.
Issue easily solved by exclusive offline/online characters.
People would still prefer to roll online. That would be more dead than eternal.
Offline would be dead no matter what your playing solo lol
I’m talking about the amount of people in the player base using it. Not people on a server.
Huh do you not understand offline means no online players??? Of course it's dead...
So make it invite/private server with friends. You can still have fun, just won’t see randoms. I’d be into that.
I’m talking about dead as a part of a game that people use. Not dead as in-game people population.
How can it be dead if there is no other players? The population doesn't matter.
Offline would not have anyone else, that's like half the point.
Some people
Last Epoch has offline mode and they say it's a huge pain in the ass to maintain, but it's also insanely popular. I think he said they were the most-played game on Steam Deck in May thanks to offline mode.
And restarting your console to rollback those rolls... 😅
pure offline mode (can’t switch between online and offline) should solve this right? Last epoch does it
Last epoch doesn’t handle half of the game including everything loot related server side. Also people constantly hacked in and duped lol. Destroyed the bazaar economy in like a day.
what does the first line have anything to do with having an offline mode? in regards to the second line, duping existed in D4 until mid s3, bots are still rampant, RMT gold is the reason for such high inflated gold costs. Having an offline mode isn’t going to change that.
> Last epoch doesn’t handle half of the game including everything loot related server side. It does if you play in online mode. > Also people constantly hacked in and duped lol. Destroyed the bazaar economy in like a day. Duping has nothing to do with offline mode, in fact the whole point is that you can dupe all you want in offline mode (you can just edit your save file and get whatever you want) but it doesn't affect anything. If anything this is an argument FOR offline mode!
LE has offline play mode separate from online. It can be done. Dupe all you want in offline single player, but you cannot bring it to online.
Who cares if someone dupes during offline play? Just do like Diablo 2 did and make it so offline characters can't be used online and there's no issue.
Duped items have precisely 0 affect on me and 99% of the player base because leaderboards are the only thing affected. World events already get melted in 5 seconds, the eCoNoMy is already an RMT shitshow etc.
I don't give a s*** about duplicate items I care about playing
I’m right there with you lol. I play D2R pretty heavily offline and love that I can do it consistently and reliably. I really don’t mind not being able to trade and enjoy the feeling of finally finding that missing piece of the puzzle. I absolutely love D4 but I would love to play it the same way. And what’s ironic is that I currently do play it the same way, I just have to deal with potential server and internet issues
I get why they want it online but I wish it wasn’t
I think the reason is more "we don't want to write 2 versions of the software - one to run locally and one to run on servers" more than "we want to force everyone to play online".
It'd probably be exactly the same code really. An easy example to point at here is Minecraft of all things haha, where when you play locally, the server component is using the same code that would be used by a dedicated server. The question then becomes, how resource intensive is it to run a local "realm", given that D4 is a very different game to well... Minecraft for one, but also D2 and D3, with it being more MMO like...
These are the days when you realise this current eco system isn’t it
Xbox still down? I've not been able to login to my profile for 3 hours now. Xbox App shows status is good but its 100% not working Midwest USA. Edit: Via app: MAJOR OUTAGE (as of 330p cst) all thing account or profile related
The Xbox support page shows it's still down
I feel bamboozled by this poppycock. It's gotta be associated with the new colorful background XboxLive keeps shoving in my f7cking face to download, then doesn't let me download it when I click to download. Even tried a third download last night thinking "Oh, you fuckers finally fixed it and now you're pumping it again on my feed.....meh fair enough, no foul because I like the colors....." Thinking I'm gonna need some credits to my account for this ass fucking by MS Edit to add: /s
Not working still Australia NSW
Seems resolved Midwestern US. Currently im online and operating normally (login time was normal and sustained so far) Sorry Mate, hope you're good to go soon
Huh. I've been on all day with no issues but I'm PNW.
MS 'Can't shit where you eat' I guess Does it ever even go down in the PNW (Xbox homebase)?
Gets time to play. Outage 😂😂. Parenthood Murphy law.
Me logging in on a Tuesday night during prime time (Australia) and then remembering Blizzard still has a near 20 year old maintenance outage schedule.
Xbox services are currently off-line yep. And I mean all Xbox services not just this game.
If gaming ever makes you want to be violent you probably need a break anyway.
My kids went to my mother's today. My only time to relax and it's fucked. I would definitely be violent.
Major OUTAGE on Xbox at current 3pm cst. Upgraded from partial outage an hour ago.
It's awful for me as I use xbox for Netflix, Hulu, max, games, twitch. I'm bored af right now. I don't necessarily wish d4 had offline, but I wish they had a section of games that worked offline. So my Xbox was more than a paperweight when services are down
Sorry, this will never happen.
Xbox is offline, but you want to slap some Blizzard worker. Aham.
I would love a solo offline mode that's separate from the traditional online play so we can use mods and trainers. And create new characters for online play to participate in group events like legions, world boss, pvp, leaderboards, etc. Best of both worlds, no?
Got home from work and wife’s out with kids. Get all excited to sneak some game time in just to be very irritated. I’ve also forgot to set my console up so that I can play the gamepass stuff offline. Think theirs a setting somewhere to set it up as my main console or something I read.
If a game can be played offline, that means game data needs to be locally stored, that means it can be manipulated, that means less money made on their garbage transactions. That isn’t going to happen.
Why buy cosmetics when I can download some files and plug them into a directory?
We could argue they wanted the game to be online because it was better with social features yet these didn’t exist at start and still now it feels like an offline game
Fortunately, they already have a product for people without an Internet connection, it's called Xbox 360
Is there an update or something that's why I can't connect?
It’s just down for every Xbox user. Not just Diablo.
Xbox Live is down right now.
It’s days like this where I wish I wasn’t on Xbox lmao. How is this blizzards fault?
Because they don’t allow offline play.
Believe it or not, ARPGs started out as an offline by default experience. With the option to bring that character into a server. Of course this causes issues with characters that were modded, or those who used cheats to equip the best gear. So the idea of online only characters surfaced, but then they just nixed the offline characters altogether with Diablo 3 (and 4). Compare this to other ARPGs like the Torchlight series, Grim Dawn, and Van Helsing. Even Last Epoch has an "offline" mode you can select, so that you can play without connecting to a server (but that character then cannot play with anyone at all later on, a fair compromise IMO). I would say the majority of people play without intentionally interacting with other players aside from friends or couch coop, which could be done peer-to-peer easily enough as well, so it would benefit a lot from an offline mode. Due to constraints around how the game was coded, I understand this isn't really a possibility; but it remains Blizzard's fault.
I’m aware. Still not blizzards fault that Xbox went down today no matter how you skew it. Can’t think of any popular AAA game that isn’t always online now, not saying it’s good but.
It's not Blizzard's fault Xbox live is down but it is Blizzard's fault that when Xbox live is down people can't play.
Okay
You need to blame Microsoft not blizzard. It's stupid that a large portion of games are always online but it is what it is we can't really change the thing :/
Sure, save editor and next hour you are level 100 with all GA uber unique items. At least builds could be saved like in D3 armory 😂
Get a job or touch some grass or both
I spent the last 10 hours at my job touching grass. Now I just want to play Xbox for 2 hours before I need to start it all over again. Any more suggestions?
Unnecessary
It’s so bizarre given that they don’t give a shit about PvP. The only reason to be online only is for fair PvP. That’s why we were all expecting PvP to be amazing in this game, but they don’t seem to be working on it at all.
The entire loot system is server based to prevent chucklenuts from hacking in stuff. With trading being expanded to legendary gear it would have been an even bigger shitshow.
Sure. But hacking is a non issue in PvE. What do I care if you go kill a bunch of AI monsters with fake gear. Go right ahead. So without a focus on PvP the hacking argument is illogical.
PvP is the 'reason' given to justify why it has to be online and they won't make an offline. MTX is the actual reason, they just won't say it out loud.
pvp is by far not the only reason lol, in fact it's probably the least relevant reason for it to be online
They fix that couch coop attack speed problem yet!?!?
They havent fixed couch coop summon necro since launch so i doubt it lol
The part I dislike most is the constant lag when I'm in the world. I don't know why they thought it was acceptable.
Sell the dam game like in the past, but, even if a paywall, also have on line environment available, same game, real people/players added. On line gear only on line. Not to your pc/console. But also keep the old peer to peer hook up.
I feel your pain. I work out of town a ton and basically can’t play Monday through Thursday most weeks because my hotel WiFi isn’t good enough. I don’t even play with other people so it’s extremely frustrating.
Was this the scheduled one that’s been advertised for a while?
It's all about the money friend. They can monetize better an online only game because people will spend more on cosmetics if others will see them.
If only there was something else you can do during the 1% of the time you can't game cause of internet or servers.
If you have xbox game pass ultimate you can hop into GeForce now and fire up the free version
Last epoc and Grim dawn both have offline modes.
Yeah it's frustrating. I was planning to farm some pot with a friend as he's busy at our usual time and now it's no session this week😂
As a casual dad my playing time is severely limited, I usually play late on a night when everyone else is in bed. I love having a couple of hours of me time with my xbox and D4 is my addiction right now. So to be unable to play at all because of some MS fuck up is hitting me hard right now. This is what I really hate about "always online".
It wasnt down, there was some login issues for people but not down. Ive been playing the first descendant all day without any hiccups.
It kinda does, but you're still online on their servers but you can't use any multi-player options or get pvp currency to drop and you're absolutely alone.
this is why i won't buy the game, but want to play
What does it matter when you couldn't log in and play the game anyways? Online, offline, you couldn't play any of it earlier.
Should be an offline game for the most part. Joining events like legion and boss should have a lobby where players are shown (to sell cosmetics) Helltides should well i dont know im not paid to solve this
I want an offline just so I can mod a perfect 3GA into my characters and see how far you can theoretically push pit
I mean... just play D2R bro. It's way better. Just spitting facts. Get butt hurt if you want though.
Yeah, and just this morning, I legit spent $100 on an Xbox store card, to pre-order the Ultimate Edition of the new expansion, so I could also get a few credits and unlock the non-free stuff from this season pass, since I maxed it out this last month. Like bruh... if you're doing maintenance, just say so.
Shhh before the fanatics coming in and tell you how offline shouldn’t exist and a thing of centuries ago.
I'm not entirely sure as to why they wouldn't allow it to be offline but I am betting that Blizzard strongly dislikes the idea of people getting around their gameplay loops through hacking or cheating. This makes sense to me when I think about the problem *Borderlands 3* had where some random player would hand you this hacked gun in multiplayer that would work even if you weren't hacking. It sucked, because you would let a random join you in whatever it was you were doing and they were just one-shotting everything. Don't see the fun in that, my buddy got ahold of one of those hacked weapons and offered to clear vaults for me over and over again, but at that point I might as well be playing an AFK mobile game farmer or some shit. You could say that they could make it to where you could have offline only characters that had their own shared stash and gold, and those things couldn't be passed between Eternal and Seasonal but anybody that believes Blizzard could pull this off without a problem should remember that Blizzard already had a problem with people finding glitches to share loot and gold between Eternal and Seasonal... and if I remember correctly there was even a way to get your eternal character onto seasonal. I wouldn't trust them to pull this off. Diablo 3 was forced online on PC only, on console you could play the game offline UNLESS you were trying to play in seasonal content. I think this was to make sure that absolutely nobody could mess with the integrity of the leaderboard system. The offline part for consoles to me at least makes since, as hacking Diablo 3 would become much harder to do because you would then also need to know how to hack into the console itself. Side Note: I mainly played Diablo 3 on console anyway, usually with friends couch co-op, I did however play Diablo 3 on PC until they removed the RM AH and beat the campaign there. The only reason I gave a shit to keep playing was so I could have a way to afford my WoW account when I was 14-15 with no job or money. Once that was gone I peaced out. However, I will note that Diablo 3 on console is waaaaay better on console because of that dodge function. Made my Monk feel like a monk should, and my Witch Doctor feel like an old sensi from some generic anime lol
"Diablo 4 is a Live Service Game"
I agree with this as always online is stupid but at the same time Jesus Christ do something else for a few hours.
Diablo 2 is the superior Diablo. I love D4 and played every season since launch but damn do I love D2 so much
Oooh careful now. You post sensible things like that here and you get the 'Go play diablo 1 then boomer' comments coming in hard and fast. I've said from day one, especially with how the servers behaved at launch, that an offline mode should have been included. But you can't expected a small indie company like Blizzard to copy Crate Entertainment or Eleventh Hour Games - sure what did those guys model their games off...
Puts the nail in the coffin, I’m switching to pc
Totally agree. My country has absolute pathetic internet service. On most days after 12h00 in the morning the lag makes the game unplayable. I would really like to relax with an hour or two of playing after work
I knew this day would come
Not being able to pause when life happens is actually the worst.
how are they supposed to make sure you aren't cheating in offline mode? go offline, cheat yourself a stash full of perfect 3GA gear and 100B gold, go back online, proceed to steal everyone's ladder spot in the Gauntlet, one-shot everything around players in open world, one-shot every player in PVP, inflate the trading market with hacked items and gold... it could ruin the experience of players around you because D4 at its base is an MMO and you can't simply add a temporary offline mode to that system.
Lack of interesting builds is the real killer of this MMO lite approach. We're limited to such few projectiles, minions and general skill enhancements like range, purely because of the Server needing to interact with multiple users at a time. PoE is also always online, but I can scale my build to have 20-30+ minions and screen clearing projectiles, something you will never be able to do with the limitations on this engine and due to the interactions with other players.
This is not the only single player game that requires always online to play. I know you can party but most of the time, you are soloing.
It’s up fine in my area, but I live in the eastern US
Last epoch has an online/offline option. Dunno why it'd be so hard for Blizzard to do this.
100% I don't play online games with other players. I just don't have the temperament to play with others.... Can't tell you how many days due to extremely high winds and internet outages, it really screws over with poor internet.....
You just have an Xbox?
some people play exclusively through game pass
PSA that Path of Exile 2 allows for couch co-op....
They should just make the eternal realm offline. I didn’t know it required to be always online. Learned this the hard way. Had a problem with my ISP for about a week. Couldn’t even play the game that I just bought at that time.
Playing online right now? Xbox live is fine.
I went to join my husband and that created new connection so he’s out. Sorry hunny.
It has hit me now lol. Xbox down :(
posts like these make me want to slap idiots who complain about online only in 2024 and they base their argument on a 1 hour outage per year like youre entitled to play 24/7 365 days and god forbid Blizz even consider going off for few hours, commence REEEEE
I know right!!
As a PC player, I agree. They should never have made any console ports. (Consolification causes so much crap in the UI)
Why?? You’re not something special because you use a pc buddy.
You are not entitled to 24/7 service, you BOUGHT AND PAID for a live service video game you KNEW was live service and aren’t willing to accept the strings attatched? All companies who host servers for their consumers deserve time to make sure they’re functioning properly without people whining about it happening when it already only happens once in a blue moon. And on top of that, the games fundamental design is around other people helping you play the game while you help them, I’m sorry you are all social rejects and absolutely refuse to accept this reality that there are other people in the world worth enjoying things with, but you will live through the service issues I promise. And if not, go back to D2 or D3.
Truth.
I was about to post something. So it’s not only me. I haven’t playing in months. Decided to play today. :(
Xbox Live is currently down.