Diablo 4’s party scaling is exceptional, but it’s done dirty by the lack of LFG system

It may sound strange, but with so many cooperative games like we have these days, there’s still no standard for what you can expect in terms of level scaling or player progression when you join a friend’s game. Some games bring you down to host level, and others apply a debuff percentage to your power so you’re not shooting everything in sight.

Both solutions are… fine, as long as they are clearly communicated to the player. But there is a much better, and dare I say perfect, solution that Diablo 4’s co-op is based on.

Diablo 4 is, to all intents and purposes, an MMO. It is an always online game on all platforms where everyone connects to the server centers around the world to play. Meeting other players in cities and in the open world is common and expected.

Only certain parts of the game are actually instantiated, such as story missions, dungeons, and basements. These server instances can certainly accommodate more than a single player, but only those in a group together. This is how the cooperative happens; You invite a friend to your party and both of you can participate in story quests, side quests, dungeons, etc.

That’s all pretty standard, but what’s worth praising here is how Blizzard chose to design the level scaling. See, it’s never a guarantee that all players in a single group will have the same levels, or even be within similar thresholds.

Instead of artificially dominating low-level players or weakening higher-level players, Diablo 4 treats each player as they would in their own game. It does this by making sure that all the mobs you fight are at your level, without affecting the level of the mobs other players in the party are fighting.

If you are level 15, it will take you the same time to kill an enemy in a group as it will in your own game. Likewise, your level 50 friend won’t be able to suddenly clear an entire area before you’ve charged up. His mobs will also be just as challenging as they are used to at that level.

That’s a brilliant decision, as it takes all the friction out of the process and saves players unnecessary calculations of who plays better with whom, or which friend is too high/low level to join this particular group.

You click join a party and you just show up in your friend’s world and continue playing like before, no fuss or issues. There are, however, some caveats to this.

First, a low level player will still have problems if they venture into an area of ​​the map with a minimum level that exceeds their own. This is the same thing that happens if you try to do that in a solo game, of course, but the idea here is that co-op won’t save you. Certain dungeons also have level requirements, so it’s not a good idea to bring a lower level player.

When it comes to main story progression, all players progress; but only if they are all at the same search point. If a player is behind, he will lose story progress and XP until he reaches the same point as the host.

Similarly, if you’re ahead of the host, you won’t get double rewards for quests you’ve already completed in your own game. That’s why you should try to have the player with the least story progression as the host.

The good news is that the game clearly communicates all of these exceptions, both when you join a party and when the quest reward banner appears.

All that work, however, only serves people who already know each other. Diablo 4 doesn’t have a way for solo players to find groups to play with, and there’s no ability to open a dungeon instance to the public.

The two features are pretty standard in most MMOs, something Diablo 4 clearly wants to be. The best way to do this right now, besides going to the LFG/Reddit/Discords forums, is to stand near the entrance to a dungeon and hope you’ll run into another player trying to do the same thing. If one of you teams up with the other, you can cooperate all you want until you part ways.

Needless to say, this is a cumbersome and time-consuming way to do things. The omission of the feature has been one of the most discussed topics in Diablo’s Reddit communities. Since launch, threads lamenting the lack biogas they have been appearing daily.

This is compounded by the lack of global chat, where players can LFG the old-fashioned way, or any sort of proximity voice chat. Both of course are not desirable for players who want to play solo, but could still be options for others who want them.

Diablo 4’s first major patch is expected around the release of the first season, which is said to target mid-to-late July. Blizzard didn’t say if we can expect anything in particular to be added besides the mandatory battle pass, but the developer has indicated earlier that quality of life updates will be part of the game’s ongoing support.

It’s a shame that with such an unprecedented release, most players will likely be done with the game before the first season arrives, with many missing out on what could have been a friendlier co-op experience for those who aren’t part of it. ten different Discord servers.