Diablo 4 dev sheds light on campaign co-op progression, party scaling

Here’s how Diablo 4 changes when you squad up.

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What you need to know

While Diablo 4 is designed to be a blast to play all on your own, the chaotic action RPG is arguably even more fun when you play it with your friends. However, something fans have been confused about for a while now is how campaign progress works when playing in co-op. To clear things up, Diablo General Manager Rod Fergusson has shared a full clarification on Twitter.

“The host of the party owns the state of the world. If you’re aligned (aka at the same point in the quest line) then you all progress,” Fergussonexplained. “If there is a misalignment (like you invited someone new half way through) then they won’t get the story quest progress/xp until they catch up.”

This means that if you’re part of aDiablo 4 co-opgroup that doesn’talwaysplay together, you should let the player with the least progress be the host of the session. That way, they’ll be able to make progress on quests and earn experience from them, allowing them to catch up to everyone else. Once everyone in the party has reached the same point, everyone will get progress regardless of who’s hosting.

So if you’re playing with a group that’s not committed to playing together, it’s always best to have the player with the least amount of progress to be the host.May 15, 2023

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Fergusson also discussed party scaling inDiablo 4, which is a system that makes it easier for players at different levels to team up. While each party member will see the same enemies, their health and damage will scale individually for everyone. This not only ensures that low-level players won’t suddenly start facing extremely powerful monsters when a more experienced friend joins them, but it also guarantees that high-level players won’t completely curbstomp every foe in sight if they’re helping a buddy make progress, too.

“And one of my favorite features is the fact that the game scales individually for players so questline progress aside, you can have a level 1 and a level 30 playing together and having fun because the game scales for them and the new player doesn’t have to hide in the corner,” Fergusson said.

TheDiablo 4 Server Slam betawas held last weekend, giving fans one more chance to try out Blizzard’s upcoming dungeon crawler ahead of its scheduled June 6 release. While it was active, players could play through the Prologue and Act 1 of Diablo 4’s campaign, and also challenge the mighty Ashava the Pestilent world boss.

Diablo 4 is slated to fully launch on June 6, 2023 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, Windows PC, PS5, and PS4. It has the potential to be one of thebest Xbox gamesfor fans of dungeon crawlers and hack-and-slash combat, and we can’t wait to jump in when it arrives.

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Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he’s been an avid fan since childhood. He’s been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you’ll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he’s not writing or gaming, there’s a good chance he’s either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once.Follow him on X(Twitter).