You can disable or filter chat channels (Trade, Local) in the Social Settings menu to minimize distractions. Console Typing:

At first glance, the requirement of an "always-on" connection for Diablo IV appears logical. The game is designed as a "shared world" action-RPG (ARPG), where players encounter strangers in the open world, participate in world bosses, and engage in opt-in PvP. This MMO-lite structure necessitates a server handshake. However, this design choice is a solution to a problem Blizzard itself created. By forcing Sanctuary into a persistently online ecosystem, the developers sacrificed the very intimacy that made the earlier games terrifying. In Diablo I and II , the fear was born from solitude; the player was truly alone in a cursed cathedral. In Diablo IV , even when exploring a dark cellar, you are never truly alone. The knowledge that other players are grinding the same dungeon, that the servers are tracking your every gold drop, replaces gothic dread with the sterile anxiety of a commuter checking a train schedule.

But they are wrong for three reasons: