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I thought of hell also, but I like the idea of a swampland or the dreadlands better. A witchdoctor skill would also be really sweet, although who's to say that this skill will belong to the WD and not the 5th, unannounced class?

I'm wondering if this game is even going to take us back into hell. I personally felt like act IV in D2 was a little goofy (though still creepy). I think in this game, I'd find it much scarier if diablo were stalking the earth.

In order to add a horror / suspense aspect to the game, as well as to give the players more of a feeling of diablo's presence and a sense of impending evil, Diablo could appear in the storyline at certain points to kill some people or destroy something or acquire some mystical item he needs to destroy the world or something scary. I'm sort of thinking of Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, if you've seen that one.

In the interest of making Diablo more frightening, maybe the tar effect is actually a spell used by diablo?

Heh, well some like it, it's not for me. Obviously Blizzard didn't like it too much when it was forced anyway, remember "this game will end in 90 seconds?" That sure didn't make a return in LoD.

Sorry, this is totally off topic, but I totally forgot about 'the game will end in 90 seconds' after diablo died. It was a pretty good griefing mechanic. I didn't use it a lot, but a few times I'd join an open game where a bunch of lowbies were trying to work their way through the catacombs and kill andariel. I could quickly kill diablo, and end the game while they were still in the middle of their quest. Pretty lame, I know.

This thread is a really great compromise between people who like the D2 pvp system and those who don't. If it works, there is pks for those who want it, and none for those who don't. There is plenty of room for improvement over the D2 pvp system, but as flawed as it may be, the fundamental problem is still the griefers. As KaylinL pointed out in the original post, even if pvp were removed entirely, these people would still be around, and there will most likely be a variety of ways for them to ruin an open game.

Anyways, nice thread, very thought provoking.

I have to say, I am personally imagining a very large arena (if its used for pvp then I definitely wouldn't consider that a waste of space) with multiple entrances. There could be random events that take place in the arena. For example, like in the movie gladiator when the lions are unleashed from their cages beneath the sand. Perhaps an extra powerful version of those sand crawly monsters could pop up randomly (if the arena has a sand-looking floor, as I tend to imagine). Or the arena could have traps that pop up randomly. Additionally, in a duel game with many players, it might be possible to add objectives. For example, a king of the hill style duel involving multiple players. You earn points for staying alive in the arena and killing other players. Whoever stays alive the longest / kills the most players is declared 'king of the hill' or whatever. I remember an arena in WoW that has a chest in the middle. Whoever is strong enough / lucky enough to open it gets to keep its contents as a prize. I think there are lots of exciting and random possibilities for an arena, many of which would be impossible to implement in open world pvp.

If the word 'arena' makes you uncomfortable, then maybe instead of a coliseum style arena, there will be a 'battlefield,' a big chunk of randomly generated map (like the blood moor) where pvp happens.

I'm a huge fan of pvp in D2, in all its flawed glory, but I have to admit I'm excited that blizzard is looking at reworking pvp for D3. There are lots of possibilities that would be fun, and add much more to the experience than just killing other players.

Quote from "dorgeismydog" »

I never said there wernet PvM guides, but next to noone uses them. You have to be really lowly to go for a PvM build guide, those are most things that are figured for yourself, the reason PvP guides are used are to be the best, how do you prove your the best PvM? Most people dont use PvM guides, so their build are usually more authentic than PvP

Didn't realize we were debating build authenticity!

Maybe no one uses the PvM guides 'cuz no one needs 'em. After all, as you said, 'You have to be really lowly to go for a PvM build guide, those are most things that are figured for yourself.' Are you supporting the idea that PvP is more challenging? It sure seems like it. What are we even arguing about?

Quote from "dorgeismydog" »

Which all of those are non-essential, and arent actually skills so are still not neccessary. Agreed wasting such skills when not really needed can degenerate on what you really need unless you get it from big-set bonuses(sets and runewords).

Not really sure what any of this is supposed to mean, but I'm glad we agree on something apparently?

And the point is, any PvP that is built to do PvP can pull damage to handle PvM like nothing, so it isnt skill, its built.

Yes, that was along the lines of the point I was trying to make. Glad we agree. In D2, if you can deal lots of damage to players, then you can also do lots of damage to monsters. The game uses the same mechanics to calculate damage either way.

PvP is definitely more of a challenge. All of my characters were capable of standing there and tanking monsters for extended periods of time (max resists, max damage reduce, plenty of hit points, and a nice block rate if applicable.) It didn't really matter if I stood there like an idiot while fighting monsters, most of them couldn't really hurt me.

You can't really get away with doing that when fighting other players, even with all the best gear (try it!) You have to know when / where to move in order to avoid your enemies attacks while still being able to launch your own attacks. Call it whatever you want but I know some people who would consider this to be 'skill.'

PvM requires a completly build with emphasis on other aspects if you want a true PvM and not PvE. There is diff between Pve and PvM its the PvM that require more skill cuz your building them to be master of one task, not guide-built tank of everything. True a tank of everything is probably stronger than a true PvM, bu were talking skill to create one, and the truth is, the guides are there to build PvP and reading directions isnt a skill

I'm talking like PvE = killing monsters and PvP = Killing players. Either way you gotta deal damage to make them die while mitigating or avoiding their attacks so you stay alive. These are basic game mechanics.

If you're concerned about guides, I'm sure there are guides to PvP, PvE, and MF alike. If you're turning up fewer guides to PvE, that is probably because PvE is less of a challenge, and they are not as needed.

Quote from "dorgeismydog" »

Ive ben off for awhile, and seth ebats me to the first skill I think of, but im a necro man, thats most of my builds lol. He proved it, and I proved it earlier. If you can follow instructions, you can make a PvP king. PvE requires more, resistances, dmg increase, more health and mana for some skills, face it, most PvP now, were made by a guide so 1-3 of a skill automatically kills somone. Thats not skill, I can follow instructions from a website too.

Actually, I was asking for a buff that works in pvp but NOT in pve. As Seth pointed out, life steal works in pve and NOT pvp, so it falls in the category with abilities like magic find, gold find, and plus to experience gained... A pvp character that happens to have life steal will be that much more effective in pve since life steal is such a useful ability. Same thing goes for magic find, if you happen to think its useful for pve purposes.

You're saying PvE requires more resistances, damage, health, mana and skill than pvp? Have you ever played pvp? The monsters are designed by blizzard specifically for you to kill them, and they have pretty basic AI. A good pvp character has been designed specifically to kill YOU, and its controlled by another player. Resistances, damage, health, and mana are needed both for pvp and pve... You haven't really proven anything or provided any evidence of anything in particular.

You CAN follow a guide to build a pvp character, but nothing can teach how to react to the variety of situations that present themselves in pvp. There is no 3 step plan to handle every situation in pvp. Players are much less predictable than monsters, especially if you've played through the game a few times. Pvp is definitely more of a challenge, if you deny that, then I suggest you try it.

Quote from "nickm83" »

The point was there are a lot of builds that rock at pvp and suck at pvm.

An foh'er as an example, is a viable pvp build either as a pure foh'er, or a whole bunch of possible foh variants. However you don't see foh'ers pvming because its just not worth the time/effort. You can hit 1 guy at a time for 18k a hit, or just make a hammerdin and spam 18k hammers all over the place that hit multiple targets.

A wwsin, whirlwind assassin since you probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about, is an assassin that uses a chaos claw to be able to use whirlwind like a barb. You will never see one used as an mf'er. For the amount of time it takes them to kill things, and how expensive it is to repair a chaos claw, its just not worth it. However, a wwsin is a very powerful pvp'er with a lot of good variants of it as well. If you want to make a pvm sin a trapper is going to be far more efficient.

Sure high end gear is high end gear for the most part, but its a long stretch to say a great pvp character is going to pwn at pvm, as most pvp characters don't do any pvm'ing other then leech baal runs to level. If you had much experience at pvp'ing you'd also know there are a lot more variety of builds played then pvm, which is mainly dominated by hammerdins, light sorcs, trappers, and summoners.

If that is the case, then you have to agree that the players who make those builds have no trouble with pve.

The pvp characters I mostly remember are pretty typical. WW barb (what was the rare lance everybody used, spire of something?) Amazon shooting off guided arrows (doom loom!). If I remember, guided arrow was required in order to get multi shot, which was the ultimate amazon pve ability. You might not think this ability is any good any more, but sorceresses used to pvp with frozen orb, which I also thought was the best pve ability.

After synergies, there were a few changes. I made a trap assassin, and I've probably killed more players with that character than any other character I've ever made. Did they get nerfed or something? I shut down a lot of duel games and otherwise with that character between traps and firebombs. The enigma didn't hurt, either. I even went into an 'uber diablo' game because I wanted to get annihilus, hostiled all seven other players and killed them at the same time I took on uber diablo just so I was the only one who had a chance to grab the charm. Another character that was popular around the same time I think was the druid with, what is it, hurricane up and enigma? I had a fire sorc, a lightning sorc, and even the old archetypal frozen orb / thunderstorm combo which was still okay after synergies. Of course since they added permanent hirelings I usually just gave my hireling a windforce and that helm with slow on it. Put up a high level thunderstorm and I killed a lot of players just by teleporting around them. When they added breath of the dying, I made a level 99 barb named forrest gump with a botd made out of an ethereal colossus sword. You wouldn't believe how many people told me I spelled 'forest' wrong... (for those of you who are too young, forrest gump is a movie, and forrest as a name usually has 2 r's) At any rate, having a teleporting barb was just hilarious and too funny to pass up, even though I hated barbs. On that note, I also made a hammerdin at one point to pvp barbs. At the time, barbs hated hammerdins, and I hated barbs so it worked out really nicely.

I also made some necros and zons in there. I honestly can't remember them all. Some were better than others at pvp, yeah, but they all rocked hard enough at pve so that it was never a challenge for me.

Come to think of it I did make an assassin with two 'chaos' claws offline last year, but I used a D2 editor so I might have made the claws indestructible, and probably ethereal for good measure. I didn't realize they were called wwsins, or that they cost so much to repair, of course, sorry.

At any rate, I feel like I've played a fair number of pvp characters that essentially also rocked at pve. I do really appreciate the FOH example though. Thats interesting. The only thing I remember about FOH paladins is that I saw one once on my zon, I shot him a couple of times, and then he died. At first I didn't even realize what spell he kept casting so I had to look it up. Although I'd personally still probly go for the hammerdin, its interesting to know that people use FoH in pvp for real now. Thanks!

Quote from "nickm83" »

How long does it take to do a baal run with a pure foh'er?
You can't make enough money to keep a wwsins gear repaired if your pvm'ing.
Good luck doing anything in hell with that fire sorc.
Have fun waiting 6 hours for a plaguezon to kill baal.
How many times does your bvc insta kill himself from iron maiden in chaos runs?

Those are all archetypal pvp builds I am not familiar with or would not have used. You have to realize the last time I played D2 was... before baal runs.

For example FoH was not a very popular or powerful spell last I remember. I never had any trouble keeping my gear repaired so I'm not sure how that became an issue. To recharge the usable skills on items maybe?

Would a pve fire sorc be any better than a pvp fire sorc in hell?

If by plagueazon you mean the amazons with the zillion poison charms... I never considered that build a very good pvp character. I was never a big fan of damage over time in D2.

Iron maiden is a problem... not just for pvp barbs but ALL melee classes

I think you're missing the point here a little bit. The problems you listed as problems for pvp characters are also potentially problems for pve characters as well.

My point was and is, the type of gear I chose for pvp (stuff with resists, damage reduce, plus to skills, plus to stats, faster cast/runwalk/attack speed whatever) was also among the best gea

Quote from "Seth" »

Life steal is nerfed in PvP.

My bad. Its been a long time since I played D2. At any rate, there was a time when I would have said life steal is extremely useful in pvp AND pve. Thanks, Seth.

Take my word for it or don't, but in my years of experience, great pvp characters also owned at pve. I don't blame anyone else who had the top gear for wanting to pvp as an added challenge beyond pve. Killing players was always much more challenging than killing the monsters (unless you are level 90 pk attacking level 9 players, that is).

I think I've said this before, but the monsters are designed specifically for you to kill them. You are supposed to be able to kill them. The same thing can NOT be said for players

Quote from "dorgeismydog" »

Anyway, not neccessarily. Not everyhtign you do for PvP helps in PvE except resistances and damage reducers, otherwise agian most PvP characters are a set build with most stats and skills decided form the beginning, so it isnt PvP thats doing it, its the build.

This is what is called an opinion. You're argument basically amounts to, 'you're wrong, because i said so.' If you want to convince me that I'm wrong, you need evidence. Name a D2 buff that is useful in pvp but not in pve, like resilience rating in WoW, for example.

Unless you can create a reasonable argument demonstrating where I am in error, you're wasting your time posting because I am not going to change my mind.

I stand by what I said. A great pvp character will also own at pve.

I have to say, in D2 I felt like just about anything that made me better at pvp also made me better at pve. Every character I made, I was certain to have maximum resists in hell difficulty. I also capped out and damage reduction. After that I did everything I could to hit as fast and as hard as I can. Increasing your damage and survivability against other players also means increasing your damage and survivability against monsters. All my pvp characters totally owned at pve so that it wasn't a challenge, though that was never my goal.

Other D2 buffs that are useful in pvp AND pve are plus to skills, faster cast, faster run walk, faster attack speed, defense, plus to stats, life steal, mana steal, etc etc etc etc

I have to say, in D2 I felt like just about anything that made me better at pvp also made me better at pve. Every character I made, I was certain to have maximum resists in hell difficulty. I also capped out and damage reduction. After that I did everything I could to hit as fast and as hard as I can. Increasing your damage and survivability against other players also means increasing your damage and survivability against monsters. All my pvp characters totally owned at pve so that it wasn't a challenge, though that was never my goal.

Now in WoW there is a stat that helps in pvp but not pve - resilience rating. Diablo isn't like that. Every stat that boosts you in pvp also helps in pve. There are stats in D2 that help in pve and not pvp though - such as magic find.

Many pkers I think aren't really looking for a challenge. Under this system, they'd probably make non-pvp characters actually, and attempt to pk pvp characters. But I guess that's okay, because those pvp characters actively selected pvp and they know whats coming?

This is an interesting system. It seems like griefing (through pks) would be eliminated, while still keeping some of the pkers happy. Sort of a compromise. That said, I have to say that I'm imagining pvp in D3 is going to be a little different from this, but who knows?

Quote from "Lucion" »

There is a built in assumption in several places in this thread that PvP characters are superior to non PvP characters and so should enjoy better rewards.

Are you suggesting there should be no rewards for pvp? I thought the rewards suggested by this thread were entirely appropriate. What were they, an achievement and maybe some titles? Whats wrong with that?

If a player chooses non-pvp upon character creation, I'd like to see the ability to change to pvp later on. It is entirely conceivable that someone new to the game might feel a little overwhelmed by the pvp option at first. Of course, a few months later they could be high level with powerful gear and looking for an additional challenge. I know its not that difficult to make a new character, I've made dozens, but not all of us have the time or dedication to create and level multiple characters.

Obviously, obtaining the 'finish the game as a pvp character' achievement would require starting the game as a pvp character. The players who switch later on will be unable to acquire that achievement, but they will be able to join in the pvp fun, if they choose to after they've learned the ropes and feel more comfortable with the game.

One concern about this system is the invitation to join pvp combat given to players who are in a party with someone who has been hostiled by another player. I'm wondering if this invitation should have a time limit. In the example above, without a time limit, the second amazon who did not join the fight could theoretically save her invitation to fight the assassin. Half an hour later, when the assassin has returned to questing, the amazon could then accept the invitation and pk the assassin. Neither of these characters are pvp characters. So is that just the price for the assassin to hostile the pvp druid who belongs to a party, or should that invitation have a timer on it?

-------------------------------------------

I think the first half of this thread is a good sort of informational primer on pvp in D2. There are a lot of very strong opinions about pvp here on the forums. I think its possible to build a very strong argument against D2 pvp mechanics, although it seems that many people who are down on pvp also don't know enough about it to build that argument.

On that note, I'll add some more information on D2 pvp. Does anyone else remember the term 'double corpse'? If you think having your gold stolen is bad, double corpsing is the ultimate in griefing. The gold you can get back in a few minutes, but how about all of your gear?

I have been very frank about my former griefing experiences. I have double corpsed other players, and yes, I took their gear. For those of you who don't know or don't remember, there was a way to kill another player that would cause him/her to dump all of their gear out on the ground, where you could pick it up and leave with it. It was called 'double corpsing' and it was commonly associated (in my experience) with the lowest form of pking - naked killing.

Believe it or not, it was once a commonly held belief on battlnet that if you didn't get your corpse before leaving a game, you would be unable to get your gear back in the next game. Unfortunately this worked against those who believed it when it came to pking and naked killing. See, a pker could stand on their corpse and repeatedly kill them as they tried to run up and collect it. They would never leave the game, thinking their precious gear would be left behind and lost forever. Often times these players backpacks would fill up with potions as soon as they died. So many rows on your belt disappear when you die, and those potions have to go somewhere. If those players then clicked on their corpse, but were unable to collect it entirely (ie if they accidentally had equipped a random item lying on the ground) and were subsequently killed (pk or otherwise), their gear would be dumped out since the game would not create another corpse, and they had no room in their inventory. (Please feel free to correct me if I am remembering these mechanics wrong, this was a long time ago and my memory is a little foggy. Thanks!)

This was in the days before dying naked meant leaving behind a second and third corpse and so on. That mechanic was implemented for no other reason than in attempt to prevent double corpsing. Even so, after LoD, there was still a way to make people drop their gear on the ground by pking them, although somewhat more difficult. I am not going to detail these mechanics. It has been a very long time since I have done this, but to the best of my knowledge this issue could still exist in game. (before anyone whines - I'm sure double corpsing will NOT be an issue in D3)

At any rate, I did kill this one dude. He kept bragging about having a shako. (note that I was a high level sorceress with the best gear available for pvp - including a shako) His hat wasn't green so I called him on it and declared hostility. He was one of those dudes who stands in town and whines for 1/2 an hour trying to talk tough before fighting. I waited him out and, suffice it to say his hat was actually a peasant crown, the proof was in MY inventory.

Pretty low? I know. But hey, at least I never scammed anyone. Now those dudes were slimy!

Thanks, LinkX.

Same difference. You say potato and I say potato. Whether you're paying a small amount of money for an extra guitar hero song or a somewhat larger amount of money for a guitar hero expansion featuring several songs by the same band, either way you are essentially paying money for additional content. Besides, I never said that paying money for content was undeniably an expansion, I asked rhetorically if paying money for extra content was "kind of like... an expansion?" I choose my words carefully most times. You're trying to argue a very fine point and frankly, I don't think anyone cares.

Its like that time you tried to explain to me that the monk class isn't really a feature of Diablo 3.

And heres the thing, I think it was what feature of D3 are you most exited about, so the monk alone, isnt a feature, maybe classes as a whole could be a feature, but not just one..

I don't really care what you want to call it, its part of the game. No one here wants to waste their time arguing over what language should be used to distinguish very minor details. If you want to contradict someone, at least try and base your argument on some evidence and not your personal interpretation of words like "feature" or "expansion."

Now, I think I said that I am not opposed to expansions in D3, but I also said that I think small features should be included in free patches if not available for the original release, as opposed to becoming payable downloads. To quote you,

There will never be pay-to-play content in the diablo world, it just doesnt fit. Diablo isnt WoW and one mechanic doesnt work for all, I really highly doubt blizz would do that.

Okay so we didn't make exactly the same statement, but it does seem to me that neither one of us wants to pay for extra features in D3 beyond the original cost of the game. So are we agreeing or aren't we? Don't you find it even a little bit odd that you are disagreeing that we agree?