122 replies to this topic

[Winged]

PvP in Diablo 3

Since the first announcement of the PvP system being limited to the Battle Arenas, there has been controversy. Questions and concerns arose from the community commonly, many of which Blizzard has responded to. Most recently, during the exclusive Beta meeting which Sixen and Force attended, PvP was one of the many topics discussed with Jay Wilson via face to face interviews. We'll be viewing quotes mostly from both Force's PvP interview segment with Jay, and from Sixen's Press Event article. Unfortunately the Beta will be lacking the PvP portion of the game all together. Seeing as this information won't be materialized in game for us until release, following the PvP development is the closest we can get to playing it.

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Changes/Additions

In the PvP model at Blizzcon, when you died you were out until the round ended, only able to view the battle from a ghost form which is incapable of interacting with the battle. This caused some gameplay issues seeing as it would always end up being a "last man standing" situation, which Blizzard didn't feel suited their casual approach to PvP. As of now the PvP system supports a team death match style of spawning, where when you die you have X seconds until you respawn into battle. This system bases the winning team off total kills between all players on the team. As team death matches tend to go, the round ends when either team hits the kill cap, or the time limit runs out. Through internal testing they found that players generally enjoyed the PvP experience more seeing as they felt like death didn't remove them from the game. Blizzard also found that this gave players a chance to figure out counters to the opposing team's strategy, which often made for epic come backs.

Official Blizzard Quote:

-Still same arena environment, still kind of feels the same, but when you die, you stay out for a few seconds and then you come back. It bases more on time limit and kill count, which we actually found was a lot more approachable and a lot more fun.

With the announcement of the real currency auction house came some concerns about how this will effect the PvP system. The fear is as with Diablo 2's third party vendors, a player willing to spend the money can simply buy their way to victory. Although Blizzard won't be creating, or selling items themselves the ability to buy items, and thus power still remains via purchasing from other players through the AH. In Blizzard's eyes this is all the more reason to avoid a hyper competitive PvP environment.

This power purchasing situation is unavoidable, players will find a way to buy items no matter what. The concept of a separate Arena for non-currency traded items only has been brought up among PvP enthusiasts. Problem is this would segregate the PvP community, which is something Blizzard stands firmly against.

Due to the integrated match-making system even if someone spent the money on a leveled character, and all the greatest gear, they would be matched with players with similar character capability. So chances are buying all perfect end game gear for PvP will just pit you against very high caliber players, not some noobs you can smash.


Moving along to PvP player caps, the Blizzcon PvP model only supported 2v2, and 3v3; limiting the player cap to 6. The reasoning behind this low number is not due to technical limitations, but rather clean gameplay, and low visual pollution; same as the 4 player cap in PvE. Many players bring up how Diablo 2 had an 8 player cap. Diablo 3 isn't Diablo 2, both player and monster skills are more visually flashy in D3. Through internal testing they've found the sweet spot for PvP player caps sits between 6 and 8 (3v3 or 4v4). The current 3v3 PvP limitation isn't finalized, as Blizzard is currently testing 4v4 matches in the Arena.

Official Blizzard Quote:

We’re actually playing around with the max being 4 per team, which is 8 players total, but that’s still 4 per party. By the way, that’s not confirmed, we’re just playing around with it. Ideally, we’d love for parties in PvP to be 4 players.

The infamous Hardcore PvP mode has yet to be discussed thoroughly, likely because it seems to be constantly undergoing changes. On the topic of HC Arena deaths, it turns out Jay's ability to get a crowd cheering isn't enough to sell the rest of the development team his views on Hardcore mode. At Blizzcon while talking about the HC Arena, his response to death in the mode was as follows:

Official Blizzard Quote:

You're gonna die, cause it's hardcore mode. So if you don't want to die don't go into the Arena.

While the crowd seemed to be all for it at the time, since then a lot of controversy has been stirring in the community expressing how there is a good portion of HC players that don't like this concept. These HC players feel they should be able to participate in PvP with their HC character without risking so much. Blizzard has yet to finalize their plans for the PvP HC mode, but never the less Jay had something to say about it at the recent Beta meeting.

Official Blizzard Quote:

The PvP strike team that focuses on that area, they are pretty nervous about it. Their basic feeling is that if that is what happens, then hardcore characters just won’t PvP. But then there was hardcore dueling in D2 so we may change that. We may allow hardcore PvP players to play without dying. That being said, I still want a way for hardcore players to duel even if not at ship. I am going to push for a way. Even if its basically just a place where you can go in the world where you are flagged for PvP. Even if it is that simple, there is a community, even if it’s a small community that I want to support. Those fuckers are crazy. Part of me is like aww you crazy bastards.

Non-competitive PvP Environment

Blizzard has long made games based on close competition. Ranging from the calculated multitasking of StarCraft, to the skill casting hot key tracking ways of World of Warcraft. In both franchises the games have been balanced around PvP; Diablo 3 will be different. Blizzard has chosen to persistently steer clear of heated competition while developing Diablo 3. Determine to base the game around PvE, it seems PvP comes secondary when making development decisions.

Skills in PvP will not be reworked from the ground up, but will instead be tweaked via under-the-hood changes. Things such as stun, freeze, or snare effects will be tuned down for PvP separate from PvE. A main reason for Blizzard not completely overhauling each skill for PvP separately is that it would cause your character to play very differently in PvP than in PvE, thus causing a disconnection of the gametypes. Even further detailing this concept, Force asked Jay Wilson about this during their interview over at Blizzard headquarters.

Official Blizzard Quote:

What we have is within the data of the skill, we have these things called snows that are little containments of data. You can open up the magic missile snow and see everything that magic missile does. We have this other column that is for PvP and it can take any of the attributes for the regular skill and change it. We primarily use it to change how long a stun lasts or… We don’t have any diminishing returns and we are hoping not to. Cooldowns and damage could change but we try not to mess with those because they are really tricky. Crowd control durations; those are the big things that tend to change that are game breaking.

During this interview Sixen asked Jay if the community were to try to turn PvP into an e-sport, would Blizzard stop them in any way? The simple answer is no, they would not. Jay goes on to explain how they wouldn't stop them, but they sure won't support them. Blizzard doesn't plan on extensively balancing PvP, if a player base wishes to form a e-sport like group it seems they'll have to deal with the imbalances that will come with the PvP game.

Official Blizzard Quote:

-when people say “BARB IS TOTALLY OP!!!” we’re going to be like “yeah… he probably is.”

Many players who understand these concepts ask the question, why can't they just balance PvP completely separately from PvE? Or add features that a lot of the PvP player base wants. The way the development team is approaching this is black and white, either they market PvP as an e-sport and add all the e-sport features, or they don't add any of those features in at all. Seeing as they have limited time and money, choices have to be made on where they can put their effort into.

Official Blizzard Quote:

You can’t give the people an e-sport set up and then say it’s not an e-sport. If you are going to commit to that, then you have to commit to it. It’s not an e-sport, we are not going to do that high of level of feature set. It’s also one of those things where, from the outside it looks like we have endless time and budget but the truth is we don’t. The truth is we work our butts off to get the game out and we make choices and adding features like that to make it an e-sport when it’s not a goal for us, when we could be spending those dollars making the PvP game better or the PvE game better, we are going to spend the money there.

On the topic of PvP ranking, currently there is no true ranking system. Along with this, they do not plan to track stats for the purpose of displaying them, but instead to form a fair and accurate match-making system. The reasoning for not visually tracking stats is no one likes losses on their record, some players are so irked by them, they'll recycle accounts to improve their stats, sometimes spending large amounts of money in the process.

Instead of a stat based ranking system, players will have a PvP "level" that will be viewable right on your character banner. These levels are progressed through by simply playing the PvP game mode. Winning will progress you faster through the levels, but it is possible to reach the same levels no matter how much you lose. Jay touches on this during an interview with Force. There will also be no win/loss ratio stats being tracked. Your PvP level will represent how much time you've played in the Arena, not at all being based on any sort of ratios.

Rewards, and Wishlist Features.


While understanding Blizzard's firm stance on a casual PvP mode one might ask, what features will PvP be lacking?

One idea currently endangered is the spectator mode. In StarCraft2 this feature is necessary considering the e-sport aspect of the game. In Diablo 3 the feature still has a niche, and surely would be entertaining but due to the time constraints the development team is under, unnecessary features are put on the back burner.

Official Blizzard Quote:

It is actually on a list, but it’s pretty low down on the list because there are a lot of things that would be cooler to do and without it being an e-sport… replay is kind of an e-sport feature.

Another common request regarding PvP is the addition of secondary game types such as CTF, VIP, or a type of "Horde Mode". While Jay didn't completely shoot down these ideas, he explained how at the moment their focus is to polish the current PvP model.

Official Blizzard Quote:

-We know we are going to have some balance issues, and it’s a lot easier to control if we’re not balancing for different kinds of modes, so right now we’re just focused on the one.

These features may not be lost forever though, as the development team sees the fun in them and hopes to add them in sometime after release. Secondary game types can flourish if done properly, SC2 being an excellent example of this with their very popular tower defense games just as one example. Diablo 3 certainly has the capability to support a massive array of secondary game types for when PvE and PvP just aren't enough, the question is if or when they will be implemented.

Official Blizzard Quote:

We have definitely talked about some other modes. Not at ship but who knows about the future. I really like the idea of a mode that involves monsters and players of some kind. We have played around with modes like that but the biggest issue was that they didn’t feel like Diablo. I think that was just the design we had but there is a way to do it that feels like Diablo.

Another wishlist feature is a wagering system, where a player could bet gold, or possibly real currency on a PvP match. This feature would have to go hand and hand with the spectator feature. It was not denied to be possible, but since it does suit an e-sport like setup, there will surely be resistance to it's implementing.

As for rewards is seems there will be many achievements to complete in PvP, which could provide some type of reward. There are also titles, which will likely be similar to the Diablo 2 title system.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Right now there is a whole array of PvP oriented achievements and titles and part of the banner, the crest of the banner, is dedicated just for PvP. So as you get to higher and higher ranks, it levels that up.

Click for larger image

• PvP Crest (Top of the banner): Where your PvP, "Level" will be showcased on your banner.
  
• Achievement Tally Marker: Your completed achievements will be showcased on either side of your banner.
  
• Highest Completed Difficulty Status: Highest difficulty completion is shown.
  
• Hardcore Identifier: Do you not fear death?
  
• Party Member Listing: Each player in your party is represented by their unique banner flag.
  
• Quick Join Listing: Located under the banner, you'll be able to join other players also looking for matches.
  
• "Social" Button: Presumably all of your friends will be listed, even while playing other Blizzard games.
  
• Profile (Helm): Where you view your in-game possessions and character details.
  
• Achievements (Shield): View you achievement progress.
  
• Auction House (Gavel): Links directly to the AH.
  
• Drop Listing: (Bottom left) This drop listing hasn't been detailed, though from its location it could have something to do with the chat box.
  
• Chat Box : Can't have Diablo without one!
  
• General Menu Listing:

All in all Blizzard has taken a different approach to PvP in Diablo 3. Instead of being the end game jewel it was for Diablo 2, it is now simply another way to test your character with friends. Through extensive PvE development, we can only hope there is a lasting PvE endgame being stowed away beyond our knowledge, since PvP isn't looking to be developed to fill in endgame content. Although PvP is not the main focus of the development team, it is sure to acquire a fan base all its own.

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Be sure to check out Sixen's Give Me Options or Give Me DEATH! article where you can vote on your preferred type of auction house, and listen to DiabloCast Episode 20.

Get pumped for the Beta by reading Magistrate's More Beta Buildup article.

Don't forget to update your Beta profile! More details in ScyberDragon's Important Beta Profile Update article.

[CrusaderGT]

Gotta love F5  

[SentouTsurugi]

Thanks for the consolidation

Not a hardcore pvp'er but I wonder why they didn't make win:loss ratio just a hide-able feature instead. Those who want to show off can, those who don't, don't have to?

banners look awesome though.

[Omega329]

Thank you, finally it looks like people are starting to want PvP more, there are too many following Jay, but Sixen, Force, and now you seem to be helping the PvP cause. PvP FTW

Realistically D3 needs to make a compromise, and give us some more PvP options (last man standing), and custom matchmaking (being able to pvp certain people or groups).

Edited by Omega329, 06 August 2011 - 02:00 PM.

[Ferret]

I'm kinda intrigued by the whole design around the PvP. No pressure, all fun in an environment that doesn't promote ruining other people's PvE game. Not to bash on the way PvP worked in D2, but this just seems better implemented. Not showing Win:Loss ratios is probably a choice made based on the fact that skill balance will be PvE focused. Why would ratios even matter if when a certain team composure blows another one out of the water by default? That would just lead to an environment where players only party up with others if they fullfil certain criteria, instead of just going for it.

People claiming that the RMT will ruin PvP, I roll my eyes at you. A hammerdin could knock out 80% of all players with two lucky hits (which could both hit within less than a second). That had nothing to do with skill either, but it was good enough to duel every once in a while regardless.

I do hope there are some good PvP rewards though, although the banner system on the character screen already look very intresting and intricate in terms of bragging rights.

[Conax]

Sixen and Force, thanks for being there for this community. At the moment what blizzard has implemented for PvP is just crap. There is no way to put it in a constructive critical manner. Whatever you guys decide to do to make PvP a bigger and more awsome part of D3, i'm riding your train.

Lets write a petition! givf competetiveness to D3, otherwise PvP aint PvP. Ty DF.

[Umpa]

Hopefully they ignore your petition.

[AmishLou]

Do you lose anything (gold, experience, equipment, or durability) when you die or your team loses in PvP?

[SentouTsurugi]

Ferret, on 06 August 2011 - 02:06 PM, said:

Not showing Win:Loss ratios is probably a choice made based on the fact that skill balance will be PvE focused. Why would ratios even matter if when a certain team composure blows another one out of the water by default? That would just lead to an environment where players only party up with others if they fullfil certain criteria, instead of just going for it.

Granted diablo isn't really an esport franchise, thus win/loss ratios don't matter, some people still want to see out of how many games, they win this many and be able to show it to their friends. I personally don't care either way but I'm still not seeing how a "visible" option is bad. Implementing it doesn't seem difficult as well.

If wins > losses in rate of earning achievements, I think that it would lead to an environment where players only party up with others that fulfill a certain criteria anyway. Maybe to a lesser extent.

[ZombieMuse]

I am totally for having PvP as a separate game mode as they have done it, however asking for them to make Diablo 3 into a competitive PvP focused game just doesn't seem like a reasonable request.

Yes, I think some portion of the community really enjoys PvP, but looking back to Diablo and Diablo 2, I think they have already done far more than was expected as far as catering to them. In the first two games, there was basically no support for it at all. Yes, they could do a lot more, but that's not the focus of the game at least not before it's out of development.

Omega329, on 06 August 2011 - 01:55 PM, said:

Thank you, finally it looks like people are starting to want PvP more, there are too many following Jay, but Sixen, Force, and now you seem to be helping the PvP cause. PvP FTW

Realistically D3 needs to make a compromise, and give us some more PvP options (last man standing), and custom matchmaking (being able to pvp certain people or groups).

I don't understand the logic. Realistically, they have already done far more for PvP players than the first two games combined. They don't have to compromise on anything, really.

Edited by ZombieMuse, 06 August 2011 - 02:39 PM.

[Scruff260]

PvP needs to be added to the beta to take diagnostics on what the community wants. If the D3 community has a third of the people playing PvP repeatedly, then I think Blizzard needs to consider making PvP more balanced and immersive. Competitive video gaming is the most progressive market in video gaming right now. I understand Jay Wilson's opinion and would possibly add that the development team may not be able to handle balancing PvE and PvP in the short amount of time that they have left without extensively play testing the game. I know Blizz wants to produce a product that is fully realized in at least one arena, even if PvP has to suffer. But they have PvP implemented into the game and it's playable. Why not test it if only to see how many people are interested in the PvP aspects of the game?

Also, to be optimistic, who knows PvP won't be balanced? Jay talks about how they don't implement solutions until there's a problem. Well, we don't know if there is a problem with PvP yet because we haven't played the end game pvp yet.

[Firewolx]

I just wanted a ladder for hardcore PvP To see who could win the most times before dieing.

[Conax]

It seems like im alone wanting D3 PvP to be competetive. Boring. PvEers will have their piece of the cake while PvPers will get punished. Nothing exciting with the PvP system as it is now.

[Oggy850]

only 4 players per game? wtf? what r u doing to diablo? u cant do that! and why do we need these battle arenas?
u r making diablo like the comic-game-wow! why????
i give a shit about wow, its for young kids, who like to smash plants or crabs, not like diablo. but u r trying to make it like wow! shame on u!

[Ferret]

SentouTsurugi, on 06 August 2011 - 02:30 PM, said:

Ferret, on 06 August 2011 - 02:06 PM, said:

Not showing Win:Loss ratios is probably a choice made based on the fact that skill balance will be PvE focused. Why would ratios even matter if when a certain team composure blows another one out of the water by default? That would just lead to an environment where players only party up with others if they fullfil certain criteria, instead of just going for it.

Granted diablo isn't really an esport franchise, thus win/loss ratios don't matter, some people still want to see out of how many games, they win this many and be able to show it to their friends. I personally don't care either way but I'm still not seeing how a "visible" option is bad. Implementing it doesn't seem difficult as well.

If wins > losses in rate of earning achievements, I think that it would lead to an environment where players only party up with others that fulfill a certain criteria anyway. Maybe to a lesser extent.

The same was said for SC2, and some people still argue for it. I don't miss it, but that may be because I choose the people I play with based on their behavior (and in large part, whether they are on my friends list or not). At the end of the day, if you're really nosey, you can check people's recent match history, and although I haven't read anything about such a feature for D3, it may be such a minute feature that Blizzard simply hasn't mentioned it.

Truthfully, I can judge fairly well on my own whether my trend is pointing up or down. Anyone who was on my D2 F-list always knew when I leveled anything beyond 95 (I leveled a few mules above 95 because I'm a masochist). Same held true for dying or PKing ingame. Add the achievement system to that; in SC2 you can always check how many games someone has won and with what race, so I'm expecting something of similar nature from the D3 achievement UI and the banner system.

Lastly, I just feel like I should share how my 3rd season for SC2 unfolded. I dropped about eight of my first ten matches (shifty eyes at overheating gfx card), dropping me from where I should be (Gold) down all the way to Bronze (Same happened in 2v2, we dropped from Platinum down to Silver:(). After dealing with my gfx card, I can play the game without fear of dropping, resulting in 9 wins in a row. If anyone were to look at my profile, they would theoretically see: Bronze League, 11 Wins and 8 Losses. That in no way reflects my actual skill level, and I'd be insulted to have to look at that, after dropping games where other players already GG'ed or were stuck on one base while I was on three or four (gotta love the newbies, its always all-ins, cheese or they're too scared to expand).

I understand that it can give a big morale boost in a game to see you outperforming others because I myself fell into this whole "ahh I'm in top five Assassin's ladder on D2, or now on SC2 after "defeating my loosing streak". One thing to remember though is that for every player that has a higher win:loss ratio, there will be someone in the negative. They're most likely the ones to turn this off if we had a choice, which would be a dead give-away. If the win:loss ratio isn't viewable by anyone but you, it becomes useless. You should be able to judge whether you're improving or not better than anyone else. If someone drops a game and it shows up in your ratio, only you know that you basically got the thing handed to you.

Its like I said earlier, I look forward to unconditional, unpressured PvP. If I lose five matches in a row, you can bet I will think about that for a while, but to have it put on your character screen in any permanent fashion would make me distance myself from that character. Especially if people (you know they will) start calling others noobs, regardless of how many hours and how much effort they put into their character. A form of ladder like the SC2 currently has is something I wouldn't be against if it resets regularly and comes with special achievements depending on how you finish on the ladder, but that would probably lead to players crying out for balancing the skills around PvP instead of PvE.

Edited by Ferret, 06 August 2011 - 03:39 PM.

[Oggy850]

i hate blizzard for making a wow-clone. the only difference is the diablo-universe!

[peasofme]

you guys sound like you've never heard of patching before.  what they don't finish by release they will work on after.  as for saying d3 is wow.  that is just idiotic

[Conax]

gr8 all my friends have cancelled their orders of d3 now because of the pvp and RMAH changes. gr8 stuff.

[Coaster_Man]

@Oggy850 It is not a wow-clone. It is no where near that, so stop raging and calm down.

@Conax It is an improvement on Diablo 2's PvP system, so stop complaining. The game is Diablo, it is mainly focused on PvE, you are lucky that they even decided to make a change and add special arenas for you PvPers.

[Kargos]

Conax, on 06 August 2011 - 04:33 PM, said:

gr8 all my friends have cancelled their orders of d3 now because of the pvp and RMAH changes. gr8 stuff.

There aren't any pre-orders available...

Edit: Whine somewhere else.

Edited by KargosofUldum, 06 August 2011 - 05:16 PM.