As most of you probably know, PvP combat has changed drastically in Diablo III. The hostility system we all know from Diablo II has been scrapped in favor of the more controlled Battle Arena. Below is a short summary of the Arena, and for additional information and screenshots, you can visit the Battle Arena wiki link, or check out the PvP page on the Diablo III official site. If you're looking for some videos of the Battle Arena, be sure to check out Force's Diablo III YouTube page or his video and discussion thread here on DiabloFans.
Before the description begins, it should also be noted that PvP will not yield any rewards in the form of gear. Although there does appear to be plans for some kind of ranking system, PvP will only yield bragging rights and cosmetic rewards, nothing more. As such, even if you plan on battling in the Arena more than fighting demons, you will still have to gear your character through PvE in order to be as competitive as possible.
The Arena is the designated PvP area in Diablo III. As a result, it will no longer be possible to engage in PvP combat in the open world of Sanctuary, and instead you will have to queue for and enter an Arena in order to battle other characters. However, this separation of PvP and PvE also means that the Diablo III team can tune certain skills to be more balanced in PvP instead of implementing some form of "PvP stat" similar to World of Warcraft's Resilience. For example, if a skill stuns monsters for six seconds, it will have a lesser effect on a player character in order to avoid a crowd control intensive PvP expirience. However, as Bashiok has explained, that does not mean that all skills will function differently in PvP and PvE. Whenever possible, skills will remain the same in both the Arena and Sanctuary, and similar effects with crowd control will be applied to champion, unique, and boss monsters.
In order to keep the pace of combat in the Arena fast, many skills counter any crowd control effects. For example, if a Barbarian is caught in a Wizard's Slow Time, Whirlwind can be utilized to gain immunity to the slowing effect. As such, the Arena seems to be shaping up to be an interesting balance between counters and crowd control, not to mention a whole lot of damage. If you know that your opponent has used all his counters, that means its a perfect time to slow him down, but if you time it wrong, you might end up just wasting your skill. Considering the incredibly fast pace of the Arena (most matches at BlizzCon 2010 lasted only 30 to 45 seconds), those kinds of mistakes could very well hand a victory to the other team.
Health Globes also play an important role in the Arena. As you can see in the screenshot above, there are four markings where Health Globes appear on a set timer. As a result, learning how often Health Globes appear, which could very well be different in each arena, and acting quickly when they show up will probably be extremely important for anyone who takes PvP seriously. Not only will knowing the timer allow you to get close to the Health Globes' spawn points at the right time, but it will also be important to use any crowd control skills to stop the enemy players from grabbing the globe. Considering the previously mentioned balance between crowd control and counters, things could get even more intense as players learn to force usage of enemy counters so that they are able to slow or stun the enemy just as a Health Globe spawns. If you can learn to play around the Health Globe timer, chances are you will gain a huge tactical advantage over any less practiced teams.
Blizzard has also hinted at the possibility of one-on-one duels and mutually chosen team battles, where two teams choose to fight against each other, and there is a potential for other PvP modes after the game's release, but right now we only know about the Battle Arena. So now that you know all about Diablo III's Battle Arenas, how often do you think you'll engage in PvP combat? Vote in the poll above and feel free to discuss your opinion in the topic below.
Last week's poll was yet another lopsided one, as most people (67%) agreed that the gem leveling process needed to be cut down, but that it should still be a long term goal. However, after this huge gap, there was a close race between people who thought it should be considerably less of a process (12%), and those who thought it should have stayed as it was before the recently announced change (11%). If you would still like to vote in that poll, or just want to talk about gems, feel free to discuss it some more through the above link.
PvE all the way (solo with each character once first, then maybe co-op) and only after I'm done with a character might I occasionally take him/her to PvP arena. I can imagine the loads of fun PvP will be but there is just too much PvE stuff/loot/bosses/quests/monsters to go through before I can even think about going for the arena 'endgame'.
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A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head!
As far as PvP goes I don't hate pvp it's self. I hate that as a casual player i get grouped with live, eat, breath, and RAGE PvP. I will have bad matches I will have good matches. If you are on my team for a bad match I'm sorry. But I will give you a 100% guarantee, you rage at me I will not do better. There are a few reasons behind this:
1. I'm not just playing PvP anymore I'm also trying to defend myself from friendly fire.
2. My desire to see someone that is raging at me win -20%.
3. It's a game I'm here to have fun.
4. The best reason for you not to rage at me is..... I'm more likely to sabotage you than just leave. (I know it's not right but, you won't learn if I just leave)
Now I know some of you are out there thinking the your a noob thoughts and bad mouthing me for ever playing PvP. But, I have every right to play the game that you do.To anyone else out there that's a casual PvPer or just a more laid back PvPer I think you know what I mean.
On that note good luck and be kind to the people having trouble.
P.S. sorry about the rant I was just in another PvP were this was an issue.
Sorry I forgot to mention I voted once in a while.
Now I know some of you are out there thinking the your a noob thoughts and bad mouthing me for ever playing PvP. But, I have every right to play the game that you do.To anyone else out there that's a casual PvPer or just a more laid back PvPer I think you know what I mean.
On that note good luck and be kind to the people having trouble.
I am also a casual PvPer. I will probably try the PvP arena a few times here and there as i play through the game and gear up my character. How fun i find it will determine how much i PvP during my PvE, like akainu said, if people rage at me instead of giving me tips to improve i will probably avoid PvP until im pretty much done with PvE on that character. Once im getting somewhat close to being satisfied with my gear i will give PvP a serious chance to make me like it.
I'll play it consistently as an end-game type thing, with occasional replay of the story. Until I get good, I'll try a lot. Then I'll take it easy, a game here a game there until expansion comes.
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Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
Depending on what/how end game is then prob just once in a while. If I don't get into endgame or the glory of the arena appeals to me after trying it then maybe more than just occasionally. But im pretty sure end game is going to be fun no matter what it is.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
PvE is going to play a bigger role than D2 this time.
You'll have to devote more time to PvE since bosses are stronger, they are tougher and you probably will need to have a team to take down the boss.
Assumption
1 hour of pve in D2 = 45 act boss kills
1 hour of pve in D3 = 3 act boss kills
so finding items in D3 will generally take longer since you won't be killing act bosses as fast as you did in D2.
Let's hope Blizzard did a good job with the act boss lewts. Something that will make us get excited everytime when the boss HP goes down to 1/100 in hope of finding one of the most epic lewt in the game that has 0.01% of dropping.
I'll probably PvE a lot, with good buddies of mine.
I will only do PvP if I feel like I've finished PvE. Between the 5 classes I will be busy for a long time leveling them up, playing around with different skills, getting artisans maxed out, and gearing them up. If I ever get to the point where I feel pretty good about my characters, I might do a little PvE. I kind of doubt I will have enough time to get to that point. I don't have nearly as much time these days as I did when D2 came out.
Before the description begins, it should also be noted that PvP will not yield any rewards in the form of gear. Although there does appear to be plans for some kind of ranking system, PvP will only yield bragging rights and cosmetic rewards, nothing more. As such, even if you plan on battling in the Arena more than fighting demons, you will still have to gear your character through PvE in order to be as competitive as possible.
The Arena is the designated PvP area in Diablo III. As a result, it will no longer be possible to engage in PvP combat in the open world of Sanctuary, and instead you will have to queue for and enter an Arena in order to battle other characters. However, this separation of PvP and PvE also means that the Diablo III team can tune certain skills to be more balanced in PvP instead of implementing some form of "PvP stat" similar to World of Warcraft's Resilience. For example, if a skill stuns monsters for six seconds, it will have a lesser effect on a player character in order to avoid a crowd control intensive PvP expirience. However, as Bashiok has explained, that does not mean that all skills will function differently in PvP and PvE. Whenever possible, skills will remain the same in both the Arena and Sanctuary, and similar effects with crowd control will be applied to champion, unique, and boss monsters.
In order to keep the pace of combat in the Arena fast, many skills counter any crowd control effects. For example, if a Barbarian is caught in a Wizard's Slow Time, Whirlwind can be utilized to gain immunity to the slowing effect. As such, the Arena seems to be shaping up to be an interesting balance between counters and crowd control, not to mention a whole lot of damage. If you know that your opponent has used all his counters, that means its a perfect time to slow him down, but if you time it wrong, you might end up just wasting your skill. Considering the incredibly fast pace of the Arena (most matches at BlizzCon 2010 lasted only 30 to 45 seconds), those kinds of mistakes could very well hand a victory to the other team.
Health Globes also play an important role in the Arena. As you can see in the screenshot above, there are four markings where Health Globes appear on a set timer. As a result, learning how often Health Globes appear, which could very well be different in each arena, and acting quickly when they show up will probably be extremely important for anyone who takes PvP seriously. Not only will knowing the timer allow you to get close to the Health Globes' spawn points at the right time, but it will also be important to use any crowd control skills to stop the enemy players from grabbing the globe. Considering the previously mentioned balance between crowd control and counters, things could get even more intense as players learn to force usage of enemy counters so that they are able to slow or stun the enemy just as a Health Globe spawns. If you can learn to play around the Health Globe timer, chances are you will gain a huge tactical advantage over any less practiced teams.
Blizzard has also hinted at the possibility of one-on-one duels and mutually chosen team battles, where two teams choose to fight against each other, and there is a potential for other PvP modes after the game's release, but right now we only know about the Battle Arena. So now that you know all about Diablo III's Battle Arenas, how often do you think you'll engage in PvP combat? Vote in the poll above and feel free to discuss your opinion in the topic below.
Last week's poll was yet another lopsided one, as most people (67%) agreed that the gem leveling process needed to be cut down, but that it should still be a long term goal. However, after this huge gap, there was a close race between people who thought it should be considerably less of a process (12%), and those who thought it should have stayed as it was before the recently announced change (11%). If you would still like to vote in that poll, or just want to talk about gems, feel free to discuss it some more through the above link.
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I will only know if i am going to pvp or not onceive tried it and
see how it feels and works.
Until then i cant really make a call.
1. I'm not just playing PvP anymore I'm also trying to defend myself from friendly fire.
2. My desire to see someone that is raging at me win -20%.
3. It's a game I'm here to have fun.
4. The best reason for you not to rage at me is..... I'm more likely to sabotage you than just leave. (I know it's not right but, you won't learn if I just leave)
Now I know some of you are out there thinking the your a noob thoughts and bad mouthing me for ever playing PvP. But, I have every right to play the game that you do.To anyone else out there that's a casual PvPer or just a more laid back PvPer I think you know what I mean.
On that note good luck and be kind to the people having trouble.
P.S. sorry about the rant I was just in another PvP were this was an issue.
Sorry I forgot to mention I voted once in a while.
I am also a casual PvPer. I will probably try the PvP arena a few times here and there as i play through the game and gear up my character. How fun i find it will determine how much i PvP during my PvE, like akainu said, if people rage at me instead of giving me tips to improve i will probably avoid PvP until im pretty much done with PvE on that character. Once im getting somewhat close to being satisfied with my gear i will give PvP a serious chance to make me like it.
the good old times with my frenzy barb at classic and javazon at lod will come back :thumbsup:
I have no intention or desire to play PvP.
Its where the worse traits of the people come out, including myself.
You'll have to devote more time to PvE since bosses are stronger, they are tougher and you probably will need to have a team to take down the boss.
Assumption
1 hour of pve in D2 = 45 act boss kills
1 hour of pve in D3 = 3 act boss kills
so finding items in D3 will generally take longer since you won't be killing act bosses as fast as you did in D2.
Let's hope Blizzard did a good job with the act boss lewts. Something that will make us get excited everytime when the boss HP goes down to 1/100 in hope of finding one of the most epic lewt in the game that has 0.01% of dropping.
I'll probably PvE a lot, with good buddies of mine.