We've been working really hard on the features, content, and systems for PvP in Diablo III and I wanted to take some time to provide an update on where we're at. Of course, our goal has been to release our Team Deathmatch mode as soon as possible, but we don't want to put anything out there before it's ready. Right now, Team Deathmatch isn't yet where we want it to be, and I want to provide some insight into where we are at in the development process.
The State of PvP
Our original intent with PvP for Diablo III was to provide more formal support for the dueling community that existed in Diablo II. We wanted to give players some kind of structure that would not only make it easier for you to duel with one another, but also allow you to have duels that were team-based. This is how our Team Deathmatch mode emerged, and it's been instrumental in making a lot of improvements to Diablo III. But in continuing to develop this mode, playtest it, and put it in front of other developers within the company, we've found that it falls short of our expectations for a high-quality Blizzard experience.
Putting people into an arena and letting them hurl fireballs and swing crazy-ass swords at one another always has an element of fun to it. I imagine it's no surprise to anyone reading this blog that people like battling each other in video games, so if you had the chance to play our Team Deathmatch at one of the BlizzCons where we featured it you might not understand why we'd say that we don’t feel the current mode is good enough.
Well, Here's Why…
For us it comes to a few issues, one of which is depth. Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly. We've brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn't feel like it was something they'd want to do beyond a few hours. Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they'd want spend a lot of time in.
Another is class balance. Like Diablo II, Diablo III was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance. We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible. In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.
Certainly, we've gotten a lot of benefits from the development of Team Deathmatch, especially in the areas of controls and combat model tuning, but at this point we don't believe it's the experience we feel it needs to be in order to ship, so we will be shelving it for now and exploring other options.
What's Next
So, our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch mode doesn't feel like a great addition to Diablo III. It's not up to the quality that Blizzard gamers expect or that we feel you deserve, and it doesn't really fit with our goals for the rest of the game. The question now is what are we going to do about it?
First and foremost, if our original goal was to support dueling, then we're not achieving that goal very well if we don’t actually give players a way to duel in-game. You’ve been asking us for dueling for a while, so we're going to add it to the game soon. Dueling is currently scheduled to release with patch 1.0.7, which is set to hit sometime after the new year. (We'll be providing details about that feature very soon, so stay tuned.)
But as I mentioned before, we are going back to the drawing board on a new replacement for Team Deathmatch, something that feels more appropriate for Diablo III. And as we stated previously, regardless of when we release it, it'll be a free addition to the game. Team Deathmatch provided us with the foundation that we needed and served us well. Hell, it may even still be added in some form in the future. For now, though, we're going to first be looking at new modes that play up to the strengths of the character classes, focus on objectives beyond just defeating other players, and possibly even integrate PvE elements and rewards.
Keepin' It Real
We wanted to be upfront and honest with the community about where this particular project is at. It's certainly not ideal, and I know some of you got to play Team Deathmatch at BlizzCon and are probably thinking, "It seemed good enough! Just give us that." I also know how I feel whenever a game or game feature I'm looking forward to is delayed, but, as with all things Blizzard, we want to be sure that the features we add to Diablo III are actually worth it and will make the game better, and PvP is no exception.
While we don't have any further information to share right now about our plans for additional PvP modes, we look forward to posting more about dueling in the next few days.
Shameful. Double shame for waiting till AFTER XMAS to break the news you already knew. Just another attempt to milk it, cant say I blame them, but i can blame the people that will drop the game forever after this either.
Honestly I think it's good news that they understand the problems with Team Deathmatch. It wouldn't have been fun for long, enthusiasm for it was always lukewarm. The bad news is that they're obviously still nowhere near implementing proper PvP(i.e. a DotA-style mode). I just wish they had realized this from the start.
rofl what a blog post...the fact it took them this long to basically write an excuse and not a blog is a joke. They basically just spit in the faces of all the people who paid for the game.
"Well our idea we've been working on all this time didn't do very well , so we're scrapping it and just enabling 1v1 duels..thanks guys!"
Diablo III is really going towards the failed promises now.... What the F man Blizzard. You could just redo WoW battlegrounds into D3 and everyone will love it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
7 months of expectations of PVP arenas/deathmatch
after 7 months getting just dueling, which should and also could have been since release
after 7 months they say, they are starting all over again
and they also call this a "PVP BLOG"!! really?! where is that PVP part?! Its an apologize post after so fkin long time! They could also been doin nothing since last patch and now just tell us they are starting all over again lol.
Well at least we get Dueling. Thats a plus Hopefully it will hold over until actually PvP is implimented.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
I wonder why Jay hyped up the PVP blog on Twitter when he knew it would be an apology post. I really think Jay Wilson needs to learn a thing or two from a public relations standpoint. In terms of game design, it seems like finding out if a feature is fun would be priority number 1, instead of spending money to create a feature that gets scrapped.
It seems like bad management of this game. If I was in Mike Morhaime's shoes I would fire Jay Wilson and get someone else.
I wonder if 5 years down the line we will look back at Jay Wilson as the guy who single-handedly destroyed the Diablo franchise.
Just saying, I am disappointed that PVP has not come out yet. Yet, they did said patch 1.1 for pvp, and we are getting a placeholder atm for PVP. IMO, I am glad that we get something, rather then no new content. It's better to think positive then to surmise the negative. To reiterate, patch 1.1 for PVP and this will only be patch 1.0.7.
Yeah. It's pretty heart breaking that this was Diablo 3. I spent so much time assuring myself it would be amazing. I can't argue that some find the game to be just that, buuuut... I do not.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This is not a crazy work day dream, the PVP Blog is really here!
Big News:
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The State of PvP
Our original intent with PvP for Diablo III was to provide more formal support for the dueling community that existed in Diablo II. We wanted to give players some kind of structure that would not only make it easier for you to duel with one another, but also allow you to have duels that were team-based. This is how our Team Deathmatch mode emerged, and it's been instrumental in making a lot of improvements to Diablo III. But in continuing to develop this mode, playtest it, and put it in front of other developers within the company, we've found that it falls short of our expectations for a high-quality Blizzard experience.
Putting people into an arena and letting them hurl fireballs and swing crazy-ass swords at one another always has an element of fun to it. I imagine it's no surprise to anyone reading this blog that people like battling each other in video games, so if you had the chance to play our Team Deathmatch at one of the BlizzCons where we featured it you might not understand why we'd say that we don’t feel the current mode is good enough.
Well, Here's Why…
For us it comes to a few issues, one of which is depth. Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly. We've brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn't feel like it was something they'd want to do beyond a few hours. Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they'd want spend a lot of time in.
Another is class balance. Like Diablo II, Diablo III was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance. We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible. In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.
Certainly, we've gotten a lot of benefits from the development of Team Deathmatch, especially in the areas of controls and combat model tuning, but at this point we don't believe it's the experience we feel it needs to be in order to ship, so we will be shelving it for now and exploring other options.
What's Next
So, our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch mode doesn't feel like a great addition to Diablo III. It's not up to the quality that Blizzard gamers expect or that we feel you deserve, and it doesn't really fit with our goals for the rest of the game. The question now is what are we going to do about it?
First and foremost, if our original goal was to support dueling, then we're not achieving that goal very well if we don’t actually give players a way to duel in-game. You’ve been asking us for dueling for a while, so we're going to add it to the game soon. Dueling is currently scheduled to release with patch 1.0.7, which is set to hit sometime after the new year. (We'll be providing details about that feature very soon, so stay tuned.)
But as I mentioned before, we are going back to the drawing board on a new replacement for Team Deathmatch, something that feels more appropriate for Diablo III. And as we stated previously, regardless of when we release it, it'll be a free addition to the game. Team Deathmatch provided us with the foundation that we needed and served us well. Hell, it may even still be added in some form in the future. For now, though, we're going to first be looking at new modes that play up to the strengths of the character classes, focus on objectives beyond just defeating other players, and possibly even integrate PvE elements and rewards.
Keepin' It Real
We wanted to be upfront and honest with the community about where this particular project is at. It's certainly not ideal, and I know some of you got to play Team Deathmatch at BlizzCon and are probably thinking, "It seemed good enough! Just give us that." I also know how I feel whenever a game or game feature I'm looking forward to is delayed, but, as with all things Blizzard, we want to be sure that the features we add to Diablo III are actually worth it and will make the game better, and PvP is no exception.
While we don't have any further information to share right now about our plans for additional PvP modes, we look forward to posting more about dueling in the next few days.
change it to dueling blog!!!
follow me @ www.twitch.tv/Turknukem
or @ www.youtube.com/TurkNukemHD
Honestly I think it's good news that they understand the problems with Team Deathmatch. It wouldn't have been fun for long, enthusiasm for it was always lukewarm. The bad news is that they're obviously still nowhere near implementing proper PvP(i.e. a DotA-style mode). I just wish they had realized this from the start.
"Well our idea we've been working on all this time didn't do very well , so we're scrapping it and just enabling 1v1 duels..thanks guys!"
after 7 months getting just dueling, which should and also could have been since release
after 7 months they say, they are starting all over again
and they also call this a "PVP BLOG"!! really?! where is that PVP part?! Its an apologize post after so fkin long time!
They could also been doin nothing since last patch and now just tell us they are starting all over again lol.
are....you...fuckin.... kidding....me....
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Wish I was this optimistic.
Hahahaha....so true.
I wonder why Jay hyped up the PVP blog on Twitter when he knew it would be an apology post. I really think Jay Wilson needs to learn a thing or two from a public relations standpoint. In terms of game design, it seems like finding out if a feature is fun would be priority number 1, instead of spending money to create a feature that gets scrapped.
It seems like bad management of this game. If I was in Mike Morhaime's shoes I would fire Jay Wilson and get someone else.
I wonder if 5 years down the line we will look back at Jay Wilson as the guy who single-handedly destroyed the Diablo franchise.
My BNet Profile