Here are my suggestions on what would help make what I'm sure is already going to be a great game, even better. (I have a feeling this is going to turn into a wall of text...)
Thoughts on PVP
Having played Diablo 2 for many years, I was never able to really get into the PVP aspect of it. Why? Because it was so random. You'd hop into a game, people would hostile you, and you'd leave the town to see what was going on and die 2 seconds into the wilderness. Duels usually weren't duels, and they weren't fair. But there's a lot that can be changed to fix it:
First off, I think that when you create a game, you should be able to create a game as PVP or PVE. If you create a PVE game, then you're safe. No one will hostile you, jump through a portal and gank you while you're exploring a dungeon. In diablo 2 there was no way to actually do a true PVE game to quest with friends, but this is one way that would fix this.
But what would a PVP game do? Well, there are a few ways to handle this. One would be to have any player you are not grouped with be attackable outside of cities/towns. This, more than creating a PVP setting, would do a much bigger thing: It would allow team vs team. Create a game, mark it as PVP, and get 6 players in there. Then you can have 3 group together, and the other 3 group. Now you've instantly got yourself a 3v3 battle, with the entire world as your stadium. Don't like team battles? Drop teams and you've got yourself a free-for-all. Depending on the number of players allowed in the game, you could even have more than 2 teams. Team battles were extremely hard to coordinate in Diablo 2, and this is one thing that would help alleviate that problem.
Another thing that steered me away from Diablo 2 PVP was losing gold and such in PVP. While it makes sense to drop items and gold when killing in PVE, in PVP you're constantly dying and such, and the game would flow much better without it. One way to make it not completely penalty-less would be to allow a "wager" to be set on a PVP game. When dying, you'll lose that much gold (which could be even distributed to players not on your team who are in range, or something). That way, players who just want to have fun don't need to worry about dropping their gold in some remote location and forgetting it, they can simply have a "Duels for fun, 0 wager" game.
And one final gripe I had about D2 PVP is that it took place about 10 yards from the bridge in the first camp. There was never any variety in location. One way I think that could help this problem is to allow player free access to where his dead body is (at least in PVP flagged games). This could be in the style of running as a ghost, such as in World of Warcraft, or simply having a aura of immunity until you get within X yards of your body. Or, another different approach would be that if you die in a PVP environment, don't take the player back to town. Simply leave the player as a ghost at their body when they die, and give them a spawn timer before they can resurrect within a few screens of their body. This idea may sound useless, but I feel that it would help PVP in that you could PVP wherever you want. For example, a nice PVP spot would have been on Arreat Summit up with the statues and columns. However, being pushed back to town and then returning through a port/WP would allow players to camp those areas. But dying and being able to res a few screens from your body would allow players quick access back into the battle, but by being able to res a little bit away from their body (or coming back with immunity) they are able to get back into the battle without being camped at the entry point, something that really bothered me in the last game.
While none of these ideas are serious issues, I feel that they would really help create a better atmosphere of PVP in the game, and draw in new audiences.
Thoughts on Trading
Trading is something I really enjoyed about Diablo 2. There is something about finding a perfect unique item, and being able to barter with people for something you really want. However, it can be a hassle trying to sort through games or create games and hope people see your "Occy 4 Trade" game in the huge list of games.
One way this can be improved is an in-game marketplace where players can list their items. However, it wouldn't be like an auctionhouse (though it could be), it would simply be a searchable listing of items that people currently want to trade. A nice addition would be to search by player, so a player can set up "shop" and people can look at the list of all items a certain player has that they would like to trade.
Now rather than just listing it and buying it for gold (because gold is never a great currency in Diablo), they would be able to contact the seller. Contacts could be done through whisper (though this could be annoying at times), or through a "trade mailbox" that a player has. People would see an item on the tradepost, and send the owner an offer mail. Then players could visit the tradepost and check all the offers they have (possibly send some sort of notice to a player any time they get an offer). Offers could be done simply, as text. Or possibly, offers could literally be the items. That way if someone finds an offer in their box that they like, rather than having to track down the player next time they are on, the player could accept the offer, and the items would be exchanged. So it would be something like:
Player A places Unique Staff on tradepost with a message that they want a certain set helmet
Player B sees A's staff and offers 100,000g and a rare helmet (Player A gets a notice)
Player C sees A's staff and offers the set helmet A is looking for (Player A gets a notice)
Player A checks the offers, declines B's, and accepts C's. Player A recieves the set helmet, and player C gets the staff in the mail/tradebox.
This would allow trading to go on at a much quicker rate, and would also get rid of the need for outside means of trading (the many different forums outside of game that people post their items and what they want on them). I also feel this would create a much more even economy, as people could see what others are asking for their items, and people wouldn't naively accept low offers not knowing what the item they just found is worth.
Conclusion
I'm extremely excited for Diablo 3, and hope to see it soon. And hopefully we'll see some systems like these in it.
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- Arkeus
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Member for 16 years, 8 months, and 3 days
Last active Mon, Feb, 13 2012 02:07:33
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This. =( Kind of sad... Oh well!
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When I saw
"Simply be creative and post one or more detailed suggestions or your personal wishes for the Diablo 3 Team ... What do you want to see in Diablo 3 concerning Trading features and PvP features. Post them below."
I took that to mean we were supposed to post on those topics. =)
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Thoughts on PVP
Having played Diablo 2 for many years, I was never able to really get into the PVP aspect of it. Why? Because it was so random. You'd hop into a game, people would hostile you, and you'd leave the town to see what was going on and die 2 seconds into the wilderness. Duels usually weren't duels, and they weren't fair. But there's a lot that can be changed to fix it:
First off, I think that when you create a game, you should be able to create a game as PVP or PVE. If you create a PVE game, then you're safe. No one will hostile you, jump through a portal and gank you while you're exploring a dungeon. In diablo 2 there was no way to actually do a true PVE game to quest with friends, but this is one way that would fix this.
But what would a PVP game do? Well, there are a few ways to handle this. One would be to have any player you are not grouped with be attackable outside of cities/towns. This, more than creating a PVP setting, would do a much bigger thing: It would allow team vs team. Create a game, mark it as PVP, and get 6 players in there. Then you can have 3 group together, and the other 3 group. Now you've instantly got yourself a 3v3 battle, with the entire world as your stadium. Don't like team battles? Drop teams and you've got yourself a free-for-all. Depending on the number of players allowed in the game, you could even have more than 2 teams. Team battles were extremely hard to coordinate in Diablo 2, and this is one thing that would help alleviate that problem.
Another thing that steered me away from Diablo 2 PVP was losing gold and such in PVP. While it makes sense to drop items and gold when killing in PVE, in PVP you're constantly dying and such, and the game would flow much better without it. One way to make it not completely penalty-less would be to allow a "wager" to be set on a PVP game. When dying, you'll lose that much gold (which could be even distributed to players not on your team who are in range, or something). That way, players who just want to have fun don't need to worry about dropping their gold in some remote location and forgetting it, they can simply have a "Duels for fun, 0 wager" game.
And one final gripe I had about D2 PVP is that it took place about 10 yards from the bridge in the first camp. There was never any variety in location. One way I think that could help this problem is to allow player free access to where his dead body is (at least in PVP flagged games). This could be in the style of running as a ghost, such as in World of Warcraft, or simply having a aura of immunity until you get within X yards of your body. Or, another different approach would be that if you die in a PVP environment, don't take the player back to town. Simply leave the player as a ghost at their body when they die, and give them a spawn timer before they can resurrect within a few screens of their body. This idea may sound useless, but I feel that it would help PVP in that you could PVP wherever you want. For example, a nice PVP spot would have been on Arreat Summit up with the statues and columns. However, being pushed back to town and then returning through a port/WP would allow players to camp those areas. But dying and being able to res a few screens from your body would allow players quick access back into the battle, but by being able to res a little bit away from their body (or coming back with immunity) they are able to get back into the battle without being camped at the entry point, something that really bothered me in the last game.
While none of these ideas are serious issues, I feel that they would really help create a better atmosphere of PVP in the game, and draw in new audiences.
Thoughts on Trading
Trading is something I really enjoyed about Diablo 2. There is something about finding a perfect unique item, and being able to barter with people for something you really want. However, it can be a hassle trying to sort through games or create games and hope people see your "Occy 4 Trade" game in the huge list of games.
One way this can be improved is an in-game marketplace where players can list their items. However, it wouldn't be like an auctionhouse (though it could be), it would simply be a searchable listing of items that people currently want to trade. A nice addition would be to search by player, so a player can set up "shop" and people can look at the list of all items a certain player has that they would like to trade.
Now rather than just listing it and buying it for gold (because gold is never a great currency in Diablo), they would be able to contact the seller. Contacts could be done through whisper (though this could be annoying at times), or through a "trade mailbox" that a player has. People would see an item on the tradepost, and send the owner an offer mail. Then players could visit the tradepost and check all the offers they have (possibly send some sort of notice to a player any time they get an offer). Offers could be done simply, as text. Or possibly, offers could literally be the items. That way if someone finds an offer in their box that they like, rather than having to track down the player next time they are on, the player could accept the offer, and the items would be exchanged. So it would be something like:
Player A places Unique Staff on tradepost with a message that they want a certain set helmet
Player B sees A's staff and offers 100,000g and a rare helmet (Player A gets a notice)
Player C sees A's staff and offers the set helmet A is looking for (Player A gets a notice)
Player A checks the offers, declines B's, and accepts C's. Player A recieves the set helmet, and player C gets the staff in the mail/tradebox.
This would allow trading to go on at a much quicker rate, and would also get rid of the need for outside means of trading (the many different forums outside of game that people post their items and what they want on them). I also feel this would create a much more even economy, as people could see what others are asking for their items, and people wouldn't naively accept low offers not knowing what the item they just found is worth.
Conclusion
I'm extremely excited for Diablo 3, and hope to see it soon. And hopefully we'll see some systems like these in it.