Diablo-Source recently interviewd the D3 Lead Technical Artist, Julian Love, and got this line from him "Just the overview, we like PVP we recognize that it wasn't treated very well in the previous games and we would like to do something to make it better for Diablo 3. What that will be is not something that we can talk about right now."

My opinion is this:

Don't do it. Just ignore pvp. The Diablo world has never had pvp as a focus and everyone loves it anyway. The thing is, Diablo has great game play but the real meat of the game is the loot. This means that fundamentally the pvp will be about who has better gear. That's not fun for anyone.

I've seen how Blizzard handled WoW pvp. I played WoW pvp for many years... long enough to know that if you add pvp rewards then players will demand balance. That means pve nerfs, pvp nerfs, pvp buffs that result in a character being overpowered, then nerfs into the ground until they are underpowered, and that offsets the balance of other classes, and the cycle goes on and on. All it will do is frustrate everyone.

Pvp just has no place in a simple-to-play, loot-fest ARPG. If you want to pvp imo go play AoC or guild wars.

I know I'll get some serious flames for this post because some players don't see how pvp will ruin the game, but that's fine. I have my opinion and you can have yours.

Blizzard, please learn from the mistakes of WoW and from the successes of D2 and don't waste valuable development time on pvp.

I don't entirely agree.

I never played Diablo 2 for the PvP myself. It was more of a side thing - a mini-game to distract me every once in a while.

However, there does seem to be a strong enough following that it would be a mistake on Blizzard's part to completely neglect it.

That said, I am hoping that from early development they are willing to consider two sides to most skills:

implementation of a skill versus monsters (and the common / champion / unique / boss strata)

implementation of a skill versus other players

I considered it a great disappointment that many skills in Diablo 2 were completely disabled versus other players.

For instance: Dim Vision, Confuse, Taunt, and Howl (and I am not sure about Attract and Slow Missiles)

Anyway, I would prefer skills that in their implementation versus monsters may be overpowered to allow use on players rather have a second "debuffing" implementation of some sort when used versus a player.

For instance, when used on a player, Dim Vision could cause some sort of "curse" that caused a 25% - 75% automatic failure (miss) chance on any direct attack, or something of that sort.

This would allow characters who were designed primarily for PvM to retain some of their power in PvP, rather than having certain builds face a deficiency of 20 to 40 skill levels in comparison to a character designed for PvP.

IMO changing each skill for pvp makes the game overly complex. It also puts a player in the position where they think they know their character well and they go to pvp and realize they dont know anything about their character and have to start over. At that point, why not just make 2 seperate games because that's essentially what you're doing.

I played all of the diablo games for the various pvp interactions only and thought the pve content was boring and repetitive..

I can say with 100% certainty that everyone I played with along with myself would not bother buying Diablo3 without PVP and im sure countless others feel the same way

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Q u o t e:
I played all of the diablo games for the various pvp interactions only and thought the pve content was boring and repetitive..

I can say with 100% certainty that everyone I played with along with myself would not bother buying Diablo3 without PVP and im sure countless others feel the same way

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IMO you played the wrong game.

If I was most interested in PvE, would it be a good idea for me to play Quake 3: Arena and then say it needs a better single-player campaign?

How so? Ive never had more fun then I did on D2 in PVP encounters on any other game

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Q u o t e:
How so? Ive never had more fun then I did on D2 in PVP encounters on any other game

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D2 pvp is mostly about gear and party about tactics. Maybe that's why you liked it? If that's the case then you probably won't enjoy D3 because they are going to attempt to actually balance the pvp.

Thats why you duel people who have equal or better gear.. its much more fun..
And I really enjoyed running / teleporting around dodging multipul people while trying to figure out where you think theyre headed and shoot your various missiles in that direction trying to hit them..
It was like a dance..

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Q u o t e:
And I really enjoyed running / teleporting around dodging multipul people while trying to figure out where you think theyre headed and shoot your various missiles in that direction trying to hit them..
It was like a dance..

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I have a friend who is a street fighter 4 pro... I never paid much attention to the game but the other weekend I saw him play a match and it was much like that. Someone would shoot a fireball and the other guy would jump in the are in a weird motion and try to land something right where the other guy was moving... it was very choreographic-looking. If D3 focused more on that kind of thing I might be a little more interested but honestly I just don't see it happening.

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Q u o t e:

I considered it a great disappointment that many skills in Diablo 2 were completely disabled versus other players.

For instance: Dim Vision, Confuse, Taunt, and Howl (and I am not sure about Attract and Slow Missiles)

Anyway, I would prefer skills that in their implementation versus monsters may be overpowered to allow use on players rather have a second "debuffing" implementation of some sort when used versus a player.

For instance, when used on a player, Dim Vision could cause some sort of "curse" that caused a 25% - 75% automatic failure (miss) chance on any direct attack, or something of that sort.

This would allow characters who were designed primarily for PvM to retain some of their power in PvP, rather than having certain builds face a deficiency of 20 to 40 skill levels in comparison to a character designed for PvP.

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If Dim Vision was ever implemented in that way for PvP, it would be extremely OP. Automatically reducing a melee attack to X% chance on hit regardless of Defense or block would be extremely nasty.

Anyways, I would also like to point out that most "useless" PvP skills are really not completely useless. From your list of examples above, Howl, Dim Vision, and I believe Confuse can actually be used against a player's minions. This could actually prove to be extremely useful in very specific PvP situations... For example, if you are using a Bonemancer, it might be worthwhile casting Dim Vision against a Summoner that decided to revive Stygians or Souls.

Also, Slow Missiles works for PvP, but unlike Dim Vision, it will even work on players. It is usually considered a BM tactic though, since most Amazons that use it do so against other Amazons as soon as they leave town. Generally, it's used as a town guarding tactic...

Attract can also work in PvP against players too. The only situation that I can think of using it though is when you are using minions against a player that is also minion stacking. Since Attract makes all of your minions target the cursed foe, you can cast it on the enemy player and then have your minions ignore your opponent's minions.

Also, the same problem of seperating PvP characters from PvM characters in Diablo II may not be a problem in Diablo III. Blizzard did say that there will be respecs in Diablo III, and having the ability to change your character's build from PvM to PvP will surely avoid the need to remake like in Diablo II.

As long as PvP (including balancing it) doesn't impact the core PvM game-play, I don't really care how PvP is implemented.

Well, I remember PvP being a lot more fun o vanilla WoW since it took into account much more skill then gear (untill around AQ40). I think if a game's made thinking about PvP from start (which wasn't the case for WoW, and anyone that played vanilla WoW can vouche for that) it gets much simpler to balance it around both PvE and PvE (or PvM if you prefer).
PvP is a HUGE part of any game these days. You're entitled to have your opinion on it, but you can't really ignore it, PvP is all around and it isn't going anywhere and that much you have to live with. Face it, it's human nature, we get better gear to 1) show off and 2) beat the living hell out of others.

You just wanted the flame, did you?

There is no other game like Diablo 2 in terms of pvp. You mentioned Guild wars?
Funny... as you cannot compare these 2 games in so many aspects.

PvP in Softcore Mode will return - it has already been announced. So your post is senseless anyway.

PvP offers diversion if you want to do something different. And in the long run (end game), it's the best thing to ensure fun. No one else is an enemy as good as human players. The AI is just dumb and can be beaten always (even if it's a matter of time). It's being made to be beaten with certain tactics - even the hardest dungeons and monsters.

And you seriously ask to leave the best feature of ANY game out of it?

You haven't even played Diablo 2 in a serious matter, that's what I think..

There is no other game like diablo 2 when comes to PvP

----> join PK game

and you see group of koreans with perf gear [duped/ebuy]
NK NK NK NK NK @ ez mode noob /cry more pls
RAGE!!111111111111111
then some kid cannot gether all his corpses and start spam/flood somethink stupit
and ofc the spam bots join to make the mess bigger...is not over yet!



LOG HAMMERDIN TO AVENGE THE INJUSTICE oh wait, game is full rage !11111111111

same story ..untill all the act1 is flood with ears and ofcs
necromancers join and start crashing the game with bone prison/walls

when game crashes someone create new PK game and the circle starts all over

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Q u o t e:
You haven't even played Diablo 2 in a serious matter, that's what I think..

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Actually I've played it very serious for a very, very long time. WAY too much actually. That's why I know the pvp is not worth spending time on.

If you think pvp in D2 was actually good, then it's you who has never played any actual pvp rpg in a serious matter.

D2 PVP was fun before LOD came with all the super items. With simple items it was more fun because the gap between a newcomer and experienced player wasn't so much about items but how you handled your character.

It was fairly easy to get an above average gear for a barbarian for example and then you could go do some BVB, of course you pretty much lost to an uber geared skilled S/S barb but you did have some chance to beat them even with a 2h weapon since back then you could do terrible damage with them sometimes.

Back then I really enjoyed PVP but the interest kept losing all the time when LOD came because it became to rely too much about items. (full damage reduction and absorbtion etc) For exmple whistan shield vs stormshield barb. At the early days of LOD 1.08 it was still ok since not many had all those kicky items. We had those Cruel Swords etc. it was fun time dueling.

Anyways D3 should be more PVE oriented. In D2 you could just get a boost for your MF char and start finding PVP gear for your boosted PVP char. In D3 I think you should put more effort to PVE and you should be able to PVP with the gear you find while leveling up your character.

One of the best things in D2 Classic was that while you leveled up your character, you could join to Duel game every now and then be successful there even with your PVE gear that you pretty much found while leveling. That took you away from the endless leveling grind.

I think 1.09 were the best times in terms of gameplay. Cruel Swords, BurizaGaze Amazons, etc in PvP.
Leveling up a char could be done VERY quickly without wasting too much time, and people enjoyed
spending times in CowLevel (the best area of all tbh :D)

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Q u o t e:
I think 1.09 were the best times in terms of gameplay. Cruel Swords, BurizaGaze Amazons, etc in PvP.
Leveling up a char could be done VERY quickly without wasting too much time, and people enjoyed
spending times in CowLevel (the best area of all tbh :D)

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Uhh, don't you mean a time for hex charms, occy/white/con rings, white gloves, and ith/quark swords/bows?
At least the good pvpers anyways.

Cows were sorta fun then, one multishot and a few hex charms were all you needed to take out like half the level.

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Q u o t e:
You took "treating PvP better" as "providing progression-based rewards for PvP", and that's really just too specific a leap to make.

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And you can't really argue with this :P