I PvP’ed back in the day in hardcore classic and a little in Pubs in SC LoD. But as in most games, PvP can be a very toxic environment until you find the right community.
In D2 PvP is especially hard, because you don’t only need the mechanical skills, but also the right gear and a lot of knowledge about the game and class mechanics. Most folks in D2R are already overwhelmed by PvM. As you see on the forums daily, they cry for improved drops and xp, because they can’t even afford their first PvM toons, which are quite inexpensive comparing to PvP toons.
So, no new players usually don’t participate much in PvP or not long. It’s quite frustrating to start with, but gets better with gear/time.
I won’t participate in PvP in the first years. Maybe later, when I had time to gather some NonLadder wealth and the PvP community has a good GM PvP going.
Do you think you would participate in low-level pvp if it was not as reliant on gear as much?
Say for instance, if folks could participate in automated matches that range from 1v1 to like 4v4 (or higher if the 8 player limit was raised) and earn pvp or pve style gear as rewards. Maybe even experience?
It would change what pvp is now drastically however. As folks would want to focus on the new thing for a while.
I just don’t see any good space for combat.
I know they planed to have an arena in the original game but scrapped it for budget and lack of resources. Maybe that would work now though…
I only PvP in games that were actually designed around PvP. Too much toxicity when you have a split between hunting newbs is the real meaning of life, unbalanced classes, etc.
For good PvP you need some balance, but you also need good matchmaking so new players can actually be placed against people at or slightly above their level. Not a lot of people stay with (nor is it effective way to get skilled), being completely outmatched all the time and never being able to practice and improve.
It would be a different game and maybe I would. For example in ESO I level up a few toons just with PvP, because it was more fun than grinding through PvE. Problem is always gear. If it was like Guild Wars, with PvP gear you didn’t have to farm it’s a kinda nice PvP exp. But as it is on D2, I don’t think it’s gonna happen for me.
Everything is already covered in that thread: PvP: make it official. Long post part 2/3 . I basically asked the question of why is it that pvp is more fun than pvm for most people but there are so few people pvping (as a % of the total player base), and then I kinda solved the question myself. Course I went into too many nuances about what makes pvp work and what doesn’t and then prescribed a few hypothetical solutions (or existing solutions) so I wrote more than I planned to. The gist is that pvp only requires:
-Basic umpiring, which is automated in all other pvp games
-Team pvp is mostly auto-balancing (like MTG) with little or no restriction on gear or skills, but individual pvps are not. Individual pvps are actually extremely high maintenence. Pvps also do not require balance to be widespread. People would pvp for the sake of pvping, more so than pvm, so the only thing that’s required for sustained widespread participation is either balance, or incentivizing pvp (this is simple, because VIRTUAL goods are apparently of value to people here, so Blizzard can generate whatever pixels they want to make people work for it. Personally, I would want a cosmetic bra and panties for my zon with Enigma-esque stats and also a facelift for my zon, but more realistically, with what dclone generation is, everybody needs each and every of their chars to don a 20/20 Anni, so we just need that up for grabs at pvp tournaments)
-Pvp among completed chars with endgame levels is the surest way to ensure that pvp will not be balanced. With pvp among incomplete chars at pre-late game levels (for example level 70 or less), strategies and class balance are in more of a state of flux, hence strats and outcomes are more unpredictable. So if pvps were to be promoted at for example various stages of ladder, it would be extremely competitive, probably more competitive than your usual pvp-focused game, and you wouldn’t have to worry about balance because class balance is constantly fluctuating, especially if it is pvp between groups. So to turn a pvm game like this into an ultra-competitive pvp game, it only requires an automated arena to be added into the game, not some complicated balancing or w/e it is. Of course there’s also the element of RNG, which could bring less or more players depending on how much you like your RNG, but in the grand scheme of things RNG is not likely to deter anybody from joining in
See the thing is, Diablo was initially designed to be multiplayer right. As they had seen the success with Warcraft 1 working online and wanted to incorporate that.
The problem with Diablo online; is that it feels tacked on, even though the entire game is built around the idea of needing to function online… It’s always felt like a single player game that you can play with your friends. Rather then a game actually deigned to be played online. I’m sayin’ it’s not too late to incorporate pvp as part of the regular players game loop.
No point in discussing character teams or balance until a few things are worked out first…
For instance, what if: Every day at 8:PM EST there’s a pvp event for folks to participate in and you all pile into an Arena and compete. Or there’s an automated que system that you could join when ever you like to compete for rewards.
Personally, after GMing large scale pvp events in another game for a while, I’ve lost all faith in any kind of automated team maker or anything like that. I’ve just seen too many exploits for it to work on a daily basis without the code being changed and requiring a client update…
Some of the shenanigans:
-AFK players : sometimes players need to go afk. other times they do it to stall the game.
-Fixing matches: sometimes players intentionally give-up or throw the match.
-Cheating in-game: sometimes players use macros or 3rd party programs.
-Quitting the game: sometimes players will leave the game if they think they’re loosing.
-Lag out: sometimes players lag out and miss the automated triggers.
those are some of the big problems you’ll run into with automated pvp. From my experience, it takes a human player to watch the games and make sure they’re played fairly. And it’s proven that hand-made teams preform better.
But yeah, doesn’t need to be any pvp VS pve augment- both can be done in the same game… if it’s done right.
I’ll preface this by saying I play HC so my interaction with new players is at a minimum.
I don’t see D2 PvP as anything you can do unless you play a minimum of 4+ hours a day. The real PvP players spend hours farming up the best stuff so they can beat the other players. If you can squeak out a bit more power because you gambled up a better circlet, you can win more often.
PvP in Diablo 2 has always been gear first then skill. Only once you have the same gear as everyone else will you really compete on the skill side. But if you can dedicate 2 hours a day to farming you will have a hard time competing against someone who dedicates 8 hours a day to farming. You will probably end up buying your gear off him on jsp.
Hm I think those issues would be found in every online game, shouldn’t be very complicated IMO. I played WC3 for years, player vs player went off without a hitch. I wager you could prolly graft the entire matchup system onto D2 and it would pass off somewhat convincingly as a pvp game, but you would have to add all sorts of monetary incentives for blizz to add that sort of thing into the game. D2 itself doesn’t have any of that infrastructure at all… It was designed for pk, not pvp. It’s easy to develop some semblance of a pvp aspect to D2, but you would have to add a bit of monetary incentive. But D2 is by and large a pvm game, doesn’t matter that pvp draws by far much more passionate support and pvp is what upkeeps its own pvm game, because D2 is still only the very same pvm game that the devs built in 2000. D2 would basically be a freak frankenstein of a game, if you were to attempt to integrate both the pvp and pvm, it is only by carefully segregating that that you won’t see that.
It’s all too easy to monetise the game tbh. Anybody could monetize this sort of thing. D2jsp got control of the ingame market without even intending to. It was actually a botting website that got turned into some sort of middleman currency and people were essentially being forced to depend on it, pretty much by blizz’s design, because blizz didn’t want people to acknowledge that its game was an RMT game. Njag made millions off the game without even having a single item to trade. So it looks like pvp could be a cash cow, but it wouldn’t do anything good for the game if the proceeds were not going to the game dev but an unlicensed third-party.
Way I see it most people join it not per se to win, but for the sake of joining, like most people join a marathon for fun. Only a few actually join it with the objective of winning the top prize, but you see thousands of people sign up for fun anyway. But it should be at least fairly competitive for most people. RNG variances smooth out if it is team pvp, and if you were to expand the format to say, 7v7 or FFA, the RNG variance should even out because extremities in RNG for individual players are spread out among the whole team, or RNG variance is only a minor factor in determining the outcome for FFA. And then factor in item pooling and trading and RNG becomes even less of a factor. You also have to acknowledge that RMT is always going on (personally I’ve never spent anything on items or fg, though), so THAT would be the main deciding factor, not RNG. Your chars are not limited by RNG, because there is RMT, so in that sense RNG cannot even be cited as much of a factor (unless blizz were able to weed RMT out of the equation over here). Having the capacity to RMT doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll use it, but people going for the win actually may (or for some people it’s only to fulfil a fetish. Finding an actual use for it is just a bonus). So for most people it won’t realistically be competing for the top spot, but only for how high you place in a tournament like that, which is IMO a sufficient draw for most people anyway. So the level of challenge in such a tourney for most players would be a bottomless pit, the limit being what the RMTers would be willing to blow to obtain first week pvp-grade items. Between the “pure legits” and the RMTers, the former obviously aren’t advantaged in any way other than their own skill, but the second group of players are basically going to be giving all the problems to all players; you may gain bragging rights for being able to eliminate the latter sort of player, though. That’s prolly about as much competitiveness a game that isn’t inherently balanced (it’s not even balanced for pvm) is going to get, but in some ways you could actually say that RMT makes the game more competitive.
The secondary factor to RMT would be RNG, but if we were to look at the second factor in isolation, it actually turns the game into something ultra-competitive, all on its own. It would actually be more competitive because of RNG variance, not less competitive. For example a good player happens to get good RNG that season = no change in outcome because the good player would’ve won anyway. But a bad player gets good luck at the RNG = you get more unpredictable outcomes. This way you automatically ensure a system that continually challenges players, for better or for worse, and this way even the good ones will be forced to continually stay on their toes by the bad players. It’s just a fun pvp game It can be fun or engaging, even if it’s not esport worthy. People join not because it has good balance or w/e, but because it’s playable. You are also not obliged to bring a good char or anything, obv. You can bring some crap level 20 grushed char of course, but the reality is that in a real pvp game it won’t last more than a few seconds. But for most people favourable RNG only means that you have to RMT maybe a jah or a ber less out of the jah+ber+lo or whatever the bare minimum is for your char to be usable at pvp, but I think most people would only join a tournament like that for fun and make-do with whatever it is they found with their RNG, complete char or non-complete. For most ppl it would just be about seeing how many F2P ppl you can kill! If you like pvp between endgame builds only, I dunno, maybe if there are non-ladder tourneys, the people there are P2W and would have RMT’d all their items. Unlike ladder it won’t be that competitive though, because everybody there would be using top-end items and there is no RNG variance to make it more competitive. I think non-ladder play is easier to follow, because you don’t have to adjust according to what you find from your RNG and don’t have to improvise much. But pvp on ladder would be very competitive, even among noobs, because it is a combination of all of those: skill/understanding of the pvp game and how to improvise, what you are willing to blow on RMT, and time spent/luck on the pvm game. They’re also saying that there will be new runewords every season or something like that, so that means non-ladder pvp meta will no longer be constant. That means you’ll now have more fun pvping in ladder, and you would be better off investing on functional ladder gear not wasting your $ overinvesting on non-ladder builds.
Roflllllll For a bowazon to even have a small chance or be decent at dueling would need an inventory full of 3/20/20 SCs, Perf Faith , jewelers tiara of speed with three 40/15s, among others etc. Do you have any idea of how rare or much stuff like that costs?
Meanwhile mr BeginnerDin throws on a Eniggy and shako with HOZ and just ports around killing them in 1 hammer animation whilst the nerfed to oblivion guided arrow doesnt even hit them unless theyre on the same screen and name locked (what good is range if they have to be that close?) Also, the guided arrow pretty much goes bye bye as soon as they teleport again.
And then when you do get a hit off the pally loses like 1/10th of their health if any because they usually just block.
Dmg, KB, piercing, etc? GONE. Bye bye.
2 handed weapons like bows need a serious buff like yesterday.
Thats balanced to you?
Most of yo guys dont know what you’re talking about.
Barbs its the same thing pretty much. Sorcs as well. Wanna know what you lack when you have to stick to a strict regimen of IAS breakpoint gear and max dmg Sc? You lack RESISTS and mobility. Meaning any sorc wearing rags can one shot you. Sorc elemental dmg should be nerfed against other players in hell mode. Otherwise put the zons abilities back to where they were. D2 creators were making change around 1.09 / 1.10 but forgot to finish on their way out the door.
Meanwhile javazons with stacked resistance and shields have no problem and do better damage,
Again BOWS AND 2 HANDERS NEED A BUFF.
Like I said - have you any idea what a 3/20/20 sc or other bowazon gear costs compared to basic gear of other classes?
It can be fun or engaging, even if it’s not esport worthy. People join not because it has good balance or w/e, but because it’s playable. You are also not obliged to bring a good char or anything, obv. You can bring some crap level 20 grushed char of course, but the reality is that in a real pvp game it won’t last more than a few seconds. But for most people favourable RNG only means that you have to RMT maybe a jah or a ber less out of the jah+ber+lo or whatever the bare minimum is for your char to be usable at pvp, but I think most people would only join a tournament like that for fun and make-do with whatever it is they found with their RNG, complete char or non-complete. For most ppl it would just be about seeing how many F2P ppl you can kill! If you like pvp between endgame builds only, I dunno, maybe if there are non-ladder tourneys, the people there are P2W and would have RMT’d all their items. Unlike ladder it won’t be that competitive though, because everybody there would be using top-end items and there is no RNG variance to make it more competitive. I think non-ladder play is easier to follow, because you don’t have to adjust according to what you find from your RNG and don’t have to improvise much. But pvp on ladder would be very competitive, even among noobs, because it is a combination of all of those: skill/understanding of the pvp game and how to improvise, what you are willing to blow on RMT, and time spent/luck on the pvm game. They’re also saying that there will be new runewords every season or something like that, so that means non-ladder pvp meta will no longer be constant. That means you’ll now have more fun pvping in ladder, and you would be better off investing on functional ladder gear not wasting your $ overinvesting on non-ladder builds.