I’m not sure why? (talking about D4, not 3). If the whole premise of the mode is to PvP, why would people complain about it? It’s all in a match format so if you die, you just queue for another game and move on.
I prefer match-style hardcore mode pvp. Maybe because I’ve been playing too many battle royale games so the “you die, you’re out” mindset is already engraved in my mind. Or maybe because allowing for multiple deaths to “feed” an enemy is the #1 factor on making MOBAs so full of toxicity.
Given that people complain that they died to a disconnect after farming very low difficulties with their hardcore characters for months, I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing changes in D4.
I wouldn’t mind seeing temporary specialized servers for D4 popping up that did this kind of thing.
Or world events. Like lalala I’m in a dungeon “WORLD MESSAGE: An army of demons has emerged from a portal and is attacking Town X.”
Or “WORLD MESSAGE: Enemies in (areas of the world map) have been temporarily empowered by a ritual from Hell. PvP has been temporarily enabled in these zones.”
Or even things similar to FFXIV’s Fates would be nice.
D3 tried this minimalist/luddist/defeatist approach and look what happened with the 2nd expansion. (Of course D3 happened during the MOBA craze when every PvP game needed the approval of some Council on Competitive Viability or else it was “irrelevant”, but I like to think that dark era has come and gone.) Jay Wilson’s assessment of D3 PvP applies only to D3, and only because he procrastinated. It is not codified law of “proper” ARPG design by any stretch. It’s easy to say there is no demographic for PvP when D3 did everything possible to ward them away years ago. And for what?
D4 resembles an MMO more than any other Diablo game. Part-and-parcel to this is greater, more dynamic player interaction. We’re not getting Diablo 3 Part 2 so you can forget that idea and you might as well learn to enjoy D4 for what it is, or else find a more suitable game. On top of which they make it clear that PvP will be entirely optional, so what’s the motive to seeing PvP disappear, why do you have such an axe to grind about it? Suppose devs are genuinely interested in PvP themselves? would you have them slaver away at another static one-dimensional PvE-exclusive, against their innate passion/desire for what a Diablo game can be?
If anything D4 should do 2x the trailblazing to make-up for D3.
Isn’t iron man a bit different? From what I remember, everyone made a hardcore character, leveled them to 18 and then fought to death. It’s different than fighting over a certain objective
I can get my PvP elsewhere. I don’t need Diablo to have it. Further, not every game needs to have both. It’s not a requirement. And those other PvP titles are always going to be better at it. ARPGs are simply bad at PvP.
I would rather nothing potentially get sacrificed or changed because the developers felt they HAD to include PvP.
As you say, PvP will be optional. So I hope we’ll be fine. A lot will depend on resources.
Lots of cool skills will be watered down or outright removed because of “not viable for pvp”.
Game will be delayed even further. We already had this before with Starcraft2 which was finished for single player, but a guy named David Kim had to waste months and months for endless tinkering with pvp balancing.
Just remove pvp altogether or keep it reduced at brawling.
Not if you make PvP a completely separate thing. For example, Doom 2016 is basically 2 games in one. You have the campaign mode and you have the online multiplayer which is developed by a completely different studio. Even Starcraft 2 is like that, the balancement of the campaign units is completely different from the multiplayer mode. A huge behemoth like ActiBlizz can definitely pull that off.
“A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.”
What about removing those cool skills from PvP because they’re not viable for PvP? Sometimes your shortcuts are not the best approach; walking a mile long way with a bottle at hand to the nearest source of water is easier than trying to find a new source of water in the desert you live in.
Leave designing a game to the designers for once instead of uttering the worst.
Well, people absolutely expected PvP from D3 as well, since it was a big element in both D1 and D2. Especially in D1, the game would have next to zero incentive to keep playing if it wasn’t for the duels. No, they didn’t age well. Yes, they were amazing for 1996 standards.
But you can’t get Diablo PvP elsewhere. That’s what some Diablo players are after. Even for hardcore RTS/fighting-game fans, or whatever, it’s perfectly natural to want even more variety, no?
This sort of laser-thin narrow focus makes sense for some Playstation “hit of the week”, but not so much for Blizzard games known for extreme longevity and value. Feature-rich “forever games” were Blizzard’s signature style until D3 crashed the party. PvP makes for a much more well-rounded product. Who can deny this?
Besides, I’d wager that with due care & diligence, D3 was magnitudes more suitable to PvP than WoW (and what would WoW be without PvP)? Of course we’ll never know about D3, but D4 will finally explore that avenue. I’m looking forward to it.
David Kim is free to equip players with any number of defensive/counter-offensive tools necessary to deal with these cool skills. We’ll see.
Anyway, in SC2’s case it was the single player that saw a quantum leap with the final delay. The multiplayer was basically finished since beta and required only extensive play-testing, as is typical. Since PvP can stand on its own without constant content additions, to me that’s all-the-more reason to embrace it, as far and away the greater ratio of return : time investment.
Hrm, so because the great Jay Wilson couldn’t find a way, it can’t be done? Just cancel anything that doesn’t have a well-established pre-existing template, that doesn’t essentially design itself on “autopilot”? So much for ingenuity/innovation?
