Idea for a New Endgame Activity: Battlefields

PC General Discussion
1

I’m loving that the developers are exploring and expanding the endgame activity arsenal. I don’t know what else they have in the works currently or if something like this has been discussed before, but when I saw that angels would be introduced into the game in some capacity, I thought an endgame activity involving them would be something cool and different to add.

I was thinking this new activity could be some sort of battlefield event. This could take place in Sanctuary or Heaven or Hell, or all three on different fronts… part of the eternal conflict in action, so to speak. It would take place on some sort of open field. This could be done either solo or with a party or with randomly matched players. I was thinking one side would align with the forces of Heaven and the other side would be on the side of the forces of Hell. Also the humans/nephalem could be a third, separate faction depending on how they wanted to set it up. The players could choose to align with either Heaven’s forces or Hell’s. So essentially 2 “teams” (or 3). This could be presented in a team PVP type format, or it doesn’t have to be and could be completed with your own group all on the same side going against the other, like a Legion event.

The two teams would each do their best to drive the other forces back (or to extinction) to win the battle. Or it could be a timed event with numbers of kills added up (for monsters or angels destroyed or a separate stat for players killed if it was PVP). In a PVP situation there could be a respawn point you always return to or alternatively maybe your teammates could resurrect you on the battlefield.

There could be a number of structures on the field that need to be destroyed, maybe for points? Or maybe not. This could be point based and number of “points” (or whatever they would choose to call it) correlates with rewards at the end.

Or maybe the teams have to close Heaven’s portals or Hell’s portals and finish off the existing army to win. There could still be two teams without PVP and you just wouldn’t be able to kill the players on the opposing faction, but still compete to complete the other objectives. They could introduce all sorts of monsters like siegebreaker assault beasts, armored destroyers or lurkers that are very tanky and harder to take down. They could also introduce the angels’ ranged artillery weapons from D3. There could be an aerial component where winged demons fly down from above, same with angels. Maybe even higher lords of Hell like Azmodan (or the Primes once introduced) could be a staple or randomly make an appearance and angels like Imperius or Tyrael could fght on Heaven’s side, maybe depending on what the lore leans into. Maybe the goal could be to fight through the waves (like Infernal Hordes) to eventually fight one of the “bosses” and whichever side completes it first, wins. Maybe the difficulty correlates to the Torment tier you’re in so the sides remain relatively even?

They could give you something cool as rewards like cosmetics of course, along with materials, maybe a badge to display on your profile. Maybe it’s a way you earn a resplendent spark depending on difficulty? Or maybe it’s also a way to earn materials for crafting. Numerous possibilities.

Just several ideas so as not to eliminate creativity here, but the concept could be a cool feature, maybe added in a future expansion? Or a future season?

Let me know what you guys think. Is this something you’d be interested in?

3 Likes
2

I like your enthusiasm but that sounds like a mobile game and not something that should be added to D4.

4 Likes
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Yes, lots of potential there.

If I were to re-imagine the campaign, I think it would have been much more interesting to design the story in a choose-your-own-adventure kind of way rather than a forced linear story line. The story could have re-converged at the singular point of decision. Are you backing Team Lilith or Team Mephisto and then have the story end on different arcs based on this key decision.

You could then parlay that into an open game world opt-in setting exactly as you described based on which story line you chose as a player.

Untapped potential.

1 Like
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Get out of here with the Diablo Immortal stuff. The PVP isn’t well thought out, but it’s meant to be in the back, not mandatory. Large scale things like this when implemented would, in all likelihood, *force& casual players and people who dislike PVP content to pursue it anyway.

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So like DoTa or LoL?

Biggest issue with this is getting paired with random noobs and toxic wannabe elite players who are even worst than noobs.

So you end up pairing with a group of good players and you basically either squash some random nubs or get squashed by better team (stronger carry)

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Faction based PvP could be fun, but PvP is WAY harder to balance for than PvE. I’d want to see the game in a mature and somewhat settled state with decent class balance before id want to see this come into play.

Other posters make good points. The rewards would need to be basically the same stuff you get from PvE as not to force players into PvP to get the best gear. maybe Aether rewards for PKs with the same chest options as horde?

IMHO Dark Age of Camelot when it was run by Mythic had the best PvP implementation I have ever seen in any game. If you can do something close to this experience you have a hit.

2 Likes
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Yeah DAOC was fun for a while I liked doorhammer as well for a bit

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great, i want new endgame activities as well, like growing corn and potatoes, milking cows, and selling milk to the town. :+1:

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S6 or later may have some activities of this. The new mythic helm [Heir of Perdition] has a power to steal other player’s blessing. (the bless that increases x60% damage)

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I’d guess that is more to prevent a full party from all equipping the helm and its bonus for bosses than it is for PvP. especially since it says nearby allies or something to that effect

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Like I said, this doesn’t have to be a PVP event. That would just be one iteration of it, if they could balance it well enough. That’s also where tier levels would come into play. It’s just meant to be another endgame activity like the pit or hordes to participate in. It doesn’t need to include other players at all or other players you’re forced to compete against. I was just casting a wide net on the concept.

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Don’t waste dev time on PvP. Most people don’t play PvP. If they do anything for PvP it should be another option along side softcore and hardcore that has full open PvP for anyone who plays on that mode throughout the game.

That would be the least dev intensive thing to do and it would let all the peeps who cry about PvP gank to their heart’s content because that is what most PvPers want to do gank people who are just trying to play the game.

1 Like
13

Had they dealt with blasting instead of embracing it everything would’ve been viable, even this

But because they embraced it - nothing is. PvP is not viable, event with giant monsters that need co-op work to take down doesn’t work, literally anything won’t work it’s simply not possible

One person does 100k damage per hit another does 20 million, how does that end up working ?, how much HP do those “assault siege breakers” have ?, make 'em 50mil and they die in 2.5 hits for player B and take 5k hits (about 10 minute fight) to take down from player A

And all that difference is to deal with just ONE of those bigger/greater/special monsters

What about the other way round ?, one is a Barb or Druid that has invested in Overpower and has ~300k HP and the other is a Sorc with 30k ?, how much damage (per hit) should those monsters do ?

Make whatever you want is not viable, not only that even gear is not viable as a result, take a LH effect that has a chance of up to 30% to proc and deal 20k damage or increase Crit damage by 5 mil a pop ?

Those are your choices when “blasting is fun we want players feeling powerful”

Frankly the worst decision not only of the century, of the millenia already cause all power does is just move the goal post past those whos’ build or skill has not been “empowered” enough to make it comparable to “favored” one in rotation, AND exceed the time needed to commit to make or achieve something of worth

I mean we can talk all we want about any idea we want but

  • Without proper balance NOTHING is possible and NOTHING is viable (PvP or not, doesn’t matter)

And

  • Power does not increase quality of gameplay, just moves and postpones the goal post further down the road while elongating and extending the same gameplay experience already encountered

Honestly and openly will say what I mean - don’t care about the game’s future anymore

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I think it’s an oportunity for a pvp feature in 1-2 years when the game is stable.
But actually it’s not in a good state (item progression was destroyed in s6 ptr), there are bugs, stability/performance problems and a very bad class balancing.
These things have to be improved first. Than the pve endgame has to be good/motivating. And maybe after that there is room for pvp features.

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Ganking isn’t PvP its asshattery. Real PvP takes place between players equipped for and intending to engage in it. Ganking PVE players who are just trying to complete a quest is basically PVE for damaged people.

I agree that with the current state of the game any investment in PvP would be wasted as real PvP cannot take place with such imbalance, you just end up with a zone full of the same meta builds with RNG determining the outcome just as much as skill/strategy.

IF the game ever reached the point of decent class balance, and they did create some PvP event(s) I would definitely play it.

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Sandbox games don’t do well for a reason.

Non linear, choose your own adventure style campaigns get rudiculed by most becauae there is no connections, the stories feel independent and D4 got complaints because you could do Act 1, 2, or 3 in any order before moving in to 4 then 5.

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I think both have merit but agree it is hard to mix-n-match story driven and truly open.

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I’d definitely enjoy something like this in an MMO, but PvP is kind of niche in this game, and the amount of development for a mechanic that covers a small percentage of players wouldnt be worth it, especially when this game needs so much more work on basic game play. Id check it out in an MMO, on d4 I wouldnt even give it the time of day

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yeah i mostly agree with this and as said in the current state of the game it would be a disaster.

That said they are already dabbling with MMO elements so I can see it coming in a year or two down the line. The conspiracy theorist in me says D4 itself is a beta for systems in a Diablo IP MMO but that’s just crazy talk!

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Yeah, I generally agree. And obviously with the expanion plans being annual with story continuation it would have been impossible. But if it was just a standalone, it wouldn’t have been hard just to diverge on the final fight.