The only info i found about Fields of Hatred is here, and in other few youtube videos: Developer Update: Closed End Game Beta Draws Near — Diablo IV — Blizzard News
I know it’s a bit early to judge, but anyway i’d like to put down what i would like too see as a player that want to have some decent pvp finally present in Diablo, i really hope it doesn’t become a shallow pvp mode that nobody plays.
I’ll post my ideas how to make it fun, challenging and balanced, at least for my point of view.
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In FoH you should feel a constant threat both pve and pvp, think of it like the Demon island of Kenshiro, everything can kill you. Regarding the few videos i saw, the mobs seem too weak and basic, it looks boring. I would like to see strong angry elites that chase you to death, with mechanics similar to the butcher with rushes, stuns, grabs and drags, and also ranged ones. Also stronger mobs ( with better loot ) within the center of Foh, in the hardest zone of the map. For balancing purposes mob density should scale with how many players are in the field, more players means more mobs and viceversa.
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Going into FoH only to collect seeds of hatred sounds a bit silly to me, i want the hard mobs there do drop good items too. Also with red dust hardly collected i would like to be able to buy not only cosmetics, but even some piece of equipment, or use them for crafting ( for ex: u can use red dust to remove the legendary aspect of an item a second time, or other stuff to add more utility… ) Big potential rewards, but also big potential bills to pay if i keep dying and my equip needs repair.
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I would like to see the overall experience balanced: no player 1 shot kills whatsoever, maybe the overall dmg of players in pvp should be accorgidly lowered by some % if necessary , also if i’m lvl 30 and i face a lvl 35, his overall power vs me should be lowered to match my char level. Diminishing returns of crowd controls: a player cannot be kept perma-stunned by a group of other players, if he gets multiple cc in short time they have less effect.
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Anti-griefing mechanics: let’s say player A is engaging an elite mob, player B appears and takes advantage to attack player A for an easy kill ( saw this situation 1000 times in pvp mmos ).
Then, to make it balanced, as soon as player B attacks player A, the elite mob should also consider player B his enemy and since then attack both players equally. -
Map indicators: the limitation of top down view in arpgs in that you can’t see what’s happening out of bounds of the screen. So your only indicator outside of view range becomes the minimap. Bad situation that could happen: i’m alone killing stuff in Foh, suddenly a group of 4 enemy players rushes at me and kills me almost instantly. I would like to have some indicators/dots in minimap that show enemy players density around my position, of course within a max range.
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Factions: regard last point, lonely pvp players will clearly be disadvantaged vs groups of players in party. So adding temporary factions could improve the balancing of the situation. For example when i enter FoH solo or in party, the game assigns me to one faction (1 out of 3 for ex.), so i’ll help players of same faction and fight all others, maybe with also some secondary objectives to conquer. In addition, the game should also consider the overall power of a player based on items and pvp rating to calculate factions overall balance.
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I think FoH should be a scheduled event that occurs like 2-3 times a week for 2-3 hours each or so. Not opened everytime: this will assure that there’ll be always people playing it and it doesn’t become a boring empty zone, and it will also assure that someone cannot login at 4 am, go into an empty FoH with few or no players and farm easily all the stuff he wants. I think everytime opened pvp would be better for instanced modes, like team vs team arenas.
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Other/fun mechanics: the more a player survives and kills in Foh, the more he becomes strong, maybe gaining some temporary buffs. Or after Foh starts, the first player that is able to collect and retrieve into altar X amount of seed, temporary ( like 2-3 minutes ) turns into a powerful Demon with new skills that can terrorize the whole fields. If killed or when timer expires he returns normal, without dying, and the “demon” counter resets.
If you are a player that likes pvp, you can also post your ideas, let’s make our voice heard at Blizzard. I don’t want to only farm equipment just to farm more, my char needs some endgame purpose, for me some good pvp modes are the only way to not become bored over time.
Finally Blizzy, i know you won’t have time to make pvp good at launch, but please, this time, plan to do it later, i’ve lots of other ideas to share so please listen to what your customers want.