Diablo III as eSports

[Vandro]

A large part of the Diablo II community plays the game purely to make PVP characters and duel with them. Several communities have an active playerbase with their own rules (since Diablo II isn't balanced for PVP) and participate in ranked ladders and special tournaments. Diablo as a game is quite good for a competitive game, because of the nice overview of the battle. But it has several problems in Diablo II.

I propose a Guild Wars PVP system to make Diablo III PVP eSports applicable where people can make maxed out characters and unlock items, prefixes etc on a specific realm. Diablo more than Guild Wars is suitable, because Guild Wars has less freedom to move. The problem with Diablo II is that items are too important and it makes it hard to just get into PVP, because you first need to make a PVP character with specific PVP items, sometimes very expensive items that new people just don't have. This makes it bad as an eSport.

World of Warcraft has the problem of mixed PVE and PVP, Blizzard balances something in PVP and it needs to be balanced in PVE at the same time, this is not very handy. Also, World of Warcraft is rock-paper-scissors based, which is not very smart, cause you in theory can never win as scissors playing versus rock. I'm very happy that Diablo III has only 5 classes, so balancing should be somewhat easy.

So, you make your maxed out character. Distribute your stats/skills and start with a basic equipment. While playing some matches you unlock credits that you can turn in at a NPC to unlock for example the King's prefix, or maybe you buy a Stone of Jordan for your character. Or maybe you want to be able to have another prefix on your item, so you can have 2 prefixes on that item instead of 1 (Rare instead of Magical). This way, while playing PVP you can get items not luck based, but skills (and time) based. You can have Random Team battles, or Arranged Team battles, Ranked Battles for ladder or just practice battles. Battle.net 2.0 will be able to do these things very handy. Also Blizzard can balance PVP and PVE separatly, so that if Fireball is to powerful in PVP they can just fix it for PVP. We need replays, live coverage, betting system (I bet 10.000 gold on this guy etc) and it will be very fun.
This way we can also have Diablo III tournaments at Blizzcon etc.

Maybe you guys think this looks too much like WoW Arena, and maybe it is. But I think Diablo's isometric view is far superior as a tactical action PVP system. Also the problems with WoW Arena (level new character to 70 or 80 in WOTKL, balancing in PVP changes gameplay in PVE and visa-versa, rock-paper-scissor model) make it less suitable. Blizzard can make a new fresh start at Diablo III and it will be a succes.

Sorry for the Wall of Text.

[Tashohnie]

I did not read it all to be honest but sounds ok... I dont like the r/p/s idea same as you I think its poor form in PvP. I once played a game. It had 3 classes... War/Wizard/Tao(healer with pets) any class could be any class. You would always hear people arguing one was better than the other, but the game was more skillful than any other I played (ok there were other factors but I am not getting in to this)
It depends how they do it, if its going to be arena based. I for one will be sad if they remove random PKing(not sure if they have said this) if they do I will more than likely play Mortal, full PvP and full looting rules on a U3 engine :thumbsup:

[Sein Schatten]

Go away with your eSport crap. The only sport here is the electron marathon inside the circuits.
No Kalgan in my D3. Kalgan can rock his S4 weapon within the first week in WoW all he wants.

[Vandro]

Go away with your eSport crap. The only sport here is the electron marathon inside the circuits.
No Kalgan in my D3. Kalgan can rock his S4 weapon within the first week in WoW all he wants.

You sir sound very bitter. If you actually read my post you see that I don't force anything on you, because I suggest a different realm. See it as a different game within the Diablo III package, a game where people can go against each other in isometric view. You can stay slaying Lucifer, Beelzebub, Iblis or whatever with your friends, like I will the first couple of times I start a character. But when the random dungeons don't seem that random anymore, I will turn to PVP. And Diablo is actually a very good basic template for a competitive game.

[Sein Schatten]

I am not bitter. But the balance will fail. Diablo is in essence a PvE game, stated multiple times. You know, the "cooperative" word in a lot of posts Blue said. And then adding Arena so Blizzard can Kalganize the classes? No, thanks.

[Vandro]

I am not bitter. But the balance will fail. Diablo is in essence a PvE game, stated multiple times. You know, the "cooperative" word in a lot of posts Blue said. And then adding Arena so Blizzard can Kalganize the classes? No, thanks.

What if he can only Kalganize the PVP characters like I said, he doesn't need to balance PVP and at the same time make sure PVE stays balanced and visa-versa if PVE and PVP happens in different realms. Frozen Orb too imba in PVP? Change it for PVP characters only.

[Sein Schatten]

What if he can only Kalganize the PVP characters like I said, he doesn't need to balance PVP and at the same time make sure PVE stays balanced and visa-versa if PVE and PVP happens in different realms. Frozen Orb too imba in PVP? Change it for PVP characters only.

Such things Blizzard won't do or they would already have done so in WoW. Trust me. Arena in WoW has a slightly different ruleset. Having two distinct rulesets is too much work to balance.

[SnotSpill]

leave it alone I say. its already perfect. the only thing they need to change in diablo regarding pvp is they need to patch the tp pk hack once and for all. I wouldnt mind the ability to change the resolution to say 1280x1024 however. and some new items would be appreciated. It would be ghey to have the ability to just buy a soj from gheed or whoever, items like that are special because they are so rare. So what if u dont have the GG gear? Boo Hoo! play the game and find it. or buy it online.

[phool]

Anet started seperating pvp and pve skill properties shortly before the release of NF, with the addition of pve only skills, and completed the switch post EoTN by fixing many popular skills to have different effects in pvm and pvp. This isn't difficult; balance for pve, and make changes for pvp as necessary when in pvp areas. I think I've said everything I have to say on pvp only characters already elsewhere.

[korialstraz]

leave it alone I say. its already perfect. the only thing they need to change in diablo regarding pvp is they need to patch the tp pk hack once and for all. I wouldnt mind the ability to change the resolution to say 1280x1024 however. and some new items would be appreciated. It would be ghey to have the ability to just buy a soj from gheed or whoever, items like that are special because they are so rare. So what if u dont have the GG gear? Boo Hoo! play the game and find it. or buy it online.

You do realise that this is talk about D3 and not D2 right?

Btw buying items online is just a way to support dupers which help ruin the game (both lagwise and economicly). But that's not what this thread is about.

[Kaeros]

I don't think it's very good game design to have a complete different set of skill rules for both PvP and PvM. When I hover over a skill, I don't want to have to see both the damage and effects for monsters, and also the damage and effects for other players. Nor do I want to log into a specialized Arena character and come to find out that PvP balance there is entirely different than PvP balance on the main Play Realms.

No matter how you do it, there's a lot of inconsistency.

However, if you're hellbent on Arenas in DIII, I think it's a terrible idea to just let players magically create maxed out characters and equip them with anything they want. I think a better alternative would be to give the player the option to copy one of their players over from a Play Realm to an Arena Realm, and let them equip that character with whatever they've ever personally seen drop in the game world. This promotes still playing the game, and leveling characters, because you can constantly unlock new things to outfit your Arena character in.

Despite my suggestion, I really hate what Arenas did to WOW, and I fear the same could happen with Diablo if they aren't careful.

[Sein Schatten]

Despite my suggestion, I really hate what Arenas did to WOW, and I fear the same could happen with Diablo if they aren't careful.

Because Kalgan wants to rock his S4 axe and his GF who plays a rogue wants the S4 swords.
I just hope the D3 devs are more competent and at least try to leave out their personal issues with character classes.
IMO, BGs were enough for WoW. Arenas are useless esports. They only needed to tune the BGs and add rotating maps so each BG has a few maps to use. But nooo...

[Baranor]

Mmmm nah... would be boring... I like to build a character, item by item, and then attack someone instead of simply pressing a few buttons. Where is the feeling of accomplishment in that?

[Dimmu]

Your whole idea of exchanging points for prefixes and such just seems futile. Considering people will just gather friends and find the fastest way to get the most uber items right away, it will just become a tedious aspect that will be rushed through just like we uber trist lvl pvp characters now.
Other than that, I see where you're coming from and a lot of people would probably enjoy this, but i personally wouldn't. I like having some flexibility in terms of gear to PvP with based on what you can afford. Otherwise, why don't I just go play some FPS?
And if these pvp-specific servers were implemented, I would just hope they were'nt the only way to pvp, because i honestly love the pvp system in D2. IMO dupers are what it boils down to as the only reason it's so unbalanced.

[teh_Thrasher]

bad idea imo ull just end up with a bunch of players with the same gear doing the same stuff. this is NOT guildwars so dont try and make it be that way.
building up ur character and finding kool loot is most of the fun. u know minus the whole farming for xp/loot that most ppl do. i hope their wont be some lame Baal run-esque part in d3. running the same thing over and over again is lame. PLUS finding ur own loot is more fullfilling than just making a maxed out char with all the pimped out gear u want... thats what those noobs in d2 that just JSP their gear do. (buy 80+char, buy leet gear)

[Gamekk]

It's always the same.

Some guy comes up and say what if we put "insert a thing another game already implemented in the gaming industry" in Diablo?

Diablo needs more Guild Wars or WoW Blah blah blah

The idea of eSport makes me want to bang my head on the keyboard.

[IEqualsGood]

As someone who's made fully geared d2 characters countless times, played in the highest tier of Guild Wars pvp, and been a gladiator in WoW, I fully agree with structuring a pvp system in diablo based off of Guild Wars. No question in my mind, it is the superior pvp game, and I'd love to see diablo follow in that direction. Keeping in mind that dialo is multiplayer co-op rpg game, and you don't want an 'arena' system to ruin your diablo experience, the GW system works best because it has no relation to pve whatsoever, you simply have the option to take part in it. I also fully support the hostile system diablo has right now, I think it's fun and I would be glad to see world pvp in diablo, however blizzard has made it clear they don't want it at all or it's going to be watered down. IMO a real pvp system is beyond a fair trade anyways.

I don't think it's very good game design to have a complete different set of skill rules for both PvP and PvM. When I hover over a skill, I don't want to have to see both the damage and effects for monsters, and also the damage and effects for other players.

This already exists in diablo, though most of it's hidden.

[AcidReign]

If they plan to have competitive PVP play for Diablo III, then I'm going to start recruiting players for a guild ASAP. And I don't mean recruiting as soon as the game ships, I'm talking about recruiting NOW. Gotta get a head start on something like that...