The future of Diablo 3 PVP:Dueling?
Posted 27 December 2012 by Xanth
Jay Wilson has delivered the long awaited PvP blog and it’s hard not to be surprised by it.The basic gist for you TLDR people is that PVP isn’t where they want it(surprise face) and that dueling will be added into 1.07 in it’s place until death match or it’s replacement is ready.The full post after the bump.
We’ve been working really hard on the features, content, and systems for PvP in Diablo III and I wanted to take some time to provide an update on where we’re at. Of course, our goal has been to release our Team Deathmatch mode as soon as possible, but we don’t want to put anything out there before it’s ready. Right now, Team Deathmatch isn’t yet where we want it to be, and I want to provide some insight into where we are at in the development process.
The State of PvP
Our original intent with PvP for Diablo III was to provide more formal support for the dueling community that existed in Diablo II. We wanted to give players some kind of structure that would not only make it easier for you to duel with one another, but also allow you to have duels that were team-based. This is how our Team Deathmatch mode emerged, and it’s been instrumental in making a lot of improvements to Diablo III. But in continuing to develop this mode, playtest it, and put it in front of other developers within the company, we’ve found that it falls short of our expectations for a high-quality Blizzard experience.
Putting people into an arena and letting them hurl fireballs and swing crazy-ass swords at one another always has an element of fun to it. I imagine it’s no surprise to anyone reading this blog that people like battling each other in video games, so if you had the chance to play our Team Deathmatch at one of the BlizzCons where we featured it you might not understand why we’d say that we don’t feel the current mode is good enough.
Well, Here’s Why…
For us it comes to a few issues, one of which is depth. Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly. We’ve brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn’t feel like it was something they’d want to do beyond a few hours. Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they’d want spend a lot of time in.
Another is class balance. Like Diablo II, Diablo III was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance. We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible. In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.
Certainly, we’ve gotten a lot of benefits from the development of Team Deathmatch, especially in the areas of controls and combat model tuning, but at this point we don’t believe it’s the experience we feel it needs to be in order to ship, so we will be shelving it for now and exploring other options.
What’s Next
So, our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch mode doesn’t feel like a great addition to Diablo III. It’s not up to the quality that Blizzard gamers expect or that we feel you deserve, and it doesn’t really fit with our goals for the rest of the game. The question now is what are we going to do about it?
First and foremost, if our original goal was to support dueling, then we’re not achieving that goal very well if we don’t actually give players a way to duel in-game. You’ve been asking us for dueling for a while, so we’re going to add it to the game soon. Dueling is currently scheduled to release with patch 1.0.7, which is set to hit sometime after the new year. (We’ll be providing details about that feature very soon, so stay tuned.)
But as I mentioned before, we are going back to the drawing board on a new replacement for Team Deathmatch, something that feels more appropriate for Diablo III. And as we stated previously, regardless of when we release it, it’ll be a free addition to the game. Team Deathmatch provided us with the foundation that we needed and served us well. Hell, it may even still be added in some form in the future. For now, though, we’re going to first be looking at new modes that play up to the strengths of the character classes, focus on objectives beyond just defeating other players, and possibly even integrate PvE elements and rewards.
Keepin’ It Real
We wanted to be upfront and honest with the community about where this particular project is at. It’s certainly not ideal, and I know some of you got to play Team Deathmatch at BlizzCon and are probably thinking, “It seemed good enough! Just give us that.” I also know how I feel whenever a game or game feature I’m looking forward to is delayed, but, as with all things Blizzard, we want to be sure that the features we add to Diablo III are actually worth it and will make the game better, and PvP is no exception.
While we don’t have any further information to share right now about our plans for additional PvP modes, we look forward to posting more about dueling in the next few days.
I for one was looking forward to the death match style Pvp and having never played at Blizzcon it had my interest piqued. Obviously there is more to come on how dueling will be implemented and what to expect but I’d expect there are quite a few disappointed Diablo players today. What do you think of the change? How will this impact your attitude? Sound off in the comments!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxm96q3HO64
LOL — in other words “we’re not going to release this feature, until we can find a way to properly monetize it.”
Is it really adding money in the mix? In all seriousness, I am not a programmer person or a game designer but what could possibly be the glitch that they feel the deathmatch arena was not good enough 6 months after release? Is there anyone with technical or production experience that could give a realistic reason why this PvP could not be added as originally intended?
I simply would like to know because I just don’t get this anymore. Yes, the game had some “shortcomings” upon release but this to me is a major set-back from a design/implementation PoV and I don’t even play PvP. This news to me is like whatever. But for the design team and the company…WOW. What a cluster—-!
If I had to guess, the reason this is taking so long is a balance game. I don’t mean everything should be equal, I mean players in PvE hit for millions but have 50k HP (random approximate numbers).
Think about how you would mathematically make those damage numbers sane. Now, how would you express the relative difference in gear between someone with a 30k damage defensive setup vs a 150k damage glass cannon, with equal gear budgets. Now think about that for every class makeup, with every gear range, and every skill/rune combo.
The PvP demo worked because they were able to precisely balance the gear and skills and runes to make it work, then give demo players that one setup that they made to work. Planning for a few dozen setups is not the same as what they’re doing now, no matter how much the forums choose to believe otherwise.
Maybe the problem is that some people don’t have way over 1 mi. EHP but can deal 1 mi damage fast. (MP10 uber runs).
I’m doing Alk Runs at MP0 with my WD and have ~300k EHP (being generous) and could kill myself in 1.5-3 hits, 2 or 3 seconds maybe.
Maybe a player is between a white mob and a purple boss, defense-wise.
Something like a white Golgor/Pahsing Beast, or even a Demonic Tremor – they don’t take damage in 1 or 2 secs and die in 2-3 secs.
Imo, looking at the DPS/EHP ratio, I’m not waiting/expecting pvp. In fact, I’m afraid it has potential to sink the ship badly.
I’m not saying Activision will crash and burn, since they have CoD and Skylanders to keep investors happy (Btw, please, don’t. Vivendi owns a ISP that’s very cool and it will be avaliable soon (TM) where I live :p). Maybe the life won’t really get that worse for Blizzard, franchise-wise, but I’m afraid on how it will impact on game dev.
I love the tone that blizzard used in this article. “it’s not up to our high standards, therefore you don’t get it.” You know what Blizzard? You’re not up to my standards kid! Stop bull****ting and just give people some pvp action. That’s the entire reason I bought the ****ing game. Even if they just did a ****ing carbon copy of D2 with updated graphics, the majority of people would have been happy. Never seen a company **** up this bad, not to mention the starcraft “release 3 campaigns separately” nonsense. Blizzard you ****ing suck so hard
Thats the problem with this whole thing.
DIABLO IS NOT AN MMO
STOP TRYING TO BALANCE IT LIKE ONE WYATT+JAY
DIABLO II WASNT BALANCED BUT IT WAS FUN!!!!!!
Really?
I dont think so myself, I see this entire “blog” as nothing more than an admission they havent touched pvp since probably 2 years ago. !surprise!
They updated the amazon description:
http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Standard-Edition-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356631696&sr=8-1&keywords=diablo+3
Diablo 3 features:
“1-on-1′ dueling system coming into play.”
don’t expect anything else until expansion (or shortly before)
yeah, love how they waited til after christmas to make the announcement
gotta sell those last few copies
can’t screw up the holiday sells by announcing the removal removing a major feature right before right before christmas
this must be what he meant when he said there were things “beyond his control”
This is the bottom line in my opinion:
- You get DUELING for free in 1.0.7
- You get the Team Deathmatch replacement for free if you buy the first Diablo 3 expansion
Clever Blizzard.
Except that Team Deathmatch is more likely to be added before the expansion.
Doesn’t matter, you will need expansion items anyway in order to compete at that time.
And suppose PvP was released today. When the expansion will come, you would still need expansion items to compete. So your point is?
Wut?
“it’ll be a free addition to the game” – Fiasco III game director
“You get DUELING for free in 1.0.7″ – nobbie
STOP right there! Something that you already paid for as part of a package is NOT ‘free’. Instead, we’re talking very specifically about outstanding debts here.
Does it say on the D3 box that PvP is included? I highly doubt it.
“PvP Arenas
In past Diablo games, fighting with other players acquired something of a storied history. In Diablo III, we wanted to create a more formalized play-space for heroes to test their mettle. Diablo III’s arenas are designed exclusively for PvP combat, and so they have different level layouts and rates of health spawning, along with matchmaking to ensure more evenly balanced battles. PvP arenas will be available post-launch.”
Very specifically, that’s what Blizzard’s product description on their respective US/UK game features page ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/what-is ) have to say about it right to this moment. And yes, this exact product overview/presentation page was referenced in the digital pre-order campaign. So yeah, pvp arenas were indeed a formally advertized post-release addition, beyond the myriads of grand announcements ( http://www.diablowiki.net/Arena ) surrounding the feature until shortly before release.
I would like my $60 back for false advertising. There is clearly a picture of team PVP on the “What is Diablo III?” page.
This. It’s all about dragging it out as long as possible to keep it “fresh”, when the whole thing is just oh so stale.
Here’s a snipped quote from Jay that (in retrospect) I wish they did with the whole damn game:
“… but at this point we don’t believe it’s the experience we feel it needs to be in order to ship, so we will be shelving it for now and exploring other options.”
Wow, just wow.
I don’t even like PvP, but this is a pretty huge flip-flop. First they were solidly in the “D3 PvP is not an eSport” camp, and this has apparently been completely 180′d into “class balance made D3 PvP unfun” (which is something that was blatantly obvious to everyone) … “so we’re making another mode.”
Blizzard gonna Blizzard, I guess.
and yet somehow class balance won’t affect this new mode at all
lol
If you watch Blizzard from ’08, ’09, ’10, etc you’ll that they did 180 on all fronts. All they said in the past pretty much completely opposite now.
what a letdown
I hope by enabling dueling, they don’t mean just allow players to attack each other d2 style when you turn hostile in game without any support (matchmaking arenas, tokens, exp ect).
Epic Fail. “Well we know that all you players had fun when you played deathmatch at BlizzCon, So we want to put it in, but we don’t believe that you guys truly had fun so we’re scrapping that idea for something else.” Blizzard knows best, they’ll iterate and iterate on this feature and when they release it, after testing it with people who no doubt haven’t even been with the company long enough to have played diablo from the the first game, this feature will be a flop like the launch of the game. It’s okay cause once it’s released to public they don’t have all the time in the world like they do before they let it out, and it will get fixed “soon.”
That’s the problem of Blizzard nowadays. We don’t need to think because they do that for us. But Blizz has proven with Diablo 3 that they can’t think.
They started years ago with the development and only now they found out that PvP doesn’t work? Come on, hire some professionals for your development team Blizz!!
They have the best professionals in the industry!
Unfortunately, their profession is sucking upper management off, not coding, art, design, etc.
The only thing even remotely interesting in all of this is “PvE elements.” I might actually play a players vs monster horde arena mode with some friends. Not holding out any hope for it though.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/32543163.jpg
I also hope that death while dueling in hardcore is permanent, I want to do some Ironmans.
It’s not, it won’t be, it can’t be.
They aren’t balancing pvp after all,. so,… well, you can put 2+2 together yourself.