My Diablo 3 PvP Wish-List

[Noodie]

Am I the only one who is missing low lvl duels? Lvl 9 assa who could own a standard geared 30lvl or a lvl 30 hammerdin which does 1-2k dmg?

The endless search for the blue/rare/unique/socketed items with best rolls and the gear and inventory fully stacked with best jewels and charms. Searching for items like scepters with +3 holyshield and sockets, which are near impossible to spawn. I think the best thing in d2's low lvl duels was that you wouldnt have the same gear as the other guy next to you (there are some exceptions (PEASANT CROWN?)). Although there were some standard builds for all chars, people always came up with new fun crazy stuff and made it work (remember fissure druids?). That's why I dont like WoW so much. I don't wanna have the same gear/build as the guy next to you. There's no diversity. Oh yeah, and I'm against PvP-items also.

Yes the problem here is that the richest player would be able to obtain these goods with money. But there's no point spending money on item which isn't godly and if someone happened to find this kind of item, I think they have deserved the money they got from selling that item. This would make the economy much more better as there wouldn't be only lvl 60 items which could earn you a fortune. A new player just playing trough the game could get his hands on these kind of items and sell it to charsi. I dont know if anyone here collects low lvl magic/rare items, but there would surely be more reason to it.

Gief low lvl ladder.

[Dethklok]

Balance
Diablo 3 was not built from the ground up as a PvP game. That is quite obvious. PvP games thrive on balance, while the Diablo series has always been about gathering increasingly rare and powerful equipment. When that item game is brought into a PvP environment, you quickly encounter a scenario where the richest player will always win, because he can simply take more hits and dish out more damage than his budget-restricted opponent.

There are three basic advantages to have:
1) Gear advantage. You understand the concept here (sort of).
2) Piloting advantage. In general, the person with the best reflexes, although people who can think several moves ahead might be able to do well here without amazing reflexes.
3) Metagame advantage. This is basically paper/rock/scissors stuff (preferably with more than 3 options), where each competitive build has at least one good matchup and one bad matchup. For example, if someone knows that "rock" is all the rage due to receiving a buff in the last patch, they could prepare a solid "paper" and begin most of their matches with a significant advantage.

We can definitely agree that gear advantage should be minimized. Here are some ideas for proper solutions:
1) PvP-exclusive gear, by itself, would aggravate the problem, not solve it. If players can't utilize piloting or metagame advantages, gear advantage will be the only efficient route to PvP-exclusive rewards. Until the rewards are earned, gear advantage would hold a monopoly as a route towards it; after the rewards are earned, it's just another piece of best-in-slot gear added to the previous lineup of best-in-slot gear.
2) Piloting advantage works best when the pace is fast an every second counts. In general, the quicker the duel, the better here; if it only takes a fraction of a second to drop your opponent's life 10%, reflexes will matter more than if that same time only dropped it 1%. Many players are concerned about matches being over too quickly; the real concern is that they won't be over quickly enough.
3) Metagame advantage gives each class key abilities that neutralize other key abilities. For example, Demon Hunters have ready access to a very good CC breaker, Smoke Screen, which would make a Frost Nova Wizard suffer against them (if such a build exists); at the same time, Witch Doctor pets might be very good at soaking up Hungering Arrows and traps. In terms of desired game length, metagame advantage runs counter piloting advantage, because if the match is over in a blink of an eye there's no time to utilize ability advantage. Ideally, metagame advantage would provide a significant challenge to the underdog (a DH being force to Vault in close against a WD, forcing a Wizard to slowly eat through the DH's Discipline pool), while not allowing the underdog to completely circumvent the challenge (a weapon that gave 100% piercing for Hungering Arrow, a nerf to Smoke Screen that stopped it from breaking CC effects). These are just examples.

At the same time, if Blizzard wishes to sustain real interest in Diablo 3's PvP scene, it will have to address item balance within the PvP environment. There should be "casual" PvP games, where players can use their standard gear, and "competitive" PvP games where players choose their gear from a pregenerated list of options for each item slot. Allow three or four gear options per slot—say, for example, the player can choose from an offensive critical hit chance/damage + primary stat amulet, or a defensive Vitality + All Resists + Armor amulet—and balance those options against one another.

I'd file that under "awesome-to-have," "terrifying-to-play-against," and "imbalanced."

Its nice if there are good and fun things you can do in PvP. But I dont think they should try to balance the game for competitive PvP. That, IMO, would make the game less fun for PvE players. Like if they try to balance classes, builds and skills every patch to make PvP more fair. More fair PvP = less fun PvE. That is a potential problem...

Although overbalancing for PvP is a potential problem, I think that certain skills were created for PvP, others for PvE, and that Blizzard will continue to hold true to that. By keeping the good PvP skill builds and the good PvE skill builds somewhat segregated, it shouldn't be that hard to balance the game for both. If they're trying to get every skill PvP playable, I'd worry; until then, don't be paranoid.