The Dar.. PvP side

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So, to stop spamming general D3 threads with pvp oriented comments, i figure it'd be a good idea to have a dedicated thread to it.

Despite expectancy of graveyard atmosphere until D3 release



Reading through D3 pvp page, there's a few interesting things popping up.

- Arena area pvp restriction.
- No gear gained, only vanity rewards from pvp. Achievements and titles so far.
- Goal is not only to pummel the other team in the dirt. Rewards are based on points, which are also gained from kills, accomplished objectives, wins, and other factors.
- No negative points for losing against similarly ranked opponents.
- Possible pvp types that aren't included in ranking system. Duels and mutually agreed premade arena teams.


So far all this sounds very well and good to me. Awaiting practical implementation to see the negative sides.
I'm undecided on the points-for-goals accomplished. It has the feel of a WoW battleground. It can be great. Enter tactics and strategy that involve, but don't fully revolve around making the other guy's healthbar go down. On the other hand, some of the goals in battlegrounds were simply PITA as well as sometimes counterintuitive. It only leads to frustration if the goal strongly encourages you to abstain from actually fighting against the other guy. That's frustrating for both sides. It's playing catch me if you can instead of battling it out in epic fashion. The primary goal should still be killing the other player, not a car race who finishes the track first.
It all depends on what kind of, and how they set the goals in a particular arena.

The point i'm excited about is their aim to remove objective cons for playing and losing. Typically, if you're ranked high, you don't go play if you're not feeling at your best. You'll go and play your alt, or tertiary character for fear of not performing well on prestigious main one. There's real consequences for losing. You lose points, you lose ratio and that results in other negative setbacks that actually in a very real, in-game fashion erode the advantage you might've gained by climbing as far as you have.
It probably won't fully succeed in this, because if nothing else, there's psychological and prestige loss from losing on the character you care about the most. But it's a start.


The thing that jumps into my eyes most however, is a point that isn't made. It's stated that you don't gain gear from PvPing. That's fine, you don't have to pvp to gain an edge over other players in gear department. What's troubling is their lack of statement on the potentially massive gear advantage of dedicated PvE players.
We'll be PvPing in PvE gear. The game is primarily centered around PvE and will thus create an environment that actively resonates time spent in PvE waters. A well positive correlation between hours put in and gear level. And that's a behemothic no-no for PvP players. If you enjoy one side of the game, they shouldn't force you to primarily do the other in order to play on level grounds with others. They've eliminated PvP->PvE gear transfer, why not also the other way around?
I expect they'll get around to it, it's simply too huge a flaw to overlook. We'll see how tight a bottleneck they make of it.

 

There IS a difference between "having" to do a bare minimum of PvE to be able to do PvP (ie. an incentive to actually go check the contents of the game you just bought) and only being able to advance to pro PvP level via PvE only.

While I'd strongly suggest the first, the second would be just outright stupid. Best PvP gear should only come to those that are, you know, at least good at PvP. Although it depends if there's any difference between the two types of gear. World of Warcraft solved this dilemma by introducing resilience to PvP gear - seriously powerful in PvP (reduces the chance and power of incoming critical hits and damage over time effects) but rather obscene waste of item points in general PvE use, some extraordinary tanking situations being just about the only exeption.

I, for one, wouldn't want get begged for "rushes" to some far away boss by a horde of PvP newbies in poor gear just because it happens to drop some flavor of the month best PvP gear.

 

Agreed, the first option i've little trouble with. That's really covered by leveling the character to (60 is it?) max level through monster butchery.

I've a strong feeling they'll keep to their plan of outright "banning" PvP gear that's gained solely through PvP points. Rewards being restricted to prestige and vanity orientation. It's one of the few points about PvP made so far, they ought to stick to it. And to be honest, that's not a bad choice. It took WoW years to cut down on PvP->PvE gear transfer (remember Burning Crusade) and they never did fully throttle PvE->PvP gear benefit, only bottlenecked it.
I'm thinking they'll figure out some other solution to prevent it.

If it were up to me, i'd just straightout level the gear field completely and irrevocably. As soon as you enter arena, you get the very same conditions as anyone else. Whether you're a PvP god or a first timer there, about to get slaughtered. Perhaps make it a point pool of gear statistics you can choose from, each with their own worth. Say, +1 strength costs 1 point, +1 resilience costs 0.7 and so forth. That way you get to keep the diversity of gearing (which was actually hardly a diversity in WoW) and yet not give the advantage to the better PvE gear. Maybe point pool depth depending on the average itemlvl of all players participating in an arena match. You get another dimension to play with, since you have to adapt to varying amount of gear statistics being available.
Merely throwing ideas out here, this might be a disastrous one

Or maybe they'll just enforce a hard cap on the quality of PvE gear usable in Arena. Something they consider every averagely skilled casual player is able to acquire in a given timespan. If you posses better gear than that, it simply gets cut off, making absolutely no impact. So UnholySlayerZYX that's in the world 1st PvE guild, showing off stellar gear gets the same playing field as Joe that spends 5 hours a week doing PvE and just barely reaches the gear hard cap enforced at the time.
The problem with this method is that it still forces PvPers to slay monsters in order to compete, however small the amount required may be. I knew loads of people in WoW who wouldn't touch PvE with a nine yard stick. Even if they could be done gathering cap gear in an hour or two, it'd still be drudgery for them.
I wouldn't mind this solution much, running through an average dungeon with a mate or two has always been fun for me. Especially when we'd have a few random persons around and laugh at them for being just (generally) awful players. Provided you've the tools for it, it's fun to be challenged in order to cover their mistakes/incompetence. (Obviously, at the end, they win the loot and you go /facedesksmash )


Edit: I just looked at the screenshots. They're of 3v3 arena. Which is great, previously it was only 2v2 that's been confirmed.

 

Yes, 3v3 has been confirmed in PbP. I saw that Blizzard announced that there will be a hardcore arena too.

That's not so much PvP as it is Gladiator combat.