Blizzard announcement for Diablo PvP fans: No E-sport for you

The era of Blizzard showing the middle finger to the PvP community continues. Bashiok, community manager for Diablo, has stated:

While we’re talking about PvP it’s probably worth reminding everyone that what we’re targeting is a very loose and ‘for fun’ system. Imagine clicking a button, being matched up against another team of equal skill and gear, and win or lose you move forward (although faster if you win) on a personal progression system that gives you some cosmetic recognition as you go. There won’t be ladders or leagues, we have no intent to expose team ratings, and very likely nothing besides a win/loss record to track performance etc. etc. etc. Anyone who has tried it at BlizzCon knows the PvP in Diablo III is a blast, but I’ve seen some people start to get ideas that it’s going to be an eSport, and that’s just not something we’re targeting – for the sake of our goals in the single player/co-op experience.

WoW arena has had its issues, there is no doubt about it (but that’s a topic for another blog). But even despite those problems it was considered by some E-sport fans as a legitimate, competitive title. The statement of Bashiok quells any doubts: there won’t be any support for PvP players, at least not from Blizzard. Hardly any sponsors will care about the Diablo PvP scene because of this. However the most important thing in this topic is the PvP player. What is going to be his or her motivation and goals for the upcoming game?

The main motivation for people to grind or buy better gear in previous Diablo games was PvP; there is no single doubt about it. Sure everyone had PvE character for farming, but their main focus was on duelling versus others. But many years have passed since those summer days and we are now delving into a winter hell of not even single care given about PvP. What is going to be the reason to obtain better items?

  • PvE? I doubt that it will present any difficulty for veteran players, besides PvE will probably require perfect positioning and coordination and not actual DPS. Even if PvE is challenging, the example of Cataclysm has taught us: if content is too hard, after countless pages of whining on forums, Blizzard will pander over to the low-skilled player base and nerf the encounters.
  • Selling gear on the AH? Maybe, for some people it will be main reason to play the game actually (Ni Hao, Let’s farm some gold…). But what if you just want to play a game? Not spending your leisure time working on a second shift at farming hell?
  • PvP? Oh yes, but there won’t be much PvP as most of players will not care much about it. Why would they? No rewards (only cosmetic), no ladders, no leagues, no team ratings. On top of that PvP won’t be balanced properly.

It’s one reason custom matches can make some people nervous, because it means players can start setting up their own games in attempts to create a more competitive system. Or just complaining their 1v1 duels aren’t balanced. When that happens people start demanding the sacrifice of PvE, “I need more mobility/stuns/dps”, separate systems with different abilities, and on and on. I think if there were one good argument against duels and custom games, it would be the players themselves. :)

 

uhh I still don’t get it. If you balance PvP and PvE separately, this issue of one’s balance affecting the other would never occur.

 

Aside from some very basic user experience issues it would cause, and which we vehemently oppose, asking us to design, balance, and maintain two separate games just isn’t reasonable.

If you design, balance and maintain two separate games you would get more publicity, more players and more auction house transactions. So in a general more long term perspective: more money in your pocket Blizzard. Besides it’s hardly “two separate games” as main the nerf/buffs will go to stun/mobility duration and cooldowns in terms of PvP and, of course, damage output is important as well, but that’s just number crouching.

So there is a quick fix for you Blizzard: Stop being lazy. With Diablo III you have a chance to redeem your sins of making WoW arena a failure. Take your time and balance the game properly. Introduce us to a better matchmaking system, ladders, observer mode and other features that another arena/dota based competitive games can only dream of.

Also for people reading my ramblings, share your thoughts in the comments: What could Blizzard do to make Diablo III PvP better?

I’m anxiously waiting to read your ideas.

 

Anhellius

Social tagline

Related posts

Scaling down PvE Gear in Arena and Resilience to be Removed from Gear

March 23, 2013

Making Money in Diablo 3

May 22, 2012

Yaspresents Final Stage Stream

May 13, 2012

Yaspresents Group B Tournament Stream

May 12, 2012
  • Maniac

    So true!

    • brinksd

      want fair and competitive pvp and devs who actually care about the community? play guild wars 2, all problems solved.

  • Kupo

    Hey here’s a crazy reason for people to care about pvp: It’s fun. If you’re playing it for the ratings/leagues etc, then you’re playing it to show off. Which you can still do with the cosmetic rewards.

    They say you will be “matched up with another team of equal skill and gear”, suggesting there will be invisible ratings. If you don’t like this, then your problem is that you cannot stand around the player social hub and enjoy whispers of “woah, high rating”.

    There is a fuck you here, to people who would compete in Diablo 3 esports. But there’s not many of them, so its not a big fuck you.

    • Ceon

      Disagree, there’s nothing fun about playing an unbalanced game regardless of ratings. It’s fun if you’re playing the flavour of the month or, in terms of Diablo 3, flavour of the eternity otherwise it’s not particularly fun knowing no matter how skilled you are as a player, you can’t overcome unbalanced mechanics.

      Skill to me is what determines if a game is fun to PvP in. I want to out play people to win or be out played and lose.

  • Haman

    Simply no. Trying to make WoW an Esport, even though I used to love the pvp in it, was a huge fail…
    It wasn’t meant for PvP, even in TBC, where the balance was OK(if you count the classes that worked, it was balanced because there was some classes/specs just not viable and therefor not played, so the existing classes balanced it somewhat) The game still shifted too much, impossible to follow the game if you weren’t playing the game quite a lot, knew of all the abilities and so on, same will be for Diablo, except for 1 thing that would make it even worse as an Esport.

    It’s been even more simplified, making it way more easy. WoW and Diablo 3 as an Esport is both huge failures, and just as things like LoL, it will only be viewed by actual players of the game, unlike some of the big Esport names. Various racing games, CS, Starcraft. These are games that has shown true potential as an Esport, if you cant even get 20% towards those standard, don’t even try. (Yes, I think LoL and the entire MOBA game genre is a complete joke as well, takes 0 skill, and they only gain viewers in LoL because it’s free to play.)

  • Nomen_nescio

    Want PvP? Then play StarCraft 2 -_-

  • Mesteren

    the funniest thing it wow wasnt even arena, it was duelling! atleast in my opinion… there were no rewards, no ladder, no rankings and no overall score (atleast not back in tbc when i played) and that itself made it fun… If u want esport games, play SC1, SC2, CS, LOL etc…Diablo 3 will be a game for people who simply want to relax and have fun with the game, not everything needs to be competitive, although i do agree it can make the game more fun.

  • http://twitter.com/WoW_WildeHilde Hildegard

    How on earth would a game that is tailored to force everyone playing it into endless grinds attract pvp players? The gear grind in WoW is pretty annoying already.

  • http://twitter.com/WoW_WildeHilde Hildegard

    Diablo as a game sounds so boring. Grind, grind, grind and grind again. The farming in WoW is bad enough, why on earth would anyone want a pvp game with even more time needed to get into actual play?

  • Vernoth

    Blizzard always said they will not balance around PvP in D3 and they dont want to promote it as an Esport so this is hardly surprising.
    But I get more and more the impression they are actively shutting down possibilities for a competitive D3 PvP-Community which is pretty sad to say the least.

  • Doriot

    Blizzard never claimed they would focus on PvP in D3, they merely said they would add Arena features only for fun. While I agree with things you mentioned in your blog, I can’t say I am surprised they dont care about pvp in D3, cos they never said they would. I never had any expectations of pvp in D3 and therefore I am not moved by anything they add/change/make in the game. D2 was PvE game with PvP which was purely for fun and was completely imbalanced (Amazon with knockback/pierce bow with some slows shooting guiding arrows ow yh)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001566951523 David Whiteknight

    It’s best they get it out the way and tell us how it is, before people start complaining about how shit and unbalanced the PvP is. Rather than procrastinate for 5 years and ultimately end up with the game in the worst state it’s ever been, like with WoW.

  • Vamp

    I simply don’t get it, why it’s that hard to understund that Blizzard want D3 to be pve oriented.
    Now it’s getting rly weird. if Blizzard doesn’t care about pvp aspects of their games, just play another games instead of bashing it.
    In my opinion, this is just an immature way to react.

  • http://twitter.com/HerrWeltschaft Herr Weltschaft

    Diablo was never about PvP and Blizzard has an entire game designed around e-sports: SC2.

    So yeah, I love that my Diablo sequel is all about PvE.

    • Zejex

      You have to be an asian machine to play SC2, the possibillities are unlimited, meaning you can have a savant idiot controlling all 200 units doing the best possible positioning and spending resources every millisecond, but that is impossible so I ment a computer, which computers already can. You are limited to a GCD in WoW and I suppose a computer cannot play arena, hence the complexity of GCD choice, LOS, range and teamwork, you can figure a computer and it can’t figure you. But the funny thing is, a computer can play any other computer game to a perfection, even PVE <–(why it's lol).

      And an invisible rating is not that bad, people seem to *ahem* only care about that when they look at other players, which is retarded.

      • Haman

        Your sir are a dumb idioit…

        Asian Machine to play sc2? first of all, asian countrys overall are like the worst in sc2,besides from Korea. There is 1 guy from taiwan, maybe 1 from china… Asians outside of south korea is horrible at sc2.

        Sc2 is a TRUE Esport, because it require you to actually practice the game, like any other sport, like football for example if you want to perform like a pro in the game.
        Since when is it wrong to have a game which actually require you to try and improve in it? WoW is a game of knowledge, people are bad as hell when they don’t know how all of the abilities etc. works but when they know, suddenly everyone can compete vs everyone in it, the game is overall really easy(if you compare to sc2)

        • Zejex

          I am an dumb idiot. Mister Haman, do you play chess?

          • Haman

            A little bit, but not too much. Why? some kind of change in subject to save your ass from sounding too stupid? You entire post just screamed ignorance…

            • Zejex

              ….

        • Frostwor Frostwor

          I guess not knowing what your units are good against and bad against is not knowledge… And having good reflexes, good control and team work in arena isn’t skill?! The only difference between wow and sc2 is that sc2 needs more APM and micro makro whatever you call it and this cannot be done by everybody thats why there are good people @ the game. WoW is the same I know I can shadowstep and kick the enemy healer but I cant cuz I lack skill. SO ITS NOT ABOUT KNOWLEDGE only and yes SC also needs KNOWLEDGE. FOOTBALL IS ALSO A GAME OF KNOWLEDGE BECAUSE YOU DONT KICK THE BALL IN YOUR NET DO U?!

          • LOLAsians

            Found it fking hilarious that you think Asians don’t dominate SC2.

  • guest

    how about trying starcraft 2

  • FML

    And preordered cancelled…. So tired of the lack of actual fun player versus player games out there. I mean really look what has happened to some of the best games over the last 10 years.

    Halo progressivly worse and now with a hint at cod like perks ontop of shit like Armour Lock, erm no.

    Cod, now a mindless pub fuck of a game.I used to play this shit religiously, scrimming 24/7, now i just feel sick by even the thought of a game of the latest turd they packaged and called a game.

    Wow, urgh not even going to start there. Really pathetic. Thanks for ruining yet another game for me.

    • Takeyo

      Welcome to Guildwars 2 man :)

  • Stemlandqt

    I think you should do a post about why league of legends is so popular. such as riot being so interested and supportive when it comes to esports.

  • Liox

    I completely disagree and it’s sadly one of the things some of the bloggers of this side never seems to get:
    “Those games are not about the topend most competitive players in the world and should be designed only for extremely tense pvpfights”

    I played Diablo 2 myself over and over for years whenever I liked to do and I never played for the sake of making duels against anyone, a true “pve”-player playing with friends for just kicking the ass of countless monsters ahead. Am I a representative player for D2? No, I don’t actually think so.

    But: Neither are you.
    “The main motivation for people to grind or buy better gear in previous Diablo games was PvP; there is no single doubt about it. Sure everyone had PvE character for farming, but their main focus was on duelling versus others.”

    This is your view and your opinion and I won’t blame you, most likely your gaming intention and the players you played with played the game this way so from your pov its all about pvp. But please look beyond your own backyard and recognice that you guys may not always be the most important and representating force in these games.

    It’s like saying “Blizzard fucked up WoW-PvP”.
    While this statement might be true at times in the history of this game it still offers a lot to players who does NOT play for the sake of having something like “XY Gladiator” printed above the head of their characters. “Even now” you can still have a lot of fun playing wow-pvp if you can get a little distance from the “everything has to be even”-view and just play. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose, it just does not matter what kind of ratings you are on or if you even play arenas.

  • brinksd
  • Leishmania

    Just like D2, it’s a casual pve game I have never seen any diablo game to be anything else, and that out-look will not change. Therefore I dont comprehend this whine. They have always said they would solely focus on pve, I even remember when they originally said it. I dont really understand why this site covers alot of D3 when i consider this a prime pvp site and D3 quite the oppasite from pvp. I appriciate cries for pvp changes in wow, I appriciate Blizzard are (/where) considered a large part of the esports community, But not eveything they do has to boil down to pvp.
    I really like & appriciate alot of your blogs Anhellius, But this to me is an irrelevant space filler.
    Just sayin.

  • Eddie

    Hydra, Im curious about what your thoughts are on a competitive ranked PvE system, something like whats outlined here:

    http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4768449974

  • Tom_blanch

    Well tbh, Blizzard have said no to Diablo 3 PVP but when the game looses subs balancing PVP for esport is something that will relight the game, possibly implenting more features in an expansion would warrent more people to buy it.

    Also if you see it from Blizz’s PoV if they say there will be no competitive PvP and then they spring it on us when ever they decide we will love the shit out of them.
    But if they say where going to have balanced competitive PvP then can’t do it we will hunt for there heads.

  • Adrian Vigdal

    Damn, you are so correct! The only games i play are sc2 and wow vanilla on a private server as a mage with t0,5 gear! That’s fun!

  • Frostwor Frostwor

    I dont get what people like about PvE or in Diablo PvM if you remember all “old” players :D. AI based units are just too easy.. sure @ the start it will be hard to do sth but once you get used to their moves and so on they are simply retarded… I played the beta and it was easier than D1 D2 and D2 LoD. Playing vs a real person can be much more fun, difficult and satisfying. Another thing? If you buy a car to drive it in the city wont you want to take it on the highway?! Sure the highway can be kinda harder but its better than going over the same streets every single day rushing one boss over and over. Not to mention how Blizzard always agrees with the retards making the game easy.. The Random Raid Finder is just an IDIOTIC concept. I dont see anything fun in rolling my head from 1 to 5 and then pressing one of my had binds like sS to get slice and dice or holding B for recupe. YES THIS IS SOO FUN I CANT W8 TO GO THE DEATHWING WHERE I WILL USE MY 3rd ABILITY. + Im kind sure that if they make D3 as had as D2 people will whine for nerf… I memo playing with a sorcerer on single player having spec only fire spells not knowing that the monsters become immune to fire spells OH AND THERE WAS NO RESPEC, not to mention there were units immune to fire frost and lightning( travical ftw). So Blizzard dont be that greedy of making a mass game for retards give us the old players sth that will be interesting and hard.. you dont play chess because it has 1 combination every time do you?

  • Guest

    I don’t get why you post this now it has been announced a very long time ago that D3 would be focused on pve over pvp. And Diablo has NEVER been about pvp another reason not to complain. Simply dont play the game if you dont like it. If you want to play a PvP based game find some other game instead of complaining.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E452S_fJwA
    this explains it, and it was released last year so dont know why this is big news

  • asdf

    Not surprising, and far from tragic.
    Diablo never had good PvP, and they just want to lower peoples’ expectations who always want an e-sport capable game no matter what it is. D3 PvP should be fun, and that is the best they can achieve with a game like that.
    Plus, this has nothing to do with WoW or SC2 because of completely different development teams and different games.

  • Madatom

    hey so does anyone remember why blizzard games took off in the 1st place?

    oh right they where esports

    activison logic

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JKLBX5PVPNGZTNNCLOVWBW26MY ShawnG

    To not work on PVP is kinda lame.. but it is their title and their company.. D3 pvp could be amazing though for esports. If they just split the game into 2, that is have a pvp char and a pve char and balance the pvp separate i think that d3 pvp for an esport could take off like crazy. And that would be a big business move for blizzard. For the manager of the game to come out and say something like “we just want it to be fun clikc the button get matched hardly anystats etc.” is kinda sounding like “we are lazy and just want people to buy it and waste their time killing AI while we just sit and maintain servers”

    The best pvp system I could think of for d3 would be to allow the players full reign regarding gear. That is to say, allow players to gear their “pvp character” with whatever gear they would like to. (that is so that everyone would be at an even footing when starting the game.[you dont have to grind 100+ hours for gear in pve just to be able to stand a chance against the guys that have no job and play all day]) Have a basic ELO rating system and allow observers for tournaments and leagues. I dont think that would be too hard for anyone that is well versed in the d3 script and the esports community could have another great game to spectate and have fun with.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JKLBX5PVPNGZTNNCLOVWBW26MY ShawnG

    To not work on PVP is kinda lame.. but it is their title and their company.. D3 pvp could be amazing though for esports. If they just split the game into 2, that is have a pvp char and a pve char and balance the pvp separate i think that d3 pvp for an esport could take off like crazy. And that would be a big business move for blizzard. For the manager of the game to come out and say something like “we just want it to be fun clikc the button get matched hardly anystats etc.” is kinda sounding like “we are lazy and just want people to buy it and waste their time killing AI while we just sit and maintain servers”

    The best pvp system I could think of for d3 would be to allow the players full reign regarding gear. That is to say, allow players to gear their “pvp character” with whatever gear they would like to. (that is so that everyone would be at an even footing when starting the game.[you dont have to grind 100+ hours for gear in pve just to be able to stand a chance against the guys that have no job and play all day]) Have a basic ELO rating system and allow observers for tournaments and leagues. I dont think that would be too hard for anyone that is well versed in the d3 script and the esports community could have another great game to spectate and have fun with.

Support

Copyright 2012 - All rights reserved Hydramist :: SNSD wallpapers