Player Versus Player Philosophy

The first I heard of this game was the theory behind your currency system. Reading it, I thought to myself -- Now there are some developers concerned with innovation, understanding the implications of their game design systems.

With that in mind, I was curious what philosophy would underline your decisions for the PVP aspects of the game. I considered how I myself would approach it; what I like and disliked about the style within the realm of action RPG's.

Versus play is always a sticking point for me in action rpg's (not insomuch that it determines how much I will enjoy the game, more that if implemented improperly I find myself with absolutely no motivation to pursue it). In short, the control scheme's functionality does not lend itself towards "skill" battles. Largely this can be attributed to perspective; precision is the third person viewpoints weakness. But that is not to say third person is lacking strengths. Most importantly, it conveys information to the player better than any other viewpoint.

With this in mind player versus player battles should lend themselves more towards strategic battles. As a reference I would point towards DOTA and LoL -- note I recognize the implicit differences between these games and POE (and personally never enjoyed either terribly much), but they serve as a good counterpoint to the FPS style of versus gameplay. The benefit of such a system is simple: depth. Players are forced into adaptation based upon the skillset presented by opponents.

Diablo II’s PVP is the antithesis of such a system. Characters were primed towards a single, powerful skill, which they would quite literally spam their opponents with, and a single hit oftentimes spelled victory (Paladin’s smite, Amazon’s guided missile, Sorceress’s (Spelling?) blizzard. Battles were shortlived and frantic. And while the frenetic pace of the battles was entertaining, because of their brevity they became unfulfilling. The goal should be to avoid something such as this.

That said, I was curious what your (the developers) and others thoughts were on the matter. Agree, disagree, let's hear it.

As far as i remember PvP in Diablo 2 it most decided to lets say 95% by gear and the other 5% where on which class had an advantage over the other.
(long time ago that i played it though)

In Games like PoE it will be hard to not be heavy gear dependant and afterall thats what the game is about, but i also hope that there will be more pvp options then simple deathmatch.

We had a few threads already going into this directions, the minigames thread lately mentioned a few pvp options aswell and i realy hope that at some point (probably not at release) we will be able to play diffrent forms of pvp as minigames/battlegrounds or however u wanna call it.

I prefer more tactical pvp then simple deathmatch, even though also deathmatch can be fun sometimes.

In the end i would say its important to offer a varity of diffrent forms of pvp, but they dont have to be there all at once.

The devs haven't said anything about PvP other than that it will be in the game.

I wonder if it would be possible to create a DotA style PvP mode in PoE.

PvP will be longuer then in Diablo 2. It will not be a one-hit K.O.
For what i know, developers want the players to use their flask. You will have both flask for PvP and PvE, depending of what you are fighting against. So if we have enough time to use flask, we have better fighting possibility. Skills are very unpredictable because of every combination you can do with gems.

For them who has not read the skills section yet, you should do it.

For the lazy one that does'nt want to look at the left of their screen, here is the one-clic link :
http://www.pathofexile.com/world/skills

If i want to make pvp, and you have to take this as a personal opinion, i play
http://www.youtube.com/naturalselection2hd

It has some nice examples of
-teamwork: Communication, Control and Uncontrollability of enemys and friends, Relying on others
-strategy: Edopt quickly to new situations, planing-failing-evolving,
hear your enemys smell them
-balance: even if you have different equipment, its possible that a weakling destroys the goliath, which is called skill
-Readyroom: After the killing is done, you are thrown into a chilling-lounge, to laugh about the last round, with all players

I hope PoE can adopt good parts.

I never liked the wc3-dota versions: fast reactions, oneHit-KO and latency, doesnt fit there.
And i don´t fit into gear dependant pvp.

Hmm, this is my second consecutive post where I'll praise Guild Wars 2, but here I go:

There are 2 PvP game modes in Guild Wars 2; Structured PvP and World PvP.

"

Structured PvP, also simply referred to as Player versus Player, is a PvP mode which will allow players to compete with each other on an even footing. There will be two primary modes of play; Tournament and Pick-up play.

Tournament play will be similar to Guild Battles from the original Guild Wars, where pre-organized teams of five fight on level playing field through bracketed tournament play. Pick-up play allows individuals or groups to join a game based on map, available space, and other settings. It will have variable team sizes allowing larger teams than tournament play and will be 'hot-joinable'.

A character used to enter structured PvP will retain race and profession. The character will be given a fixed maximum level, and all skills and items will be available without the need to unlock them first. Player statistics will be tracked and used to generate a player ranking.

"

World versus World (Also known as WvW, World PvP, and Casual PvP) is a mode of Player versus Player combat which takes place in the Mists. Worlds, or servers, are randomly matched up against two other worlds. Those match-ups will be rotated every week to match worlds against those of similar strength. The combat is open and features many objectives and roles which players can do; "players may decide to fight alone against a supply caravan, join a single group and capture a mine or create a large alliance to assault one of the numerous fortress that could give an advantage in the zone." The battle is on a large scale, where hundreds of people can fight on each side in week-long battles.

Each opposing world starts out with castles, mercenary camps, mines, lumber mills and villages. Separating the starting zones are neutral zones controlled by no one, also containing fortresses, mines, and villages.

The resources gained from mines and lumber mills are used to rebuild walls, create siege engines, and generally defend the team's fortress.

These territories and control points will confer benefits to the world that controls them; "maybe everyone gets increased energy regeneration or healing rate or enhanced loot drop rate." Players can gain experience and level their character in World PvP. Guilds will be able to take and hold keeps.

Players are free to come and go from the battle as they please and there is no limit to the number of players entering. Players enter with a character of any level and use skills they have available to that character. Characters can enter as a sidekick which will allow them to play as a higher level character.

World PvP is intended as a casual form of PvP, designed to be a more relaxed bridging point between PvE and the tactics and pressure of structured PvP. It is hoped that players of any level or PvP experience can participate and be useful.

I like the approach of serious PvP with premade characters and casual PvP with your PvE characters. Premade characters have the advantage that both the skills and items can be balanced independently of PvE. Also, you can test a new PvP build without having to grind yourself to (close to) maximum level again (which is annoying, especially if you are bored of PvE).

In diablo you could only use 2 skills at once ( fast ) and in PoE you have these number shortcuts so it will be easyier to use more skills at once.
Using one or two skills is the best way ,putting your skill points randomly will just make you have many weak spells.
By the way PoE's skill system is way different to we will see what happens.
You can have your gear with socketed gems with spells and they all level up so you don't have to think ( hmm where should i spend my skill points ) so you will always carry few spells that are more or less the same power.

You will not use more skills at once since there will be some attack/cast speed which would limit it.
Maybe some cooldowns on skills also.

If you could then fight will be just get near opponent and press 32424 hotkeys to unleash all what you got scenario.
Pretty dumb.

In POE you won't have to think how to assign skills but you will have to think which gems you should exp.
Pretty much the same choice imo.

I wonder how pvp will look like.
I'd like to see some dedicated game mode for pvp, you could choose it when creating game.
Some kind of duel support i.e. prohibiting ppl from some actions like drinking pots, getting out of battlefield with TPs and so on, maybe even restricting some bugged/imba gear.
Maps for pvp (without monsters) and some other game types (CTF!! :D) are welcomed as well.

"

obscenerainbow wrote:

In diablo you could only use 2 skills at once ( fast ) and in PoE you have these number shortcuts so it will be easier to use more skills at once.

Actually, you can hotkey skills in Diablo II, which makes cycling through one's active skills fairly easy.

As for multiple weak spells versus one stronger spell (or attack) - sure, having the one stronger spell will do more damage, but that's if it hits. You know how in boss fights there are only a few particular tricks each one uses, and how you can figure out how to dodge them or counter them every time they come up? Yeah. Same idea here.

Also, with potions being replaced by flasks, why ban them for PvP? It's not as if they have an infinite number of charges.

And you had infinite number of pots in inventory in other arpgs?
You are just missing the point completely man.