What would the D2 HC players say? My impression of the debate is that most of the "HC dueling should only be perma-death" comments are coming from SC players who don't really care, and who have no idea how much work it takes to get a good stable of HC chars going.
Personally, I played HC almost exclusively my first few years of D2, and often wished for a way to duel without perma-death as the only option. I wanted to duel, but I wasn't about to spend all the time building up chars and practicing techniques in SC that I'd have needed to put me on an even footing with the real PvP enthusiasts. And that's even assuming there was ever a way to duel in HC without chicken hacks and other exploits ruining it.
Anyway, the vote on this issue is here:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...-hardcore-pvp/|||Quote:
often wished for a way to duel without perma-death as the only option. I wanted to duel, but I wasn't about to spend all the time building up chars and practicing techniques in SC that I'd have needed to put me on an even footing with the real PvP enthusiasts.
First off in D2 I play only HC nothing SC so i can agree with your comments on PvP learning being slanted towards SC players the only way to practice in D2 was to create a SC character.
That said I do like the hardcore arena idea that Jay mentioned once you die thats it (thats the heart of HC in my opinion)
In Hardcore especially in the beginning (with a new game as D3 will be) after you have put time and effort to get PvP gear to lose your char at the first fight would be a bit of a disheartening experience. It seems to me that the designers have a decision to make on how black and white they make HC on this topic. Do you go extreme and first time up its all on the line HC wise or do you introduce as you say a practice arena for probably both SC and HC - you would get no benefits or rewards for any number of fights won or efficiency in killing just practice - hell they could jazz up the display in the practice arena if they wanted. Your character ghost like - Semi ghost mode
or your skills and traits stay but your naked in the practice arena with only your main weapon/wand/orb/xbow and only leaving do you get your full items back - slower play speed would allow more learning time on the basics.Personally I would like some sort of practice arena that does not make me have to start a SC character just to practice - but that has no practical benefit in terms of rewards or anything - once your happy and move on to the main arena with a HC character I want it all on the line. That to me seems like the best initial split.|||I'm with you, Flux. I could count all my D2 duels on both hands, all of them were HC, low levels only. It will be the same in D3, should Blizz decide to make HC Arena the only duel option for HC players. There's no way I'd be able to participate both in HC PvE and SC PvP, so I'll likely miss on a big part of duelling.
Why not give the player a choice - before the actual combat all participants can decide whether the duel will be lethal or not.|||One weird affect of a non-death HC duel arena is that you'd learn much faster which teams are the best, which builds are the strongest. If not, everyone is going to be copying the SC realm for a while, or win/losing without knowing why and what's going on in the battle.
I don't know how hard it will be to level up to max and go duel. I think that's another part of the idea that isn't really being looked at, and probably couldn't because that's a lot of information to squeeze out of Blizzard.
In D2 it took a while to put together a reasonable character for PvP. If you want that perfect one, it takes even longer, because there's just so many aspects that shoot for 100% perfect on: charms, armor, weapons, rings, etc.
In another contrast, between D2: LoD and D2 Classic, the ease of making pre-forged weapons (Runewords & Uniques) was much easier than waiting for the perfect Rares to drop, which is what the best items in Classic are.|||Imho HC arena battling is not going to happen, at least not in team set-ups.
Can you imagine the legit griefing scenarios three cheaply built characters can unleash upon a PvP toon that has months of buildup invested in it by simply gung-ho'ing a single opponent in a hardcore team fight?
HC team fights would probably go extinct before there was enough time to develop hacks for illegit griefing scenarios.|||I don't really care that much. I think it's obviously got good points on either side. I don't REALLY see the "harm" in allowing HC chars to participate in the SC PvP ladder, for instance though.
I know one thing, if it stays this way there is pretty much no chance I will do any PvP on my hc chars.|||We discussed this in great lengths last year in this thread:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=732438
My stance on this issue will never change. HC was defined 10 years ago when D2 was released- please don't try to change that definition now.|||i had no memory of that old thread, and started reading, and was surprised to see I'd posted twice in it on the first page. So then... I only read the first 25 of so since as you say, all the same opinions there as on the 2 recent main page threads.
Allowing deaths and continuation in HC Arena is basically a realist vs. a purist argument. Purists are quite willing, perhaps eager, to cut off their noses to spite their faces. They want HC fatal in the Arena, even though that ensures no more than a tiny % of HC players will ever enter the Arena, and that we'll have the same situation in D3 as we do in D2 -- HC players playing SC just because they like to duel.
Realists want HC for PvM but would like to be able to duel with their HC chars without permanent loss. They realize that the vast majority of HC players won't do it if it's instant death, and therefore are willing compromise on that element of things.
Saying that HC is always HC misses the point. Arenas are a fundamentally different game type than PvM. They're even quite a bit different than dueling in D2. The game type exists only for dueling, you're locked in a small area with other players, there aren't shrines or monsters or huge levels you can run away in, or a town to duck into. Someone's going to die, and generally quite quickly. Which is the whole fun, since you get to start a new round right back up 5 seconds later and try a new approach.
PvM works with HC, since it's about not dying while killing huge hordes of monsters. Arena is about playing a a dozen or more rounds in 15 minutes and seeing who wins or loses more in total.
Trying to play Arena w/o dying is like trying to learn to juggle w/o dropping any balls. Yes, that's the ultimate object, but you'd never learn or have any real fun if you couldn't fail as you learned and improved. If you had to stop juggling for a week and go back to making new balls every time you dropped one, no one would juggle. Which is why no one will HC Arena in D3 if the rules about death are the same as they are in PvM. But hey, it'll be hardcore! And carebears won't do it!
I just hope the handful of purists who actually want HC dueling will be happy consoling themselves with that false machismo BS as they spend another long, boring night trying to find someone to duel with.
That's my hope at this point, actually. I think Bliz is set on keeping HC dueling in the initial release. Hopefully, once they see the abject failure of non-participation that yields, they'll make some concessions in one of the expansions.|||You make good points on this all around, Flux, and I think that even the purists, once they see the HC dueling community are going to question their adherence. As far as tournaments go, it's a pretty crazy single elimination if you can never compete with a character after you lose.
I also think the HC ladder will largely be a joke, because it will have maybe one or 2 super good teams, and then a bunch of people who are just fighting with sub par/non serious teams or chars. It's just not going to be competitive if you don't have the pool attracting all the best players.
I think there MIGHT be a saving grace. Though many HC players will also find it antithetical to play SC, if Blizzard Facilitates some way to trade HC items for SC items (that is, give your hc items to someone starting HC for some items on your SC character.) I think much of the pain of having to play SC would be alleviated. This could be accomplished on things like forums, but one of the problems is will these forums exist if D3 has a good / robust economic facilitator (such as an auction house).
I don't know, I think it seems short sighted but as I said I don't really care. In D2, dueling people always kept their character alive. If they had the chance to run away, to retreat, to quit, to get to town etc. many people would. Maybe not in organized leagues, but in pub/random duels, that's how it went. I think that people are forgetting that the ladder is going to be like random duels, not organized leagues with set rules and regulations. Everyone is going to go for the most efficient, cheap, and unfair killing machines possible. There will be no way to avoid loss of your character to them, and when people realize this in action, they'll simply abandon it.|||i'd like to see a mix of HC and SC in D3.
HC for the sweaty-palmed feel in general questing and PvM, but with the option to go duelling in SC mode.
between my appalling ping (>250) and regular lag spikes (upwards of 3k ping) and most of all: the abundance of hack'tard morons, i am unwilling to play D2HC on the realms.
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