Why Nobody Likes Your PvP Updates: They're antisocial

I don't understand. This game allows for way worse griefing via trade and public mapping than anything that could happen with D2 Hostile. Griefing isn't even the right word, since hostile options could just as easily be a mutual setting. Tell me GGG, you are not serious with these jocose PvP "features".

To any GGG employee reading:
I will tell you why you invariably disappoint anyone anticipating PvP. But first it's important to note there are (2) groups you don't disappoint, and judging by your PvP population, they don't seem to matter. The first group is the group that doesn't care about PvP, you'll see them on the forums saying something like "oh POE doesn't need PvP", "PvP will never be balanced", "oh I hope they don't work on PvP instead of PvE", "PvP is lame." This group doesn't know what it wants, it's fairweather and will enjoy whatever is good. The second group is the group who actively cheers PvP developments. Often these users are anticipating the existing PvP features but with a much higher population. They also don't matter because they're fairweather.

The group that matters is the group that will fill the ranks of PvP, attracting users from both of the groups above. I will tell you why you disappoint them, and the fundamental problem of all these PvP "updates". There is no social component in PvP. There is no PvP party system - or mutual hostile features within parties. The reality is this, GGG, if players anticipated PvP because of the combat they would permanently be part of some MOBAs community. Instead, we see guys returning every other month asking "So is PvP good yet?" Why? Because they want to know if PvP is "social" yet. Because that's what they want. They don't want antisocial match making, or antisocial cutthroat, or antisocial arenas. There's way better antisocial games out there. Diablo 3 comes to mind.

Let's take a look at Diablo 3 actually. Imagine if POE had the same antisocial PvE party system as Diablo 3. Instead of joining lobbies you would join quests. Imagine if you updated the game with such a system. There would be riots. And that's exactly what you're doing with PvP right now. Players want custom titled lobbies, they want the social interaction. They want to be able to easily rejoin a game or party in progress after disconnecting. They want control and customizability. The current generation of POE PvP features are decidedly antisocial.

It's really great you're trying to 1 by 1 add the individual components of Diablo 2 PvP (FFA, cutthroat, teams, etc), but without the social component it will mean nothing and the overall PvP population will remain stagnant. But do what I suggest, make PvP social, allow players to punctuate combat with spectating and chatting as in a lobby, and don't be surprised when everyone (including the fairweather sort) is playing PvP.

"

Veta321 wrote:

I don't understand. This game allows for way worse griefing via trade and public mapping than anything that could happen with D2 Hostile. Griefing isn't even the right word, since hostile options could just as easily be a mutual setting. Tell me GGG, you are not serious with these jocose PvP "features".

To any GGG employee reading:
I will tell you why you invariably disappoint anyone anticipating PvP. But first it's important to note there are (2) groups you don't disappoint, and judging by your PvP population, they don't seem to matter. The first group is the group that doesn't care about PvP, you'll see them on the forums saying something like "oh POE doesn't need PvP", "PvP will never be balanced", "oh I hope they don't work on PvP instead of PvE", "PvP is lame." This group doesn't know what it wants, it's fairweather and will enjoy whatever is good. The second group is the group who actively cheers PvP developments. Often these users are anticipating the existing PvP features but with a much higher population. They also don't matter because they're fairweather.

The group that matters is the group that will fill the ranks of PvP, attracting users from both of the groups above. I will tell you why you disappoint them, and the fundamental problem of all these PvP "updates". There is no social component in PvP. There is no PvP party system - or mutual hostile features within parties. The reality is this, GGG, if players anticipated PvP because of the combat they would permanently be part of some MOBAs community. Instead we see guys returning every other month asking "So is PvP good yet?" Why? Because they want to know if PvP is "social" yet. Because that's what they want. They don't want antisocial match making, or antisocial cutthroat, or antisocial arenas. There's way better antisocial games out there. Diablo 3 comes to mind.

Let's take a look at Diablo 3 actually. Imagine if POE had the same antisocial PvE party system as Diablo 3. Instead of joining lobbies you would join quests. Imagine if you updated the game with such a system. There would be riots. Players want custom titled lobbies, they want the social interaction. They want to be able to easily rejoin a game or party in progress after disconnecting. They want control and customizability. The current generation of POE PvP features are decidedly antisocial.

It's really great you're trying to 1 by 1 add the individual components of Diablo 2 PvP (FFA, cutthroat, teams, etc), but without the social component it will mean nothing and the overall PvP population will remain stagnant. But do what I suggest, make PvP social, allow players to punctuate combat with spectating and chatting as in a lobby, and don't be surprised when everyone (including the fairweather sort) is playing PvP.

i think i'll quote your post and bump this tread every hour.

100% agree

I would like their PvP updates a lot more if they actually existed (ladders, tournaments, cross-league practice/challenge).

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE - Instead of a instance based open are for pvp, great idea but no lobbys to concentrate it or oganize, they should have made a all cross league FFA pvp queue. This would be easier for everyone to join and with all the leagues population in 1 queue it would actually be populated. I do like the open area, just add my idea and we will have quite a bit of fun I think!

"

GrindcoreTHRALL wrote:

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE - Instead of a instance based open are for pvp, great idea but no lobbys to concentrate it or oganize, they should have made a all cross league FFA pvp queue. This would be easier for everyone to join and with all the leagues population in 1 queue it would actually be populated. I do like the open area, just add my idea and we will have quite a bit of fun I think!

See, GGG. What did I tell you:

"

Veta wrote:

The second group is the group who actively cheers PvP developments. Often these users are anticipating the existing PvP features but with a much higher population. They also don't matter because they're fairweather.

hi

The real and only mistake they've ever made is this: Saying PVP was coming.

In reality, them expanding the main game's content is a much higher priority. They don't even have a 4th act. Think about the amount of RPG dungeon crawlers that fall under the same category as poe/d3/d2/titan quest/grim dawn, etc; how many of them have only 3 acts?

Most games these days come out unfinished. We buy into alphas, betas through early access or founder packs. The truth is that games are now funded by players through early content rather than through investors (which is good and bad. thats for another debate).

So the truth is that their small team should indeed focus entirely on releasing large pieces of content for pve with no pvp features whatsoever. There should not have been a pvp arena or any kind of dueling until now. It is too late of course. They've introduced basic pvping and hyped up pvp and here we are now. That was a mistake because they don't have the time and manpower.

Fortunately, the major content is finally coming out in a month. Then there will be 6 months of downtime because they will host 2 leagues of 3 months each + a little downtime between leagues I imagine. So they have much more time on their hands inbetween major expansions of pve content.

This means more pvp patches are incoming which is exactly what Chris was telling me "we will try and fit in pvp changes starting after 1.2.0" (this includes balance changes and stuff, not major new features).

Anyway the entire point here is this (tl;dr): We need to stop being butthurt and to complain about the lack of work on pvp. They fucked up, they know it, we know it. But here we are, we can't go back. 1.2.0 is almost out of the way and we will see some patches mention pvp here and there which is a great start. And in the mean time we always have events hosted by us the players to keep us busy.

I agree with you guys and feel your passion for PVP. Lets keep influencing and inspiring new players to build pvp characters so that pvp gets the attention from the community it deserves. Then GGG will see that pvp deserves the same priority as main content after considering the volume of players participating in PVP. :)

I believe building both high level and low level pvp characters and keeping them fresh in the forums will help our pvp community grow. High level builds inspire future builds and low level builds allow new and fairly new players see that pvp doesnt have to cost extreme amounts of currency and require
an extensive understanding of game mechanics.

Here is my level 10 Rangers gear for example.