Well, things seem to have settled down a bit after hours of server downtime following the release of Diablo 3 patch 1.0.7. Folks are making their way into the Scorched Chapel to take place in Brawls, the new PvP mode in the action-RPG. Of course, players had some big thoughts about the big changes, so the fine folks at Blizzard took some time to respond on their official forums.
Now, PvP in Diablo games has never been a terribly balanced afair, and it doesn't seem like Diablo 3 is much different. A lot of players on the Blizzard forums have been expressing concerns about how most fights are over in a single hit, leading to some rather quick and boring rounds. Wyatt Cheng, Senior Technical Game Designer at Blizzard doesn't seem too concerned, stating in the forums that this is the result of early duelers using mostly PVE gear in Brawls, and "if players re-gear for some survivability in their item and skill choices, things have the potential to shift."
As for why they don't allow world PvP, Lead Designer Kevin Martens responded by pointing out that the world of Diablo 3 simply "wasn't designed for player vs. player combat," and that "there are just too many variables that could wreak havoc during a duel: non-PvP friendly geometry, events, scripted sequences, monsters, level-up effects, portals, etc." That makes sense, but I'm not totally convinced. I kind of like a chaotic multiplayer mode, so that sounds like fun to me.
As for the new crafting system, it seems that Blizzard intended for it to be more for those who prefer not to buy their items from the Auction House. In fact, they've decided to make the newly crafted high-end items bound to your account, so as "to give players more incentives to play the game rather than the Auction House. Something we discuss frequently is how the Auction House has impacted the game and how we can refocus players away from farming the Auction House and onto farming monsters," says designer Travis Day. I like that idea a lot, and I'm pretty sure many of the less hardcore players will agree.
If you want to read their full response to player concerns, head over to this forum thread. Read the full patch notes right here.