The new patch is here!

[MongoJerry]

The PvP diminishing returns looks like a patchwork solution for the lack of resistances. It's interesting to speculate why resistances are taking so long. Does Blizzard have a new concept for them? After all, they have been in at least two Blizzard games in the past.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Prior to yesterday's patch, there seemed to be a resistance mechanism of some sort. I know when I dueled another priestess who had her Holy and Shadow resistance buffs on (+50 to each resistance), I couldn't do a darned thing to her with spells. Only after I dispelled her buffs was I able to do any damage with spells (and then I pwned her). So there's obviously resistances of some kind in place.

Also, I know that when I took on the voidwalkers in the Tower of Athalaxx, I was doing about a quarter of the damage I would expect with shadow spells but holy spells did the expected damage. That indicated to me that voidwalkers had some sort of shadow resistance mechanism.

It's possible that the belief that there is no resistance system could come from the fact that, as I understand it, many mobs had 0 resistances. Therefore, even though a resistance mechanism was in place, most mobs didn't benefit from it. However, the patch notes said that they added resistances to many mobs. It seems clear that resistances are in fact already in place.

The New Guard System looks like another admission that a concept went wrong. The idea that people would come flocking to the defense of their towns on the PvE server is a joke. The reason people are on that server is that they don't want PvP in the first place.

Pete, you really are too negative about a game that is in beta and is constantly being improved. The previous version of PvP was the first quick and dirty implementation of it, designed to allow Blizzard to test some concepts. They said right from the beginning that this was not how PvP would be in the final implementation and that they had a lot more planned. In the case of the PvP server, I've actually found myself enjoying the experience a lot. I think a lot of the complaints with the PvP system stem ironically with the PvE server, where you can't do anything to a potential griefer until that griefer attacks an NPC. So, a griefer can just walk right up to a quest-giving NPC or a gryphon master and you can't do a darned thing about it until that person gets their first shots in with the NPC. And by then, it's basically too late. And if the person runs off, five minutes later you can't kill that person anymore, so there's no point for a high level character to run in defence of a lower level zone. But on the PvP server, griefers have a lot more territory in which they're exposed, and indeed high level characters will with reasonable frequency run to the aid of an attacked zone, because they know they can hunt the raiders down. It's actually quite fun. I'm finding myself in the surprising position of encouraging people to move to the PvP server, even if PvP isn't really your "thing." There's a lot more comraderie, a lot more protection, and less griefing than you see (or at least that I've seen) on the PvE server.