I'm having a tough time figuring out what is so great about a ladder system. I never played D1 or D2 as you might have guessed, so please help me understand. What makes this style of game play fun? At this point I don't know if I can wrap my head around starting over every 6 months...It seems like it goes against working so hard to build a character b/c it will eventually be wiped away. Thanks in advance for any replys.
Well it's not just having ladder but also having the choice between non-ladder and ladder. Non-ladder game play would be for permanent characters and items that never get deleted. Items in this server accumulate forever and the cost of items drops because there is only a demand for ridiculous best in slot items. Think of non-ladder as Diablo 3 is right now. Ladder serves as an alternative for players who want to play Diablo but want to be competitive in leveling and item acquiring. Because ladder's reset means that the game essentially starts over and people can always enjoy the economy of a new server as well as the competition.
Character wipes shouldn't be viewed as a bad thing. One of the main differences Diablo 3 has with it's predecessors is that progression favors only playing your best character and never switching to an alternative. When a ladder reset in Diablo 2 people had to make a fun decision to which character they want to begin with and it would have a giant barring to how they progressed. Ladder gives opportunity to approach the game from a new perspective every time it resets.
Just wanted to point out, though it may be implied, that ladder characters are not "wiped". They are moved to non-ladder, so you don't lose anything, at least not permanently.
That's assuming that there is nothing that makes ladder mode the only mode worth playing.
Thanks for the replies.. So do you guys think ladder will have as much of an effect now that legendaries will be BOA? Also, if you decide to start a ladder character, do you feel the need to play only that character to advance it further. That's what I'm trying to get away from. Right now I feel like playing my Monk, but feel a bit "guilty" because I'm trying to get my Witch Doctor to P100. Thats what made me happy about the account wide Paragon system.
Ladder is also a way to measure up. Lot of people like ways to show off or a way to compete. There's a large fan support base for it, and I think it'll be a benefit to the game to have one.
Just wanted to point out, though it may be implied, that ladder characters are not "wiped". They are moved to non-ladder, so you don't lose anything, at least not permanently.
That's assuming that there is nothing that makes ladder mode the only mode worth playing.
I think the biggest reason they have not implemented ladder is the accumulation of too many characters for their servers to store. Would people still play ladder if they deleted your characters after a reset?
Just wanted to point out, though it may be implied, that ladder characters are not "wiped". They are moved to non-ladder, so you don't lose anything, at least not permanently.
That's assuming that there is nothing that makes ladder mode the only mode worth playing.
I think the biggest reason they have not implemented ladder is the accumulation of too many characters for their servers to store. Would people still play ladder if they deleted your characters after a reset?
That depends. Assuming you lose EVERYTHING, then only the people interested in "the race" would likely be interested. If you keep paragon experience for your account, I could still see it being popular.
I wonder if they could do something like PoE does. After a ladder or race, the character gets moved to a "normal" server. It's a nice way to support the fans.
I wonder if they could do something like PoE does. After a ladder or race, the character gets moved to a "normal" server. It's a nice way to support the fans.
I'd be more willing to try something like this. I couldn't see throwing away all that progress.
I see 3 mains concepts tied to a Ladder.
The Race aspect. People actually compete to see who gets to a certain point first. In the case of Diablo, it's usually related to level (experience gained) or monsters killed. People who like this are probably a lot into race-like competitive single-player experiences. Probably gets ruled by a couple individuals with a lot of time to play, and has almost no importance to 80%+ of the playerbase (I'm being generous? maybe a lot more, 95%+?).
The Reset aspect. Fresh characters, fresh gear, fresh economy. Basically the developer telling you "start over and let's see how good you are with that". Good for people who like "fresh starts" in their games, horrible for anyone who gets attached to characters and don't want to start over every now and then - so again, extremely unfriendly to casual players and probably wouldn't please 80%+ of the playerbase.
The Achievement aspect. I managed to achieve "x" in "y" race. And (maybe) I got a prize for it. Games like PoE and GW2 managed to embed this system in conjunction with the previous two. The results are generaly favourable.
That's probably the reason why the development team has a hard time implementing this feature. Maybe they don't want to have another thing to balance by introducing specific goals or prizes (when they already have a ton of work to balance what's in the game already - skills, items, drop ratios, monsters, rifts/bounties, etc.)
Well, one thing that has not been brought up was the fact that in games like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile your build was more or less locked down. It wasn't until very late in the games shelf-life that they allowed more flexibility and incorporated some "resets" along the progression. That being said, Ladder, atleast in my opinion, offered some very nice incentives to play it: For me personally, it allowed me to create a build and stick to it for the season (or life in hardcore mode) I always enjoyed the "spend wisely" approach to games like Diablo 2, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Path of Exile, etc. It's not to say that I don't enjoy the mechanics of Diablo 3, but ladder was in part about re-leveling and creating new characters, in Diablo 3 you really never have a need to make new toons per se because you can just re-gear them to whatever build-spec you were going for. Ladder in Diablo 3 at least partially addresses this concern for me and people like me I believe. For anyone who has played an ARPG or similar style games there is that gut feeling when you start playing it, that uncertainty, it can be hard to describe. It is like wondering if this go-around is the one where your RNG gods finally shine down on you, you find something worthwhile really early or you get ahead or things just fall into place. In Permanent mode, the play through of all your tunes is really concrete and static. In Ladder, as short as it can be, it's like having a new shot at everything every re-roll. lt was exciting and added some new flavor. That is what I enjoyed about it, summed up pretty quickly, anyways.
I see 3 mains concepts tied to a Ladder.
The Race aspect. People actually compete to see who gets to a certain point first. In the case of Diablo, it's usually related to level (experience gained) or monsters killed. People who like this are probably a lot into race-like competitive single-player experiences. Probably gets ruled by a couple individuals with a lot of time to play, and has almost no importance to 80%+ of the playerbase (I'm being generous? maybe a lot more, 95%+?).
The Reset aspect. Fresh characters, fresh gear, fresh economy. Basically the developer telling you "start over and let's see how good you are with that". Good for people who like "fresh starts" in their games, horrible for anyone who gets attached to characters and don't want to start over every now and then - so again, extremely unfriendly to casual players and probably wouldn't please 80%+ of the playerbase.
The Achievement aspect. I managed to achieve "x" in "y" race. And (maybe) I got a prize for it. Games like PoE and GW2 managed to embed this system in conjunction with the previous two. The results are generaly favourable.
That's probably the reason why the development team has a hard time implementing this feature. Maybe they don't want to have another thing to balance by introducing specific goals or prizes (when they already have a ton of work to balance what's in the game already - skills, items, drop ratios, monsters, rifts/bounties, etc.)
it basically gives the very small and very vocal minority of egomongering internet bullies a justification for playing 20 hours a day so that they can brag to all of their friends. The ladders system is counter-productive to the entire game and actually works AGAINST what diablo is designed for. The game is about farming for loot to improve your characters power, and that's it. There is nothing else to the formula other than the slot machine loot system that hooks gambling addicts who then start griping about there being nothing to do because they play bare minimum 16+ hours every single day.
Most importantly is that the ladder system works completely against the casual player (which is the "normal" player, I used to play wow for insane amounts of time over the course of 6 years and never truly enjoyed the game until I slowed down the last couple years and finally quit because I realized the game was designed to suck out your soul and force you into slavery to a second job), Casual players do not WANT to restart the game over and over and over every six months. to reinforce my point, I actually ran into a player who had 70 hours played on their wizard and had only reached level 36! and let's face it, only a couple percent of the ENTIRE WORLD'S PLAYERBASE is even doing MP10 inferno farming.
I can't seem to explain it very well but to me, the biggest benefit of having a ladder is that it gives the developers a lot of flexibility in regulating the game environment. Because it's somewhat competitive, you can basically treat the ladder as "business" and the non-ladder as "pleasure," if that makes sense. For example, the whole BoA thing - some people love it, some hate it. So, you can make it a ladder-only feature, where it obviously improves the race aspect of ladder, and then have them unbind when the season ends and your characters get moved to non-ladder.
It allows the developers to create compromises for players to choose from - BoA (or whatever feature) goes from something being forced upon you to something you can choose to deal with or not. And sure, you might have a player who wants to play ladder but not have BoA, but that player will be happier because at least he has the choice to compromise if he wants to.
Also, if you decide to start a ladder character, do you feel the need to play only that character to advance it further. That's what I'm trying to get away from. Right now I feel like playing my Monk, but feel a bit "guilty" because I'm trying to get my Witch Doctor to P100. Thats what made me happy about the account wide Paragon system.
I think what you'll find is that you'll like one style better than the other and you'll focus primarily on that. And even if you like both, the two play styles actually complement one another very nicely. The thrill of the ladder race diminishes over time as you get toward the end and your life's natural limitations (time, responsibility, etc.) make it obvious you've made it as far as you can (and it sinks in that you're never going to catch the maniacs at the top of the ladder who were somehow PL100 after the first day), and the non-ladder characters aren't going anywhere so you can pick them back up without much guilt.
Personally I would much rather see a challenge type of system with seasons where you can Opt in with characters you already have and compete just for FUN.
But this challenge system would just be a fun way to compete in different aspects of the game (leveling / monsters killed / etc) and the reward we be something simple, like an achievement to say yippie look what i did! No special gear/legendaries or content (such as Ubers) that can only be accessed through this mode.
My biggest issue with D2 was that if you didn't decide to participate in the ladder system you could not make some of the best runewords, could not find some of the legendaries and could notparticipatein the Uber events.
This sucked for me because I always wanted to make a powerful high level 90's character in D2 but never could because i'd be reset before I could make it that far, and the fact that i just don't have enough time to invest into the game between my job and my life at home with my family. But of course I would want to play the ladder because i want a shot at the best stuff and i wanted to kill some Ubers (or at least try to)!.
I guess i just like slow and stead feeling of progress. I like to feel like i'm getting somewhere and that the progress i have made isn't going to be thrown down the drain at some point, otherwise I begin to loose interest. For example if my workplace all the sudden decided that every few years they are going to reset everyone back to base pay and base yearly vacation allowance and you were going to loose all progress you have made there, i would probably quit and find a new job! But if every year they had a little award ribbon for employee of the year or whatever i'd be fine with that.
So i'm not against ladders. I think they are great for the more competitive type players who have alot of time to invest. But i don't think a ladder or challenge type system should be the only place in the game where you can get certain items or participate in certain events (like ubers). If they kept the ladder system but your only reward was achievements or something of that sort, i'd be all for it.
Edit: just realized a bunch of my original post was cut out, sorry if it didn't make any sense. haha, my browser does not like dfans today.
I can't seem to explain it very well but to me, the biggest benefit of having a ladder is that it gives the developers a lot of flexibility in regulating the game environment. Because it's somewhat competitive, you can basically treat the ladder as "business" and the non-ladder as "pleasure," if that makes sense. For example, the whole BoA thing - some people love it, some hate it. So, you can make it a ladder-only feature, where it obviously improves the race aspect of ladder, and then have them unbind when the season ends and your characters get moved to non-ladder.
It allows the developers to create compromises for players to choose from - BoA (or whatever feature) goes from something being forced upon you to something you can choose to deal with or not. And sure, you might have a player who wants to play ladder but not have BoA, but that player will be happier because at least he has the choice to compromise if he wants to.
You for president. Very seriously. This is actually the single best solution to the BoA issue I've heard. You deserve a Nobel Prize.
I can't seem to explain it very well but to me, the biggest benefit of having a ladder is that it gives the developers a lot of flexibility in regulating the game environment. Because it's somewhat competitive, you can basically treat the ladder as "business" and the non-ladder as "pleasure," if that makes sense. For example, the whole BoA thing - some people love it, some hate it. So, you can make it a ladder-only feature, where it obviously improves the race aspect of ladder, and then have them unbind when the season ends and your characters get moved to non-ladder.
It allows the developers to create compromises for players to choose from - BoA (or whatever feature) goes from something being forced upon you to something you can choose to deal with or not. And sure, you might have a player who wants to play ladder but not have BoA, but that player will be happier because at least he has the choice to compromise if he wants to.
You for president. Very seriously. This is actually the single best solution to the BoA issue I've heard. You deserve a Nobel Prize.
Agree. This makes perfect sense.
It might make non-ladder a bit spam-happy, though.
I'm afraid Blizzard could be stumped about the ladder system. They've only mentioned it once, in an interview a few months ago, and have kept completely silent about it ever since. The maximum number of character slots is too limited for any kind of ladder or race system that would allow your characters to return to non-ladder at the end of the ladder season. Also, there's absolutely no indication on how the system would actually work in D3, and what plans they have for it. I'm guessing no one at Blizzard would want to simply have a D2 type of ladder, they are probably trying to do something at least somewhat similar to PoE, or anything that would at least marginally evolve upon the idea of the D2 ladder.
Honestly, it was an addition I was most excited about with the expansion. It adds to the longevity of a game that will still desperately need some, even more so if the rates on the smart drops remain reasonably high. If we don't hear anything about it in the next two months, I don't know... Gonna keep my expectations low on this one.
i don't like the ladder, non-ladder segregation with ladder having additional event and drops. i don't think this would work well with diablo 3 either.
I Instead propose, events that runs from 1 week to 2 months. in witch you compete on ladders/ranking board/whatever. To lets say. complete bountys, rifts, kill bosses, kill treasure goblins ect. or to re-complete some achevements like rare/unique monster hunts ect.
but also separate events like levling one (1-2 slots per race) character to as high individual paragon level as possible from scratch no support. within say 1-2 weeks. now you would gain the paragon gained to your regular paragon. (perhaps instantly or after race is finished. this character could be locked to only 1 chest slot and when said race is over its transferred to the regular server as a withdraw only box until its empty.
as for the other events they are account wide so both your race chars and your old day 1 vanilla chars can compete.
Sure this gives a dilemma the people with good gear to start with will always win. Yes, but they would probably have won anyway due to a huge possible time investment anyway.
Now these events can give rewards like loot bags or a number of random legendarys per % brackets. lets say 5% 10% 25% and 50% and 100% brackets. the top 5% gets 5 bags/legendarys, the top 10% gets 4 bags/legs and so on.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EU Season Achievement Ladder: Season 1 : #773, 7150/7880 | S2 : #742, 5970/8280 | S3 : #1000+, 810/980 | S4 #? 0/? |
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm having a tough time figuring out what is so great about a ladder system. I never played D1 or D2 as you might have guessed, so please help me understand. What makes this style of game play fun? At this point I don't know if I can wrap my head around starting over every 6 months...It seems like it goes against working so hard to build a character b/c it will eventually be wiped away. Thanks in advance for any replys.
Just wanted to point out, though it may be implied, that ladder characters are not "wiped". They are moved to non-ladder, so you don't lose anything, at least not permanently.
That's assuming that there is nothing that makes ladder mode the only mode worth playing.
Thanks for the replies.. So do you guys think ladder will have as much of an effect now that legendaries will be BOA? Also, if you decide to start a ladder character, do you feel the need to play only that character to advance it further. That's what I'm trying to get away from. Right now I feel like playing my Monk, but feel a bit "guilty" because I'm trying to get my Witch Doctor to P100. Thats what made me happy about the account wide Paragon system.
Ladder is also a way to measure up. Lot of people like ways to show off or a way to compete. There's a large fan support base for it, and I think it'll be a benefit to the game to have one.
I wonder if they could do something like PoE does. After a ladder or race, the character gets moved to a "normal" server. It's a nice way to support the fans.
Well, one thing that has not been brought up was the fact that in games like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile your build was more or less locked down. It wasn't until very late in the games shelf-life that they allowed more flexibility and incorporated some "resets" along the progression. That being said, Ladder, atleast in my opinion, offered some very nice incentives to play it: For me personally, it allowed me to create a build and stick to it for the season (or life in hardcore mode) I always enjoyed the "spend wisely" approach to games like Diablo 2, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Path of Exile, etc. It's not to say that I don't enjoy the mechanics of Diablo 3, but ladder was in part about re-leveling and creating new characters, in Diablo 3 you really never have a need to make new toons per se because you can just re-gear them to whatever build-spec you were going for. Ladder in Diablo 3 at least partially addresses this concern for me and people like me I believe. For anyone who has played an ARPG or similar style games there is that gut feeling when you start playing it, that uncertainty, it can be hard to describe. It is like wondering if this go-around is the one where your RNG gods finally shine down on you, you find something worthwhile really early or you get ahead or things just fall into place. In Permanent mode, the play through of all your tunes is really concrete and static. In Ladder, as short as it can be, it's like having a new shot at everything every re-roll. lt was exciting and added some new flavor. That is what I enjoyed about it, summed up pretty quickly, anyways.
it basically gives the very small and very vocal minority of egomongering internet bullies a justification for playing 20 hours a day so that they can brag to all of their friends. The ladders system is counter-productive to the entire game and actually works AGAINST what diablo is designed for. The game is about farming for loot to improve your characters power, and that's it. There is nothing else to the formula other than the slot machine loot system that hooks gambling addicts who then start griping about there being nothing to do because they play bare minimum 16+ hours every single day.
Most importantly is that the ladder system works completely against the casual player (which is the "normal" player, I used to play wow for insane amounts of time over the course of 6 years and never truly enjoyed the game until I slowed down the last couple years and finally quit because I realized the game was designed to suck out your soul and force you into slavery to a second job), Casual players do not WANT to restart the game over and over and over every six months. to reinforce my point, I actually ran into a player who had 70 hours played on their wizard and had only reached level 36! and let's face it, only a couple percent of the ENTIRE WORLD'S PLAYERBASE is even doing MP10 inferno farming.
It allows the developers to create compromises for players to choose from - BoA (or whatever feature) goes from something being forced upon you to something you can choose to deal with or not. And sure, you might have a player who wants to play ladder but not have BoA, but that player will be happier because at least he has the choice to compromise if he wants to.
I think what you'll find is that you'll like one style better than the other and you'll focus primarily on that. And even if you like both, the two play styles actually complement one another very nicely. The thrill of the ladder race diminishes over time as you get toward the end and your life's natural limitations (time, responsibility, etc.) make it obvious you've made it as far as you can (and it sinks in that you're never going to catch the maniacs at the top of the ladder who were somehow PL100 after the first day), and the non-ladder characters aren't going anywhere so you can pick them back up without much guilt.
Personally I would much rather see a challenge type of system with seasons where you can Opt in with characters you already have and compete just for FUN.
But this challenge system would just be a fun way to compete in different aspects of the game (leveling / monsters killed / etc) and the reward we be something simple, like an achievement to say yippie look what i did! No special gear/legendaries or content (such as Ubers) that can only be accessed through this mode.
My biggest issue with D2 was that if you didn't decide to participate in the ladder system you could not make some of the best runewords, could not find some of the legendaries and could notparticipatein the Uber events.
This sucked for me because I always wanted to make a powerful high level 90's character in D2 but never could because i'd be reset before I could make it that far, and the fact that i just don't have enough time to invest into the game between my job and my life at home with my family. But of course I would want to play the ladder because i want a shot at the best stuff and i wanted to kill some Ubers (or at least try to)!.
I guess i just like slow and stead feeling of progress. I like to feel like i'm getting somewhere and that the progress i have made isn't going to be thrown down the drain at some point, otherwise I begin to loose interest. For example if my workplace all the sudden decided that every few years they are going to reset everyone back to base pay and base yearly vacation allowance and you were going to loose all progress you have made there, i would probably quit and find a new job! But if every year they had a little award ribbon for employee of the year or whatever i'd be fine with that.
So i'm not against ladders. I think they are great for the more competitive type players who have alot of time to invest. But i don't think a ladder or challenge type system should be the only place in the game where you can get certain items or participate in certain events (like ubers). If they kept the ladder system but your only reward was achievements or something of that sort, i'd be all for it.
Edit: just realized a bunch of my original post was cut out, sorry if it didn't make any sense. haha, my browser does not like dfans today.
You for president. Very seriously. This is actually the single best solution to the BoA issue I've heard. You deserve a Nobel Prize.
Pretty sweet idea @daisychopper I like it Ladder for "serious stuff", non-ladder for "not so serious stuff".
I'm afraid Blizzard could be stumped about the ladder system. They've only mentioned it once, in an interview a few months ago, and have kept completely silent about it ever since. The maximum number of character slots is too limited for any kind of ladder or race system that would allow your characters to return to non-ladder at the end of the ladder season. Also, there's absolutely no indication on how the system would actually work in D3, and what plans they have for it. I'm guessing no one at Blizzard would want to simply have a D2 type of ladder, they are probably trying to do something at least somewhat similar to PoE, or anything that would at least marginally evolve upon the idea of the D2 ladder.
Honestly, it was an addition I was most excited about with the expansion. It adds to the longevity of a game that will still desperately need some, even more so if the rates on the smart drops remain reasonably high. If we don't hear anything about it in the next two months, I don't know... Gonna keep my expectations low on this one.
i don't like the ladder, non-ladder segregation with ladder having additional event and drops. i don't think this would work well with diablo 3 either.
I Instead propose, events that runs from 1 week to 2 months. in witch you compete on ladders/ranking board/whatever. To lets say. complete bountys, rifts, kill bosses, kill treasure goblins ect. or to re-complete some achevements like rare/unique monster hunts ect.
but also separate events like levling one (1-2 slots per race) character to as high individual paragon level as possible from scratch no support. within say 1-2 weeks. now you would gain the paragon gained to your regular paragon. (perhaps instantly or after race is finished. this character could be locked to only 1 chest slot and when said race is over its transferred to the regular server as a withdraw only box until its empty.
as for the other events they are account wide so both your race chars and your old day 1 vanilla chars can compete.
Sure this gives a dilemma the people with good gear to start with will always win. Yes, but they would probably have won anyway due to a huge possible time investment anyway.
Now these events can give rewards like loot bags or a number of random legendarys per % brackets. lets say 5% 10% 25% and 50% and 100% brackets. the top 5% gets 5 bags/legendarys, the top 10% gets 4 bags/legs and so on.
EU Season Achievement Ladder: Season 1 : #773, 7150/7880 | S2 : #742, 5970/8280 | S3 : #1000+, 810/980 | S4 #? 0/? |