With the most recent Twitch interview w/ Travis Day, he mentions at around the 51 minute mark that ladders are not being worked on yet, but it's something they would consider in the future, heavily implying that they will not be implemented upon launch of RoS (or anytime soon for that matter).
My questions -
1. why not implement ladder? It seems fairly simple from a developmental standpoint.
2. for new people starting the game (or old returners), how can we not be affected by the broken and inflated economy in a nonladder situation? a) People have trillions of gold and can supply others with items previously obtained from the auction house which would kill the fun of leveling and gearing a character, and if trading is going to supplement loot 2.0 more than the AH now, prices will be skewed higher because of the existing wealth that older players have accumulated, leaving newer players unable to compete from a buying perspective.
3. paragon levels carry into RoS, putting new players at a disadvantage. I know it's not a competition or anything, but when I start a game and someone is already WAY ahead of me it's disincentivizing and discouraging.
4. Someone said in twitch chat that they feel like RoS, even without ladder, may provide a fresh start. How? How can one mitigate the aforementioned issues?
5. I feel compelled to play vanilla d3 simply to acquire gear, gold, and paragon levels to prepare for the RoS carryover. This should not be the case. I feel like ladder would provide a fresh start (in terms of the economy AND leveling through the acts given the new RoS system/mechanics/etc.). In other games, most expansions allow the continuation of progress, but due to a "max level" constraint and modified economy, the players at the initial disadvantage eventually catch up to the players who are veterans. (ex: in vanilla WoW if you had 5000g that was a lot, but in the expansion it wasn't even close to a lot) Does RoS provide some sort of economical adjustment to even the playing field?
In conclusion, my friends and I feel very uncomfortable playing a game where others have a huge head start. Additionally, I feel even more uncomfortable wasting my time by leveling a character at launch only to find out that ladder will be implemented soon after. Also, this is the only legitimate counterargument I've had to the ladder question (ie: players will feel like their efforts in vanilla d3 were in vain if ladder is implemented). However, I'm willing to bet that there are a whole lot more people who want ladder (the people still playing vanilla AND returners) than people who don't. Can someone please put my mind to ease and give me some reasonable answers to my questions? Because right now I don't want to play at such a huge disadvantage.
tldr: 1. the benefits of ladder outweigh the cons, so why not? 2. someone please ease my mind by telling me it won't be as bad as I think given the severe disadvantage of new players/returners in a nonladder (and inflated/high level) environment.
1) Ladder is added later on in games to add longevity, the same thing was done in D2. Considering they don't even have the core aspects of the game addressed, Ladder seems irrelevant at the moment.
2) Buying perspective? You can't buy anything in RoS... you have to FIND everything. Most gear becomes obsolete immediately when RoS comes out. Gold is only useful for extra enchanting attempts off the hop. Crafting and Gem is irrelevant since nobody has the new tiers or materials.
3) If you want to dump an extra 1000's hours just to have a couple hundred more paragon levels lol thats just fine with me. Getting paragon levels in RoS will be quicker than all the time wasted grinding pre RoS. Extra points won't make someone 1000X times better than you and what do you care if someone can farm 10 minutes faster than you if they put in 1000 more hours than you?
4) All new gear will make old gear obsolete ( for the most part) and you can't craft anything until you get the new mats.... so it's basically a gear wipe.
5) There is no economy in RoS. All time you put in the game pre RoS should be fun not grind, everything you obtain now is a waste of time in comparison of money/exp/gear you will obtain in RoS.
Ladders will be implemented but not right away because players who played for thousands of hours and have paragon ~339 (2.0) will most likely be annoyed more than anything and it will be an insult to most of the player base who stuck with the game in the bad times , you don't reward your most loyal customers by implementing something that will invalidate all their accomplishments at the last second.
The developers already talked about ladders and they simply put it out there that they are thinking about them and thinking about implementing them in future patch.So now everybody knows that it will happen someday and it won't be a surprise when they announce it in a future content patch.
This game is built around PvE , there is no trading for items that drop in loot 2.0 or crafting materials or gold , so if somebody has paragon 2000 and has 100 billion gold , it has no effect on you or anybody whatsoever.
Also anything dropped prior to the launch of 2.01 will be considered legacy and all the legacy items can't be enchanted anymore , so somebody might have an advantage over you if you come with new account to the game only for the first 3-5 levels into RoS and then you and him will be equipping gear that drops and nothing will be used at level 70 from level 60 items.
So there is no need to worry about anybody getting an advantage over you.
I had alot of gold and I sold it all because it was gonna only take away from the fun , having 4b gold is like having infinite resources for the first few months and I could perfect my gear easily with enchanting , also if you played on the PTR lately you would know that leveling paragon is much easier in 2.01 and if you play alot you will easily catch up and if you don't play much then by the time the first week passes if everybody was to start fresh then you would see people ahead of you by alot in paragon and gear because some players will be playing more than 12 hours a day.
Slayerviper already mentioned the most important things. Almost everything will be BoA in RoS (gold, gems, materials, enchanted items, legendaries after the 2 hour window), so there will be no economy. Their will be no price inflation because there won't be prices, the only thing you could trade with is an inventory full of unenchanted yellow items which is like ~60k gold. And everything will be wiped except for gold (but you can buy almost nothing with the gold, materials limit how much you can spend anyways) and paragon XP.
About paragon - no need to feel discouraged; it's not at all like paragon levels will be mandatory for anything. Someone who has 500 paragon levels will be much much better in terms of DPS/EHP than you not because of his paragon levels, but because of his gear. Besides, you can't have more than 330-ish paragon levels at the start of RoS, but paragon levels are much easier to get in RoS (leveling is really really quick compared to D3V), so don't give up on a race you haven't even started.
And last but not least, "why no ladder"? Because Blizzard had more important things to work on so far. They'll create some seasons or ladders or races or whatever eventually, but they'll thoroughly test it, as usual. Patience. They did not at any point actively say "we don't want ladders", they just had to get all the things right first they screwed up in D3V (itemization among other things).
Ladder does not add longevity, or ANYTHING positive to the game experience for that matter. Ladder was a cheap, lazy cop out for the developers of Diablo 2 to completely reset the economy and wipe characters every couple of months so that they didn't have to address the REAL issue which was lack of endgame and an abysmal economy due to the fact that ladder prevented ANYONE from getting there in the first place.
Ladder does not add longevity, or ANYTHING positive to the game experience for that matter. Ladder was a cheap, lazy cop out for the developers of Diablo 2 to completely reset the economy and wipe characters every couple of months so that they didn't have to address the REAL issue which was lack of endgame and an abysmal economy due to the fact that ladder prevented ANYONE from getting there in the first place.
True; however the concept of endgame never existed till MMO's.... the Diablo series has never had an end game, it was always about killing things to get loot and people were fine with it till now.... The only people I've ever seen complain about lack of end game are people who played WoW and played Diablo because it was a blizzard game.
I could also say be happy the developers even did anything because they have no obligation to do so. People seem to take for granted that additional content that Blizzard provides for free is expected where as many people charge for such things. It's a game chill the fuck out,
Ladder does not add longevity, or ANYTHING positive to the game experience for that matter. Ladder was a cheap, lazy cop out for the developers of Diablo 2 to completely reset the economy and wipe characters every couple of months so that they didn't have to address the REAL issue which was lack of endgame and an abysmal economy due to the fact that ladder prevented ANYONE from getting there in the first place.
True; however the concept of endgame never existed till MMO's.... the Diablo series has never had an end game, it was always about killing things to get loot and people were fine with it till now.... The only people I've ever seen complain about lack of end game are people who played WoW and played Diablo because it was a blizzard game.
I could also say be happy the developers even did anything because they have no obligation to do so. People seem to take for granted that additional content that Blizzard provides for free is expected where as many people charge for such things. It's a game chill the fuck out,
where do you see that I need to "chill the fuck out"? I'm pointing out my opinion and you're squealing like a child because it isn't the same as yours? and then go so far as to call me a "WoW kiddie who has never played any other Diablo?" I've been playing diablo for 10 years, why the hell else would I even be here? this community is just so pathetically jaded by its past that its sickening to watch as you tools lash out at anyone who doesn't want "DIABLO 2.5"
This really wouldn't surprise me. Watching/listening to the recent streams you get the idea of some future patches after RoS. The two main ones that stick out are more legendary items via patch, and also crafting improvements. I also got the slight hint that they are thinking and or working on ladder content for down the road.
With the most recent Twitch interview w/ Travis Day, he mentions at around the 51 minute mark that ladders are not being worked on yet, but it's something they would consider in the future, heavily implying that they will not be implemented upon launch of RoS (or anytime soon for that matter).
My questions -
1. why not implement ladder? It seems fairly simple from a developmental standpoint.
2. for new people starting the game (or old returners), how can we not be affected by the broken and inflated economy in a nonladder situation? a) People have trillions of gold and can supply others with items previously obtained from the auction house which would kill the fun of leveling and gearing a character, and if trading is going to supplement loot 2.0 more than the AH now, prices will be skewed higher because of the existing wealth that older players have accumulated, leaving newer players unable to compete from a buying perspective.
3. paragon levels carry into RoS, putting new players at a disadvantage. I know it's not a competition or anything, but when I start a game and someone is already WAY ahead of me it's disincentivizing and discouraging.
4. Someone said in twitch chat that they feel like RoS, even without ladder, may provide a fresh start. How? How can one mitigate the aforementioned issues?
5. I feel compelled to play vanilla d3 simply to acquire gear, gold, and paragon levels to prepare for the RoS carryover. This should not be the case. I feel like ladder would provide a fresh start (in terms of the economy AND leveling through the acts given the new RoS system/mechanics/etc.). In other games, most expansions allow the continuation of progress, but due to a "max level" constraint and modified economy, the players at the initial disadvantage eventually catch up to the players who are veterans. (ex: in vanilla WoW if you had 5000g that was a lot, but in the expansion it wasn't even close to a lot) Does RoS provide some sort of economical adjustment to even the playing field?
In conclusion, my friends and I feel very uncomfortable playing a game where others have a huge head start. Additionally, I feel even more uncomfortable wasting my time by leveling a character at launch only to find out that ladder will be implemented soon after. Also, this is the only legitimate counterargument I've had to the ladder question (ie: players will feel like their efforts in vanilla d3 were in vain if ladder is implemented). However, I'm willing to bet that there are a whole lot more people who want ladder (the people still playing vanilla AND returners) than people who don't. Can someone please put my mind to ease and give me some reasonable answers to my questions? Because right now I don't want to play at such a huge disadvantage.
tldr: 1. the benefits of ladder outweigh the cons, so why not? 2. someone please ease my mind by telling me it won't be as bad as I think given the severe disadvantage of new players/returners in a nonladder (and inflated/high level) environment.
2) Buying perspective? You can't buy anything in RoS... you have to FIND everything. Most gear becomes obsolete immediately when RoS comes out. Gold is only useful for extra enchanting attempts off the hop. Crafting and Gem is irrelevant since nobody has the new tiers or materials.
3) If you want to dump an extra 1000's hours just to have a couple hundred more paragon levels lol thats just fine with me. Getting paragon levels in RoS will be quicker than all the time wasted grinding pre RoS. Extra points won't make someone 1000X times better than you and what do you care if someone can farm 10 minutes faster than you if they put in 1000 more hours than you?
4) All new gear will make old gear obsolete ( for the most part) and you can't craft anything until you get the new mats.... so it's basically a gear wipe.
5) There is no economy in RoS. All time you put in the game pre RoS should be fun not grind, everything you obtain now is a waste of time in comparison of money/exp/gear you will obtain in RoS.
The developers already talked about ladders and they simply put it out there that they are thinking about them and thinking about implementing them in future patch.So now everybody knows that it will happen someday and it won't be a surprise when they announce it in a future content patch.
This game is built around PvE , there is no trading for items that drop in loot 2.0 or crafting materials or gold , so if somebody has paragon 2000 and has 100 billion gold , it has no effect on you or anybody whatsoever.
Also anything dropped prior to the launch of 2.01 will be considered legacy and all the legacy items can't be enchanted anymore , so somebody might have an advantage over you if you come with new account to the game only for the first 3-5 levels into RoS and then you and him will be equipping gear that drops and nothing will be used at level 70 from level 60 items.
So there is no need to worry about anybody getting an advantage over you.
I had alot of gold and I sold it all because it was gonna only take away from the fun , having 4b gold is like having infinite resources for the first few months and I could perfect my gear easily with enchanting , also if you played on the PTR lately you would know that leveling paragon is much easier in 2.01 and if you play alot you will easily catch up and if you don't play much then by the time the first week passes if everybody was to start fresh then you would see people ahead of you by alot in paragon and gear because some players will be playing more than 12 hours a day.
About paragon - no need to feel discouraged; it's not at all like paragon levels will be mandatory for anything. Someone who has 500 paragon levels will be much much better in terms of DPS/EHP than you not because of his paragon levels, but because of his gear. Besides, you can't have more than 330-ish paragon levels at the start of RoS, but paragon levels are much easier to get in RoS (leveling is really really quick compared to D3V), so don't give up on a race you haven't even started.
And last but not least, "why no ladder"? Because Blizzard had more important things to work on so far. They'll create some seasons or ladders or races or whatever eventually, but they'll thoroughly test it, as usual. Patience. They did not at any point actively say "we don't want ladders", they just had to get all the things right first they screwed up in D3V (itemization among other things).
I could also say be happy the developers even did anything because they have no obligation to do so. People seem to take for granted that additional content that Blizzard provides for free is expected where as many people charge for such things. It's a game chill the fuck out,
I though the key reason that the ladder was added to D2 was to provide a place to play that was flushed clean of all the hacked and duped items?