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.
Hmmmm good find. Although if you look at the base damage on Ray of Frost, and if you rune it with 'Cold Blood' (golden) rune is 142-168 + slow effects. However a Crimson Runed Magic Missile is 88-135 dmg and costs 0 AP already without needing additional skills or passives, and with the passive Prodigy will actually gain you 5 AP per casting.So if you think about it, Signature Spells are not "weaker" spells. I think with the passives and runes, they are on par or better than other skills. Just depends on the combos you pick.
I think you are absolutely right - although there is something else to consider and that is spell casting speed (spell global cooldown). The channeling spells like ray of frost do a set amount of damage per second (and as far as I know channeled damage doesn't scale any further with increases in casting speed from gear, etc). This means that although ray of frost might do more damage per second than per magic missile cast, if the casting speed is increased through gear to allow more than one magic missile per second, the actual damage per SECOND (not per CAST) of magic missile can exceed that of ray of frost.
Ray of Frost (unruned) is 29 AP/sec. Runed with a 'Cold Blood' (golden) rune reduces the cost to 3 AP/sec. Now I wonder if I chose Storm Armor as another skill and socket it with a 'Power of the Storm' (golden) runestone, which decreases all skills by 7 AP during the spell's duration. Does this make Ray of Frost 0 AP/sec while storm armor is active? If so I would simply choose these 2 skills and never run out of mana (provided that I'm spot on with casting storm armor).
On the theorycrafting side, this would also free up one of those signature spell slots, which is chosen simply because it can be cast when oom (or should I say ooAP in d3 lol?) and/or to regenerate AP if socketed accordingly. These weaker spells would no longer be required. As such, a more utility-type spell could be used. More to come later...and correct me if I'm wrong with my 0 AP/sec logic.
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p106 monk
ign: RasputinBBQ#1480
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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
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.
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I think you are absolutely right - although there is something else to consider and that is spell casting speed (spell global cooldown). The channeling spells like ray of frost do a set amount of damage per second (and as far as I know channeled damage doesn't scale any further with increases in casting speed from gear, etc). This means that although ray of frost might do more damage per second than per magic missile cast, if the casting speed is increased through gear to allow more than one magic missile per second, the actual damage per SECOND (not per CAST) of magic missile can exceed that of ray of frost.
Amirite?
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On the theorycrafting side, this would also free up one of those signature spell slots, which is chosen simply because it can be cast when oom (or should I say ooAP in d3 lol?) and/or to regenerate AP if socketed accordingly. These weaker spells would no longer be required. As such, a more utility-type spell could be used. More to come later...and correct me if I'm wrong with my 0 AP/sec logic.