The thing that bugs me about the ladder focus is that it doesn’t really change the meta of the game, in and of itself. If you (for whatever reason) care about where you rank on the ladder, it may, but I think it’s probably safe to say that at least a slight majority of the players don’t. Throwing extra incentives to play it–like the ladder-only runewords–therefore feels like a punishment for not playing it, even though the actual experience of the game is more or less identical whether playing ladder or non-ladder. Sure, you can say that some of the runewords change the meta, but that says that that’s the part that actually matters. The fact that those runewords are ladder-locked is moot: the ladder does nothing to change how the game is played if you don’t actually care about where you rank.
Life being like it is, why on Earth am I being penalized for not adding the anxiety of what is functionally a deadline to the basic gameplay, without any other motivation to participate? The only reason I bought this game is because, unlike with old D2, there’s enough attention paid to the game that the ladders appear likely to end on a regular basis, and the ladder-only runewords were promised not to be locked away for extended periods of time. Then, it turns out that we’re waiting for something for which there’s no guarantee will ever happen–new runewords on new ladders–and so we’re back in old D2, keeping our fingers crossed for months at a time that “this time it’ll be different”?
Suffice to say, I haven’t played since the old ladder ended and the ladder runewords revealed themselves to still be locked in a flavorless game mode that I have neither the interest nor the time to be starting fresh for. Given the utter silence from the devs on this particular pet issue of mine, I don’t think I will. They’ve no reason to care about me, specifically, losing interest in the game over this, but I’m clearly not alone, and they clearly don’t care about it, either way.
Overall agree with this. I feel like if people want the fresh economy and ladder race, then that should be enough to incentivize ladder play, and NL folks should also be able to get the same items now that D2R already opened up the LO-RW/Items from legacy.
I will say ladder does have some slight buffing to monsters though, but agree it’s not really enough to change the meta.
Yeah I didn’t have much of a problem keeping track of both Ladder and NL in legacy when I was in highschool and had more time to play, and there was effectively no character limit since you could have as many free accounts as you wanted, as long as you had a valid CD key to run the game on. Now with D2R having a laughable 20 character slots, and me having a lot less gaming time, sticking to NL is a lot more appealing, but then you feel penalized when there’s content locked behind Ladder. I get that some content/progression will be reserved for those who have time to grind, and I’m fine with that in terms of item rarity, overall wealth, the last few levels, etc., but making it impossible to even get/build some items regardless of time just feels like bad game design. If you have to artificially improve Ladder, then maybe the ladder isn’t so great after all, y’know?
I didn’t even bother with D2R Season 1 ladder because I felt like I could wait 4 months for the new RWs (since at the time it was stated/strongly implied that they would be craftable in NL after season expired) and I was low on character slots. I’d love to be able to, but I don’t get enough play time that I want to just delete my other playable characters in order to participate.
Yeah, everything should roll over to non ladder and single player after the season ends.
I do enjoy playing single player sometimes just to play by myself
It’s not in this thread, but I think it was DarkJedi that linked videos of the devs talking about it from a llama vid. It was all over the forums in multiple threads back at the start of Ladder 2 if you care to look.
I thought the devs had said it. Then tried to look it up again a few weeks ago and couldn’t find a definite statement that the 2.4 ladder RWs could be created non-ladder after the ladder ended.
If it’s so piss-easy to find, show me. So far you’ve been snarky towards rod and evasive and unhelpful.
Rod is the person you responded to earlier in this thread.
Au contraire, the burden of proof is on you. Your claim, your proof.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I also used to think the devs had said it. And searched for it and didn’t find a definite claim. So it’s not a caase of cba. It might be a case of “they actually never explicitely claimed it”.
I Literally copied this from the patch notes from a the official patch notes from this site 20 days ago
When to Use the New D2R 2.4 Ladder Runewords?
When you can use these D2R ladder runewords? These runewords start to be available with the launch of Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder Season 1 and they are Ladder-only items. This means you will only be able to create these runewords during the first Ladder Season, and not be able to create them in single-player or non-ladder characters until the conclusion of Season 1. After that, you can create them in the non-ladder and single-player game and you still have all runewords that you have created.
NOW Its says
For the first time, players will have the chance to unlock a host of new Rune Words in the Ladder system! These will be exclusive to Ladder like the previous set of Ladder-only Rune Words in the original Diablo II experience. At the end of a Ladder season, players who successfully made these Rune Words will have their Ladder characters be moved into a “non-Ladder” version of the game.
You cant make this stuff up. Thats why I cant find it from Blizz Tracker and official patch notes from here, You can still find it on other sites