Gorny 2004 Diabloii.net
“All current ladder runewords will move to non ladder when the current ladder ends. They will still work as they did before. ( Example : Enigma runewords now in non ladder are from the last ladder season, they work as before.)”
Seems like they already figured out the perfect compromise.
God, I’m going to sound like a purist AGAIN.
Leave it alone people.
Yes, ladder only runewords like last wish, Infinity, Grief will be worth more comparatively, after a season, simply because they’re ladder only.
I agree that this is perfectly fine, but the people arguing against this are doing so because it is very difficult to make something like last wish in a 3 month period. It’s true that it is difficult, I just disagree it’s a bad thing to have that level of difficulty in a badass game like this.
Is that their example? lol…Enigma isn’t even a ladder only runeword… 
No idea. Gorny was the first one with an answer in 2004, so that’s where I grabbed it.
You know something aggravating Geezer?
When you look at the problems in the game that aren’t really problems per say, then you try to figure out a solution, and you find out they already did your solution 20 years ago.
Then you have to say it’s fine the way it is, and people yell at you for being an uncompromising purist, but you did compromise, apparently 20 years ago. 
It really is a fantastic game, it’s true. Though I don’t think they had everything right 20 years ago.
Shared stash, auto gold, are really terrific decisions imo. Gamble refresh too. Very excited to play! I hope they learn a bit more about ClassicD2, but time will tell! other than that, they’re doing a great job.
Hindsight is 20/20, the real humility is realizing there’s a hindsight to your hindsight.
You don’t seem to get the complaints and where this stems from so allow me to explain; certain items and rune words can only be found/made in ladder, the ladder is currently 6 months long and has been for quite some time.
The devs want to change that to 3 months, what does this mean? you could have 2 out of 3 runes and the weapon,armour,shield you need for whatever rune word you want to make and the season ends before you can obtain the last one to make said rune word, making the whole thing a massive waste of time. If the devs want to alter the ladder length so dramatically there MUST be compromise in other areas.
I agree with the idea of removing the ladder-only restriction on items/runewords. I think it was design that way to make them very rare, and by shortening the length of the seasons, it will be even harder. Problem is that some of these items can change your build entirely.
I’d like to take my time to create the build I want, not really interested in the ladder competition. But if my build relies on some ladder-only runewords, I will have to rush and play way more that what I would normally play for only a very small chance of successfully getting one. I don’t like that.
Oh, then the solution is don’t mess with original LoD season duration.
There are quite a few posts in here that also have nothing to do with your explanation. They don’t want to play ladder at all for ladder runewords.
But they already buffed drops after a bunch of patches.
The ladder only runewords and uniques are still dumb, no matter whether it was two decades ago or in present time. The cube recipes are borderline, but I can see them simply as a quality of life while playing the ladder, thus being an incentive to play. In terms of single player, the SP mode plays to the ladder only difficulty, without having all the ladder only perks (the runewords) nor has the online only perks (ubers, dclone) despite the uber tristram keys still being a drop in single player, and again, having the difficulty of the online only ladder mode.
Keeping the ladder only content does one thing very well however. It makes it less attractive to continue playing characters after a season, which in this day in age, might kill the game faster with shorter seasons (which ironically is supposed to be a factor in keeping the community more engaged, but will drive them away faster imo). Oh but you say you can still trader ladder only content after season that was earned during ladder? That little factoid is very dependent upon people playing non seasonal, and still is very limiting to the game’s content. I’d also imagine the economy will be more like “trade a ladder only for another ladder only” which will limit the ability for people to trade for them. All in all, it will be fine for a season to open the game with, but really needs to change down the road.
I began playing a long time ago when the original game had “advanced graphics”. The ladder absolutely skews how you play the game. Instead of making a new character which takes advantage of your previous hard work by starting out with a decent gear set, you play a new character the same way as everyone else; we all make a sorceress and farm for ladder only gear and runewords. When the ladder resets, you give your non-ladder characters like a hammerdin the best spirit and insight, maybe a fortitude goes to a merc, then delete the new ladder sorceress because you already have 4. Then, either play non-ladder with a dwindling number of players because they all start the new ladder or let your best characters sit on the non-ladder bench and start over with a new mf char. This is too repetitive in an already repetitive and grindy game. If you stay in non-ladder, you play solo. I’m not referring to single player because you don’t get all the new goodness in single player so that’s not an option. You play solo non-ladder and don’t contribute to the new players experience.
Every time I have walked away from this game, it’s due to the ladder reset.
Without ladder exclusivity, we can all play together in soft core. If you want to constantly play a new character, you can choose that play style alongside me. I’d gladly start a new character over and over to run with low levels. But, it’s so much better when I could CHOOSE to bring my godly character to the battle when it gets tough. The ladder can just change to a new competitive season where players climb the board but not everyone jumping into the ladder to get to transmute thul runes until they can make spirit shields and insights.
Give us the option to play the whole game with the same character and grind for all the gear. Otherwise, people will continue to pay the bots and use third party software and websites to get the ladder gear because they can’t possibly make a last wish and live a healthy lifestyle. This is exacerbated by shorter seasons.
Diablo 2 is my favorite game of all time. With that said, I have not appreciated the direction Activision has steered Blizzard. D2R is likely the last Blizzard game I’ll play so I’m just hoping it doesn’t suck. Getting to aquire all possible loot with the same original character would go a long way towards me playing the game past 2 seasons.
They could still have a ladder but remove the ladder exclusivity on items. This would not kill the new ladder experience for the teams or the ladder economy. I remember playing non-ladder with friends after a ladder reset. Everyone still shared the mid level gear and the community was great. The problem arose when a vast majority of people jumped to ladder because they wanted the ladder only gear. That meant the character you spent months playing was left alone. It just divides the player base, imo. The reason they are so proud of global servers is because we used to have USEAST and USWEST. I would be in one realm and my friend is in another so we can’t play together. It was just another division that made the game less fun.
If they removed ladder only items I would only play nonladder.
I think ladder would just straight up die.
I don’t think it would. Plenty of people love economy, and having the reset. Plus, elitists will want the more challenging gameplay, as remember, ladder has increased monster stats (hp and ai I believe) over non ladder.
Right… so why are you ok with all these people being forced into a gameplay mode theyd opt out of given the option.
There will always be the people who love ladder play and will do it for the correct reasons. IE the ladder scoreboard. , fresh economy, team play.
Because I enjoy ladder resets and don’t think I should be economically gimped because of it. I think the tradeoff of being able to play with a fully geared char on nonladder, or the chance of exclusive items at the cost of making a new char is perfectly fair.
It’s a great system imo.
Ladder is a race for Lvl 99. It has a score board with all the clout attached. Thats already exclusive content. Ladder only runewords are just forcing a particular group of people to participate who have no intention of competing. Its like having an olympic dash race where theres a bunch of random ppl walking on the track doing their own thing.
“economically gimped” as opposed to content being hidden behind ladder…?