Ok, so it seems there are two camps. Both camps absolutely love Diablo 2 and both camps are comprised of loyal diehards.
One camp seems to be communicating that they have the time to binge play endlessly and they want a more competitive short term (3 month) ladder. Some of them seem a little bit elitist to me, but maybe I am just a jackass.
The other camp (which I presume is the majority), are just as enthusiastic about this game, but don’t have the time to grind, especially to get the gear we want over a 3 month period. This camp wants to stick to 6 months.
Why cant they just make Separate Ladders, a Competitive ladder AND ALSO a Casual ladder?
Nah. It would do more to split up the community, which they’re trying to limit.
If you’re casual and want ladder only items/runewords, play ladder and don’t worry about ranks. If you don’t care about ladder only benefits, play non-ladder.
You could start out playing ladder seasons to slowly acquire the various ladder gear to carry over to non-ladder, then just play non-ladder entirely once you get the ladder only gear you want.
I understand not wanting to split the community , but based on the discussions so far, there is already a divide. if they split ladders there would still be enough on either side to not feel like one of them is the “dead” ladder.
I don’t think people understand just how difficult getting Ladder Only Runewords is going to be. Especially without bots and duping. I am not defending botting and duping btw, I am glad they will be dealing with it.
It is tough because they are saying they are committing to not alter the feel of the game, but I fear that the shorter ladder is going to do just that to a massive degree.
The community is going to be bigger than ever, there is no point having millions of players on a single ladder.
D2 worked fine with 4 different regions. This would only be one split.
The problem is about ladder runewords. Not the leaderboard race or ladder unique items or even ladder horadrim cube formules.
So ladder rw in no-ladder is the solution
Unless I missed it, I don’t think there has been an official announcement on the exact duration they intend to shorten the ladder season to. While 3 months would be doable and fits evenly with the calandar year, 4 months would also work.
As of right now, I usually get bored of ladders after about 3 months, and that’s playing casually.
We’ll see.
I would include ladder unique’s and formulas too, eth Andys visage is meta as well as crafted gear. but yeah I will not be anywhere on the leaderboard so those in camp two likely don’t care about that.
Why is there this assumption that in every season all players should be able to gather all the runes necessary for any runeword that they want? The ladder-only runewords should be difficult to get and be a great reward for the players lucky enough to get them. I don’t think it is a problem if those runewords are rare and very few people get them in a given season. That makes it that much more exciting and awesome when you manage to get one made. It should be a mark of distinction and not something everyone can just have eventually if they play long enough. I think it should be more about luck and the RNG working in your favor and less about playing the odds over the long run.
I’m not saying that you get everything you want during one ladder and I agree that people should be rewarded for dedication. But there are end game builds that people love playing that will no longer be realistically attainable for a lot of lifelong players if they shorten the ladder.
To darkjedi.
If you get bored after 3 month ladder, be more prepared for next season. Or make new char, or play n- lad. Or stop to play.
If people care about stuff more than the race, keep enough time to make ladder stuff doable. Not rare.
There will always be a divide lol
i think 4 months seasons would be better but i could care less what it is as long as there is no botters/hackers… !!
I think in the deep dive with Mr.Llama they said they wanted to shorten the seasons down to be closer to D3 length but I would have to double check if they gave an exact length.
LOL yeah there certainly will always be conflict. I had hoped that this might be a live and let live option.
The game was designed originally with 6 month ladders because they understood that this was a good balance between allowing there to be a reset mechanic but also not alienating those who can’t put in 800 hours in 3 months.
With 6 month ladders, everyone gets to enjoy the game in its entirety, the only downside is that those who play 10hrs a day get bored before it’s over. With 3 month ladders, those who have other obligations (family, jobs, etc) will always have the rug swept out from under them before they can reach their goals.
6 month season length wasn’t chosen at random, it was thought about with drop rates and rarity all taken into account. Change that and you change the spirit of the game.
Edit: I realize you may not actually be of the opinion that shorter seasons are the way to go, so in that case this isn’t directed at you. I’ve just seen too many “if you can’t play 6hrs a day for 3 months then maybe those items aren’t for you” comments lol. I agree the rarity isn’t the issue with 6 month seasons, but shorten seasons too much and rarity turns into impossibility for too many people.
I also would like to have it 4 months but won’t care to keep 6. 3 is stupid short.
If they do go down to 3 month seasons and they see that a large majority are having difficulties finding gear, they can always tweak the drop rates… I know that’d tick off a lot of purists though.
I mean hey, I’ve been playing since D2 was originally released and there are still 4 items I’ve never found: Cranium Basher, Crown of Ages, Mang Song’s Lesson and Tyrael’s Might. I just found my first Death’s Web a couple of nights ago.
Or they could extend the seasons again which would be better than messing with the loot tables.
I don’t care about unique ladder items. I mean, they are not the issue. They benefit from the mf. Not the runes and white items
To be clear i am for ladder runewords in no-ladder not about the rarity but for giving PVE to no-ladder mode. And not only pvp
Part of me fears that the idea of shortening ladders is in preparation to later implement some kind of cosmetics feature to make money off of it. Maybe that’s just the conspiracy theorist in me.
If you’re casual you probably shouldn’t care about the ladder ranking anyway and simply play non-ladder.
And if you do care than you have to find a way to spare some time to compete on ladder…who needs a job f.e. when he can be the best Diablo 2 player and #1 on the ladder, just 1 tip of many. 