This is not a criticism of the patch. Unlike many I find the changes in the patch compelling. Isolating skills cast times and changing Mercs the way they have I think will have HUGE changes in game play. Reading through the notes there are also a few builds I would be interested in trying.
That said, a lot of what the patch offers so far is systems oriented which means it would be applied to non-ladder as well. Its possible that I misunderstand the patch and these changes would not apply to non-ladder until after season is over (unlikely). Unless there are more announcements on the way for ladder, with what we have seen so far it is not clear why I would roll a Ladder character. None of the runewords appear compelling enough to want to go farm and in many ways I would find better use of my time farming for these new builds on my already geared characters.
The only point I could see was in the past some ladder drop rates were higher. Has there been any communication if that will persist in D2R? Its possible I am jumping the gun as this is a “balance patch” and not a “ladder patch”, but my thought would be that if they were going to make items that supplement or compete with the BIS gear some of that would be included in the patch.
I will likely still make a Ladder Character, but I just find the execution odd especially with making previous “ladder only” content available with non-ladder.
I roll ladder characters because it is fun to start at square one with everyone else. Even if there was no balance patch, which has been the case for the past 11 years people looked forward to ladder resets. And now we have an update, im just pumped and laughing at all the people complaining.
Its not so much as a complaint, but it is slightly different as the “ladder only” options were a bit more compelling to make me not play my non-ladder characters. I would usually re-roll just to do it also, but I was probably in some form a teenager with what appeared to be infinite time.
Now, I will think more through the decision and factor in “is it worth it”
Ladder resets are really more about resetting the economy on items. Sure, new runewords are nice, but starting over fresh when everyone else is also doing the same thing is nice to do every once in a while in a game like this.
I guess some people like to play early game and struggle without eq ?
Some also want to grind that 99 to be in records.
For me personally ladder is pointless as playing weak character without eq is pure waste of time. After 15+years of playing this game I do not enjoy leveling or early experience only end game.
It doesn’t feel that way for me personally this reset. Maybe it will in a year.
I stopped playing my non-ladder characters in anticipation for the patch once it was announced new content was coming. Now I can’t really see a rationale for having doing so. I just imagined a lot of what my character’s build would be in one shape or another built off of Ladder only Content.
I am still on the fence. If I absolutely cant put insight in a bow in non ladder then I will definitely be rolling anew character.
There is honestly not reason to actualy not play ladder. Well ther is only if you are casual player who dont have much time to play. IF you have some time to play, ladder is definitely best option.
I find this logic confusing with the game being as old as it is and this being a remaster. Casual or not most of has cycled through this so many times it doesn’t matter.
Outside of the leaderboards and maybe the trade economy I am not seeing the point. A lot of what you said was the rationale why someone will not play their character from the prior ladder in the new one. It is not a reason someone would opt into the first ladder. This may just be anticipation I improperly built in my head that they would ensure that we all would be eager to opt into it.
Your ladder characters will become non ladder eventualy anyway and join to what you already have on nonladder. Why is better to play ladder? So you can make profit, sell stuff early for high price, get high runes and fuel with it your nonlader pvp character or pvm characters after season is done. To get better more expensive gear and move more closer to perfection with your chars.
I like the idea of “new energy” to find upgrades for the non-ladder character. When Diablo 2 came out I never made a non-ladder character. I always approached the decision in the form of rolling a new ladder character vs continuing my one that was moving off ladder
Ladder is different thing for many people. What I like the most is new start where nobody has anything. Diablo is honestly most enjoyable in phase where you are trying to have better character. When you have bis gear, it kind of starts to be boring. Some casual players will just stay nonladder because they simply dont have time to play all over again on non ladder. These people dont have bis gear yet.
Then there are people who had enigma in week, these are probably just bored already. Plenty of people simply use nonladder just for PvP. Back in the old times majority played ladder and nonladder was mostly for dueling. But ladder season were longer so ti was little bit different.
People who are somwhere in the middle having good chars on nonladder but still nejoying it, ladder might be good for trying hardcore for example as pletny of player will be starting there in season.
Runes have value always. Their price is actualy higher over time because normal items are losing value. That is whys you want to play season, to sell stuff for high price, for high runes and then transfer them to non ladder. Its always has been like that.
Ladder will increase income on D2jsp and E-bay for those who use it lol
Second thing is competition which regard of the changes still going to be between Sorc and Pala … Sorc suffer until get Insight pole on merc, Paladin on other hand do faceroll entire Normal naked just with Holy Fire aura on (ok may be buying wand with Dim Vision charges)
Once Sorc got level 30, teleport and Orb - farming Mephisto NM will be grace land for all those clvl42 goodies it source for trade and source for sprint for other chars to hell
Once we are on hell I bet around 80-84ish we’ll see tones of smiters farming torches (always a currency for new season)
So strategically one need to run Sorcs (for mid game items farming) and Hammerdin for budget hell farming with optional side step for smiter for torch farming
To piggy back on this. In old D2 high runes had higher drop rates in ladder as well. So if all the duping and botting wasn’t there, the influx of runes from ladder each season end would fuel the non ladder economy as well.
@sempuken the value of runes remains kind of constant in game. They get easier to find another player who has the rune, but what people will trade for them doesn’t move much (since its mostly other runes). What does change is that rapidly uniques depreciate against runes. Shakos in an early season vs non ladder is one of the best examples.
You have it backwards. Price of high runes runes is low at start of ladder lol. You can get Ohm for Tal armor or Vex for damn shako lol. Tell me what you can get for shako now? Only things you can sell for high runes now are basicly bis unique with close to perfect rolls, top life charms and stuff like that. Generaly speaking extremely hard to find items.
When ladder starts it is waste of time to focus on rune finding, because uniques and some sets have high value, not the runes.