I think i see the problem now. People seem to be totally confused with the way the paragon system actually works.
The paragon system rewards you + 5 mainstat for every participation point earned.
The only way to get paragons is by playing the game.
After playing the game for thousands of hours, or years you will have accumulated 5,000 or 10,000 participation points.
Those participation points exponetially add up giving you a 150%-300% DPS starting advantage over someone that hasn’t played for years.
That means that even if both players were 100% equal in gear, levels, gems, everything the player with more paragons will always be more powerful because of their participation points. This is giving an advantage to the player that simply participated in the game longer. This makes it so the low paragon player cant ever compete or beat you in ranking.
Then once the game fills up with these players like it is in now, the leaderboards then become infested with them and any new or casual players will not beable to compete with acutal skill against those players because they are at a disadvantage for being new or not playing enough to have earned years/thousands of hours of participation points.
Getting points for something that you would do anyways is not FAIR. Games that have any kind of Competition games dont give you participation points.
Can you imagine what would happen to COD if they decided to create a paragon participation points system in COD and rewarded players with more power, and more defence for simply playing COD for years? Then a player that racked up 5,000 paragon points has become so powerful he can instantly kill others with 1 shot to the foot, but to now that he has 5,000 participation points other players have to shoot him with 10 bullets before he can will die.
COD would be dead over night if they put in a paragon system into COD because it wouldnt be about skill anymore, instead the people winning would be the ones who participate more for the instead of gaining better guns from gearing and actually beating other players using skill.
You’re damned right it does! As it should. Okay sports guy, lets try this:
John and Mike start power lifting:
John works out 2 days a week and adds 25 pounds of weight a week until he can lift 300 pounds.
Mike works out 5 days a week adding 50 pounds per week until he can lift 400 pounds.
They go to a competition and Mike wins.
They continue training until John can lift 400 pounds, and Mike can lift 600 pounds.
At the next competition John files a protest claiming Mike is cheating, because he could lift more at the last competition.
John claims that Mike shouldn’t be allowed to use the strength he gained during the last competition training, because it gives him an unfair advantage for this competition.
John proposes that Mike has to stop adding weight to his training for all future competitions regardless of how many days we works out, so that John has a fair chance of beating him.
More absurdity!
The race was an analogy for how Seasons work.
This is the way Eras work. Those who invested more for longer get to be stronger, and their efforts are cumulative. They get to bring what they EARNED in the last era to the next. They get to grow stronger with each successive era, even if those who don’t play much don’t.
If you want to play with an even chance of beating Mike, play Seasons. Don’t come whining that Mike beat you, because he kept running while you were texting Jenny.
If you want to play on Eras quit whining that those who invested more time and effort than you are stronger. Challenge yourself to better your last accomplishment, and quit worrying about what other players are capable of.
Seasons or Eras. You choose! Either way your casual self isn’t going to be anywhere near the top, so get over it.
Your mistaking the paragon system as if you gained some extra skills, which it’s not. The paragon system is a bonus for your time played that doesnt dissapear like learned skills can. The leveling system in D2 was based on actual skill because you lost xp with every death.
In your weight lifting analogy, the skills that the person gains is what he needs in order to gain muscle mass. If John is not eating, or not eating enough he won’t build muscle mass. If john doesn’t have the skills to know exactly how to lift, how much to lift, or injuries himself from lifting he wont build muscle mass. If john has diseases it will impair his muscle mass building. You also left off the fact that no human can build muscle endlessly because we always have a plateau that caps off.
Anyone who has basic knowledge of weight lifting understands that you need to possess actual skills in order to gain muscle mass. You do not get muscle mass for simply participating.
Time lifting ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass
Eating ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass
Knowledge ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass
Good health ≠ Guarantee Muscle Mass
Weight lifting has a CAP= The maximum amount your body can handle.
With the D3 paragon system
Not Having Any Skill = Guaranteed Paragon levels.
Time played = Guaranteed Paragon levels.
Playing all day and not eating = Guaranteed Paragon Levels.
There is no CAP = Guaranteed Paragon Levels Forever.
Paragon points = The % of help guaranteed to you from blizzard. (Paragons = A parent holding A child’s hand, helping them walk across the street)
The whole point of my thread is not to Delete the paragon system, but instead work toward a middle ground and have a reasonable cap added. We are obviously going to have to agree to disagree, and that’s fine. I respect you, and your opinion and just because we have alternative viewpoints doesn’t mean that we have to attack each other. That’s a common theme that I see very often in these forums.
Why is it that others need to be taken down for you to ‘feel’ good about where you are in your game? No one has ‘power’ over me because they have more paragon.
Entitlement is your OP. Why should someone in a grind game be able to invest 1/3, 1/4, 1/8 th the time and be at the same power level as someone who plays more legitimately? Keeping in mind it’s a grind game which is gear based.
Why are you wasting your time explaining the obvious to simpletons? It should be clear to anyone why any system that can be grinded forever will create barriers to entry and discourage far more players than it will ever benefit. Blizzard will do better for D4 and these hamsters can remain here grinding that paragon until they pass out.
The issue is their interpretation of the paragon system that is causing a perceived view that is a result of way thinking. They truly believe that the paragon system is giving them actual skill instead of a handicap that benfits them posativly over others though increase EHP/DPS. If you deleted the paragon system then everyone would be back down on an equal level where skill and gear gets you ranked on the leaderboards, not your paragon level.
However, the only time people seem to want “fair playing field” is when botters surpass them in paragon levels because they don’t play enough to keep up with them. This is when they understand that the advantage they had over someone else granted to them with the paragon 2.0 system when botter outranks them on the leaderboard and they feel like they were robbed of their spot from the free handicap (+5) mainstat for paragons.
The argument is that its 100% FAIR to award them a handicap that results in a 200%+ dps 100%+ ehp benefit because its casuals fault for not playing enough.
At the same time they also claim that its 100% UNFAIR to allow people to bot in the game because it awards them paragon levels at rate they are unable to compete with.
If we followed their original argumentive logic then the only answer to a player botting is to not complain, accept that hes more powerful than you, and if you want to rank above him on the leaderboard simply play more!
Actually it maters more. Seasons is only 3 months and those who can only play 20% of the time will have alot lower paragon levels than those who can play 50% or 80% of the time. The higher the paragon level the higher you will be on the leaderboard. Its exactly the same reason why the players who play alot are against botting.
If you think paragon levels in seasons don’t matter then please explain to us why the community always becomes outraged at the end of every season from a swarm of botters over running the leaderboards?
Your first mistake is that you assume they care about fair competition. Like, we are talking about people that perceive grinding exp as “hard work” and believe that rewards should come with it, indefinitely.
The arguements they use reek of narrow perception, as if ARPGs didn’t exist before D3 and won’t exist after it. D2 largely considered the best ARPG ever didn’t have an endless expgrind attached. PoE which is the most popular ARPG today does not have one either. Gear grind is not anywhere close to paragon lvls because it has a cap. And that is actually all we are suggesting, give the expgrind a cap. Make it hard to reach, but not impossible.
I’d argue that a simple cap of 2k for the next upcoming season will see participation spike higher as a result. Hell they can (and probably should) even lower the expgains, make it take about 3months of dedicated gaming (4-5h/day) to reach, 2 if you’re a zombie, 1 if you’re a botter, and watch how you will have a far more active and interesting leaderboard. Watch how nobody will give a damn about botters.
Keep NS as is for those that want to accumulate wealth and strength, it’s too late to save that mode anyway.
Now finally, what about the weird fella/botter that plays 24/7 and maxes everything out 1 month into the season? What should he do once he has reached the cap? He should get a pat on the back and try to understand that games shouldn’t be designed to cater to crazy people. Blizzard have been trying to please all kinds of players simultaneously but it is simply not feasable. Instead it’s rather stupid. There can be side activities that tailor to everybodys needs but the core design must have a solid direction and for D4 I hope this translates into no more pleasing the weird zombies (or the super casuals for that matter) that want to chase that +5 forever.
That’s the thing though. It’s a video game. I play for fun. I’m not making any money from this.
I basically compete against my own personal bests typically. I know I don’t have the time some people do, also I’m a perpetual character switcher which causes me to lose time gaining paragons.
I don’t measure myself against someone who plays 10+ hours a day, because I just can’t.
Why should I, who can play maybe 2 hours a day (if that) be able to clear the same GR or have the same gear as a guy who basically plays all day. As stated before, these types of games reward the grind. I know that’s what I’m getting into, so I have no problem with it.
If you know you don’t have the time or don’t want to grind, maybe this game isn’t for you.
The fundamental part of gaming that people forget is that it’s supposed to be FUN.
The fact that people use bots to cheat is pathetic. Congrats, you cheated to get high on a leaderboard on a game, you win at life. If I get high on leaderboards, great, but it’s not my life goal to be number 1 on a Diablo leaderboard.
Just like anything in life. Earn your place. If you’re willing to grind those paragons and take all that time, all the power to you.
You should be able to compete, thats what a fair competition is called. If you play 2 hours a day, you could get lucky and get all the good RNG drops while the other player gets junk. You could have 40 hours with all the good gear and lets say you ranked #150, then the other player with worse gear than you, but he has 1,000 hours and paragon 5000 comes along and knocks you down the leaderboard by ranking 5 levels above you simply because his paragon gave him a 200% boost in free dps. Thats not a competition. If COD has this type of system they would have never made a second COD game.
hmmm… wait for it…
So bots are cheaters…
So you agree then. The paragon system is a way to cheat players out of the leaderboards. If it wasnt then botting wouldnt be called a cheat because botting wouldnt affect a real competition when a game is based on skill.
Lets recap the argument.
Botting is “cheating” because it lets a player gain faster paragons than you because “you” dont have enough time to play diablo 3.
Botting is cheating" because the 200% DPS bonus lets you out rank others on the leaderboards.
Its not “cheating” if you have more time to play Diablo 3 over casuals to earn paragon points that give you 200% more damage to rank higher on the leaderboards.
So which is it. Is playing to much cheating or not. Who cares if its a bot or a person. Its either one or the other. If gaining paragons isn’t giving you a benfit over other players why do you call botting cheating?
If you plan to say that botting is a computer program that gives you an advantage over other players who play less, then what do you think the paragon system is? Its a program that is input into the game to benfit those who play more. The only difference is who coded it.
Botting is bad, but the uncapped paragon 2.0 system is = bad.
The paragon system is fine. I’m not bothered the way it is, because I feel like casual players like myself aren’t chasing #1 status.
It’s an imperfect system, but there will always be workarounds. People use modded gear too, that’s cheating. What about on console where you have the ability to dashboard and save bounty mats? That’s technically cheating too. People will always find ways to gain advantages.
If they adjust the paragon system, people will find ways to make themselves stronger anyway.
I think you should be rewarded for time spent. You’ve invested. If you can’t, too bad. That’s life. Harder workers get better rewards.
So you agree. The people who happen to have lives, work for a living, and have earned their money gets the better rewards like… paying for a bot that plays diablo 3 24/7 that gives these players more paragons than you could ever get playing diablo 3 on your own. Just because the casual outsmarted the players on D3 by spending their time more productivly doesnt mean they dont deserve it.
So punish the players that put in the time? You twisted my words completely. If you work hard in game, then you’ve earned those paragon levels. Botting should be removed, but those that put in the time deserve higher achievements.
Given the game’s age, the paragon system will not change and can not as evidenced in part by the responses in this thread. That is why I suggested an addition to the game with a “capped” GR leaderboard in addition to the current leaderboards. Players could choose to set records on both leaderboards or either one.
In sports, the truly competitive players want to win when on an equal footing or even giving the other guy the advantage to really demonstrate that they are the best.
Yes, i would like to see a leaderboard with sorting the records by the time spending in an grift up to 30mins, One for each 5min steps.
For expample
Tier 1 up to 5min
Tier 2 up to 10min
Tier 3 up to 15min
Tier 4 up to 15min
Tier 5 up to 20min
Tier 6 up to 25min
Tier 7 up to 30min
a. So that means also the time u allow to complete an greater rift is douple to 30 min.
b. Rework the Stone augmantation for every tier u get an bonus chance to upgrade the legendary gems, when u not died for 5min, in the grift.
You automaticly gain 1 life when entering the next Tier by passing 5min in the grift if you die, you will lose just one chance for an augmentation.
c. I belive this can be an new well rewarding system for Softcore, to not die alot and adds the option to see the diffennt performences of many Builds, and ur skill with that.
d. I will post my idea in a new tread, too, cause i belive now in this.
with the Title “new Grift and legandary Stone Sytem” or just like that. =)
The feeling i get from this whole conversation is, that there is actually no problem with paragon itself, but the problem is how high paragon affects leaderboards. That means, that if there were fair competition, (for example capped paragonlvl + augmentlvl to compete in leaderboards (max 2000p/120aug, higher numbers automaticly scale down) = only skill + rng decides) then all other aspects of the game wouldn’t be problem (unfair) anymore. It would give OP the chance to compete on equal terms with veterans, and veterans could still keep their paragons and do solo or group 150grifts, that wouldn’t get recorded in bublic LBs, only in their “personal LBs”. As a bonus, sets can be balanced based on public capped leaderboards results, not by some 12K para outlier. What do you think?
Problem is, its being suggested in this forum. This forum which is primarily filled with ‘mainly’ hardcore(not the game mode) D3 players. Those that in all likelihood have high non season paragon, and benefit from it.
Much like how a buyer of an item will defend that purchasing decision regardless if it was a bad buy or not, they do it never the less and it takes a long time before they can honestly look back at that time and say “yea i was wrong”. Basic psychology.
Its the same here, its a natural thing for those to defend what they have, regardless of the logical argument against them.
Leaderboards should be ‘fair’. by definition its a competition its a LEADERboard. Ofc with the paragon system, its not fair. The only fair Leaderboard currently in the game of any level of ‘fun’ is the weekly challenge rift.
I support the idea of changing the leaderboard to include limits on Paragon level, gem level, and augment level, while still allowing people to keep the paragon they have currently and can continue to earn as a personal solo ‘achievement’.