Blizzard, Lets Have A Serious Conversation About The Current Paragon System

PTR Feedback
46

LOL… I really dont even know what to say, but you do realize that the paragon 2.0 system added for those that BEGGED for it because everyone could reach 100 in paragon 1.0.

There is no excuse. The facts prove that the paragon system gives people an advantage over others simply for playing longer. Thats not what a GRIND is. You grind for better gear with RNG lottery drops, and as you grind you obtain new skills that make you a better player. No one deserves a Free Headstart simply for playing more, This type of design is not only toxic, but its encourages players who have already achieved high paragon to become power hungry, oppressive, subjugate, intimmidating and entitled towards those who just want to be treated equally.

No I’m speaking up for those who choose not to speak out over fear of being attacked because that’s all that happens on these forums. There is a very common pattern in all the Paragon threads and whenever someone posted against the design, everyone that’s against it are already high paragon, since they already felt what it’s like to have power over those who don’t, they intimidate, attack others in an effort to prevent them from loosing it. All you have to do it look at the leaderboard which shows the exact problem with the paragon system, those with high paragon rule over the leaderboard no matter what class you are.

This proves my point. Why should these people who are already dealing with real life oppression, also have to be oppressed in Diablo 3 by keeping them in a position that prevents them from competing on an even playing field, and almost never ranking in the top 100 on this game simply because the paragon system is designed in discriminatory way that it hurts these types of casual players by giving “elite” players a handicap that is no different than cheating. Its just a blizzard approved cheat, where blizzard never thought about the long term effects on other players.

Your statement shows that you are an egotistical, despotic, and entitled player that lacks insight, and the ability to be compassionate towards others less fortunate that you are.

This is exactly why blizzard doesn’t reply to people, why it took them until recently to start interacting more because the player base has become toxic from this entitlement that’s directly influenced by the paragon system. If blizzard wants a better, compassionate community then they need to fix the paragon system to bring back the players that have been pushed away from this game design.

If players truly cared about real other players, real competition, and fairness they wouldnt be defending this system, instead they would be willing to work with others in finding a way for the system to benefit everyone equally.

47

LOL I thought you meant his message about life, and how everything would be better is 50% of it ceased to exist.

But yeah I agree with Thanos too…both of em actually.

48

This has been an interesting thread.

I am a casual player. I have a life outside Diablo as I have a job/kids/responsibilities,

In season I think the highest I have ever attained is around 1400.

I play with players that get to the mid 2000s and have way more time than I do. I don’t know where you get this from because for me, I don’t feel left out that they have better gear and can do higher rifts than me. Time is the name of the game in Diablo. I play it as an escape, but I’m aware others have more time and are thus higher.

I don’t see why anyone should be punished for playing games longer. I also don’t want handouts for being a casual gamer.

2 Likes
49

There is nothing wrong with that.

This is true.

Please explain to me how the player who is playing the game longer is the one punished?

The only people getting a free handout are those who play more and gain paragon levels. Please explain to me what handouts casual gamers get?

50

That’s exactly what a grind is. You do things over and over to increase power. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it not a grind

That’s. . . not a free headstart lol. The people who play more are not granted stuff for free. They worked for it

51

A grind always has an end. The paragon system does not.

Are you telling me that a player who gets a paragon level and receives a +5 mainstat isn’t getting a gaurnteed free handout for the simple act of playing the game?

Thats exactly why Diablo 3 is infested with bots. Players only care about the power they get from the increased paragon, if it was about the items they wouldnt let the Bot determine what items to keep, or destroy and would choose to play the game instead.

Let’s say you have 2 different people training for the Olympics, (John) Who is competing in the Olympics for the first time ever and only trained for 1 year with the Olympics, and (Mike) who never received a metal has trained with the Olympics for 20 years.

John ends up running the 40 yard dash in 3.98 seconds on the first opening day of the Olympics and because of that John was very excited for his accomplishment and understand how awarding it felt to be the fastest and ranked #1 on the leaderboards in 40 yard dash.

Then mike shows up a month later and runs the 40 yard dash in 7.5 seconds and knocks John out of his number #1 spot simply because Mikes participating in the Olympics for 20 years granted him paragon points for every year that he trained for the Olympics. Mike received a 0.20 reduction in his time for every paragon point. Since mike accumulated 20 paragon points mike received a 4 second head start that turned his real 7.5 second run into a 3 second run. Even though mike was physically slower than John, mike ended up not receiving a metal at all because he was knocked out of his spot other plays who received paragon points in the Olympics even though Mike had more skills and was faster than them all.

Please explain to me how anyone could think that is acceptable? That exactly what we have, its called the Paragon 2.0 system.

52

I usually level up my paragon 800 in season. I play around 2 year and still my non-season paragon is under 1500.
paragon 1000 to 5000 have very big time gap.
i think ‘ONLY’ double dps is reasonable reward for tons of time.

1 Like
53

No, it doesn’t. A grind is simply performing the same act over and over. This act can be with or without a reward.

Also, your Olympics scenario is so out there, and it’s completely wrong to compare it to Diablo 3. Having more paragon does not guarantee you a better leaderboard position. You have 2 main fallacies.
You believe having higher paragon automatically makes you better than someone else. You also believe that paragon is handed out for free. Both of these are 100% completely false.

1 Like
54

Instead of making a claim of straight up denial, why don’t you attempt to argue it? Its pretty obvious that you choose not to. Its exactly how the paragon system works.

I never said it did, but it definitly plays BIG role in ranking when you have a character with a gain of 296% more damage and 161% more EHP than anyone else can ever obtain from the games actual gear grind (gear, gems and arguments) making is impossible to phsyically catchup without spending tens of thousands of hours/years to catch up in paragon, but in the end you cant ever catchup since those players continue to play and will eventuall go from 10k paragon to 20k paragon.

Its not a belief. Its called mathmatics.

Paragon 1,000, Level 100 Gems, Level 100 Argumentations

  • Damage = 3,955,489

  • Toughness = 37,058,795

  • Effective DPS = 131,805,318

www.d3planner.com/745961071

Paragon 5,000 Level 120 Gems, Level 120 Argumentations

  • Damage = 8,133,201 (105.62% DPS Increase)

  • Toughness = 64,005,586 (72.71% EHP increase)

  • Effective DPS = 296,341,515 (124.83% DPS Increase)

www.d3planner.com/609804645

Paragon 10,000 Level 135 gems, Level 135 Argumentations

  • Damage = 13,227,851 (234.42% DPS increase)

  • Toughness = 96,866,754 (161.39% EHP increase)

  • Effective DPS = 514,059,908 (290.01% DPS increase)

www.d3planner.com/636839956

Lets see… Getting rewarded for doing something that you would have done anyways is the definition of a free handout. Did you not play D3 vanilla? Did you not play D3 ROS patch 2.0? Are you telling me you would have never played D3 if you couldnt obtain unlimited paragons?

55

So yeah, most of us agree that the paragon system is awful game design. However…

JUST WOW. Anyone that actually made it through this babbling, incoherent, ludicrous argument may not have enough brain cells left to successfully read the rest of your post. Congrats, you’ve successfully undermined any valid points you may actually have.

1 Like
56

You really take this (and yourself) way too seriously.
And, again, RPG games reward you for playing them with loot and exp. Consequently, those who play the game the most have the best loot and most exp. If you feel that is unfair, I honestly don’t have anything more to say…

No, you are just willfully choosing to misunderstand what I said. People who are actually oppressed in real life have more important issues to deal with and sure as hell don’t give a damn about a video game. It’s obvious that you have never been in the kind of a situation that you’re talking about…

People who are playing the game as casuals (and I’m one of them!) simply can not expect to compete with those who play it more. If you feel that is discriminatory, well, what about all the sports out there? You think all the NFL players should stop training so that your average Joe could go and play on an even field with them?

1 Like
58

Why would the NFL players stop training? There is no reason for them to. They train to build up their skill to compete with other players. The NFL is actual fair and they wouldn’t ever give advantages to certain players over others by giving out free loytaly points for participating.

If the NFL decided to reward players for participating (instead of learning actual skills) exactly how the current paragon system works they would Reward players with 7 free points for every 5 years that they have participated in the NFL. Lets say (John) is in the NFL and played for 30 years, John now gets 45 free points in every game he plays in. This means that before the coin flip, the team that John is playing on now has a 45 point advantage because the NFL decided to give out a participation handicap.

Diablo 3 gives you +5 mainstat for every particpation paragon you earn, which means that if you will always have that advantage over other players,

You got it backwords. The paragon system is a participation trophy and pure entitlement. Just because you participate more doesnt mean that you should get more damage than me. Without that participation crutch 99% of the leaderboard would actually have a list full of skilled players, not participation players that have double or tripple the damage of their competitors for simply particpating in D3.

59

Aside from the fact that there is no 40 yard dash in the Olympics, which anyone who uses so many sports metaphors should know, lets apply your rules to a race.

John and Mike start a 1500 meter race. At 500 meters John remembers he needs to text Jenny, so he stops running to use his phone. Mike keeps running and gets way ahead of John
At 1000 meters Jenny texts back, and John stops to read it. Mike keeps running and gets even further ahead.
When Mike gets to 1400 meters the officials stop him. They tell him he has to stop and wait, because John needs to catch up.
That way John will have a fair way to beat him.

Perhaps you will recognize the absurdity of your argument.

2 Likes
60

And your statement still shows that you are a pretentious douche. Being a pansy on a video game forum isn’t going to solve the problems you perceive about people not being hippies and not caring about one another.

1 Like
62

I think i see the problem now. People seem to be totally confused with the way the paragon system actually works.

    1. The paragon system rewards you + 5 mainstat for every participation point earned.
    1. The only way to get paragons is by playing the game.
    1. After playing the game for thousands of hours, or years you will have accumulated 5,000 or 10,000 participation points.
    1. 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.

63

Not in seasons.

And if someone wants the points, they should play the game.

You’re like a dumber, uglier version of Bernie Sanders, aren’t you?

64

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.

2 Likes
67

Thats called entitlement.

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.

  1. Time lifting ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass

  2. Eating ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass

  3. Knowledge ≠ Guaranteed Muscle Mass

  4. Good health ≠ Guarantee Muscle Mass

  5. Weight lifting has a CAP= The maximum amount your body can handle.

With the D3 paragon system

  1. Not Having Any Skill = Guaranteed Paragon levels.

  2. Time played = Guaranteed Paragon levels.

  3. Playing all day and not eating = Guaranteed Paragon Levels.

  4. There is no CAP = Guaranteed Paragon Levels Forever.

  5. 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.

68

Enough with the leftist garbage dude.

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.

You’re bad. Get over it.

1 Like
69

It capped at 20k paragon, at least in ps4 version.