But I would think a large part in how high you get in GR is attributed to your damage. I also acknowledge the other large factor is gear, skill and taking time to farm the right GR.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but at the high end, I see even 1 GR has a pretty huge advancement. Again, because it’s not a linear scale.
Let us be honest here.
If you are that thigh on the ladder, then you have spent WAY more time farming gear than everyone else. Yes, your paragon will be high as well, but you have the connection the other way around. It isn’t because of your paragon that you’ve reached the top. It’s that your paragon is so high because you’ve played a lot while reaching the top.
Wasn’t there a huge burning of behinds just this season because someone reached an insanely high GR in just 20 hours? I think that example alone makes the point that it isn’t paragon that got him there, but other factors. Gear, namely.
Paragon is just a small part in your character strength.
Being completely inactive in the last 1,5 years, having played about 3 days in last 4 seasons I actually did play im around 1900 non season.
I would argue you’re not “somewhat dedicated” if you are quite far below that.
1600 seasonal paragon with this seasons start is easily obtainable through 5-6 days of efficient play.
I just hope D4 adjusts the game so it can be all competition for those who want that and for those who want to do their own thing instead of being a power gamer they still can and not get killed in one hit by everything
Efficient play, You mean playing with broken builds? Monk/Crusader/Barbarian. 3 builds, that are completely insane and were never fun to play. I never tried to play anything, that isn’t fun for me, including all kinds of stupid builds, starting 2012 May. I ended up playing what’s fun for me, which doesn’t give You any chance of having 1600 paragon in 5 days of “efficient” playing.
I forgot to mention, that I never played 16 hours a day just to get higher number pixelated on my screen. And yes, You didn’t mention 4 man group efficient farming. Good job.
For your information, leaderboards are seasonal. And paragon is also seasonal.
It doesn’t matter what paragon do you have off-season. Everyone starts with the same number - zero.
Paragon doesn’t matter. Stop tunnel-visioning it.
It’s not that it doesn’t help.
It’s that to place top 10 you need to play A LOT, and your aim isn’t paragon but loot. Paragon is a passive by-product of your playthrough, and it will accumulate similarly for all top ladder members.
Now, if there was a player on Ladder who got ahead of everyone else solely thanks to Paragon while his gear is objectively worse - now THEN you could say that paragon may be a problem.
So far your logic is:
This doesn’t make any sense.
Paragon is a passive secondary attribute.
Of course it is impossible to reach the very top without Paragon. But criticizing this fact is the same as criticizing that it’s impossible to reach top 10 without gems. Like paragon, they are basically passive resource that accumulates in your inventory over time and is used to improve stats.
Paragon is a part of the hole, but it’s not the most impactful thing BY FAR. And it’s not like people on top ladder gain unfair advantage over each other.
What do you even WANT? So that a player who puts 100 hours per season was able to place in the top ladder just on skill and lucky loot alone? Side by side with people who’ve played a 1000 hours and more?
That’s never going to happen. Even if you take Paragon out entirely, they will always be better than you on gear quality alone.
And if you are READY to put so much hours into the game - then paragon becomes completely irrelevant to you, because everyone else on the ladder have about the same paragon values.
I don’t know about bot usage or anything - but even if that’s the case - your problem is with cheaters, not with paragon system.
I hate to be the one to say this, but those with jobs and responsibility will always be behind those that do not and can put less time into the game. That will always be the case and it is how it should be.
D3 damage is very dependent on mainstat. One of the main reasons ancient and primal gear is better is that it can roll higher mainstat ranges and you can augment to add even more mainstat. After 800 paragon, each level gives you 5 main stat. I’m very casual so I only have about 1100 NS paragon (btw there are leader boards for NS, not just seasonal, some of us already have all the season rewards we want and would rather use our limited play time to develop existing characters than start over). That 1100 paragon gives me the option to add 300 points to main stat, or a total of 1500. So that’s worth 3 augments with lvl 100 gems. Now compare that to those who have 10000 paragon. They could have 46000 mainstat JUST through paragon alone. Mainstat directly boosts your damage. The benefits of paragon after lvl 800 are huge.
I am totally okay with the fact that people who play more will have better gear and more paragon than me, but for you to say paragon doesn’t effect character power is just wrong. Not sure if it’s because you haven’t gotten high enough paragon yet to pump pure mainstat (assuming this is your only account) or if you just don’t understand how d3 damage works. Not trying to insult you, just educate.
Sigh. Technically gear is the biggest factor since without it your dmg will drop to basically zero. But everybody that plays even 2-3 hours/day will eventually get good enough ancients (due to the ridiculous droprates) and after a while even a primal won’t be a significant upgrade. At that point new items become largely irrelevant, what remains is the paragon levels. Gear becoming “irrelevant” does obviously not mean that you can take the gear off and do just fine without it. It means that you’re not hunting for items as your main source of power upgrade anymore. If most players reach this point after a few weeks then it’s even fair to say that the game is about hunting exp rather than loot, which it is for those that bother progressing into the endgame.
It’s stupid to take 125/115 and attribute that as a 8% progression in the endgame. Period. This is exactly what you did. Your view of progression is flawed and irrelevant to how the game plays out in practise. If I increase my clearing capapbility by 10 rifts, then it will be a big difference whether I went from 50 to 60 or 130 to 140. They both represent 10 rifts however, which according to what you wrote should be all that matters. But it’s not. If I go from 130 to 135 I have progressed much further through the endgame than you have with your 60->80. The difficulty is actually very relevant, and preicsely because the power curve has diminishing effects (as you so kindly pointed out) a 5GR difference is huge in the endgame.
i dare someone to remove all gear, spend all their paragon and jump into a greater rift. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
And what will this prove?
that paragon doesn’t make or break a character.
Is the system flawed? absolutely… I agree too much power is tied to paragon, but crying that d3 is based on paragon is a joke. You need the core items, well rolled and augmented to push the highest tier gr’s, if you’re a player barely at 1500 paragon in NON season i doubt you play enough to care about leaderboards. Make your builds, play the game and understand you’re probably not going to compete with the people who put thousands of hours into the game. And guess what, that is ok.
(note i’m only at about 1800 paragon in non season, i’m speaking as one of those players also)
But there is nobody in this world that believes a character without gear can progress into the endgame.
Augmenets and gems are both finite. If gear is handed to you then it’s practically irrelevant. No point using that as an arguement. There is not a single character above 800 paragon points that doesn’t have good gear unless he got boosted all the way up there. Even then, he’s very likely to have found a lot of items. There’s no use denying that past a certain point it all becomes about paragon levels, and we reach this point quicker and quicker for each passing season.
10 years and only 1600 paragon? Not sure if this OP is being sarcastic and trying to bash people who make topics about not having high paragon levels
I did not say it was not important, i said the system is flawed but the game does not revolve around paragon. You can still clear GR’s without high paragon, you just can’t go as high. Why is that a problem? Go as high as you can and push yourself.
If you want a video of people clearing high GR’s with low-ish paragon, look at raxxanterax video of 4 man GR150 when the group was mostly only 1500 paragon and not augmented last week. They’re not standing on the shoulder of fully augged and 3500+ paragon to get that clear, they’re using game mechanics.
I have no interest in pushing to the highest tier of GR’s and fishing for 2 map types with specific mob types to get a clear, i’m perfectly content to clear 10-15 below the top but not have to fish GR’s.
Read what i said, i said paragon is definitely flawed but it is not the main issue with D3. The main issue, in my opinion, is having to fish for specific GR’s just for a chance to compete on leaderboards.
botting, speedfarmers and 4-man powerlevelers are the problem.
Botting and speed farming will always be an issue, botting has been in diablo forever and Blizzard has never had it under control so what makes you think they will fix it in D4?
I think most people get the point that gear upgrades should always outweigh paragon and the STR bonus from paragon right now is way too strong. By the time you get paragon 1,000 most people have near perfect gear/rolls if you played right and the easiest way to see gains is to grind paragon.
I think the fix would be for paragon post 800 only give 1 main stat instead of 5, it would be useful, but not game-breaking.
paragon was a bandaid to bad design. it’s too bad they’re not taking that bandaid off for diablo 4