D4's paragon system

Players here cringe when they think of the possibility of D4 having a paragon system. But when that first blog made me think of what ways that an infinite paragon system can be actually a good thing and can be controlled. What if you had two factors that would control paragon.

  1. Paragon points spent into stats would have diminishing returns. Where you are not getting the same amount per point spent like the always +5 to main stat. Take CHD for instance what if after 50 points you get a 10-1 ratio. Where it takes 10 points to get 1% CHD. And that diminishing return can keep ramping up where in a short time it would be better to spend your points elsewhere.

  2. Where paragon is not all about raw power. Where you can be advancing your character by unlocking things that have nothing to do with power. What if paragon points can be used as an extra way of customizing your character as IIRC was alluded to at Blizzcon. Just think of a necro that can summon zombies instead of skeletons. Or unlocking different transmogs than what you can get from gear drops or crafting.

I do believe that an infinite system as mentioned above could work in a game.

That way as was mentioned at Blizzcon the devs could control the power of an infinite system.

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for any other achievements, yes
but it really doesnt matter how diminishing the returns are
an infinite power creep system will always be bad

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With diminishing returns there is no way that it can be power creep. You can easily put more power into the levels of the skills. Then control the amount of power from the gear along with paragon where the majority more than 50% comes from the skills and talents that the character has.

I have seen soft caps with diminishing returns work in other games. Sure the system wasn’t infinite but it had the same affect. In City of Heroes there was a system called Enhancement Diversification (ED). Where if you slotted more than 3 of the same type of enhancement (damage for instance) you will get less from it. The diminishing returns were stepper than what I said. Also what I said was just to throw out some numbers that could be tweaked to get the same desired affect.

Also enticing players into spending points to unlock other non power options is also a good idea.

I am sure that if it takes 10,000+ paragon just to double a stat’s soft cap of 50. Will mean that players will spend their points elsewhere. More so if it takes a while to reach those high paragon levels as well.

Do you think that it is worth it to spend 100 points into a stat just to be getting around .0000001% boost in that stat. I don’t think so, players will look for other things to spend their points on and that is where the other forms of customization comes in. Then make it where it takes a long time to get to the point where players would run out of things to spend their points on.

just doesnt cap the lvl but make it logaritmic regression, so the amount of xp needed every time is so high that at the end won’t be a significative difference. you don’t need paragon your char has no level limitation but make it sure that with your formula u cant get past lvl 150 anyway you play for a century, but don’t limit it if you play for 1000 years you will get lvl 152 it’s ok, this opens also a permaseason with the most experienced chars in history.

You can also just cap it at 150 and give ppl some REST lol xD
And let them play an other char xD

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Yep, I think if they use paragon this could work in some fashion.

Another thought - If they do add Angelic, Demonic, Ancient ‘powers’ in game maybe paragon could have alignment bonuses.

If there were a lot of moral choices or if your actions in game could somehow change the paragon experience for that character.

So the paragon for Angelic playstyle, would be somewhat different than Demonic or Ancient.

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The reason D3 had paragon was of how flawed feel the whole leveling system. If you make meaningful, slow paced leveling system then there is no reason of paragon system. The main leveling system is important how will be handled from the devs.

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Lets be real the real reason people complain about paragons is some person having 20 hours a day to play and another person only has 4 hours to play so obviously the dude that has more time to play will most likely be higher on the leaderboards. So the dudes that has less time to play will complain that its not a fair cause they only have 1000 paragon levels compared to the other guys with 10,000 paragons. I don’t think its possible to limit someone to play legitimately 20 hours a day because that’s basically their job.

I don’t know how there can be a solution unless put a cap on paragons but then the others will complain they put more time in so why shouldn’t they have be more powerful.

If blizz gives us more to do in game then perhaps that will slow things down.

Im 99.9 positive some wanker will take a week off and hit max level in several hours to be ahead of the game like team method always does.

Not really sure if there’s any real solution. But in pvp this could be a problem. Someone with 1000 paragon vs 10 paragons would be mismatch no?

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Even most ppl with enough time agree on, that the system sucks
It feels straight hollow and meaningless
You get stronger as your enemies do and nothing really changes for you
Only for the ppl who are loosing on you
Its much more of an effort, to optimize ur gear and try to find new ways to beat challenges, than simple leveling up for no reason at all

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There is nothing wrong with infinite paragon if it will be capped in PvP or it doesn’t have GR150.

Just imagine if D3 has GR50 where everyone and their cows can beat it with any build. At that point, even if you give them unlimited paragon, no one will whine since everyone can destroy the endgame, GR50 over and over.

I prefer no paragon-like system at all. This kind of infinity power scale ends hurting game system unnecessarily. Fun and content should be enough to keep people playing. Honestly, leveling is one of the things that I think could be like D2 with a hard-to-reach max level.

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I think that the ones that are against this want everything done the D2:LOD way in D4. Where they don’t have to change a way that they play a Diablo game. Instead of compromising by improving the best of both worlds (D2 and D3) so both sides the Blizz North fans and the Blizz Irvine fans (Activision/Blizz) can have a game that both enjoy playing together.

With an infinite system they can still play their other characters. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. The game won’t get harder just because you are playing a different character that doesn’t have all of the same goodies the other character does.

What you and others are not realizing is that gamers have changed and the times have change.

Gone are the days of gamers not minding a game company making a game and being done with it after launching it. Moving on to the next sequel or a new game. Gamers these days expect companies to keep adding in new content.

The same is true for leveling as well. Players want something to be progressing toward when they play their most advanced characters. If they don’t see any progress toward something the they won’t play the game.

Don’t you realize that I am actually suggesting a soft cap system on the power portion of the paragon system that I would love to see in D4.

The system that I propose is good because you are progressing toward something. Sure it isn’t more power, and it doesn’t have to be. A player can complete their build and move on to another build with another character. They can still keep playing their older characters when they want to make some progress toward some nifty customization options.

I guess you don’t understand diminishing returns. Where each point after a soft cap will mean that you get much less for it than the soft cap. Where in time you would take thousands of points just to get near a 1% CHD.

its important that the power gets capped at a point
not optional, just CAPPED!
i dont mind, progressing for luxury and looks like stash size, cosmetics, pets and what not

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Soft caps work just as well as hard caps do. I have seen them at work in other games so I ought to know they do work.

and still, most of the community despites unlimited power progression
so just no

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I guess you will never understand diminishing returns. I guess according to you spending 100 points to get a .000001% boost to damage will mean way more damage than a +1 to skills does in D2 right.

Unlimited progression is fine and only needs 1 change to make it meaningful.
Make it non-transferable. You want a second toon? Start from scratch, simple.

Unlimited power progression shouldn’t even be a thought

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it simply doesnt matter
and if i have to grind for 10 years to get 1 more dps
if its unlimited, it sucks because of its philosophy

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With diminishing returns infinite becomes pointless. The goal becomes to reach level “X”. Infinite also provides the possibility of “maxing” out everything. This is just bad design. What’s the point of providing a “choice” in where you can allocate stat points, only to make that choice pointless later because you have everything maxed out. They are already doing it with skills. Don’t need another pointless system where maxing everything is the norm.

Paragon system is fine. As long as it isn’t infinite. (there is other criteria but not being infinite is the most important one).

Still answer the question is it more than a +1 to skills in D2? If yes then explain why. This is no doubt what the devs were talking about when they mentioned how they can control power from paragon.