One of the many near-perfect things about D2 was the lvl 99 cap. It was completely unnecessary, overwhelmingly difficult to achieve, and didn’t dramatically impact the end game except for bragging rights (e.g. no items required you to be 99 to use).
D3 mirrored this when paragon levels first came out (which was awesome) but then they removed the cap entirely and you could see people at paragon level 3000+. By not having a ceiling, the levels matter less and are less worth chasing. For instance, the difference between a 97 and a 99 in D2 was huge and everyone knew it. On the other hand the difference between paragon 2000 and 3000 is incomprehensible. This made leveling for the sake of leveling unappealing to most past level 800.
In short, please put a near-unobtainable ceiling on paragon points in D4. (e.g. 99, 1000, or whatever. Just something to actually indicate a horizon/end that’s hard to obtain)
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I disagree completely.
Reaching the level cap in vanilla D3 or the first iteration of Paragon means that your only road to improvement was now relying on the randomness of gear drops, which ultimately meant that most play sessions ended up being a waste of time.
D2’s abismally slow leveling at the higher levels is basically the same thing. You play a crap load of time for little tangible benefit (moving the exp bar a bit).
The current Paragon system is great because I always get some progress when I play, even if the benefits of a single paragon starts being minimal.
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The levels become meaningless though… I agree that in D2 you have to invest a ton of time for minimal gain in regards to leveling but it gives each level an intrinsic feeling of satisfaction and meaning as a result.
To your point, I agree there should at least be an alternative incentive to reward players for playing. Whether that be transmogs, pets, consumables, or whatever. I just think showering you with levels is a lazy way about congratulating those that want to be congratulated while at the same time ostracizing those that want to pursue something challenging.
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adding a level cap will make it much easier for balancing 
No need to balance equally, just balance effectively compared to the cap.
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Paragon is a terrible way to constant progression, not all progression has to be in power. Not to mention the terrible encouragement to bot that it is.
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Another stupid, irrelevant and total unnecessary meme.
I so wish they wouldn’t allow that garbage.
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You write this out to support the paragon system - what paragon rank are you? Is say, playing 10 hours on a Sunday doing 115 speed rats (with breaks here and there) what you think ‘progress’ in Diablo should be?
And if you can’t get into the xp meta you can just console yourself that you ‘solo played’ a lot, logged on and made your own progress?
Paragon is a slippery slope and a bad system - with so much progression it encourages botting and automated play.
I much prefer ‘skill system’ - say being able to farm skill points with time (and make it pretty hard, and cap it for balance etc.) to improve your character’s skills. This ‘grind 20 hours a weekend to farm paragon and keep up with power creep’ is a fairly lazy design choice.
Blizzard can do much better.
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I disagree with your disagreement. Going from level 92 - to 99 in D2 is substantially more satisfying than any paragon levels. Most players would never get a hero to the max level if done right like in D2.
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That was the developers idea too - casuals always getting a reward for slaying some demons for 20-30 minutes. The reward however starts to mess with those who want to compete but aren’t capable of investing enough hours per Season. That is the main reason why people want a change regarding paragon in Diablo 4 - grinding of stats is fun while your character is weak, but at some point it creates problems for those wanting to measure their skill without the grinding concept.
1 Like
Exactly! And having a level cap of 99 didn’t ruin the experience for the people that chose to stay at level 90. It just gave something to work towards for those that did.
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Paragon = bad idea.
Paragon leveling works to D3 due to a bad end game design oriented by power progression, but no end game improvment. Why to have 20+ difficulty levels if you jump from expert game to T13 just because you got a new set (doing quests, by the way. Guarantee)?
D2 leveling to 99 works dua a good game desegned to improve character power with time, slow paced. You need time to find gears, to think about builds, etc. By lv 80 you probably have a good build and must think about end game (ubers, diablo clone, etc…)
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Agreed, I hate the paragon level grind and to make matters worse it just seems like a system where bots thrive… There’s been plenty of seasons of people calling numerous leader board holders out that they’ve literally been playing 22-23 hours a day since the season started ( weeks/months into it )… the bots farm for the grift keys/mats then they can just enjoy the speed runs, also its pretty linear.
In d2 you can choose to exp farm, baal runs/pindle or high exp mobs… Or choose to go magic finding from bosses or areas that can drop top notch, there WERE MULTIPLE ways to progress, maybe trading to get that specific rune that’ll finally get you that last rune you needed for your infinity… or maybe you just collected a but load of chips/perfects so you could craft/reroll gear. It’s kind of shocking how many people defend the d3 end game over d2’s, there just isn’t a comparison, from gambling, to selling SOJS to get diablo clone, from rushing people for forge, rune hunting, magic finding, trav/meph/pit/chaos/baal runs… or farming for the mats to respec/uber diablo… or heck even rerolling another character of the same class just because you wanted more of a hybrid build or a build that works better in X/Y area of the game, there is just SO much more end game in d2 other then mindless paragon grind.
6 Likes
^This. And that’s why there’s still such an active D2 player base 20 years later (primarily single player using PlugY but still). What you did mattered and there’s always more to do. Whether it be level grinding, mfing, rune farming, rushing, or uber trist, there were multiple variants of end-game and it wasn’t centered around this meaningless placation of casual gamers who want to be rewarded for playing 20 minutes of a game intended for grinding.
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You have no reason to Lv99 in D2 except for bragging right and you have a good reason to level the D3 paragon because it actually give your character power.
If people can give up levelling to Lv99 in D2, why can’t people give up levelling the paragon level in D3 too?
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I absolutely gave up paragon leveling in D3. Chasing a never-ending goal that means nothing can only capture my interest for so long.
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It is ok to give up, just like many people stop pursuing Lv99 in D2. Those Lv99 and Paragon 3000+ are meant for hardcore players.
whats hardcore about running 2-3 minute speed runs with some arbitrary zdps setup and playing unfun builds just to get extra stats… You aren’t risking anything, atleast in diablo 2 you die you lose exp so you are actually risking something by doing speed runs… the game is 100% baby proofed and spending time != hardcore, sorry. Even a bot can spend all day farming exp…
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To give up, what? You think getting to level 99 is equivalent to Paragon 3000? They do not guarantee anywhere near the ‘power creep’, so your post completely misses the point of this thread.
I personally want the level cap to be 100 and extremely hard to hit, and whatever there new “paragon” system is for D4, I think we should start accruing progress in that system from level 1 on, and it should not include infinite power, but rather Magic Find, Gold Find, etc… once you reach whatever the capped point of power is in the system.
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