Real question; what is the carrot to chase in the game when you have reached max level - spent your 200 paragon points and have the equipment you desire your build?
Or, is there a carrot? Diablo 3 answers this question nicely. While 1 paragon level isn’t very effective, I definitely feel the weight of a hundred more, or a thousand more. My stretch goal is to gain a few hundred more, and see how much time that shaves off of clearing higher greater rifts. Does D4 have anything like this? Or not?
Since paragon is capped early, the carrot is pretty much completing your build with the desired legendary and unique items, and skill points and paragon boards. That said, one can certainly expect to reach the carrot.
Ok, so it has no carrot. That’s disappointing. I will still probably buy it, because its Diablo… but I guess its back to more D3 after.
Yeah, if you’re talking about something to constantly chase after, and that something in which the average player would likely never reach, then yeah, there’s no “carrot” in D4.
At least none at release. I definitely fear/expect them to add some of that “endless” nonsense later.
You mean the stuff that keeps you playing? How is that nonsense?
Rather keeps me away from playing. Having a defined start and an end to a game is important imo (“esports” type games excluded I guess, but they normally dont have any in-game progression in the first place).
If the game is a genuine treadmill, where a number or whatever is just going up forever after, I dont see the point in engaging with it.
Besides, a endless scaling game just cant be balanced, which only makes it even less interesting imo.
I think they plan to stay away from the unobtainable endless power and instead go for providing more time consuming seasonal content.
I expect they will have to look at ways to provide something interesting for level 100 Eternal realm characters to do.
D3 originally had a cap on paragon but they removed it after people just smashed it and still wanted to play more.
Loot and the season pass will probably be the primary carrots.
Engaging with that person is nearly always a mistake.
Having a reason to keep playing is a positive for most people, agreed.
Cosmetics, obviously.
D4 will certainly offer something on an ongoing basis. But one can only hope that this endgame from D3, from my understanding of RPGs, cheap and shallow, completely meaningless way, does not find its way to D4.
If there is a continuation, then please not as a competition against the clock in any arenas with a spreadsheet, which one decorates with items as currency…
I simply expect role-playing content and a completely different approach to progress, combined with the world as a game, heavily slowed down, hard and in the constant coupling with role-playing typical cornerstones.
It should not be understood as an endgame at all, but as a normal playful act that combines with the world again, but does not seem forced.
For this it is anyway indispensable that the game world itself returns much more to the central mobfight and the NPCs are more than just cones to clear.
Furthermore, a slowed-down gameplay and progression is also a logical consequence, because otherwise a reasonable concept can’t take hold and work. Otherwise, it just becomes a flat Durchgeschnetzel without soul and that will totally devalue D4.
D3 offered a far better endgame for me than any other ARPG has so far. Even the heralded D2.
Its balanced in D3. Do you want to tell me how it isn’t?
Exactly. So maybe they’ll uncap paragon again and make D4 fun.
The game balance is a complete mess where you outlvl all content over time?
That certainly is my expectation.
I don’t see the game balance as a mess. Do you? How?
Jumping multiple difficulty tiers by equipping a single item.
Lvling being gone in nearly the blink of an eye. So fast that the UI telling players that they lvled, cant even keep up.
Item balancing with hundreds and even thousands of % power difference.
Top 100 builds with 10000%+ power differences.
Skills and runes with wild differences in their power, that have not been addressed in the last ~10 years.
Paragon lvls that adds hundreds of % power, making even the highest difficulties crumble beneath the weight of the power creep.
If we removed the balance mess, there is essentially nothing left of Diablo 3.
Technically, with an endless system, players can make their own end.
They can choose an arbitrary point to stop at and say “That’s it. I’ve finished”
The only reason to chase infinite powerlevels is if a player chooses to chase infinite powerlevels.
Technically, none of those issues is down to infinite scaling and are more due to D3’s design.
Such as;
How itemization works so that you can have a Legendary drop on Normal that could be BiS for GR150 (It’s extremely unlikely due to difficulty level based MF, but it’s possible)
How leveling is done through ridiculously efficient systems (I.e. Rifting)
Poor and slow balance updates.
If itemization was done differently, so that you upgraded items over time through playing higher difficulties. You’d have a much better overall balance because stuff would drop being reasonable for the difficulty you’re on and you’d have to upgrade to take on the GR150+ difficulty stuff that would require that 10,000%+ power level increase.
I.e. Something more like D:I’s itemization (Sans the P2W garbage). Where you upgrade your gear and gems and stuff to make it vastly more powerful than the base item alone.
Of course, the one aspect of infinite scaling that always baffles me is the dual scaling nature of things. Enemies get stronger, but then you get stronger, then enemies get stronger, then you get stronger etc.
Usually this happens at a similar rate so while you’re getting more and more powerful, enemies are getting equally more powerful. So relative to each other, nothing changes. You still deal the same % of their health per hit. The only actual change is the floating combat text says you deal 10T damage instead of 100…
Just Numeric value, lol
Gr- X Number Completed
Ranking #X Completed
I do hope, for Seasons…They can add some high difficulty Bosses or challenge mode dungeons or something, to get exclusive Appearances or something.
I think it would be cool to have Chase items, but not everyone agrees so i would atleast like some Chase Transmog Appearances (For character not your mount i know they exist)
Maybe even challenge mode Bosses or Story Dungeons although again not everyone likes farming the same boss for an item, so if its cosmetic, they dont have to.
Or they will just increase the paragon level by 100 or more for every major patch like DI.
Not to mention that that stuff was asked by the community. Last time D3 Paragon was capped at 100 and everyone was like “Now what?”
At least now, I don’t see many people complaining that there is nothing to chase in D3. Only those who don’t even play the game will complain about that. In fact, those people that always complain about D3’s so-called “endless” which is not even endless probably don’t even have Lv99 characters or fully decked characters in D2.
Won’t be surprised if these people probably will even struggle to reach P100 in D4 later under the excuse like “boring grind content which bores me” instead of just outright admitting that they are lazy.
Probably, but then they’d have to expand the paragon boards, and I don’t see that happening, at least not soon after launch.
Tbf, D3’s only endgame was campaign at that time.
It’s the biggest question I have for the game. The leveling process can be the best thing ever, but it’s not going to carry the game. It’s only about what the motivation to play is for endgame. If it’s not there, the game is dead. Trade is usually the reason for good ARPGs, so I fear this won’t have one. But we’ll see. I do like that they said they’re open to changing how open or closed trading is.