Diablo IV: Paragon traits instead of boards

General Discussion
1

I must be honest with you: I patiently wait for D4 and I like most of its features, as so I liked ones in D3 or D2 earlier. Though I was greatly disappointed with Paragon Boards presented in Q4-report. Clearly, it’s copy/paste from PoE and, I’m honest again, I hate that huge but mostly shallow tree. Why visualize all those bonuses while 80% of them are just primitive stat increases? I mean, I understand the goal, but why copy the implementation? And that’s why I’ve decided to share my vision of the same in a more compact form.

(beware of my bad english)

Goals:

  1. long term stat-growth outside of item building
  2. long-term progression with variety of choices
  3. regular ability of making meaningful choices
  4. visual compactness and easily reachable descriptions / details

Before I start to explain my logic, let me share how I see it (I’m not a visual designer, so it’s more like a scheme) …

This is a Paragon trait rose (not allowed to add image-links :frowning: )…

https://i.ibb.co/1L83NDP/hexagon-rose.png

… and this is a Paragon traits field …

https://i.ibb.co/3CrvhQB/hexagon-rose-field.png

So, what’s this all about?

Paragon trait rose is a mechanics that allows us to combine those sweet legendary passives and long-term growth. Basically it should replace entire Board and make it compact. How so? Well, examples are always useful to explain …

Barbarian paragon trait: Wrathful Colossus

Maximum health increases by 20% + 0.2% per trait level. The less current health you have the more damage you deal, up to 50% + 0.5% per trait level.

And now imagine that you are able to pick only 3 those traits through entire game out of 7 on the Paragon traits field. It means that …

  • you make 3 important choices
  • effects of choices increase while leveling without those boring " + same little stat over and over again"
  • selected trait roses are much simpler to study because of their compactness. Even entire traits field looks much smaller than a single Paragon Board and keeps its functionality at the same time.

Talking about visual side and descriptions I imagine roses having those fancy images like D3-passives while descriptions appear on mouse hover. By default character screen should display only those roses that are chosen by a player while the entire traits field should appear only after making a specific action as clicking a button for example. Also it would be wise to add “text to focus” functionality for players being able to search specific description words like “shouts” or “health”.

So we achieved №1 and №4 of our goals. But what about №2 and №3 - variety of regular and meaningful choices? Well, lets back to trait rose. Paragon trait is only a central part of a rose as you can see. But around it are trait advances located - 6 advances around each trait with 5 maximum levels for each advance. That means that picking a trait also means picking 6 * 5 = 30 possible advance levels for each trait, or 30 * 3 = 90 advance levels for all 3 traits picked. And I must warn ahead: I believe that each advance level point is given on each 5th paragon level, which basically means that you will need 90 * 5 = 450 paragon levels to level up them all (obviously it meant to be much harder to gain those levels than ones in D3). But all of this about grind and farming. Where are the choices you ask? Well, the answer is in three important rules …

1: Paragon levels are not about just grind and farming. It’s about skill. Each level requires a lot of XP, for sure. But I don’t think that XP should be given for any kind of activity. To gain paragon XP you should be able to complete endgame activities with specific minimal challenge level. To simplify: 150th paragon level requires you being able to complete 150th level of activity to gain some paragon XP. If you aren’t able… well, that’s you cap for now and that’s a D4-level of your mastery. I assume, that casual players will have 50-150 paragon levels, average players - 150-250, skilled and determined players - probably 250-350 levels. And only masters of D4 will have 350+ levels.

2: First paragon trait may be given at character level 50. And that would be character’s first paragon level. If maximum character level = 100, than it makes sense to give one paragon level with each character level, which basically means that gaining first 50 paragon levels is not so hard task. Each next paragon trait is given every next 40 paragon levels (so they are 90th and 130th). And now I remind you how paragon trait effectiveness grows: “per each trait level”. It’s very important, because paragon traits gain levels with each paragon level starting from one they are picked on. And it means that the very first trait picked will always be the most powerful. That’s why picking order is very important. Also you won’t be able to level up trait advances while their trait is not picked (I should clarify it).

3: Now is pretty difficult thing. If you are limited in paragon levels you can get, than you should decide somehow which advances to level up, right? But when you leveled any advance to level 1, why you may hesitate to level up it further? What will make this choice meaningful? My approach is to make each advance not just a bonus, but a growing sacrifice. In that case you always think: am I ready to sacrifice more for greater bonus? And, as always, few (6) examples for already known “Wrathful Colossus” trait.

Prove you’re worthy
All damage taken is increased by 20% while you have more than 65% of your health - 5% per advance level. But when your health is lower, all damage taken is decreased by 10% per advance level (be careful with oneshots).

Ruinous roar
When you finish to use a shout skill that affects enemies, you loose 5% of current health per advance level and deal damage to all affected enemies equal 5% of your maximum health per advance level.

March of an insolent
Any time you take damage you’re slowed for 3 seconds by 8% per advance level, but while slowed you recover you movement skills faster by 20% per advance level. Also any root effects on you are converted to 80% slow with tripled duration, and the power of all slows affecting you are limited to 90% - 10% per advance level.

Hands of Havoc
All your damaging area skills with non-zero rage cost have their area of effect increased by 10% per advance level, rage cost decreased by 10% per advance level, but the damage they cause also decreases by 7% per advance level.

Tremendous force
You’re able to move at 60% speed while stunned (but still can’t act). Duration of all stuns you inflict increases by 12% per advance level, but every time you stun a target you also become stunned for 5% of inflicted stun duration. Every time you hit a target and damage it for more than 65% of its maximum health - 5% per advance level you also stun it for 0.5 second (these stuns won’t affect you).

You DARE?!
Once every 45 sec + 15 sec per advance level you may take a lethal damage and live. Your health is set to 5% of its maximum and you become stunned for 1 sec + 0.5 sec per advance level. You can’t avoid this stun by any means. While stunned, you are invulnerable and immune to any other control effects, and you channel “you dare?!” shout that deals physical damage every 0.5 sec in great area. Damage per tick equals 5% of your maximum health + 2% missing health per advance level (this skill has shout category and affected by all modifiers affecting shouts, like “Ruinous roar” for example. Also its effect may be modified. For example, damage is increased by “Wrathful Colossus” and stun duration is increased by “Tremendous force”).

P.S. of course in future it’s possible to increase general amount of paragon traits to pick from (7 → 9 or 10?) and maximum of traits selected (3 → 4?) which further increases maximum paragon levels (4 traits picked instead of 3 means +150 paragon levels).

1 Like
2

yeah, don´t understand it. as if Diablo should be aping poe pos in any way.

3

These are some really well-considered, deeply thought-through ideas. I certainly hope they haven’t been lost or hidden in the forum system because they deserve to be seen!

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4

This seems to run counter to the idea of making choices. If you can just fill up the entire rose. Kinda like D3 paragon then. You are left with only 3 choices (which roses to fill). That seems very lackluster to me.
I’d like the design more if you could only pick like 2-3 of the 6 tiles around the center for example. At least there would be some choice then.

One of the strengths of the D4 paragon boards as presented by Blizzard, and PoEs web, is the many differeret ways you can get from A to B, making different choices, throughout the web. While I agree that the +stats etc. are kinda meaningless and silly to have, any replacement system must preserve the high degree of choices and paths that those systems offer imo.
Wolcen has already shown how to make a Web similar to PoE, without all the small +stat nodes, and instead more meaningful upgrades.
https://wolcen-universe.com/builds/create

2 Likes
5

That system that Wolcen made, that “web” as you wrote. If blizz is going to copy anything, that concept has to be it. Hell put it in every ARPG from this point on. (Ok not realy)

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6

It may seem so, indeed, but only if you ignore the part with difficulties of gaining paragon XP, or if you are the one of lesser group of players with the greatest skill:

I mean, the intention is to make gaining second half of paragon levels really hard - not accessible by the majority of players. And to make every paragon level and advance point really valuable.

7

I very much like that part and have posted similar systems myself in the past.
But still, as you gain those points, your path is linear; fill out everything in the rose you picked from the start.

8

Well… yes :thinking:
My suggestion was to give this opportunity as a simplest way to reward a skilled player. Can this mechanics be upgraded to something more? - of course! :slightly_smiling_face:. But for now, I think, it’s a question of balancing difficulties and classes, and requires responsibility from game systems designer. Probably it should be like greater rift scaling in D3 early days - most determined player were able to close 35-45 levels solo, some skilled players were able to close 50 levels, and in multiplayer this number raised to 70. But those levels were always far from maximum.

Also, it could be a good tool to limit players’ power in structured PvP (I hope to see that!). You appear in a lobby and you got your 100 character levels and, lets say, 270 paragon levels - tune your build!

P.S. and while I was talking about leveling in multiplayer… hmmm… now that’s a real question. Quick solution: probably there should be some steps, like every 20th paragon level you should confirm in solo-mode. This should prevent higher paragon leveling in multiplayer games.

9

Yeah, I think having some PvP, with characters at a specific power level and a selection of items unaffected by luck or playtime, could be a good way to have somewhat more balanced PvP in the game.

I sure hope they manage to balance the game properly this time around, so multiplayer is not easier than singleplayer.

10

wht if player dont want to do any end game activity just grind all day long by yor iron logic he cant get maxed cus he must do wht he dont want to do to get those paragons ?

11

Uhm… yes?
I mean, what’s the point of current farming Paragon 1K, 3K, 10K ? they are just the same, literally. My suggestion is about building and meaningful rewarding, because +5 ATTR several thousand times straight is not a reward. At some point it’s not even a growth anymore :frowning: .

If you really need constant increase of your damage and health from 100 to 100 trillions… hm, in my opinion, it would be better to add new item property - “hungering”. Those items could be allowed to gain paragon XP instead of you and to infinitely increase their stats. With these items you’ll be able to become a god but won’t ever gain a single Paragon level.

How it can be used? Well, you can reach your paragon cap and than start to feed your hungering items. With 1M-leveled hungering items you can finish any end game, but won’t ever gain paragon XP and paragon levels higher than you already got.

12

how to ruin game : give players infinite power and givin item lvls who invented that idea ?
who gets xp in combat hero with his own mastery and skills in weapon use not sword unless sword got his own mind and can levitate or fly and atack by him self

13

Are some of the keys on your keyboard broken?

This right here. I like the additional idea’s you’ve proposed. Not sure I would implement them exactly as proposed but I appreciate well thought out idea’s!

14

stat adding lost point as soon as multiplyers kicked in and there is no interesting mechanics around them in d3

15

What if someone dont want to grind XP? Seems fair enough that you dont progress if you dont do what it takes to progress.

Having to do some real content to progress in paragon seems a lot better than mindless XP farming tbh.

Imo it could work fine to take the Season Journey from D3, expand it a ton, and turn that into the paragon point system. Each thing in the journey gives 1-3 paragon points (based on difficulty etc.). No XP in the system in any way.
And of course, it has to be per character, not account based. And not be tied specifically to seasons anymore of course (although the journeys could have some changes each season of course).

Early in the journey it has impossible to miss stuff like;
Complete your first key dungeon. Kill a world boss etc.
Later on it gets more difficult, as well as weirder “challenge” stuff. More like the the Conquests in D3.
Like Finish a max tier key dungeon. Kill Act 4 campaign boss at highest difficulty with only blue items. Clear a Key dungeon with the Lighting Storm modifier without getting hit by lightning. Etc.

Could have around 100 of these “challenges”. Giving a total of ~200 paragon points if you manage to do them all (or whatever amount, doesnt matter as long as it is finite, and you can only get a small amount of the potential rewards through those points; like you get 200 points, but there are a 1000 paragon “tiles” you could spend them on).

Yeah, one of the worst systems ever designed in an A-RPG. Should never return, anywhere.

16

ok so you ofering game where player can get to max lvl without killing a single moob for xp for achievment < Pecifist> or sumthing like that i am ok with that lol in game where killing is evrything thats legendary deed

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AA (Alternate Advancement) systems SHOULD be very minor increases and not affect balance much. D3’s Paragon affected damage far to much and failed as an AA system.
A person playing for 10000 hours and is 10000 AA levels higher shouldn’t be 100 times stronger then a person who JUST started the AA levels. The person playing 10000 hours should if anything be like 10% stronger (if that). AA systems were put in place to allow people to still get “something” for time invested and see some form of progress on their character. It should affect combat balance by only a very small margin in the overall terms of “power” for a character.

18

Not exactly. Lvls still require XP. Just not paragon.
And no, most, if not all of the journey/challenges would involve killing. Since that is what you do in the game. So a pacifist would be stuck at lvl 1. And someone who became a pacifist after hitting lvl 50, would be stuck at 0 paragon most likely.

19

thats the problem stronger must be those who skilled+ pseudolucky not who invested 24/7 boting i wana see in game things where low 20lvl player can win or play with high 40lvl player or mob if he skilled enough and got good luck on drops and not totaly melt in few secs just becorse he got same weapon x1000% damage difrance supose to be big but not immposble its for example lvl 10 warrior chalange lvl 20 warrior difrance +100% hp and more skill atributes and bonuses extra % armor dmg reduction dodge block crits resists hit atckspeed dps etc, but it comes all from atributes and mastery/expertize/training of weapon main problem is base % of damage weapon keep 0.5%-1% damage increase per lvl is solid direction

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20

My suggestion is just right about it :blush:
Better skill → higher paragon level cap!

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