Actually very bad news imo. I am fully behind unlocking Ladder only content on NL till first ladder starts, but I am even more behind locking it back as soon as ladder starts. How do people not see a problem in fact that in couple of years (of casual play) everyone have all chars fully geared is quite baffling. Also why would you even trade valuable stuff if there is no time limit on collecting missing pieces yourself?? Most worrying is the fact that devs do not seem to care what will happen with the game in 2 years time (because I am somewhat doubtful they dont realise the impact). They may as well not bother with the ladder at this point.
Maybe better dont think if your efforts resulted in claim that amount of items you have unlimited time to farm = amount of items you have to farm in 6 months periods.
Oh boy…
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Upon further investigation, I have noticed the blue post! ho ho. This is basically what is going on now anyway.
So uh… Why the doomsaying? Ladder players will still be able to enjoy a fresh economy every few or whatever months. Item gates are a dated and terrible idea to begin with, so the change makes a lot of sense because Diablo 2 lacks fresh content per ladder season to make playing ladder worthwhile outside of a fresh economy.
Most, if not all ladder players play it to get the fresh economy anyway, and having the items on both Ladder and Non-Ladder will hurt absolutely nobody.
Non-Ladder economy would become over saturated with everything from Ladder over time anyway, this is just removing that 2-3 year gap where that saturation occurs.
Item gating those ladder only items made absolutely no sense.
For the TL;DR crowd;
Ladder’s only incentive is now the fresh economy. You still have your items that were originally Ladder only. You’re not losing anything, quite literally, lol.
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Correct, but they could only be made on Ladder, and carried over into Non-Ladder. Now you can make Ladder Only Runewords on Ladder, and Non-Ladder. Will it make a difference in prices? Yes, and no. Yes on Ladder because starting a fresh season each time will drive prices of runewords up especially early on. No on Non-Ladder because now there will be the Ladder Only Runewords made on Non-Ladder plus the Ladder Only Runewords that will carry over into Non-Ladder from Ladder. So, Non-Ladder will have a whole bunch of Ladder Only Runewords flooding the market, and will be worth next to nothing because there will be so many now. I preferably would have left Ladder Only Runewords to be made only on Ladder because they’re called “Ladder Only” for a reason. Adding them to Single Player is fine. I’ll still play Ladder because I like starting fresh characters, and see how high level I can get, and items I can find on Ladder! 
Pretty much. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I think it was a bad decision.
It’s not pointless though. lol.
Why do you guys think item gating is important?
LADDER CURRENTLY:
Rush to 99 (nobody cares)
Ladder Only Items
Fresh Economy every 3-4-5-6 months
NON-LADDER CURRENTLY:
Meow.
Ladder Only Items every 3-4-5-6 months
Stagnant economy that builds up with Ladder Only items over 2-3 years
NEW LADDER:
Rush to 99 (nobody cares)
You still have your items that were once ladder only.
You still have a fresh economy every 3-4-5-6 months
NEW NON-LADDER:
Meow
You can now find and make the things that you had to wait for every 3-4-5-6 months
You can now make MORE of the things that you had to wait to grab over 2-3 years
I’m failing to see why people are complaining.
If they add NEW stuff is totally AGAINST of the product I’m buying and they sold under REMASTER with the same mechanichs, they Diablo we KNOW and LOVE, PRESERVED.
Remaster does not implicitly imply that nothing is allowed to change other than graphics, so this doesn’t stand.
Nowhere did they say they weren’t going to change anything either. They said they were open to change with careful consideration and review.
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YESSSSS, they finally removed the restrictions! We did it bois, pack it up and let the salty people whine themselves out!
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I am very happy that “ladder only” items are playable at nonladder. I still dont understand the outcry about it. I hope they just do the same like in D3.
D3: All stuff you found at ladder will be transferred to your nonladder chars when ladder ends. And you start at zero when a new ladder begins. In other words, the experience with “ladder only” items by playing ladder is unchanged.
about trading: it should have two separately modes: 1) only ladder items tradeable and 2) only nonladder items tradeable.
Cya. Lots of us wanted this change. Something like 70% of people in Llama’s poll did. I’m glad they’re finally listening to us. If you want to play ladder and race, then do it. Not everyone has time for that nowadays.
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NL would have been flooded with Ladder Only items after the first reset anyways.
The impact on the economy would be basically non-existent after the first 2-3 ladders.
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Normal was worthless with Ladder-only benefits pushing everyone to start over every season, which meant the game was in a constant state of seasonal reset. Normal was a graveyard.
Now, there is a more persistent state for Normal characters and the Ladder, as it should be, is only a clean-slate economic reset.
Now, there is a downward funnel to Normal, rather than an upward funnel to Ladder.
This is a good change, as it gives meaning to normal characters and a reason to keep playing them.
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It’s not going to change because most players wanted ungated content, now we have it. Sure botters and jsp have taken a hit but that’s a great thing imo.
Do people misunderstand these things on purpose? People have suggested that at launch ladder runewords would be available in the kind of “launch-ladder” which has no rankings. Once they start the first real ladder the launch ladder would be moved into non-ladder just like it has been for past 20 years. What is the problem here?
I think you are jumping to conclusions without thinking at all.
Items being ladder only have little to no affect on their value on non ladder because they are just dumped by ladder players in free/free games once new ladder starts so no impact to NL. And items found in NL cant be transferred into the fresh economy of a new ladder so therefore cannot effect the price on ladder.
It just makes playing ladder less attractive which is great because 99% of us dont care about the exploiters and nolifers who sit 24/7 grinding ball runs for exp.
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I’m not playing Diablo 2 to become rich or be proud to possess some kind of very rare items or things like that. I play Diablo 2 for fun, for the feeling of starting weak and becoming very strong in the end, with the build I chose to create, and for the time and involvement it takes to get there.
On top of non stressing to get these items before the end of the season, having more of these rare items available in the market because it’s not restricted to ladder isn’t something I fear. On the contrary, it will allow more people to create a powerful build and have fun with the game. I don’t see a problem here.
The economy is entirely based in items/runes trading. It will stabilize itself. If some items aren’t as rare as before and have their market value lowered, some others have their value raised comparatively.
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We don’t need Diablo 2 Remastered to be an eSport.
eSports ruin all types of RPGs.
We need persistence. Ladder only benefits are bad and have always been bad.
Keep things open. Spread the love.
Peace, Love and Demon Slaughter!
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The impact it’s clear, at least half or 80% of playerbase will be veterans of that game, that means that people it’s older, have a job, kids etc… they can play less videogames.
that means that short ladders are basicaly imposible for them.
that means that they will never play ladder now, there’s nothing extra or diferent from non ladder.
that means the population will be split between non ladder and ladder.
that means that will feel empty in both sides and even more with HC players, basicaly the population will be split in 4 sides.
the trade will be death very very very soon, and without trade this game lose a big part of the fun and incentive to continue farming and making characters.
the impact it’s bigger than you guys think, i can’t explain it very well with my poor english but i hope you get an idea of what i wanted to say.
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“no bots”
Oh you sweet summer child