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@Romonaga: Never accept things that make you insane. Fight with what you can. In this case, with opinions and posts.

I am optimistic about the whole situation tbh. A lot of closely related things (item hunt vs paragon vs leaderboards competition, xp gear and leeching vs normal play, solo vs multi, botting/huds vs fair play) need fixing and this time we don't have the trials scenario. Blizzard devs can't delay this whole mess 3 more seasons in a row. Right now they are those under pressure. If they make the wrong decisions more players will quit. It's simple as that.

Quote from Codstir»

Whatever the "solution" is though, it's not fair to impose something on the whole fanbase, when it only benefits a small minority of players.

Absolutely! Nobody disagrees with this. The idea is to please all the players and no one to feel unsatisfied with what the game offers him. Here are the group of players for which the current paragon/xp mechanic is a problem:

- Those who don't want paragon to be the central focus of the ranking system
- Solo-only players who want fair competition
- People who view paragon leveling as killing the other aspects of the game
- Those who don't have 18 hours a day free, but want to compete
- Players who don't enjoy certain paragon leveling mechanics (aka leeching)

- Those who hate botting (endless paragon welcomes it)

You can see for yourself what amount of the people prefer to play solo:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/3hz1kt/do_you_prefer_group_play_or_solo/

That (the solo players) is 80% of the players who took part in the poll. Let's say 10% of them want fair competition, the other 90% don't care about leaderboards. This equals to 8%, which won't like this mechanic. And this is only 1 group from the 6 mentioned above. Now I had to ask you to define "whole fanbase", because clearly D3 is going to lose more players than to gain from this. Remember that S4 has not started as of now and a lot of people are still not aware of this issue. If they were, they could probably find other downsides to this from their pov. So a solution is needed and I hope the devs are going to realize this during S4. At least they have the right percents. We have only those from the poll and the people writing in the forums. But for the obvious things you don't need Math at all.

24k views, the thread, nice!

ZiggyD will interview Lead Designer - Kevin Martens and Associate Designer - John Yang this Thursday, so you can up-vote the paragon problem issue here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/3he15r/i_have_an_interview_with_lead_designer_kevin/

#sololivesmatter

#soloplayersmatter

If total xp required for P2.5k is 204324847000000, then we'll see the first P2.5k in S4 after 2 months.

Edit: And if xp P2.5k-P5.5k scales linearly, then after 100 days we'll see P3.2k, where the average player (4h/day) will be around P1.6k. This is 8000 main stat difference. And the solo player will be... Hmm no point in calcing that, I doubt anyone will play solo.

Would be good if some people from the ptr share data above P2.5k, because the paragon grind fest is going to start at 28-th of August.

Autocthon: A 20% paragon level difference in two seasons is the exact same level of competitive fairness no matter the absolute level differences.

Athrias: There's no reason to have more than 800 Paragon levels on Seasonal. Paragon is power, and having paragon uncapped means leaderboards become an EXP grinding contest. Yes people should be rewarded for what they put into the game, but this kind of system just encourages botting and endless grinding. If you want to be on a leaderboard for having a stupidly high paragon, then Blizz should just add a Paragon leaderboard. Problem solved.

If Blizzard decides that they want the competitive aspect of D3 to be Paragon level then so be it, but a completely uncapped EXP grind isn't competitive, it's just an uncapped grind. For D3 to have any respect as a competitive platform skill must be a significant deciding factor in ranking, if not the most.

There will always be people who bot. A well designed bot is hard to catch. No matter if its D3 or any other game. The solution is to not give the botters any edge over the normal pool of players. Then they will be a problem only for blizzard, not for the Diablo players. When Josh replaced Jay, he made the most important step in the direction of limiting the bots: He killed trading, RMAH and made the decision with the BoA items. Kudos to him for that! He at least listened. Now it seems this problem is rising again.

wqwfst: I think we need a solution which still rewards player who spent a lot of time to keep them playing but also a solution which makes botting almost useless.

Such solution doesn't exist even theoretically. The moment you have unlimited reward which the average Joe wants, you will have botting. These two are like aging and dying. If the reward is only in terms of design then at least the competition won't be hurt by the bots. Let the Joe who bot have his golden hat. But if its only a design/cosmetic/QoL reward, then 90% of the 24/7 players will disappear. So, there is always a trade-off.

Edit:

KaiserQwerty: Blizzard has stated that they never want you to log in to the game and feel less powerful than you were before. Making a retroactive change to paragon rewards would certainly do that. Conversely making a change to the system now with out applying it retroactively would give an unfair advantage to those who have already earned high paragons as other players would no longer be able to use the same means to catch up.

Well, they can still cap paragon on season. The players will then be forced with a choice - grinding endless paragon on non-season or enjoying the seasonal rewards immediately.

If blizzard won't address the Paragon then they have to break down the leaderboards in categories:

P1~400, P401~800, P801~1200 etc...

Otherwise its quite pointless.

@wqwfst: If the rewards after P800+ are really well designed, the majority of players will strive for them. Stash space was just an example. But with the info presented here from Bagstone (OP post) - I clearly say NO to stats boost from Paragon after P800. This is my viewpoint and its the right one in terms of players coming to Diablo. If you love this game and want to see it at top of that popular streaming site, then start thinking what's best for it, not for the 24/7 players only. With all my respect to these guys and their dedication to D3, this is bad for the game as a whole. You simply have no idea how many people don't play right now, because of the trial system and in 2.3 they won't play because of the paragon system. As bay_Dimcho quoted the game has become P2W with time being the currency.

Thank you Bagstone for the charts.

For the people who don't handle Math good, here is TLDR explanation:

At P2000+ you will earn paragon levels faster than when you were P2000.

Theoretically this is a suicide design done by the developers.

I wrote in the D3 forums before that the paragon mechanic needs tuning. With this info now - well, it needs a complete redesign.

My suggestion:

Cap the bonus from stats at P800.

Turn the points after P800 in a currency:

With this currency the dedicated players who reach P1k, P1.5k, P2k etc can buy special cosmetic rewards, more stash space etc...

What happens if blizzard doesn't fix the paragon design:

After some years the items will be less important than the Paragon level.

It's their choice after all. Do they want to gain botters/lose players or not?