Will you switch to Ladder post launch?

We all know there no Ladder starting on the 23rd, Season 1 will be "shortly after launch"

With the ungating of Ladder Items, Runewords, Cubing, ect... I wanted to find out here who will automatically go to ladder as soon as possible, or will you stick with NL?

I wish I could change my vote, I just clicked 'no'. But I look at the calendar, and see I won't be able to play on launch anyway. The fun of the ladder is the race to 99, and I won't be racing. So then the only reason for me to be on ladder is if my friends are there. And at second thought, I do think most of them WILL be on ladder, so I'll probably be there with them. But other than to play with friends who are there, I got no interest in ladder play.

Nope. No need. I get all the runewords, events, etc. And I can take my time. Now, this isn't to say that I might eventually switch over months or years down the road. If I feel the need to keep it fresh, sure! Until then, I'm just going to enjoy playing solo!

No interest in ladder. I'm happy to not have items gated behind a leaderboard I don't care to climb. As long they don't add more "ladder only" nonsense, I won't bother with ladder outside of maybe occasionally making an MF character on there just to see what I find. Gladly stick to nonladder and just enjoy the game at my own pace.

Only LS!

Since Non-ladder will be a fresh start anyway and with runewords to boot, I wont go ladder untill I'm done with the characters there. So Ladder sometime down the road when I feel like it.

If NL has the perks of L, I see zero reason to ever try L.

I'll be playing Ladder from day 1 (most likely, depends when it drops, I might be busy..) and until then I'll be playing Singleplayer, where 90% of my Diablo II career has been spent. Only reason I'm going to be playing this ladder is because my friends are going to be playing, and without TC/IP we are forced to use blizzards option.

I don't know why, but I think they will give us some reason to play ladder outside of rankings.

A bit like Diablo 3 where every seasons have a "flavour" to it.

Could be interesting depending what it is. And maybe not for season 1, but who knows.

Anyway, I'll play ladder for sure as soon as it's released.

I will not commit 100% of my time to Ladder when it drops. Likely 60% NL / 40% L

I think this game is best when you restart and have no gear and have to get by with what you find (especially in HC).

I don't care about racing but the refreshing of ladder seasons is more fun to me, personally, than the endless NL.

I don't see a reason for Ladder when its just about getting level 99 for me personally. I liked the combination of Ladder only Rune words and things combined with level 99 push. But since that seems to be gone I feel like I would just stay on Non-Ladder.

Tbh I always played non ladder and since I am not interested in the "leveling race" I will stick to non ladder.... specially because the ladder item restriction is not there anymore.

Maybe I start a ladder char in the future tho...

I also love classic but as far as I know we do not have the bigger stash (and shared stash?) there? I do not understand the decision and so I am a bit demotivated to play classic atm.

The only reason I like "ladder" (seasons) in other games like PoE or D3 is for the soft reset which encourages me to try a new build with the new seasonal challenges/event/patch/etc

If every d2 season is the same then I don't see a reason to try ladder because I have no interest in actually trying to hit 99.

However if future ladders introduce new ladder-only updates or challenges like PoE and D3 I may reconsider

Of course. Ladder is the reason legacy Diablo II was played for so long.

There are no reasons to play ladder now other than the race. If you do, you are just wasting time in my humble opinion.

Fellowship wrote: 3 years ago

There are no reasons to play ladder now other than the race. If you do, you are just wasting time in my humble opinion.

Enemies are more challenging in Ladder play, so that's reason enough for me to spend time there. To each their own, though.

Khegan wrote: 3 years ago

Fellowship wrote: 3 years ago

There are no reasons to play ladder now other than the race. If you do, you are just wasting time in my humble opinion.

Enemies are more challenging in Ladder play, so that's reason enough for me to spend time there. To each their own, though.

Forgive my ignorance. What about the enemies are harder? Honestly don't know.

Oh I found something here...

"Ladder Games offer a more challenging type of gameplay than players will find in Normal Games. Monster AI speeds have been increased. Reaction times increased for Ladder Nightmare and Hell games. Basically every monster acts like a super unique."

-Taken straight from

Arreat Summit. "The difference is negligible imo but there is still a slight difficulty increase."

I had never heard that about enemy difficulty on ladder before.

It's difficult to gauge any difference in monster AI, but what I do know is that some stats are increased.

From Amazon Basin :

• Base monster defense is higher in Nightmare and Hell.

• Base monster life is higher in Hell.

• Base monster damage and poison length calculated using MonStats values increases by 1/16 (6.25%) with each additional player in Nightmare and Hell.

• Monster AI may be faster in Nightmare and Hell.