What will we loose when the ladder starts?

I'm curious about the functionability and drops that will be removed once the ladder starts for all use non-ladder players.
Their are a number of ladder only runewords... will we be able to still make them once the ladder starts or will that be disabled?
Also rune upgrading... only the first 4 that need chipped gems are not ladder only tagged, will we loose that functionability? I ask because I have 4

Cham, should I make 2 into a

Zod now because that will be removed in a weeks time?
Either that or all the "ladder only" things will stay in non-ladder play, but maybe ladder only drops will be changed.

Spirit is a ladder only runeword, so do we make them now because we're about to loose access to them??

On the other side if nothing changes except the new runewords are ladder only how many people will be miffed?

Correct. Absolutely nothing changes. If you want to continue playing your current chars, you can continue to do so in the exact same way with the exact same gear and you can continue to create/find the same gear you can now.

The only thing different in ladder, other than the ranking itself, is that the newly added runewords will only be available there until after season 1 ends (at which point they, too will supposedly become available non-ladder).

The only difference you may actually notice is playerbase and by extension ability to trade. Depending on how many people shift entirely from non-ladder to ladder, you may run out of folks to do stuff with. But that remains to be seen.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Correct. Absolutely nothing changes. If you want to continue playing your current chars, you can continue to do so in the exact same way with the exact same gear and you can continue to create/find the same gear you can now.

The only thing different in ladder, other than the ranking itself, is that the newly added runewords will only be available there until after season 1 ends (at which point they, too will supposedly become available non-ladder).

The only difference you may actually notice is playerbase and by extension ability to trade. Depending on how many people shift entirely from non-ladder to ladder, you may run out of folks to do stuff with. But that remains to be seen.

Mate, I really hope you have that answer saved somewhere for easier pasting, the sheer amount of topics asking the same thing is staggering.

Nope. That's why the answer reads slightly different everytime. :p

Anyone hazard a guess as to how many people will be playing ladder vs non-ladder? I imagine non-ladder pop will be fairly low. So in a sense, OP might lose people to play with.

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

Anyone hazard a guess as to how many people will be playing ladder vs non-ladder? I imagine non-ladder pop will be fairly low. So in a sense, OP might lose people to play with.

We had a small poll a while back: forums/poll-ladder-or-not-t809864.html

If so little changes, is it worth changing the "ladder only" tags on things? Because thats probably quite confusing for newer players. Or is that considered part of the item data from Blizzards end.

If you intend to be non-ladder, there is no changes.

Things that will change, the trade value of ladder items will go way up, especially runes that are highly useful.

The new rune words don't really seem like they will displace any of the old favorites.

I wouldn't worry about player count, the majority of the players will always be non-ladder softcore after the first couple weeks. Hardcore is already pretty empty during the week.

Unfortunately they created an alienation of sorts between Ladder vs. NL as there no longer is massive gating to Ladder outside of what has already been called out via 2.4 new RWs. A brutal reality that is going to create stark contrast and dichotomies between currencies (Economy) as well.

If you like the thrill of Ladder you will reset each time, or you play from the comfort of your couch on the status quo eliminating "change".

HC is different. Majority of the HC community plays ladder each time and does "purges" NL. Yes, this may change as well given the modifications of Ladder RWs and other mechanics now available, but given how small the community is in HC I think they will continue on ladder.

Very important detail:

Blizzard wrote:

Once a season ends, you will have until the start of the season after next to retrieve items from your seasonal Ladder shared stash tab to bring into your normal online play

• For example, once Season 1 ends, you have until Season 3 begins to retrieve items from your Season 1 stash. Any items not retrieved will be lost forever

As a reminder for those - all Ladder specific uniques, runewords (sans 2.4), recipes will now be included in BOTH Non-Ladder and Single-player mode. This includes the

Pandemonium Event and Uber Diablo content. This is much bigger than just the Ladder vs. NL deliberation, but those that already love the nomad life on Single-player now have more of a reason to gate themselves there and never consider open battle.net.

Might be worth doing a fresh poll, if anyone cares enough. I know I didn't get to vote in previous one.

Zero187 wrote: 2 years ago

Might be worth doing a fresh poll, if anyone cares enough. I know I didn't get to vote in previous one.

Agreed - I didn't vote either and I will be playing ladder.

@teebling let's maybe run it back now that 2.4 is officially out. Maybe a similar proxy, but doesn't hurt to post since only ~60 people voted, and there are far more people online now post 2.4.

You don't need Teeb to make a poll. You can just create one if you feel it necessary/interesting.

But yeah, recent developments probably changed at least some minds, including my own.

I'll still primarily be on non-ladder but will get a ladder pally up and running asap as well after all, solely for the purpose of caching in on ladder clone walks, seeing how they are entirely isolated in the new mechanic.