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End of a Season
The Diablo II 1.10 Ladder Season 1 will soon come to an end and Blizzard would like to thank all the players -- New, Returning and Veteran alike -- for making this a great Season. As a special treat to reward the Top Players from around the world, we will be immortalizing the Top 10 Expansion and Expansion Hardcore Characters in each of the 7 Classes on the Blizzard website. That's 140 players from each Realm!
Season 1 Ladder Characters will be moved to their own 1.10+ population when the season ends. Be sure to check back here for details on future Ladder Seasons.
As takin from the A.S. 
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to us? Nothing, as far as ladder is concerned. If there are no new items to be added with each new ladder season, I don't see why we would want to start new ladder characters.
Quote:
After the ladder season is over, all ladder characters become normal characters.
Just checked to make sure - There is an option check box to create non/ladder characters so we can still create characters that are compatible to our current characters. Now I wish I had kept up my pre 1.10 mules.
Quote:
Any Ladder Only Items will be converted over when your character is converted to a Core character. These items can now be traded with other Core characters. That is the only way for Core characters to get ladder only items, as leftovers after a season is over.
Cool. Seems like all 1.10 rune words are available for normal characters so that leaves
Cubing rune upgardes
Upgrading Exceptional to Elite Weapon/Armor
Any suggestions, anyone got a wish list? I am sure we can pool our resources to get amost anything here.
Is there any ladder-only unique that is so cute we would wnat one to play with?
Quote:
Ladder Games Have Increased Difficulty
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. Monster Hit Points have been increased for Nightmare and Hell Ladder games too.
Is this an important issue for us, enough to go with the ladder flow? If yes, most of us would have way more unfinished characters than matured characters. Personally, I think we are okay with non-ladder difficulty. The fact is, ladder as is, is not all that difficult even with a "normal" build. We are variants, we set our own difficulty levels - surely more challenging than ladder alone can offer.
Thoughts?
KoP
KoP
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KoP [/quote]
After the ladder season is over, all ladder characters become normal characters. [/quote] Just checked to make sure - There is an option check box to create non/ladder characters so we can still create characters that are compatible to our current characters. Now I wish I had kept up my pre 1.10 mules. :mellow:
QUOTE (from blizz) Season 1 Ladder Characters will be moved to their own 1.10+ population when the season ends. Be sure to check back here for details on future Ladder Seasons. :o
Does not sound like our chars will be dropped into the same poll of chars as your old mules 
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Quote:If there are no new items to be added with each new ladder season, I don't see why we would want to start new ladder characters.
I fully expect there will be new content introduced as part of the new ladder season. GF also posted that we would like what they have in store for D2 fans, implying that something of the sort is in the works. If they start a new ladder season without introducing new content, what would be the draw? Most people are in the game for the items, so introducing a new ladder season without providing an incentive for creating ladder characters would be rather pointless.
If that assumption turns out to be the case, then I would expect that most of us would prefer to migrate to the new ladder when it comes out. I would probably keep my team slacker variant char and my Slacker asn going in non-ladder games until they complete Hell/Baal but the rest of my time would be with new characters.
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The new AS info supports Zed's view.
"Season 1 Ladder players are being moved into the same 1.10+ population that Non-Ladder players are in."
"There will be a server-side content update. This will only be for the new Ladder for Season 2."
Also, you can look at a new ladder season as a new empire building game.
And for a few bright, shining seconds, my collections of mules will equal KoP's... :P
-- CH
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Lets face it. I have just checked all my high lvl characters and see what they are using and see that only these take advantage of 1.10 items:
Mercs - Many of them use a Bonehew or Reaper's Toll
Amy, Fire/Melee/MF Sorc - All standard gear except a Bonehew for 2 handed melee.
Rachael Baldes, Blade Fury Asn - All standard gear except Razors Edge axe
WindChillFactor, Wind Druid - All standard gear except Arachind Mesh belt for +1 skill. Definitely an item I use only because I have a few rotting on the mule.
TooThrow - All standard gear except he is enjoying those new unique throwing weapons
ElectricRevenge, HolyShock and Vengeance - All standard gear except Crescent Moon Phase Blade
And a Delirium hat being passed around for fun
Now, I am not saying my characters cannot be improved on item-wise but I am saying they don't even need 1.10 items.
My question to you all is, "How many 1.10 items do you use, and how many of those items that your character builds depend on?"
I guess we would have to wait and see if the incentives are high enough to follow the ladder seasons. It has got to be something more than new items alone. If the new items offer something interesting in game play (not just another ICanSolo8WithThis) then it maybe worthwhile - Something such as the new partial/set bonus from Trang's plus how synergies work which makes GoGoGadget's No Skill style viable.
Quote:
And for a few bright, shining seconds, my collections of mules will equal KoP's...
*Cough* That is not something you would brag about. Even I know I am nuts :P
But I've got to hand it to you... Your mules probably have the highest combined clvls.
KoP
KoP
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I believe what KoP is saying is "Items are for wimps." ™
Seriously, half of my chars are using only what they find, or are slacking/nekkid/otherwise restricted.
Most of my high end gear (not much :P ) sits on mules waiting for me to come up with some interesting idea on how to use it.
As far as playing--every char I have that's beyond A1 norm, I will play to completion. Of course, at my pace, that will keep me going for a year or so :P. I still haven't completely adjusted to the RBEF (realms beyond extra fast) d2x pace you folks set.
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Actually what I am hoping for are new options for mid-level gear, especially runewords. I am not getting my hopes up given what they put out in 1.10, however.
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Zed:
One of two of those four bonus runewords should count as mid-level. I actually was able to make a Splendor head for my bone spear necro. That might be a good sign.
KoP:
You also need to distinguish between "1.10" and "ladder-only".
Bonehew, Razors Edge, Arachind Mesh, Crescent Moon & Delirium are all vanilla 1.10. So from KoP's list, passing on ladder would only mean giving up finding new Reaper's Tolls or War Shrikes, (The other two elite throwing weapons are still available.)
None of the sets or runewords are ladder only. I haven't used any of the ladder-only cube recipes, yet, though I could see them as being nice, eventually. Being a packrat, I'd like to collect the ladder-only items, but for now, the only one I'm using is Gheed's charm, and that's hardly vital.
Does the clone spawn in non-ladder games? If not, that would be an incentive for me to stay ladder, since my one high-level ladder char wasn't built to take him. (Also, that would make the Annihilus ladder-only).
-- CH
who does more frequent "ladder resets" with his SP characters
(p.s. to KoP - I meant that my ladder mules would be equal to yours for the first ten seconds after the reset...)
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Quote:Originally posted by Bam-Bam@Jul 1 2004, 04:04 AM
I still haven't completely adjusted to the RBEF (realms beyond extra fast) d2x pace you folks set.
That's just because KoP likes to get naked, skill-less, stat-less characters into Hell by level 40 or they aren't any challenge for him. :P
More seriously, when you get a party together, the monsters seem to die exponentially more quickly, so things just go faster.
And I do speed up my personal play for the RB team games. It was FoS that finally broke me of the need to cart every single sheaf of arrows back to town to sell. And in Slackers, I try not to touch class-specific items for other players, even if I'd normally grab them for cash.
As a rule, though, my normal pace is so pokey slow, that - outside of team games - I prefer to do my own thing in another act while chatting with other RBers.
-- CH
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