Introducing the Paragon System
Posted 20 August 2012 by NizarisI assume that “excellence” was one such translation from the Brazilian leak. It only makes sense, now, that “Paragon” was the proper word. Many have been wondering and guessing how this system would work. Wonder no more, as we finally have details regarding the new and improved magic and gold find mechanic.
While working on patch 1.0.4, we came up with all sorts of ideas for ways to improve 
Diablo III. Some of them you’ve probably already seen, such as the general systems changes, the awesome buffs for Legendaries, and the improvements we’re making to the barbarian, demon hunter, monk, witch doctor, and wizard. The entire team really banded together to get as much into this patch as possible, and one of the exciting changes I’d like to tell you about today is called the Paragon system.
Two of the issues we’ve been thinking about while working on patch 1.0.4 have been what to do with Magic Find and how to give level-60 players who aren’t satisfied with the item hunt something more to strive for. I’m sure many of you are aware of the blog we posted proposing some different Magic Find gear-swapping solutions, as well as our general thoughts on how rewarding the game is once you hit level 60. The Paragon system is designed to help us address these concerns — but before we get into exactly how it works, let’s go over these two core issues in a little more detail.
Magic Find
As you may remember, we posed a number of possible solutions to the gear-swapping issue and asked you to give us your feedback [ed- vote results]. While we saw some support for a couple of the options, what your responses ultimately told us was that although having to swap into Magic Find gear mid-fight annoyed some of you greatly, others were ambivalent, didn’t gear swap themselves, or — in a few cases — wanted to see gear-swappers penalized in some fashion. Those who do swap gear generally do so for the raw power advantage it gives, so we wanted any solution we went with to provide the same level of power. Overall, our analysis of the situation really hammered home one stark truth: we needed to come up with a way to make our Magic Find system more fun.
Level 60 Rewards
We understand that some players feel frustrated once they hit level 60 because they no longer feel like they’re making progress. It can be demoralizing to play for an hour, not get any drops, and also be out a big chunk of gold from repair costs. Your play session may not only end without an upgrade, it can wind up being a net loss. Everyone wants to feel like they’re making some progress when they log in, even if they don’t get that new sword.
Introducing the Paragon System
The new Paragon system coming in patch 1.0.4 is designed to address Magic Find gear-swapping while providing players who’ve reached level 60 with an extended progression system.
Here’s how it works:
- After you hit level 60, any further experience you earn from killing monsters will begin to count toward Paragon levels
- There are 100 Paragon levels
- Every Paragon level will reward you with:
- Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
- 3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find
- In addition, a distinctive increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown
We know that a lot of you out there are level 60 — maybe on multiple characters — and this system provides a way to make progress every time you log in to the game.
To support the new system, Nephalem Valor (NV) will now also provide a 15% experience bonus per stack, applicable toward Paragon levels. The first Paragon level should take about as long as it took most players to get from level 59 to 60, and the experience requirement will rise from there. The time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II.
… What Was That About Magic Find On Items?
While the benefits to progression are obvious, you may be asking how this impacts Magic Find on items. We wanted to find a solution that was not only very forgiving of gear swapping, but one that would ultimately help us slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future. It’s such an intrinsically important stat to the core purpose of playing the game that tying it to gear — which is a customization system in many ways — is ultimately an approach that would continue to cause problems. We need to transition away from it, and do so in a way that doesn’t flip the entire game end-over-end.
With the Paragon system in place, we’re capping Magic Find and Gold Find to 300% (before Nephalem Valor). This means that without any Magic Find gear at all, you’ll hit the cap when you reach Paragon level 100. This way, you can continue wearing your current Magic Find gear as you slowly but surely work to gain Paragon levels. Eventually, once you hit Paragon level 100, you’ll have the freedom to completely focus every slot on stats that help your character kill stuff faster and stay alive longer. The idea is that if you’re currently swapping gear in and out for the Magic Find bonuses, you can continue to do so… but gain enough Paragon levels, and you won’t need to anymore.
Phew…
The Paragon system is a fairly big addition to the game, and one we’re pretty excited about. On behalf of the entire Diablo III development team, we hope you enjoy the changes we’re making with patch 1.0.4, and we look forward to seeing you in-game when it releases. Stay tuned to Diablo3.com for the final patch notes and official launch announcement in the days ahead.
Jay Wilson is Game Director for Diablo III, and his Necron army is WAY better than your Eldar army.
Missed the recent updates on Patch 1.0.4? Be prepared and get them all here.
so no guaranteed legendarys?
im sure, like the other blogs, they didnt contain ALL the information. the datamined info about every 500th kill getting you a guarenteed legendary is probably true. but even with that, i agree, need more guarenteed or just straight up increased drop rate. i can easily play for 8 hours with over 300% MF and not find a single legendary… and if they are capping it at 375%, thats not going to make it any better.
overall, i like every change so far, but its like they are finally putting jelly onto that peanut butter sandwich… when we all shouldve been eating prime rib dinner this whole time.
That info was datamined? Actually no. It was a complete lie fabricated by a guy on Reddit who really really wanted Bind on Equip items in the game.
After the **** Jay Wanker started they decided to move patch 1.50 closer than expected.
“Ok thanks to Jay we are in hot water AGAIN, lets give them a bone here!”
We are still stuck with crappy drop rate and RMAH and the ugly sister AH, legendaries.
I don’t know… Have you ever played the game at 250% MF? That’s what I run on my Wiz in A2 inferno. In the last 2 days I’ve found 4 legendaries. In the last week I’ve found, 2x hellrack, Windforce, Some lvl 61 barb belt, Strongarm Bracers, Stone Gauntlets, Tal Rasha Chestpiece, and Skorn. Maybe no guaranteed legendaries, but I think once people see what it’s like playing above 200% mf they won’t be so upset about the legendary drop rate.
it baffles me why would anyone farm inferno when they know the changes around the corner – improved legendaries, class buffs etc..
Maybe they’re having fun? Naw, that can’t possibly be right.
I farmed A1 just to re-acquaint myself with level 60 gameplay yesterday, and *gasp* I had a good time. That’s with about 250% mf with valor stacks. I was getting tons of rares, though no set/legendaries dropped for me. (I think my Wizard is yet to see one drop after 160 hours). My other characters have seen 3 or 4 all told.
I play the game sometimes. I like watching the monsters fly end over end and hang up over railing and hearing my character shout, ‘Break before the endless tide!’ Even in my current ~110% MF gear, I also like playing the game.
heh, my fried, after 450 hrs of playing one of the few things that kept me going were legendaries. now with the paragon instated, things are really starting to look up.
I’m playing the only build getting a significant nerf in 1.04. I’m farming partially to play because I’m still finding usable stuff, and partially because I enjoy it, and partially to try out different builds in anticipation for the patch.
Not playing at all atm myself, waiting for the new changes.
You farm legendaries?
Guaranteed legendaries? Why?? How ****ing boring would that be..
You know what? I love this. Yes, I have over 20 mil of gold invested in mf gear… but gold is gold. This is a system that I see myself playing for a much longer time… and besides, my mf is not immediately useless
funk yeah! mf swap lives and long live the paragon – cool word, brings up mass effect vibes.
got 1 question, about those guaranteed legendaries. what stops me to run like hell in normal killing off 499 packs of blues in what 4-5 hours then make the 500th kill on inferno act 3 and getting some sweet legendary? I’m speaking in theory, I’m incapable of such dastadlyness.
As someone who has spent millions of gold myself on MF gear for my Wiz, I totally agree. I actually have DPS / Survivability alternatives in almost every slot. I look forward to swapping out my slightly less good DPS/MF pieces for my “pure power” pieces.
Sucks that my investment is losing value, but it will still be valuable on the way to lvl 100, which probably won’t be an instant trip.
It’s true, but I think there’s also an important point that our gear is all depreciating in value all the time anyway. Every time a new good item drops, all other items in that general category lose value as well, as supply grows just a little against demand. By the time any of us hit Paragon 100, our gear will have lost much of the value it had when we got it no matter what happens with paragon or MF.
yeah how much fun will it be to level up a character 1-60 after they’ve removed mf on items ..now you’ll be absolutely guaranteed NOT to find ANY legendary/set items while leveling up.
I don’t think they said they were removing MF on items. I think he just implied he wants players to be able to phase out mf on their gear, so they don’t feel limited in what they can equip.
One of the fundamental problems with MF, and many many people made this argument pre-launch, was that the type of bonus it provides makes it too important, and leads to countless imbalances (the debacle over MF sharing, which still isn’t solved, for example).
If you look at the current economy, there are about 4 “chosen” stats, stats which automatically increase an items value dramatically – Crit Chance, Life on Hit, All Resist and MF.
By doing this they are saying “we want the super powerful non-mf gear pieces to be worth as much or more than the high powered gear pieces with MF.” Which I think is a positive change.
I’m actually surprised they didn’t do what I and others have suggested; retain MF sharing in groups, but also let individuals keep their higher MF, if they have it. So your 250% MF wizard keeps that, while others in the game with lower MF get the improved average. It seems such a simple and obvious fix to boost more MP play while retaining big MF.
Not sure how that would work with Paragoning, though. If everyone ultimately is capped at 300% MF for free, the whole MF sharing thing becomes irrelevant.
I thought about the exact same thing earlier as I was running around Act 2 normal slaughtering everything in sight for low level gear to use on a new witch doctor. I can put on MF, fast run, and hatred generators, then use Strafe to nuke entire screens of monsters while running at full speed. I can clear entire acts in the same speed it takes me to run. What will stop me from just doing this over and over for elites kills?
Somehow, I don’t think this will be the final solution if that is the case; it’s too easy to abuse. Maybe limit the elite kills to inferno? Either that or give a weighted value to the elite kills by difficulty (x .25 on normal, .50 on NM etc.). Hopefully they’ve thought this through, or I can see a major avenue of abuse if there are guaranteed legendary drops after xxx amount of elite kills.
Literally the exact same thing Kripparian told them to do in his improvements video. Too bad it’s too little, too late for this terrible game, seeing as how the dev team can’t think of anything worthwhile themselves and needs to rely on the community for ideas. What a joke Blizzard has become.
QQQQQQ
community ideas > Jay wilson ideas imo
Well, at least he had the good sense to follow it. He’s made a lot of bad calls in D3, at least give him some credit for making another good one…
yea I’m pleasantly surprised
You act as if Kripp was original…even he admitted that it was in other games before. Stop finding any and every reason to QQ and hate please
To be a great leader you have to be willing to listen to and ultimately follow the good advice of others. To not do so is the height of arrogance and ultimately leads to failure.
More grind… yay?
“Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level”
“There are, in total, 100 Paragon lvls.”
What happens with inferno difficulty now?
for barb that would be 300 str 100 dex and int and 200 vit, after 100 lvls which is a looong time… It isn’t that gamebreaking
not gamebreaking at all… especially cause i still havent seen them address the fact that act 3 monsters have 8x the hp, and you’d need to spend about half a billion gold to only do 2x the damage. the game for most people i feel is still going to feel like the same ol’ thing. farming act 1 and still not seeing too many legendaries.
That’s not all. Over time you can swap your MF gear away for even better stats, and half the skills in the game are getting significant buffs. They even reduced champion difficulty, the greatest difficulty spikes previously.
The game will definitely get easier. On the plus side I guess it’ll be less tedious to play without the AH…
Game will get easier but thats the whole idea of genre. MF was taking one really important affix slot to do real progress to act3/4 and not to mention upcoming acts, so I approve all these changes.
Good job Jay and fellows
What happens is you realize that 100 levels = 300 prime 200 vit = a single item, and not a **** is given.
I am quite disappointed in the 300 mf cap. I already have 285 mf on my DH before NV. That only leaves me 15 paragon levels before I hit the hard cap. I guess I’ll just shuffle half the gear to my monk…
I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I sure would have liked to work toward 550+mf.
I really don’t understand game-wise the need to cap the mf. However it becomes obvious when there is a big “AH APPROVED THIS” written in the back of every patch note.
Also, if they ultimately remove the mf stat on gears, they are making a big mistake. We need more stats, not less (btw, adding more stats would be a good thing for the ah as perfect items would be even more rare).
They’re weening people off of magic find swapping. If there was no cap, they’d continue to do it so half the point of the change would be negated.
I know you can say “but I don’t mind having to do it!”, but it makes people feel like they HAVE to do it.
This way, eventually people can stop. If there was no cap introduced they would be giving people extra magic find and not solving the issue.
I personaly HATE gear swapping, and you’re right, if there was no cap I’d still be doing pony land clouds/piniatas with 600+ mf which is lame ( and when saying that I hope they let MF affect chests ).
I don’t swap mf gear…
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/cocopup-1826/hero/9542433
This feels crappy for geared characters. If the cap was 400%-450% I would be over the moon. As it is now I am neutral.
P.S. captcha was “face the music”
Yea, sure sucks to get extra MF with no penalty. You wouldn’t even see “wasted MF” until effective level 75, and if you wanted to max MF, you would probably not want to swap a piece until effective level 90. That gives you plenty of time to find 1 single item upgrade.
Jay Wilson calling anyone a loser =
Pot meet kettle.
I see wide hands, BoTers will love that
…
Most botters run in nm, though. Do you even get EXP in nm at level 60?
I know one person he run hell
“Jay Wilson is Game Director for Diablo III, and his Necron army is WAY better than your Eldar army.”
When i read this i couldnt help but think of the Jay Wilson FB comment…
Its like hes saying his Necron army (Necron=Necromancer? His team that brought the game back to life) is way better than your Eldar Army (Eldar=Elder? Is he talking about the Blizzard North?) lol
necron and eldar are races in warhammer
that doesn’t mean it’s not true, he was not going to type directly “ahah, our game sold better than yours !”
Yeah i already knew that those are from warhammer, but still why even post a warhammer quote in a Blizzard official website? … hidden footprints! …
They have been writing little things like these at the end of every preview
YES! I posted a topic on the forum about that. It reads exactly as a response to the controversy!
“Jay Wilson’s team is WAY better than David Brevik’s team”
I think this is reaching a little. Not everything the guy says is intended directly to insult the whole world.
In all seriousness though… what about levels 1-59?
I have found a whopping total of 1 legendary on characters that were level 1-59 with 2 level 60 characters, one 47 and a few lower levels. I haven’t seen any sets drop period. The item hunt at low levels is abysmal as well… why even put these low level uniques/sets in the game if you can’t find them?
Oh right, AH… what a blast.
I’ve noticed how a lot of people seem to not find any legendary items at all. I find it very strange, as I myself have found nearly 30 legendary items in a little under 200 hours of gameplay, of which ~10 were sets.
I believe I found none for the first ~60 hours but I’ve since spent around a hundred hours farming inferno act 1 on my wizard (300%mf buffed, no swapping for me) and they do drop quite frequently. Granted there sure is a luck factor, but one of the first things I noticed when I started dropping them, was that the orange color of their name was often very hard to see on the ground (especially in act 3′s reddish zones). I really wouldn’t be surprised to find out I’ve let a few legendarys to rot on the floor.
So yeah, I’ve been wondering if maybe you guys are simply not seeing the occasional legendary that drops for you :/
It’s not entirely impossible that people have missed the occasional legendary drop (video of that happening here, in fact: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHAetkn0Wg) but to blame the rarity on that alone is misleading. Set items have a bright, neon-green color but that doesn’t make them any less rare than legendaries. They really are too rare, especially given how common they were in previous Diablo games (comparatively speaking). The fact that there aren’t any non-crafted set items prior to level 60 isn’t helping either.
As for the comparison with Diablo 2, yes uniques and sets dropped a lot (though only with decent mf) on boss runs especially but the loot tables were different. 99 out of 100 uniques/sets you found in hell were low level crap (and that is still counting barely worthy uniques as good ones), if you went for really usefull uniques it was easily as rare as legendary are now in D3. Granted legendary in D3 are almost all useless so it’s pretty pointless to compare it this way… but overall I think the drop rate of a good item in D3 is pretty similar to D2′s rates, except that D3 has rares instead of uniques being most of the good items (just like D2 classic in fact…)
The thing that bugs me is that I think most of the drop rate complain is fueled by people who would like to get the best items easily, but it’s easy to see that if Blizzard gave in to them, we would see them a week later complaining how everyone has the same gosu items they have and that they are now worthless. In fact these guys want to have the best items but only them so they can feel superior to others. This leads to endless whining, even if they did make legendary easier to get, it would be legendary with good affixe rolls that would be too rare, and so on until you can easily get the very best items, at which point they’d just say the game sucks because there is no content and nothing to do. The only way around that is a WoW like system, which none in their right mind would really want for diablo.
Overall I’d much rather keep the legendary being special items, that still makes my heart race when one drops for me a year from now, rather than getting a dozen of each in a month and getting to a point were I don’t even bother picking them up anymore.
As was said, with high MF the current drop rate is pretty good the way it is, but of course you have to use the mf. As an old time D2 player it seemed natural to me to get a character dedicated to farming and gear it with an efficient high mf equipment, then use it to farm items. It’s an investment that is part of a Diablo game, but it seems Blizzard is dropping it in favor of a new system which also looks pretty cool. Guess we’ll have to wait and see now how it turns out.
Idd it is really easy to miss one, almost missed twice if not been running around + I have even accidentally picked a legendary and not even notice it before was selling the items on town.
i’ve got well over 400 hours played. I have found zero set items. I have found 6 legendaries. And only in the last ~200 hours have I found those items. MF is EVERYTHING!!! I’ve got zero items from the AH. My MF is 101 without NV. That gear is only good enough to farm Act 1 inferno. Act 2 I have to swap in better gear without MF. Right now I’m seeing about 1-2 legendaries a week and I still play a lot. (ya i love the game, despite its shortcomings)
1-2 legendaries a week is just not enough. Especially when those items can vary in their rolls. I know I could probably get more if I can manage to get more MF but finding good enough MF gear with the right stats is also a major time investment. And I flat out refuse to ever touch the AH. It takes all the fun out of finding gear in the first place.
Now how much should my chances increase? I dunno. I don’t want it too easy or it would get equally as boring. 3-5 a week perhaps?
Possibly for some, this may be true. Personally, though, I’ve never had any issue seeing the different colors, and can’t imagine something blending in to the point I’d miss it completely. I usually see both the item glittering on the ground, and the name, so I would have to miss both of those, and I can’t see that happening.
I’m at 200+ hours, with one character through act 1 infernal (playing self found, solo), and all 5 classes at level 54+, and have found a grand total of 0 legendaries, 0 sets.
Well.. level 1-59 you’ve got.. the leveling!