Diablo III Adding 'Paragon System'

Class changes and buffs to Legendary items aren't the only changes coming in the 1.0.4 patch for Diablo III. Today Blizzard detailed a new Paragon System on the game's official blog, something it hopes will go along way towards alleviating the issues people have with Magic Find (and more specifically gear-swapping) and giving level 60 players something to earn.

The solution is a set of sweeping changes collectively referred to as the Paragon System. Once it's implemented all experience earned after level 60 will be put toward 100 Paragon levels. Per today's post, each level gives you:

• 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

Visually, earning Paragon levels will result in "a distinctive increasingly-impressive border" around your character portrait "[denoting] your Paragon progression."

Game Director Jay Wilson, author of today's post, says "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."

On top of other bonuses, Blizzard will also be making the Nephalem Valor bonus give a 15% experience bonus per stack, help you earn Paragon levels. As for how much longer you can expect these levels to take, Wilson writes, "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."

One of the other major goals for the Paragon System is to eventually "transition away" from having Magic Find on items. Eventually Wilson wants to "slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future," but without doing, "so in a way that doesn't flip the entire game end-over end." Magic Find and Gold Find will now be capped to 300% before Nephalem Valor in 1.0.4, which means, "you'll hit the cap when you reach Paragon level 100." Thus as you level in Paragon levels you can start to remove Magic Find items, eventually weeding them out completely.

To see Wilson's words for yourselves, check out his post on the official Diablo III blog.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com