Paragon Point Allocation is Limited

I've seen a lot of assorted questions floating about so I wanted to take a little time explaining some of the current details of the system. As always this is not completely final and is subject to change.

First, let me start with the intent of the system so everyone has a bit of context. The initial implementation of the Paragon system was meant to help provide players a form of end game progression. The primary end game progression is items; Diablo is all about finding awesome items, and using them to murder the hordes of evil. Sometimes, though, you may go for a while and not find a new exciting item, the primary goal of the Paragon system is provide you with some form of tangible benefit for killing lots of monsters even if you didn't find new items.

The initial system accomplishes what it set out to do, but unfortunately there comes a time when you have maxed out that progression and suddenly you start losing out on part of your reward for killing monsters (experience). The first change to the Paragon 2.0, removing the cap, is intended to ensure that, no matter how much or how little you play, you will always be earning that experience.

The next thing that we wanted to address with Paragon 2.0 is that, since Paragon experience was associated with a specific character, it had the unfortunate side-effect of making players feel more tied to a specific character than we wanted them to be. If you have a Paragon 50 Wizard it makes it that much harder to convince yourself to try a new character because some people would feel like they are "wasting experience," either on the Wizard or on the new character they wanted to try out. We want players to feel that they are being rewarded for their time investment, regardless of what character they are in the mood to play or experiment with. This is the primary reason we are changing Paragon levels to be account-wide instead of character specific. We want people who have invested time earning Paragon experience to be able to enjoy all the changes and new content the expansion introduces without having a sense of loss for "wasting Paragon levels" on a character, especially since the Crusader is so awesome I expect 200% of players to just re-roll ;)

Lastly, spendable points. Anyone who has played Diablo games in the past has some fond memories (or not, if you ever misclicked the wrong stat) of picking how they wanted to spend their points whenever they leveled. While giving players more character customization options isn't the core intent of the system, it did present itself as a good place to introduce the mechanic. Players already earn bonus stats, Magic Find, and Gold Find when they earn a Paragon level, but we thought giving players more options and letting them choose what they wanted their bonus to be was just better all around. When you gain a Paragon level in the new system, you will receive a Paragon point to spend. What category that point can be spent in is determined by what Paragon level you earn. Paragon level 1 gives you a point to spend in a Core Stat, Paragon 2 gives you a point in the Offensive category, 3 is Defensive, and 4 is Utility (Adventure). Each Paragon level past that follows the same pattern. At present all categories other than Core Stats (Str, Int, Dex, Vit) have a cap on the number of points that can be allocated to them, which also means there is a cap to the total number of points that 3 of the 4 categories can have. If you reach Paragon 800, you will have maxed the number of points that can be allocated to the Offensive, Defensive, and Utility categories and all future Paragon levels will grant you a point in the Core Stat category instead.

Hopefully this covers the majority of questions that people have. While I am incredibly busy working on the expansion at present, I'll do my best to answer whatever remaining questions people have about Paragon 2.0.

Yes. Currently, the idea is to up add up the Paragon experience on each of your characters. Based on that combined total (the total amount of Paragon experience you have, not the total number of Paragon levels), we would then determine your Shared Paragon level. We're still tinkering with the Paragon 2.0 leveling curve, so I can't give you an exact conversion just yet.

Also, just in keep that you'll have a separate Shared Paragon level for your Normal characters and one for your Hardcore characters.

Edit: typos :(

Game type = game mode (i.e. Normal and Hardcore). So, you'll have a separate Shared Paragon level for Normal characters, and a separate Shared Paragon level for Hardcore characters. Says so right in the post just a few paragraphs down. :)

To quickly address your second point: under current design, all characters will be able to contribute to Shared Paragon levels equally. There are no bonuses or burdens for Paragon leveling multiple characters of the same class. This is all subject to change, of course, and I'll make sure to pass along the feedback I've seen on this topic to our developers.

I believe Josh noted this in the video, but making the call to remove the gold and real-money auction house wasn't easy--and it certainly wasn't done in a vacuum. On the one hand, we invested a lot of time and resources into the development of the auction house system, and (for all intents and purposes) the auction houses achieved the goals we originally set for them when they were implemented. We also knew that many players appreciated if not outright enjoyed using the feature, be it because they worked long days and didn't always have time to farm, because they liked having a convenient way to sell off unneeded goods, or because they got a lot of enjoyment "playing" the AH economy. These were all things we considered and debated heavily. (Keep in mind that we actually evaluated different options that would allow us to preserve the auction houses and just diminish their temptation. This one initially one of the big goals of Loot 2.0.)

On the other hand, it's become increasingly clear that despite the benefits the auction houses provide, they ultimately undermine Diablo's core gameplay and warp our ability to deliver a great in-game experience. A big part of Diablo is the thrill of battling demons and finding epic loot. While buying epic loot in the auction houses might be more convenient, it doesn't feel anywhere near as heroic as plowing through a pack of fearsome-looking monsters and having them drop that one awesome item that seems like it was made for your character.

Removing the auction houses is only one part of the equation, though. The other is Loot 2.0, which is aimed at making playing the game the best and most satisfying way to get items. This system focuses on better loot drops, targeted loot drops, and giving players additional ways to customize their items. We feel that these improvements, along with the removal of the auction houses, will improve the overall gameplay experience for all of our players and help address the initial loot concerns voiced by our community.

Now, we still have a lot of technical and mechanical details to work out, but we'll be sharing all that info once it's available.

TL;DR: The decision to remove the gold and real-money auction house wasn't about validating "self-found" or invalidating those who enjoyed using the auction house. That's a very binary way of looking at things, and I would sincerely encourage players to avoid falling into the whole "we win/you lose" trap. Locking this up.