Leaderboards

Leaderboards are a feature coming to Diablo 3 in Patch 2.1. They are basically the UI display of the ladders, which Blizzard is calling Seasons in Diablo 3. Leaderboards will display the top characters in each Season, ranked by numerous and various criteria. There will be straight level up races, along with Greater Rift leaders and Conquests, which are special Achievements only available during each Season.

Official comment on it from Blizzard's Patch 2.1 preview.[1]

Leaderboards will track progress for Greater Rifts, Seasonal achievement points, and Seasonal Conquests across a variety of game styles. Designed to be informative and detailed, Leaderboards will allow you to compare your progress to that of your gameplay region, friends, and clan members, and each type of board will track progress a little differently.

Greater Rift Leaderboards

Greater Rift leaderboards will be split between both Hardcore and Normal gameplay modes as well as Seasonal and Non-Seasonal characters. To help encourage a variety of play styles and allow you to measure yourself against similar competitors, we’ve also broken up Greater Rift leaderboards into the following categories:

• Solo play for each class (e.g. top players for Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Crusader, etc.)
• 2-Player Groups
• 3-Player Groups
• 4-Player Groups

Season-Only Leaderboards:

Some Leaderboards will be Season-only. For example, Conquests are only tracked on Seasonal characters, so these Leaderboards won’t have a non-Season equivalent. The same will be true for Seasonal achievement points. In addition, because Conquests and achievements are account-wide, their associated Leaderboards will not be split between Normal and Hardcore (even though some tasks may require playing a particular mode).

The full system has not yet been demoed, but once the Patch 2.1 PTR starts players will get a look at it.

Leaderboard sample image, from Blizzard's Patch 2.1.0 preview.