Online requirement is to encourage people to play together (regardless of the loot/trading situation), and to prevent hacks/piracy.
That's what they keep telling us. I don't buy it.
Ok, enlighten me. What's your theory?
The only purpose of having ONLY online mode is to enforce DRM. I just don't buy the other reasons you mentioned. Blizzard shouldn't care for hacks in singleplayer or local multiplayer games. I personally don't care that there is no offline play, because I use to play everything online anyway, but the reasons behind the missing offline option are obvious to me.
First of all, I said piracy. DRM is way to fight piracy. (Arguably not the best way, but that's another discussion). Second, they absolutely should care about hacks in any area of the game. And opening up the server-side code to make offline possible would only make it easier to hack the online version of the game, this has been discussed to death already.
For me the absolute ideal solution is to be able to freely trade with anyone on my friends list and in my clan provided they've been there for 7+ days.
Pros:
No timestamps means I can give any item to anyone that otherwise qualifies - none of the "sorry, you weren't my friend when this dropped" shit.
A delay (in this case, 7 days) would prevent people from dropping/adding friends/clans just to trade. If it's lengthy enough, you'd be BETTER OFF just sticking with your existing friends/clan than trying to find that new friend who has your item. We know this to be at least somewhat true because buyouts on the AH were, in many cases, more popular than bids. People want their shit NOW, not seven days from now!
Reduces "mass" trading without infringing on trading among friends who choose to do so.
Does not force people into playing four-player games to expose themselves to more drops.
No ridiculous two-hour window to come to an agreement and execute a trade.
Cons:
The delay (in this case, 7 days) does feel quite artifical and means that you cannot trade with a LEGITEMATE friend immediately.
Still benefits people who have more friends as compared to those who have fewer friends.
I like that idea. An advantage over the 2 hour trade window or ruksak's "bind after one trade" solution is that I can give my gear to friends, for as long as I want (not just two hours and not just one way).
With a 7 day delay and the necessity to join friends list (or clan, as an alternative idea) it would not be done for every average item, and for the top items some people will always find a way (even if it's selling entire accounts).
For me the absolute ideal solution is to be able to freely trade with anyone on my friends list and in my clan provided they've been there for 7+ days.
Pros:
No timestamps means I can give any item to anyone that otherwise qualifies - none of the "sorry, you weren't my friend when this dropped" shit.
A delay (in this case, 7 days) would prevent people from dropping/adding friends/clans just to trade. If it's lengthy enough, you'd be BETTER OFF just sticking with your existing friends/clan than trying to find that new friend who has your item. We know this to be at least somewhat true because buyouts on the AH were, in many cases, more popular than bids. People want their shit NOW, not seven days from now!
Reduces "mass" trading without infringing on trading among friends who choose to do so.
Does not force people into playing four-player games to expose themselves to more drops.
No ridiculous two-hour window to come to an agreement and execute a trade.
Cons:
The delay (in this case, 7 days) does feel quite artifical and means that you cannot trade with a LEGITEMATE friend immediately.
Still benefits people who have more friends as compared to those who have fewer friends.
I like that idea. An advantage over the 2 hour trade window or ruksak's "bind after one trade" solution is that I can give my gear to friends, for as long as I want (not just two hours and not just one way).
With a 7 day delay and the necessity to join friends list (or clan, as an alternative idea) it would not be done for every average item, and for the top items some people will always find a way (even if it's selling entire accounts).
Of the ideas posted so far this is my preferred one.
Well, don't get me wrong, I can find a bunch of legendaries fast too but it's mostly gonna be crap. They explicitly said that really powerful legendaries are still going to be extremely rare.
BoA doesn't create longevity. It actually hurts it because it hinders character progression beyond reason. Especially with the changes to loot.
Says you. What do you know about RoS character progression? I can at least think of one other Blizzard game that uses item binding and has found a sweet spot where obtaining items feels incredibly rewarding. Miles more rewarding than whipping out your credit card and buying them which is exactly what the game would eventually degrade to. God tier Diablo 2 items can be bought for a couple of bucks on numerous third party sites even today.
With all the casuals that cry about never finding loot and from what I've personally seen on the console version... the only reason people will be playing a year after release will be ladders. Which undermines the whole paragon system anyway.
How does it undermine the paragon system? The paragon system IS the ladder. The competition is who gets a higher paragon level since normal levels are capped at 70. When each ladder is over all your ladder paragon EXP gets transfered to your standard non-ladder pool so your non-ladder paragon progression is constant even if you exclusively choose to play on ladders.
Basically they have put less thought into this than I. Which is saying something. I would put anything on it that this will change either before release or it will be a feature in the following expansion to get players like me to buy it.
They could call it Diablo 3 : Boundless or perhaps Unbound?
Or they could not do that and then players like me will be very happy and have a reason to actually play the game. I guess somebody wins either way.
Trading only gets you to the point where killing monsters is no longer fun that much quicker. It's a system that doesn't support the core game play in any way, other than to shorten it.
Then just make the decision not to trade.
It's that simple.
How does other players trading deter your enjoyment?
Geez, I guess everyone should then be satisfied and have no reason to bitch about anything Blizzard decides to do. It's as simple as playing your own Diablo 3 pen and paper game with your own made up rules. Oh the possibilities!
"Some" off-topic discussion is ok (when it's not trollish or if it's not like 20 posts), and I can see a very minor relation with the online only and the discussion at hand, but we've moving a bit too much towards discussing DRM and other unrelated stuff.
And the amount of pages that these threads spawn (PvP, Ladder, Trading/AH/BoA/soulbound) with an insane amount of different views on it makes me realize how hard it is to actually choose a path, and defend it as the "right" way to design the game
BoA doesn't create longevity. It actually hurts it because it hinders character progression beyond reason. Especially with the changes to loot.
Says you. What do you know about RoS character progression? I can at least think of one other Blizzard game that uses item binding and has found a sweet spot where obtaining items feels incredibly rewarding. Miles more rewarding than whipping out your credit card and buying them which is exactly what the game would eventually degrade to. God tier Diablo 2 items can be bought for a couple of bucks on numerous third party sites even today.
I know that it will not differ much from current d3 on console. The reasons they have had the increased drop rates were the lack of an AH. So it's safer to assume they will follow the road they've already created. Rather than to create this unknown highway that is so much better.
I also know that trading in and of itself will not make it a cakewalk to gear up. If you've played d2 at all, especially on a ladder reset or just starting out, you know that isn't true. As I said I truly believe it adds more longevity to the game than most can see.
Simply because of the AH making it possible to get a full character for $5.00 right now in about 10 minutes. How many people can say they had 140k DPS in august of 2012? I can tell you it was less than 500 ppl and that was with an AH and after 1.04.
Remove the AH and the convenience and you'll see a drastic increase in the time it takes to get to the top 10% same for even the top 30%.
Remove trading then you have to increase drop rates even more so that you can realistically get decent gear. So the time to get to the top 30% in gear is considerably shorter. However it becomes near impossible to get to the top 10%.
What happens at this point is you cope with the fact that you will never be able to get better gear at a reasonable rate, you give up on chasing that gear and are forced to settle for "good enough". Which is where BoA hinders replayability.
Btw you seriously didn't try to compare sub-based MMO's loot system that has tiers of gear with constant resets with an ARPG... Did you?
With all the casuals that cry about never finding loot and from what I've personally seen on the console version... the only reason people will be playing a year after release will be ladders. Which undermines the whole paragon system anyway.
How does it undermine the paragon system? The paragon system IS the ladder. The competition is who gets a higher paragon level since normal levels are capped at 70. When each ladder is over all your ladder paragon EXP gets transfered to your standard non-ladder pool so your non-ladder paragon progression is constant even if you exclusively choose to play on ladders.
The ladder reset is the reason people will play after a year, because you will not get much better gear on the "paragon" ladder. There are thousands of people right now bitching about loot in d3 even though they don't have 1 paragon 100 let alone 10.
What rose tinted glasses are you looking through to see a point in an XP ranking system for a loot based game that no longer drops you worthwhile loot?
Basically they have put less thought into this than I. Which is saying something. I would put anything on it that this will change either before release or it will be a feature in the following expansion to get players like me to buy it.
They could call it Diablo 3 : Boundless or perhaps Unbound?
Or they could not do that and then players like me will be very happy and have a reason to actually play the game. I guess somebody wins either way.
Or they could just leave the game as it is without the AH and with loot 2.0. As a result they will see more players and for a longer period of time and save themselves a ton of development time and reputation.
What rose tinted glasses are you looking through to see a point in an XP ranking system for a loot based game that no longer drops you worthwhile loot?
Whoah, wait. The ladders will be pointless because loot will NO LONGER be worthwhile? Are you saying the loot drops are worthwhile NOW or are you saying that ladders in a loot based game only have a point if you can buy said loot on ebay?
Rose titnted glasses, indeed.
The part where you base of your absurd assumptions on the console version which uses 95% old itemization, combat mechanics and some kind of increased drop rates is very funny too.
The part where you base of your absurd assumptions on the console version which uses 95% old itemization, combat mechanics and some kind of increased drop rates is very funny too.
Errr Blizzard has said multiple times that Loot 2.0 was kinda given a "test ride" on the console. That makes it a bit more than an "absurd assumption."
Don't forget, you'll still have the ability to trade rares/ blues which will have abilities like +%damage to certain skills. Therefore a market will be created around them and ensure that those who enjoy trading can and will be able to. Some legendaries would work best with several rares complementing them through some damage modifiers.
I'm pretty sure there was a slide at Blizzcon that said that orange/green items were "endgame" gear. That implies that blue/yellow items are not "endgame" gear. I'm not sure what "market" will evolve around items that are inferior-by-design, but I doubt it's one that will have any serious participation.
What rose tinted glasses are you looking through to see a point in an XP ranking system for a loot based game that no longer drops you worthwhile loot?
Whoah, wait. The ladders will be pointless because loot will NO LONGER be worthwhile? Are you saying the loot drops are worthwhile NOW or are you saying that ladders in a loot based game only have a point if you can buy said loot on ebay?
Rose titnted glasses, indeed.
The part where you base of your absurd assumptions on the console version which uses 95% old itemization, combat mechanics and some kind of increased drop rates is very funny too.
I'm saying that after a months worth of playtime, the upgrades you'll find on your "main" character are more unlikely than finding your upgrades now. Going from the top 30% to the top 10% is a huge increase in time.
Let's put it in terms you may be able to understand
Now how long do you think ANYONE will be continue to play that character when they no longer get worthwhile loot. I mean it was all worthwhile up until around the week 4 mark and then it slowed down considerably.
Add to this the fact that you're going from WEAPON X with 1200% ED and 3 sockets to the same weapon with 1220%ed and 3 sockets. That seems like a holy shit moment after a month of playtime.
As for basing it on the console versions.
Blues have already said it's similar and that was before the AH removal.
Geez, I guess everyone should then be satisfied and have no reason to bitch about anything Blizzard decides to do. It's as simple as playing your own Diablo 3 pen and paper game with your own made up rules. Oh the possibilities!
BoA on legendaries and set items makes sense. We want them to truly feel unique and we want to preserve the feeling of awe when that item finally drops. If trading were allowed, they'd all become the new norm and lose all of their uniqueness, you wouldn't feel special anymore.
Don't forget, you'll still have the ability to trade rares/ blues which will have abilities like +%damage to certain skills. Therefore a market will be created around them and ensure that those who enjoy trading can and will be able to. Some legendaries would work best with several rares complementing them through some damage modifiers.
From what we know of Loot 2.0, there's going to be a lot of legendaries/sets added into the game.
4) More specialized builds possible. One of many goals with Loot 2.0 is to encourage build diversity through legendary affixes. There's so many that just scream "Hey, give these runes or powers a try" when maybe you hadn't considered them before.
As an example, Wyatt stopped by the Community Booth to chat with players and mentioned a belt that (currently) causes Health Globes to explode for a percentage weapon damage when they're picked up. Just the concept of that makes me excited to tinker with my Barbarian's skills and see how I can best capitalize on that. Ultimately I will end up in a very different place well outside my comfort zone when I'm normally pretty stubborn in changing my ways. ;P
6) *LOTS* of legendaries and sets to find. Oh my goodness, there are so many. Like, so, so many. I don't math so good, so I don't have a number on hand, but between a slew of brand new items and revisiting and redesigning current legendaries, there will be so much to play with and collect! As a fellow pack rat, I'm looking forward to not just looting some powerful gear, but fun and quirky things too!
If Blizzard is honestly expecting players to be able to collect all of these legendaries/sets on their own without the help of trading then your character would eventually not 'feel' special regardless.
Now how long do you think ANYONE will be continue to play that character when they no longer get worthwhile loot. I mean it was all worthwhile up until around the week 4 mark and then it slowed down considerably.
I honestly have no idea. How long do people continue to play after they buy all the items they need? How quickly can you get from top 30% to top 10% in an ebay economy? Seconds? Minutes?
The better question than "how long do you play after the game stops dropping worthwhile loot" is "how long do you play a game in which there is no worthwhile loot to begin with". What exactly is "worth my while" if there is no difference between 1% drop chance and 0.0000001% drop chance, in an economy where millions of people keep producing items on a daily basis to a point where everything can be found in an absolute abundance months if not weeks after a ladder reset?
@Dimebog @riptide you both have actually very good arguments.
And they made me think that's what bothers me when I see someone complaining about "bad loot".
They're not complaining that the loot is useable or not, they're complaining that they don't find the absolute best top-10% loot in the game in a regular basis. They're complaining that they didn't find "dat 100 mil-2 bil item". But can we do that without breaking the RNG-based drop system?
I'm all for improving loot quality, I've said this before but I will keep saying it until these players start acknowledging it: Blizzard has freaking improved drop quality before. TENFOLD!!! BOTH with the Legendary/Set reworks (which became more than just "viable") and through ilvl and affixes adjustments, and then again by giving us Monster Power.
It's a neverending cycle.... They improve it, people play what they can, those 50-100 hours, and then proceed to complain it's not "worth it anymore". The AH makes this feeling even worse by allowing you to actually look how far behind the curve you've fallen (oh look, everyone is 6 months into the new drop system, aka my drops suck even more).
This particular feature (Soulbound) to me is a very clear indication that they don't want only the third-party website/forum lurkers to have an edge over everyone else. I'm not sure I agree with it yet (I have yet to hear actual good arguments from either side, and yet to hear the details on the system from a developer), but I certainly simpathyze more with their actual reasoning than I do with people complaining about abstract "bad loot" or "bad itemization".
Now how long do you think ANYONE will be continue to play that character when they no longer get worthwhile loot. I mean it was all worthwhile up until around the week 4 mark and then it slowed down considerably.
I honestly have no idea. How long do people continue to play after they buy all the items they need? How quickly can you get from top 30% to top 10% in an ebay economy? Seconds? Minutes?
The better question than "how long do you play after the game stops dropping worthwhile loot" is "how long do you play a game in which there is no worthwhile loot to begin with". What exactly is "worth my while" if there is no difference between 1% drop chance and 0.0000001% drop chance, in an economy where millions of people keep producing items on a daily basis to a point where everything can be found in an absolute abundance months if not weeks after a ladder reset?
There's a huge difference. When the drop chance is 1% everyone getting one, when its 0.0000001% barely anyones got one. With the removal of the AH they stepped in the right direction because it's not so readily available. Do you honestly think that every game you enter will just be 3 people standing in town spamming "JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!" No The chances of you meeting those "millions of players" is very slim especially with a four person game. Remember we cant choose what game we join.If they added trading it adds some sort of availability, but its severely limited in that you'll never see whose got one. You may enter 50 games and never find the Soj or Jallals you are looking for, simple as that. Now with BoA you may never be able to get that item (IF THEY'D FIX THE DROP RATE)
I've also seen you argue this in posts before that we don't know how the drop rates are going to work and they wont be bad.... Well if you take all the Loot 2.0 details and think and compile them for a moment you'd realize the game is in a literally awful state right now. Think about how awesome every gear you saw was. Think about how badass they want to make legendaries. Then think about how many you find per act 3 run solo at p40? 6... In a 4 person co-op game that's 24 legendaries to split between you guys. Then if that holds true for all 5 acts, you're looking at almost 120 legendaries a game between four people. Since they'll all be so mighty and powerful cause your loot has to be meaningful you know, you will never need to play this game outside of a few months. The end will be there and you will have nothing to do. Literally nothing. There will again be no endgame. No cool content to continue through nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch NOTHING!
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Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
You don't need to collect all legendaries to feel *legendary*.
Of course not.
From my previous post the CM learned of a legendary belt and expected to able try it out on their barbarian.
Now either players will be able to find these specific legendaries/sets on their own or you're going to have to tell the CM
there is a possibility they will never be able to experience playing a barbarian that explodes health globes.
Now how long do you think ANYONE will be continue to play that character when they no longer get worthwhile loot. I mean it was all worthwhile up until around the week 4 mark and then it slowed down considerably.
I honestly have no idea. How long do people continue to play after they buy all the items they need? How quickly can you get from top 30% to top 10% in an ebay economy? Seconds? Minutes?
The better question than "how long do you play after the game stops dropping worthwhile loot" is "how long do you play a game in which there is no worthwhile loot to begin with". What exactly is "worth my while" if there is no difference between 1% drop chance and 0.0000001% drop chance, in an economy where millions of people keep producing items on a daily basis to a point where everything can be found in an absolute abundance months if not weeks after a ladder reset?
There's a huge difference. When the drop chance is 1% everyone getting one, when its 0.0000001% barely anyones got one. With the removal of the AH they stepped in the right direction because it's not so readily available. Do you honestly think that every game you enter will just be 3 people standing in town spamming "JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!" No The chances of you meeting those "millions of players" is very slim especially with a four person game. Remember we cant choose what game we join.If they added trading it adds some sort of availability, but its severely limited in that you'll never see whose got one. You may enter 50 games and never find the Soj or Jallals you are looking for, simple as that. Now with BoA you may never be able to get that item (IF THEY'D FIX THE DROP RATE)
No, I was specifically referring to the fact that you can buy items from numerous websites very quickly after a ladder starts. I remember that it takes less than two weeks before you can buy Hellfire Torches in a fresh ladder. With all the bad shit that AH/RMAH meant for the game, I think RMAH was actually kind of good in the fact that players still kind of traded with one another (except that it was really WAY too convenient as you mention) instead of turning to the market of Chinese farmers and botters which is exactly what would happen. I can't really tell which is worse (AH or totally uncontrollable black market).
I've also seen you argue this in posts before that we don't know how the drop rates are going to work and they wont be bad.... Well if you take all the Loot 2.0 details and think and compile them for a moment you'd realize the game is in a literally awful state right now. Think about how awesome every gear you saw was. Think about how badass they want to make legendaries. Then think about how many you find per act 3 run solo at p40? 6... In a 4 person co-op game that's 24 legendaries to split between you guys. Then if that holds true for all 5 acts, you're looking at almost 120 legendaries a game between four people. Since they'll all be so mighty and powerful cause your loot has to be meaningful you know, you will never need to play this game outside of a few months. The end will be there and you will have nothing to do. Literally nothing. There will again be no endgame. No cool content to continue through nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch NOTHING!
Once again, the premise is that /really/ powerful legendaries are going to be extremely rare, says Blizzard. It would be like getting 6 items equivalent to Gladiator's Gauntlets just so that you get to see that orange drop once in a while. You don't get Mempos every game, do you? The difference is that they want to make even low-end legendaries kind of interesting because they can support some kind of obscure builds even if their stats are not so good.
@Dimebog @riptide you both have actually very good arguments.
And they made me think that's what bothers me when I see someone complaining about "bad loot".
They're not complaining that the loot is useable or not,
For me, that is the #1 complaint I have. And not that its not usable by me, but by ANYONE. I'm so sick of Legendaries that no class would touch under any circumstances.
I have found at least 103 Legendaries (At least I have that many Brimstones) that were totally useless. Couldn't even AH them. Every piece of gear I have is off the AH! And thats just wrong, wrong, wrong!!! That isn't the spirit of the Diablo series.
The Dev's related finding Legendaries to opening a present on Christmas day. And I for one, am sick of getting coal in my presents!
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I see the line in the sand. Time to find out who I am. Looking back to see where I stand. Evolution.
Once again, the premise is that /really/ powerful legendaries are going to be extremely rare, says Blizzard. It would be like getting 6 items equivalent to Gladiator's Gauntlets just so that you get to see that orange drop once in a while. You don't get Mempos every game, do you? The difference is that they want to make even low-end legendaries kind of interesting because they can support some kind of obscure builds even if their stats are not so good.
I don't get how you don't understand that EXTREMELY RARE and NO TRADING don't mix. All that does is create a massive "luck gap" and frustration for people on the wrong side of that chasm.
So instead of AH barons... we have people who got insanely lucky with an "extremely rare" legendary that actually matched their class/spec? How in the world does that sound better? At least the AH stuff was in our control - if you wanted to make a lot of money you could. Relegating power purely to RNG is basically the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Now, Blizzard may have systems that help players "beat" RNG, but they never should have dropped this bomb without giving us information on the other things that keep it in context.
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Ok, enlighten me. What's your theory?
First of all, I said piracy. DRM is way to fight piracy. (Arguably not the best way, but that's another discussion). Second, they absolutely should care about hacks in any area of the game. And opening up the server-side code to make offline possible would only make it easier to hack the online version of the game, this has been discussed to death already.
I like that idea. An advantage over the 2 hour trade window or ruksak's "bind after one trade" solution is that I can give my gear to friends, for as long as I want (not just two hours and not just one way).
With a 7 day delay and the necessity to join friends list (or clan, as an alternative idea) it would not be done for every average item, and for the top items some people will always find a way (even if it's selling entire accounts).
Of the ideas posted so far this is my preferred one.
I've not been fond of any of the timestamp ideas.
Says you. What do you know about RoS character progression? I can at least think of one other Blizzard game that uses item binding and has found a sweet spot where obtaining items feels incredibly rewarding. Miles more rewarding than whipping out your credit card and buying them which is exactly what the game would eventually degrade to. God tier Diablo 2 items can be bought for a couple of bucks on numerous third party sites even today.
How does it undermine the paragon system? The paragon system IS the ladder. The competition is who gets a higher paragon level since normal levels are capped at 70. When each ladder is over all your ladder paragon EXP gets transfered to your standard non-ladder pool so your non-ladder paragon progression is constant even if you exclusively choose to play on ladders.
Or they could not do that and then players like me will be very happy and have a reason to actually play the game. I guess somebody wins either way.
"Some" off-topic discussion is ok (when it's not trollish or if it's not like 20 posts), and I can see a very minor relation with the online only and the discussion at hand, but we've moving a bit too much towards discussing DRM and other unrelated stuff.
And the amount of pages that these threads spawn (PvP, Ladder, Trading/AH/BoA/soulbound) with an insane amount of different views on it makes me realize how hard it is to actually choose a path, and defend it as the "right" way to design the game
I know that it will not differ much from current d3 on console. The reasons they have had the increased drop rates were the lack of an AH. So it's safer to assume they will follow the road they've already created. Rather than to create this unknown highway that is so much better.
I also know that trading in and of itself will not make it a cakewalk to gear up. If you've played d2 at all, especially on a ladder reset or just starting out, you know that isn't true. As I said I truly believe it adds more longevity to the game than most can see.
Simply because of the AH making it possible to get a full character for $5.00 right now in about 10 minutes. How many people can say they had 140k DPS in august of 2012? I can tell you it was less than 500 ppl and that was with an AH and after 1.04.
Remove the AH and the convenience and you'll see a drastic increase in the time it takes to get to the top 10% same for even the top 30%.
Remove trading then you have to increase drop rates even more so that you can realistically get decent gear. So the time to get to the top 30% in gear is considerably shorter. However it becomes near impossible to get to the top 10%.
What happens at this point is you cope with the fact that you will never be able to get better gear at a reasonable rate, you give up on chasing that gear and are forced to settle for "good enough". Which is where BoA hinders replayability.
Btw you seriously didn't try to compare sub-based MMO's loot system that has tiers of gear with constant resets with an ARPG... Did you?
The ladder reset is the reason people will play after a year, because you will not get much better gear on the "paragon" ladder. There are thousands of people right now bitching about loot in d3 even though they don't have 1 paragon 100 let alone 10.
What rose tinted glasses are you looking through to see a point in an XP ranking system for a loot based game that no longer drops you worthwhile loot?
Or they could just leave the game as it is without the AH and with loot 2.0. As a result they will see more players and for a longer period of time and save themselves a ton of development time and reputation.
Rose titnted glasses, indeed.
The part where you base of your absurd assumptions on the console version which uses 95% old itemization, combat mechanics and some kind of increased drop rates is very funny too.
Errr Blizzard has said multiple times that Loot 2.0 was kinda given a "test ride" on the console. That makes it a bit more than an "absurd assumption."
Try to keep facts straight here.
I'm pretty sure there was a slide at Blizzcon that said that orange/green items were "endgame" gear. That implies that blue/yellow items are not "endgame" gear. I'm not sure what "market" will evolve around items that are inferior-by-design, but I doubt it's one that will have any serious participation.
Let's put it in terms you may be able to understand
Minute 1 -> Upgrade
Minute 5 -> Upgrade
Minute 15 -> Upgrade
........
........
........
........
Week 4 ->upgrade
Month 4 -> upgrade
Year 1.5 -> upgrade
Year 12097213097 -> upgrade
Now how long do you think ANYONE will be continue to play that character when they no longer get worthwhile loot. I mean it was all worthwhile up until around the week 4 mark and then it slowed down considerably.
Add to this the fact that you're going from WEAPON X with 1200% ED and 3 sockets to the same weapon with 1220%ed and 3 sockets. That seems like a holy shit moment after a month of playtime.
As for basing it on the console versions.
Blues have already said it's similar and that was before the AH removal.
Do you mind clarifying this post further for me?
From what we know of Loot 2.0, there's going to be a lot of legendaries/sets added into the game.
If Blizzard is honestly expecting players to be able to collect all of these legendaries/sets on their own without the help of trading then your character would eventually not 'feel' special regardless.
The better question than "how long do you play after the game stops dropping worthwhile loot" is "how long do you play a game in which there is no worthwhile loot to begin with". What exactly is "worth my while" if there is no difference between 1% drop chance and 0.0000001% drop chance, in an economy where millions of people keep producing items on a daily basis to a point where everything can be found in an absolute abundance months if not weeks after a ladder reset?
And they made me think that's what bothers me when I see someone complaining about "bad loot".
They're not complaining that the loot is useable or not, they're complaining that they don't find the absolute best top-10% loot in the game in a regular basis. They're complaining that they didn't find "dat 100 mil-2 bil item". But can we do that without breaking the RNG-based drop system?
I'm all for improving loot quality, I've said this before but I will keep saying it until these players start acknowledging it: Blizzard has freaking improved drop quality before. TENFOLD!!! BOTH with the Legendary/Set reworks (which became more than just "viable") and through ilvl and affixes adjustments, and then again by giving us Monster Power.
It's a neverending cycle.... They improve it, people play what they can, those 50-100 hours, and then proceed to complain it's not "worth it anymore". The AH makes this feeling even worse by allowing you to actually look how far behind the curve you've fallen (oh look, everyone is 6 months into the new drop system, aka my drops suck even more).
This particular feature (Soulbound) to me is a very clear indication that they don't want only the third-party website/forum lurkers to have an edge over everyone else. I'm not sure I agree with it yet (I have yet to hear actual good arguments from either side, and yet to hear the details on the system from a developer), but I certainly simpathyze more with their actual reasoning than I do with people complaining about abstract "bad loot" or "bad itemization".
There's a huge difference. When the drop chance is 1% everyone getting one, when its 0.0000001% barely anyones got one. With the removal of the AH they stepped in the right direction because it's not so readily available. Do you honestly think that every game you enter will just be 3 people standing in town spamming "JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!JALLALS FOR SOJ!" No The chances of you meeting those "millions of players" is very slim especially with a four person game. Remember we cant choose what game we join.If they added trading it adds some sort of availability, but its severely limited in that you'll never see whose got one. You may enter 50 games and never find the Soj or Jallals you are looking for, simple as that. Now with BoA you may never be able to get that item (IF THEY'D FIX THE DROP RATE)
I've also seen you argue this in posts before that we don't know how the drop rates are going to work and they wont be bad.... Well if you take all the Loot 2.0 details and think and compile them for a moment you'd realize the game is in a literally awful state right now. Think about how awesome every gear you saw was. Think about how badass they want to make legendaries. Then think about how many you find per act 3 run solo at p40? 6... In a 4 person co-op game that's 24 legendaries to split between you guys. Then if that holds true for all 5 acts, you're looking at almost 120 legendaries a game between four people. Since they'll all be so mighty and powerful cause your loot has to be meaningful you know, you will never need to play this game outside of a few months. The end will be there and you will have nothing to do. Literally nothing. There will again be no endgame. No cool content to continue through nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch NOTHING!
Of course not.
From my previous post the CM learned of a legendary belt and expected to able try it out on their barbarian.
Now either players will be able to find these specific legendaries/sets on their own or you're going to have to tell the CM
there is a possibility they will never be able to experience playing a barbarian that explodes health globes.
Once again, the premise is that /really/ powerful legendaries are going to be extremely rare, says Blizzard. It would be like getting 6 items equivalent to Gladiator's Gauntlets just so that you get to see that orange drop once in a while. You don't get Mempos every game, do you? The difference is that they want to make even low-end legendaries kind of interesting because they can support some kind of obscure builds even if their stats are not so good.
For me, that is the #1 complaint I have. And not that its not usable by me, but by ANYONE. I'm so sick of Legendaries that no class would touch under any circumstances.
I have found at least 103 Legendaries (At least I have that many Brimstones) that were totally useless. Couldn't even AH them. Every piece of gear I have is off the AH! And thats just wrong, wrong, wrong!!! That isn't the spirit of the Diablo series.
The Dev's related finding Legendaries to opening a present on Christmas day. And I for one, am sick of getting coal in my presents!
I see the line in the sand. Time to find out who I am. Looking back to see where I stand. Evolution.
Member of the Dfans clan.
BNet Tag: Evolution85#1878
I don't get how you don't understand that EXTREMELY RARE and NO TRADING don't mix. All that does is create a massive "luck gap" and frustration for people on the wrong side of that chasm.
So instead of AH barons... we have people who got insanely lucky with an "extremely rare" legendary that actually matched their class/spec? How in the world does that sound better? At least the AH stuff was in our control - if you wanted to make a lot of money you could. Relegating power purely to RNG is basically the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Now, Blizzard may have systems that help players "beat" RNG, but they never should have dropped this bomb without giving us information on the other things that keep it in context.