What a lot of people managed to forget was that Diablo III was suppose to be an ARPG that focused on the most important thing, the loot drops. I'd rather not post this argument all over again, so I will just quote myself from this thread.
Diablo III became a game that focused entirely on the gear of your character and their skill/passive build. The issue with that however is that good gear is far harder to farm in this game, and most people end up finding a lot of trash even after MP10 Inferno Act 3 runs, even with a decent amount of MF from paragon levels. Since trying to farm on large difficulties is hard enough as it is, it encouraged everyone to run the AH to the bones, having characters completely forged out of gear purchased at the AH. This caused us to have no reason to even farm items, but instead farm areas that gave us the most gold.
...
There was actually a heck of a lot more to that post, but I left out those points. The problem is that the core game-play mechanic of Diablo III, which is loot drops that you worked hard to obtain, is completely overshadowed by the shortcut that is the AH. The AH is actually part of a whole array of problems that exist in the design of Diablo III, but it is one of the more significant ones.
Now, I admit that I am no game designer and I am certainly no business expert either, but from a gaming stand point, I think that there is some sort of potential in a Diablo 3.5, so to speak. Make the game over again, without all the mistakes, take away the AH, give us ladders, offline play, better loot tables, all that good stuff, and put it into a brand new game that won't affect the current one in any way and make people start over again. It can easily be made into a digital download that is free to anyone who has purchased Diablo III. Allow people to have access to the map making tools, allow us to make custom maps, events, and allow the game to be compatible with mods made by the community.
Call me psycho, but I think it could work if done right.
What really doesn't make sense is how Wilson openly said on more than one occasion that drops were balanced around the existence of the AH, yet now says that they didn't expect the majority of players to use it?
The auction house obviously provides an incredible service to allow for very easy trades between characters, and essentially blows out the wide range of items you could have available to you at any one time. So, in fact, the AH has to be a factor in how we drop items. On one hand you have a huge benefit because you can buy and sell items very easily, as opposed to having to post up WTS threads in the old USEast trading forums, but on the other end it does impact the item pool economy with the inherent ease at which you can trade items. If the AH existed but wasn't a factor at all into how items dropped/rolled, the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks.
You've been quoted as saying that Diablo III loot is balanced around the existence of the Auction House. Could you clarify what you mean by that? I'm sorry, I don't remember saying that and if I did then I was drunk and/or wrong. We tuned and balanced the game without the auction house, as there weren't enough people internally using it to test it against gameplay, so we didn't design anything for it.
Jay Wilson strikes back from the grave. Man, this guy really never played D2, did he? "D2 never had an AH." Yes, that's right, all of those spam-bots were made and sent by commune hippies who hate the idea of currency. That Enigma Hammerdin was actually a real person, no really.
The issue isn't the AH, it's the complete and utter lack of item sinks. He (okay they, but I'm pinning this on him solely based on his PvP "blog") Early on in the closed beta, your average crafting recipe had one or two fixed range stats, then a couple of random rolls. Not ALL random rolls. You know, useful crafting. Somehow, that changed. During one Blizzcon, they mentioned that soulbound gear would only be a few items at level 60. It shipped w/ ZERO bound gear whatsoever.
Everything this guy says is utter crap. He's completely short-sighted and confused as to what problems the AH caused and what was caused by his own incompetence. Yeah, look at your average public game in D2. Seems like a well run, stable economy, right? Seriously? PLAY YOUR OWN GAMES AND LOOK AT THE RESULTS. Idiot.
I never really understood why people feel the loot drops are that bad. I mean it's clear that there are superior items on the AH, but it's not like the stuff you find isn't viable to use for beating the game either. People have beaten the earlier version of inferno on self found gear, and there are players doing high MPs fine on all self found gear now. The AH is simply a shortcut to make it easier, or to use less skill (more face tanking). I can't speak for other servers, but on Americas the AH was down more often than not for the first couple weeks of release, yet many players still did fine even on mostly self found gear.
Ever since D3 came out, while farming Inferno Act 3, I would regularly sell direct upgrades for my character since I prioritized keeping the money rather then trying to deck out my character. I was definitely getting good drops back then. Based on my PayPal I believe it's somewhere along the lines of $3500 from May through July of mostly self found gear. I did began flipping items pretty regularly sometime after 1.0.4 hit though, as somewhere in the process of altering loot the drop chance went up too much, while quality went down quite a bit. In terms of the "drop quality AND quantity", I actually liked where it was at release, but many people complained about all sorts of things.
As of now, loot quality was nerfed multiple times, to the point where farming is simply inefficient compared to flipping. Even though I still play D3, I think I've only found one $10 item (lacunis) this entire month. Pretty terrible from a loot perspective, though I still have fun playing.
-----
At this point, I really don't think it's possible to save the softcore economy. It's simply broken, and still without a loot sink of any sort for decent items. Personally, I'd like to see a self-found ladder server, preferably cross region for a larger player base (sort of like PTRs).
I don't think the AH itself is a bad idea, as it simply simplifies trading. So if trading is allowed in the game, I feel like the AH also has a spot in the game. However, I think a no-trade and no-AH ladder that resets regularly (maybe every 1-2 months) would be both fun and exciting, simply to see how many people manage to do MP10 on SELF-found gear in that time frame.
I'm hoping Blizzard adds in some sort of separate server with a Ladder. While I'd appreciate ANY ladder system, I do wish they put in a self-found only one.
"I think we would turn it off if we could," Wilson said during his talk. But the problem is "not as easy as that;" with all of Blizzard's current players, he says the company "has no idea" how many players like the system or hate it"
tally the people who sold items and people who bought items OMG im a genius
If he felt this way. He is a coward who, couldn't as a game director, didn't even try to change the game for the better. What a failure. What a disgrace to the franchise. Pathetic.
The AH/trading was never the problem, loot always has been.
From Normal to Hell difficulties there's no AR and you don't need it but then you'd get to Inferno and you'd hit a brick wall because you needed >300AR to even farm A1 but how were you going to get AR when it only came from drops in Inferno? Many players quit at A1 Inferno because of this and the few that progressed did it thanks to trading. If you take away trading then the game dies there at A1 Inferno.
In order for trading to be less relevant the average quality of gear needs to be raised. However there are far too few stats that we rely on so if they just raise the quality and leave everything else alone then all items start looking alike. That's why they need to (and are going to) add more good stats so that gear can still be diverse while being better on average.
'You cannot judge blizzard. I am blizzard itself! The AH was made for more than this! To protect the innocent! But if our precious money grab binded you to inaction...then you will no longer stand as our brother. (Tyreal slays Jay Wilson)
Translation:
"I hate companies that make games in order to turn a profit boo hoo."
A Highly Efficient Market is the problem -
the excitement of real trading is the rush of exploiting market inefficiencies and discrepancies of valuation...but when you are sitting there ready to snipe the next mispriced item along with 10000 other players, its no fun. And because of these people, items will converge to a so-called agreed gold value measurable only by statistics and therefore unenjoyable. Some of us out there get paid six digit salaries to do this as their day job...
There is a place for the convenience of AH because gear progression for your average player is difficult (not impossible) to progress through inferno without trading. But it should not be the venue to trade items at the higher end because gold is not the appropriate measure of value for the best items.
My suggestion:
- Add a gold-cap on AH trades (just like the RMAH).
- Create "live-auction chat rooms" with a much higher cap.
- Make gold decay per-account at 10% per week.
These 3 aspects will create a much more exciting endgame trading experience, and the weekly decay cycle will ensure awesome amounts of activity in these chat rooms. The dual system will force rich players to part ways with their "good" items if they really need that cash for the next purchase...these items are depreciating anyway.
This way noone will sit on their gold or sit on their items.
I say they need to expand crafting to include improving current items and then once improved, make them BoA. Use Demonic Essence to improve an item like adding a socket to a weapon or improving a main stat on a set of gloves. Then once improved, that item is no longer available to the public, only to the account it was improved on. THey can't get rid of the AH as it is too well liked by many but they could bring a little more balance to the game by improving drop rates and creating more ways to make BiS items, BoA.
First of all the whole drop system was designed with AH in mind. So if you take away AH and redesign loot system you don't have this problem.
That said, I personally really enjoyed super hard inferno on release. It was challenging and very cool, like no other game. Unfortunately then people started AH flipping/trading to make more money and then inferno became much easier. Also thanks to all the crybabies who were mad that they couldn't finish whole game in week, hence blizzard nerfed it so much.
On a side note, D3 for me was all about RMAH, every better item i found i put on RMAH, it became more like a job than a game you could enjoy (like D2).
No, different employees said conflicting things about how drops were originally balanced and the most obvious answer is that they didn't balance or test endgame worth a damn at all.
There is an incredible flaw in the gear design when the final difficulty requires a stat that it only available from drops in that difficulty. They decided to nerf Inferno so that AR isn't really needed much on MP0 but the real problem is still gear progression. Stats should be offered before the content that requires them so that you have a clear progression path that doesn't involve the AH while still allowing the content to be hard if you're undergeared. One of the first patches made it possible for gear to drop at very low rates a few acts earlier so Inferno gear could drop in Hell but it was only a few % chance of dropping on top of the extremely low chances of it being any good so it was still more beneficial to just suicide repeatedly in A1 Inferno for better odds of getting >=ilvl 61 gear.
When they rebalance gear again (in 1.0.9?) I hope that they retune the MP levels so that the lowest MP is similar to the original difficulties but that they also retune items so that you naturally find small amounts of AR towards the end of Hell difficulty.
I am shocked that somebody as influential on the game design would say something so stupid.
You simply can not release a online game these days with no built in trading tool. It's not the AH that is to blame.
Think back to the D2 days. Instead of trading ingame, you had to go to external websites which used their own made up currency. You had the same functions, just outside the game and therefore only available to those who realy searched for it. But they were there all the same.
Back in D2, you also tried to generate wealth instead of being excized about the 5th, 10th or 100th legendary shako you found. You tradet it for runes too, which were the currency back in D2.
Ppl who blame the state of D3 on the AH are deluding themself into thinking that D2 was much different. It was not.
Simple fix: Remove the Gold, keep the RMAH ! Make the normal AH a trade market.
That's realy just the most stupid thing ever. Gold is only a currency, If you remove it, the players will find another one. It would just be more complicated.
A Highly Efficient Market is the problem -
the excitement of real trading is the rush of exploiting market inefficiencies and discrepancies of valuation...but when you are sitting there ready to snipe the next mispriced item along with 10000 other players, its no fun. And because of these people, items will converge to a so-called agreed gold value measurable only by statistics and therefore unenjoyable. Some of us out there get paid six digit salaries to do this as their day job...
There is a place for the convenience of AH because gear progression for your average player is difficult (not impossible) to progress through inferno without trading. But it should not be the venue to trade items at the higher end because gold is not the appropriate measure of value for the best items.
My suggestion:
- Add a gold-cap on AH trades (just like the RMAH).
- Create "live-auction chat rooms" with a much higher cap.
- Make gold decay per-account at 10% per week.
These 3 aspects will create a much more exciting endgame trading experience, and the weekly decay cycle will ensure awesome amounts of activity in these chat rooms. The dual system will force rich players to part ways with their "good" items if they really need that cash for the next purchase...these items are depreciating anyway.
This way noone will sit on their gold or sit on their items.
Get out.
Now.
The AH never was a mistake. Jay Wilson, as immature and dubious as his character was, was the mistake.
Also speaking of character, you sir have almost as many posts here as you have elite kills, I don't even know why I replied to a post as vacuous as yours.
And all those people hailing that D2 was the bee's knees - I'm sorry it isn't, it was good for a time when people were just starting to discover there are others on the internet. The hierarchy from Pgems to Uniques to unattainable rares/crafts/runes and gamebreaking runewords was archaic and ungratifying - nevermind the very few classes that can do hell decently with self-found. If you are still so blind, that game is still there with the open arms of powerleveling hammerdinbots waiting just for you.
Also there is the option for you to play D3 however you want - with or without AH - so if you want to wallow in your morally superior mediocrity the world doesn't care (neither does it care about all your awesome BOAs)
The real issue with the auction house isn't the fact that it exists. The real issue with it was how there are no "realms", like with World of Warcraft and other games where auction houses are perfectly successful and don't take away from the game. The issue is, millions upon millions of players all posting to the same place. you get literally hundreds if not thousands of the same items... basically it just floods the market because so many are selling and not as many are buying those big ticket items. Even worse was the enormous amount of absolutely junk ass shit. Just because you got a legendary and saw 300 million prices on the AH doesn't mean yours was worth 300 million, and a lot of people didn't understand that. Add to that the fact that the game was riddled with bots (easy autoit ones you don't have to pay for) for a considerable period of time, and it fucks up how much gold is worth. People claim "but you don't even have to play to get the best items". Well you still need to level to 60... and you still need to earn the gold to buy those items. If you choose to buy stuff on the RMAH... so what? I just don't see how that "ruined" the game. People just need a scapegoat, kind of like how the president of the USA is to everyone.
I think it simply could have been handled by making things account bound once you equip, or making the highest end items bind to account/character, such as all level 60 legendary or even just legendary in general. That way the market doesn't CONTINUE to get flooded, as things are used up. (such as with World of Warcraft and other games with successful auction houses) But as it is now, every single item that goes up has the potential to be sold again at some point, and the pool of items just gets larger and larger as more drops and gets discovered... which hurts gold even more because as there are more and more items, the gold is worth less and less. Simple Supply and Demand people... Have to bind items... just have to. Things HAVE to get used up.
Logged in for the first time in 6 months to post this response,
"No shit?"
^ The director has admitted what many of us have been saying this whole time. Makes me want to dredge up all of those debates with the fanbois. The AH was moronic.
I think introducing socketed armor, runes back from d2, and rune word crafting would help in making more than one currency in the game. That was a big part in d2 in crafting and trading plus it was fun to do. Might have to wait for expansion for this to come in though *WINK WINK*
Also there is the option for you to play D3 however you want - with or without AH
true...to a point.
I play the game without buying stuff from AH or even getting stuff for free from friends.
Yet drop rates are influenced by AH, since increasing drop rates would lead to flooding the AH with overpowered gear (which already happens)...and that affects my gameplay too.
Crafting too is affected by AH, since people can buy essences and recipes they otherwise would have to find by actually playing Blizz had to try to tune its efficiency, which affects also my gameplay.
That's why I think a "no AH" type of character would help, since it will reduce balancing issues and help game longevity.
I'd play that way and you could play your way, both me and you will be happy.
There was actually a heck of a lot more to that post, but I left out those points. The problem is that the core game-play mechanic of Diablo III, which is loot drops that you worked hard to obtain, is completely overshadowed by the shortcut that is the AH. The AH is actually part of a whole array of problems that exist in the design of Diablo III, but it is one of the more significant ones.
Now, I admit that I am no game designer and I am certainly no business expert either, but from a gaming stand point, I think that there is some sort of potential in a Diablo 3.5, so to speak. Make the game over again, without all the mistakes, take away the AH, give us ladders, offline play, better loot tables, all that good stuff, and put it into a brand new game that won't affect the current one in any way and make people start over again. It can easily be made into a digital download that is free to anyone who has purchased Diablo III. Allow people to have access to the map making tools, allow us to make custom maps, events, and allow the game to be compatible with mods made by the community.
Call me psycho, but I think it could work if done right.
It was actually bashiok that said this, not jay
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
However, Jay later (much later) said this was not true
http://www.diablofans.com/news/1236-diablo-iii-developer-amaa-update-on-auction-house-commodity-sales-working-on-us-servers-account-security-alert-linkedin/
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I'm sorry, I don't remember saying that and if I did then I was drunk and/or wrong. We tuned and balanced the game without the auction house, as there weren't enough people internally using it to test it against gameplay, so we didn't design anything for it.
The issue isn't the AH, it's the complete and utter lack of item sinks. He (okay they, but I'm pinning this on him solely based on his PvP "blog") Early on in the closed beta, your average crafting recipe had one or two fixed range stats, then a couple of random rolls. Not ALL random rolls. You know, useful crafting. Somehow, that changed. During one Blizzcon, they mentioned that soulbound gear would only be a few items at level 60. It shipped w/ ZERO bound gear whatsoever.
Everything this guy says is utter crap. He's completely short-sighted and confused as to what problems the AH caused and what was caused by his own incompetence. Yeah, look at your average public game in D2. Seems like a well run, stable economy, right? Seriously? PLAY YOUR OWN GAMES AND LOOK AT THE RESULTS. Idiot.
Ever since D3 came out, while farming Inferno Act 3, I would regularly sell direct upgrades for my character since I prioritized keeping the money rather then trying to deck out my character. I was definitely getting good drops back then. Based on my PayPal I believe it's somewhere along the lines of $3500 from May through July of mostly self found gear. I did began flipping items pretty regularly sometime after 1.0.4 hit though, as somewhere in the process of altering loot the drop chance went up too much, while quality went down quite a bit. In terms of the "drop quality AND quantity", I actually liked where it was at release, but many people complained about all sorts of things.
As of now, loot quality was nerfed multiple times, to the point where farming is simply inefficient compared to flipping. Even though I still play D3, I think I've only found one $10 item (lacunis) this entire month. Pretty terrible from a loot perspective, though I still have fun playing.
-----
At this point, I really don't think it's possible to save the softcore economy. It's simply broken, and still without a loot sink of any sort for decent items. Personally, I'd like to see a self-found ladder server, preferably cross region for a larger player base (sort of like PTRs).
I don't think the AH itself is a bad idea, as it simply simplifies trading. So if trading is allowed in the game, I feel like the AH also has a spot in the game. However, I think a no-trade and no-AH ladder that resets regularly (maybe every 1-2 months) would be both fun and exciting, simply to see how many people manage to do MP10 on SELF-found gear in that time frame.
I'm hoping Blizzard adds in some sort of separate server with a Ladder. While I'd appreciate ANY ladder system, I do wish they put in a self-found only one.
tally the people who sold items and people who bought items OMG im a genius
From Normal to Hell difficulties there's no AR and you don't need it but then you'd get to Inferno and you'd hit a brick wall because you needed >300AR to even farm A1 but how were you going to get AR when it only came from drops in Inferno? Many players quit at A1 Inferno because of this and the few that progressed did it thanks to trading. If you take away trading then the game dies there at A1 Inferno.
In order for trading to be less relevant the average quality of gear needs to be raised. However there are far too few stats that we rely on so if they just raise the quality and leave everything else alone then all items start looking alike. That's why they need to (and are going to) add more good stats so that gear can still be diverse while being better on average.
This was made just for the likes of you, my friend:
http://www.gamefront.com/dumb-things-fanboys-say-companies-exist-to-make-money/
A Highly Efficient Market is the problem -
the excitement of real trading is the rush of exploiting market inefficiencies and discrepancies of valuation...but when you are sitting there ready to snipe the next mispriced item along with 10000 other players, its no fun. And because of these people, items will converge to a so-called agreed gold value measurable only by statistics and therefore unenjoyable. Some of us out there get paid six digit salaries to do this as their day job...
There is a place for the convenience of AH because gear progression for your average player is difficult (not impossible) to progress through inferno without trading. But it should not be the venue to trade items at the higher end because gold is not the appropriate measure of value for the best items.
My suggestion:
- Add a gold-cap on AH trades (just like the RMAH).
- Create "live-auction chat rooms" with a much higher cap.
- Make gold decay per-account at 10% per week.
These 3 aspects will create a much more exciting endgame trading experience, and the weekly decay cycle will ensure awesome amounts of activity in these chat rooms. The dual system will force rich players to part ways with their "good" items if they really need that cash for the next purchase...these items are depreciating anyway.
This way noone will sit on their gold or sit on their items.
Quadbox MP7 Ubers Video Thread
My Youtube Channel
I decided to play without buying items from AH (gold or real) and never regretted it.
Hope they find a solution since AH influence on items and drop rates unfortunately affect also my gaming experience.
Maybe they should add a different category: normal, hardcore and "no AH" characters.
Or offline SP, but that's a dream....
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/90668-jay-wilson-auction-houses-really-hurt-game/page__st__20__p__1148837#entry1148837
There is an incredible flaw in the gear design when the final difficulty requires a stat that it only available from drops in that difficulty. They decided to nerf Inferno so that AR isn't really needed much on MP0 but the real problem is still gear progression. Stats should be offered before the content that requires them so that you have a clear progression path that doesn't involve the AH while still allowing the content to be hard if you're undergeared. One of the first patches made it possible for gear to drop at very low rates a few acts earlier so Inferno gear could drop in Hell but it was only a few % chance of dropping on top of the extremely low chances of it being any good so it was still more beneficial to just suicide repeatedly in A1 Inferno for better odds of getting >=ilvl 61 gear.
When they rebalance gear again (in 1.0.9?) I hope that they retune the MP levels so that the lowest MP is similar to the original difficulties but that they also retune items so that you naturally find small amounts of AR towards the end of Hell difficulty.
You simply can not release a online game these days with no built in trading tool. It's not the AH that is to blame.
Think back to the D2 days. Instead of trading ingame, you had to go to external websites which used their own made up currency. You had the same functions, just outside the game and therefore only available to those who realy searched for it. But they were there all the same.
Back in D2, you also tried to generate wealth instead of being excized about the 5th, 10th or 100th legendary shako you found. You tradet it for runes too, which were the currency back in D2.
Ppl who blame the state of D3 on the AH are deluding themself into thinking that D2 was much different. It was not.
That's realy just the most stupid thing ever. Gold is only a currency, If you remove it, the players will find another one. It would just be more complicated.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
The AH never was a mistake. Jay Wilson, as immature and dubious as his character was, was the mistake.
Also speaking of character, you sir have almost as many posts here as you have elite kills, I don't even know why I replied to a post as vacuous as yours.
And all those people hailing that D2 was the bee's knees - I'm sorry it isn't, it was good for a time when people were just starting to discover there are others on the internet. The hierarchy from Pgems to Uniques to unattainable rares/crafts/runes and gamebreaking runewords was archaic and ungratifying - nevermind the very few classes that can do hell decently with self-found. If you are still so blind, that game is still there with the open arms of powerleveling hammerdinbots waiting just for you.
Also there is the option for you to play D3 however you want - with or without AH - so if you want to wallow in your morally superior mediocrity the world doesn't care (neither does it care about all your awesome BOAs)
Quadbox MP7 Ubers Video Thread
My Youtube Channel
I think it simply could have been handled by making things account bound once you equip, or making the highest end items bind to account/character, such as all level 60 legendary or even just legendary in general. That way the market doesn't CONTINUE to get flooded, as things are used up. (such as with World of Warcraft and other games with successful auction houses) But as it is now, every single item that goes up has the potential to be sold again at some point, and the pool of items just gets larger and larger as more drops and gets discovered... which hurts gold even more because as there are more and more items, the gold is worth less and less. Simple Supply and Demand people... Have to bind items... just have to. Things HAVE to get used up.
^ The director has admitted what many of us have been saying this whole time. Makes me want to dredge up all of those debates with the fanbois. The AH was moronic.
true...to a point.
I play the game without buying stuff from AH or even getting stuff for free from friends.
Yet drop rates are influenced by AH, since increasing drop rates would lead to flooding the AH with overpowered gear (which already happens)...and that affects my gameplay too.
Crafting too is affected by AH, since people can buy essences and recipes they otherwise would have to find by actually playing Blizz had to try to tune its efficiency, which affects also my gameplay.
That's why I think a "no AH" type of character would help, since it will reduce balancing issues and help game longevity.
I'd play that way and you could play your way, both me and you will be happy.