Well I never said anything about not having the AH at all. All I said that I dont want to rely on the AH to get drops that were not meant to be that rare in the first place. I never said that the D2 system is perfect - yes we know have a stable way to trade, less scams and all, but surely a game in 2012 compared to 2000 should have made those improvements? Isn't Diablo, or most ARPG, loot games? carrot and stick to the core? with no new skills to earn past lvl 60 and only the item grind to keep things going for the moment, is the current "carrot" for players is for them to learn to flip or snipe items on the AH? I also never said about finding ALL the gear on my own.
What if the drop rates are increased? are you afraid that no one will use the AH anymore? Nope, people would still want to use the AH to find the items that RNG fails to give them.. as I said that near-perfect roll or missing set item. Everyone benefits, prices get more stable as ppl start to post more gear that is found on the AH. The perfect gears are still pricey, and the odds of getting them in-game are still ridiculously low due to random stats. So, what harm will raising the drop rates do?
Before people say that I am raging and ask me to stop being emo or taking things out of my arse, I am still playing the game with a passion. Its just that the game could be so much more.
I appreciate you responding in a way that does, in fact, further discussion. I'm glad the mods cleaned up the thread a bit, there were some posts which were clearly flamebait and not fostering any form of actual discussion on the topic.
So a few thoughts I have for you.
First, I don't think D3 loot is perfect, at all. I've said it in a few other threads but in my opinion there are anywhere around five to six property "categories" that are simply worthless in the game as it stands:
Life on Kill (Life on Hit, Life/Sec, Life Leech are all vastly superior, Health Globe bonus is iffy)
All three hybrid stats (str/dex, str/int, and dex/int - all are worthless because we all want str/vit, dex/vit, int/vit instead)
Indestructible (repairs, as they stand, are not remotely prohibitive so this property has very little actual value)
Thorns (a very niche property)
If you simply removed them it would certainly increase the quality of loot. Better yet replace it with things that people would be more interested in. The whole loot system doesn't have to be blown up, the AH doesn't have to be removed. My point is that every affix should be desireable. Sure IAS may not be as good as crit, but you don't see IAS and think "jesus, that's an atrocious stat, now my item is gone to shit!" You think more along the lines of "well, it's not crit, but it still has some good value to me, even if it's not perfect!" And that's the ONLY major problem with loot as it stands - there are stats you can roll which are just so confoundedly useless in the current game that they instantly devalue your gear.
Secondly, Diablo 3 is a game that was released in 2012 and it SHOULD be modernized. I look at the GAH as a huge undertaking to bring the trading economy in D2 into the 21st century. It may not be perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. It allows multi-tasking (which is huge for anyone who realizes exactly how many hours they spent orchestrating trades in D2), it allows gold to be the single currency (having pSkulls, SoJs and rare runes all be currency was annoying at best, confusing at worst), and it helps curb inflation by taking 15% of each sale. It has its positives and it simply irks me that the anti-AH crowd refuses to talk about the positive things and only wants to talk about the negative things - D2 had a pretty fucked-up economy and I think the D3 team made a very good decision to let that be the past and try to move on.
Thirdly the pushback you see from myself and others is not because we're "afraid" that people won't use the AH. Honestly, I don't buy that much on the AH, I do a hell of a lot more selling than buying, and therefore all the AH is for me is a way to make a big gold pile really. However, as Bilge has pointed out, it's simple supply and demand. I've found two pair of Frostburn Gauntlets since 1.0.4. I've only been able to unload one pair and that was barely for double the price of a Fiery Brimstone. This is an example of exactly what happens when things become too common. Now, all of a sudden I'm not even happy to see orange text that says [Gloves]. By making things too common you kill the psychological effect of finding something that you don't see every day. Making things too rare has the opposite effect of people feeling beaten down.
If you look at the AH there's very little case to be made for things being "too rare." Whether you like it or not the AH is our best snapshot as to what items are being exchanged. There are a LOT of items being exchanged. These items didn't come into play for any reason other than the sheer number of people finding them. Making them more common doesn't make much sense or accomplish anything other than shifting where the bell curve lies. Now we could discuss the merits of such a shift in the curve, but this disucssion seems to not be going in that direction so I'm not sure how to address that bit.
Lastly, there's still the point that people who are claiming to go weeks and weeks without a saleable item clearly have issues with identifying what can and will sell. Either they define "good" as an item that's worth 50 million, or more, gold and have set their expectations so high that they are always going to be met with failure. Or, more likely, they simply don't have any idea how to pick up on a decent item. I am guilty of being in the second group just as much as anyone else, but I have slowly learned to fix my erroneous ways and I'm making a ton of gold on the AH at this point. As an example, a pair of pants which I was convinced was maybe worth 50k sold for almost 1.5 million. I had a ring which I thought was worth maybe 2-3 million which sold for 15 million.
The point is that undervaluing your assets is the quickest way to convince yoursel that nothing good drops. I've learned this the "hard way" so to speak as I'm sure I've left millions of gold at the vendor. It's an acquired skill, but if you truly think you're not getting anything good to drop then I can assure you that it's a skill which you have not yet acquired. Hell, right now I have a pair of boots up which are entirely lackluster but still have a 20k bid on them. So, after the AH cut, I still have taken the vendor value and increased it by 709%. It's not a "home run" item, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the only way to make money is from the home runs. The singles, doubles, triples, and even the walks, all count. After all, when that guy gets up and hits a home run you want the bases loaded, don't you?
Saying that D2 functioned "perfectly" is just as ridiculous.
Which of course I never said, but ok.
Within the context of this thread (loot, D3 AH vs D2 trading), you very much DID say that.
Nope, I very much DID NOT. I said it was better, I never said it was perfect. I don't even know what "perfect" would look like here. All I do know is that D3 is about buying gear from the AH, not about finding gear to use, and that sucks.
Why you would assume that I'm veering from the context of this thread without explicitly indicating so is beyond me. However, you did pointedly say that loot in D2 was perfect - something that is provably untrue. Your exact words were that the game "functioned perfectly well without the AH."
While the expression "perfectly well" can be interpreted literally to mean "could be no better", that is not always how the expression is used. I did not mean it that way. I meant that, in contrast, it was a better system because it did not allow for the sort of issues D3 is having. It had its own issues, yes, but that in no way validates the design of D3. They are different, and as such, have their own set of problems. I would rather have the problems in D2 in this regard.
And I stand by my position that said words are not only misleading but amusingly silly. The hundreds of Isenheart's Breastplates I left on the ground agree with me.
I fully respect the maxim of not breaking what isn't broken, but in order to invoke that (which you are clearly trying to do) the obvious first step is that nothing is broken, and that simply isn't true. Trading, for people who wanted to do it, was tedious in D2.
No, I do not think D2 was perfect; I think it was fun, more fun than D3. Yes, to improve you have to change, fine. They wanted a centralized AH... but did not appreciate the consequences. I don't think it was a stupid idea, I liked the idea very much initially. However, it has turned this game into a gold farming quest, which sucks.
People were constantly scammed.
People are constantly scammed in D3. Let's talk again about learning from mistakes; the sort of scams happening in D3 aren't possible in WoW. How did they miss that?
As to the rest of what you said... it just doesn't matter. You are the one who turned this into a D3 v D2 debate. I don't care, we can leave D2 out of it entirely. The fact is that D3, in its current form, is simply not a game which is fun to play for large periods of time... for me... and many, many other people. If you like it, that's awesome; I wish I did.
However, I don't enjoy farming the same damn Act III with almost no randomization for 40 hours just to find one item that's worth anything so that I can sell it on the AH and possibly *buy* another piece of gear for myself. That is not a fun design. They didn't think this game through, "beta testing" was a friggin' joke, and now they're scrambling.
Maybe it's just my tastes that have changed over time. Perhaps if I jumped into D2 again I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did then. There are things I just plain don't like (lack of randomization, cartoonish art being top among them), but it could be that my taste in games has just matured. However, I'm not the only one that has these issues with D3, far from it.
Well, I wish them luck, but I think this game needs a large revamp to be successful in the long run, and that is not likely to occur.
My point is that every affix should be desireable. Sure IAS may not be as good as crit, but you don't see IAS and think "jesus, that's an atrocious stat, now my item is gone to shit!" You think more along the lines of "well, it's not crit, but it still has some good value to me, even if it's not perfect!" And that's the ONLY major problem with loot as it stands - there are stats you can roll which are just so confoundedly useless in the current game that they instantly devalue your gear.
The point is that undervaluing your assets is the quickest way to convince yoursel that nothing good drops. I've learned this the "hard way" so to speak as I'm sure I've left millions of gold at the vendor. It's an acquired skill, but if you truly think you're not getting anything good to drop then I can assure you that it's a skill which you have not yet acquired. Hell, right now I have a pair of boots up which are entirely lackluster but still have a 20k bid on them. So, after the AH cut, I still have taken the vendor value and increased it by 709%. It's not a "home run" item, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the only way to make money is from the home runs. The singles, doubles, triples, and even the walks, all count. After all, when that guy gets up and hits a home run you want the bases loaded, don't you?
I agree with you. I'm not making a case for ever item to be epic and that the legendary drop rates need to be increased. I'm making a case for loot to have less of a margin of error and thus more drops being viable beyond the need to find "the home run". To use the baseball analogy, I want a single play - I love single plays. And I do sell items on the AH for less than 200k on a regular basis. I have to wade through piles and piles of garbage to get that. That pile of garbage needs to be significantly reduced. It can be, very easily. But the design methodology has to support it and from the lack of direction from Blizzard to that point, I'm starting to wonder if they don't care and want it to be the way it is. On purpose. I.E. - use the RMAH.
Life on Kill (Life on Hit, Life/Sec, Life Leech are all vastly superior, Health Globe bonus is iffy)
All three hybrid stats (str/dex, str/int, and dex/int - all are worthless because we all want str/vit, dex/vit, int/vit instead)
Indestructible (repairs, as they stand, are not remotely prohibitive so this property has very little actual value)
Thorns (a very niche property)
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
I would say reduced CC effects and thorns are pretty worthless though. That's not the loot problem though. The loot problem is that most ilvl63 items only roll main stats of about 30 when 200-300 is the max.
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
What is useful while leveling is irrelevant; leveling is brain-dead easy.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
What works for killing large packs of white mobs is not all that relevant either; white mobs are easy. You need life while fighting elites, not after killing them. Life after kill is a worthless stat, and certainly not comparable in any way to LoH.
I'd have no problem finding it on pre-60 gear, but on inferno gear? No thanks.
Life on Kill (Life on Hit, Life/Sec, Life Leech are all vastly superior, Health Globe bonus is iffy)
All three hybrid stats (str/dex, str/int, and dex/int - all are worthless because we all want str/vit, dex/vit, int/vit instead)
Indestructible (repairs, as they stand, are not remotely prohibitive so this property has very little actual value)
Thorns (a very niche property)
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
I would say reduced CC effects and thorns are pretty worthless though. That's not the loot problem though. The loot problem is that most ilvl63 items only roll main stats of about 30 when 200-300 is the max.
I'll make two points. Well, just one. BigEd summed up my feelings on Life on Kill perfectly. At best you are arguing that it's a niche property. At worst it's a waste of everyone's time. To me that's a sign that it needs to be re-thought.
Look through the list of properties you can roll on iLvl 63 legs. Note that the 30 to dex/int/str/vit are coming from the HYBRID stats. I do not see any single stat rolls (just str, just int, just dex, just vit) which are that low. But the hybrid stat properties go as low as 20 (Severe, for example). It seems that for a single stat property the lowest roll is 72. That may be a bit low, but it's nowhere near as low as 20.
The hybrid stats are what you are seeing as the problem. The ones that aren't a primary-vitality combo NEED to go because they ARE responsible for shitting up our gear. Str-Dex, Str-Int, and Dex-Int hybrid properties add absolutely nothing to our gear. Half of their itemization is outright wasted every time they show up which means that, essentially, you're getting half a roll to begin with. That's foolish and stupid. At least when you roll primary-vitality properties you can get some use out of the vitality and you're not completely wasting half of the stats.
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
What is useful while leveling is irrelevant; leveling is brain-dead easy.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
What works for killing large packs of white mobs is not all that relevant either; white mobs are easy. You need life while fighting elites, not after killing them. Life after kill is a worthless stat, and certainly not comparable in any way to LoH.
I'd have no problem finding it on pre-60 gear, but on inferno gear? No thanks.
Stop talking in absolutes.
How is it worthless if I find it useful?
I can play more recklessly with having a bit of life on kill so it speeds up my runs. That itself is worthwhile right there. I don't care if you think whites are worthless. The only thing I care about is time spent during a run and that makes killing whites the most important thing for me. Elites die in under 5 seconds and the majority of time is spent inbetween packs and killing trash.
You really need to stop talking like everyone is at your gear level. Elites die quickly for me so no... I don't need healing on elites like you claim as a 100% absolute fact. Think outside your bubble please.
//edit: 2 lines got combined not making any since.
Life on Kill (Life on Hit, Life/Sec, Life Leech are all vastly superior, Health Globe bonus is iffy)
All three hybrid stats (str/dex, str/int, and dex/int - all are worthless because we all want str/vit, dex/vit, int/vit instead)
Indestructible (repairs, as they stand, are not remotely prohibitive so this property has very little actual value)
Thorns (a very niche property)
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
I would say reduced CC effects and thorns are pretty worthless though. That's not the loot problem though. The loot problem is that most ilvl63 items only roll main stats of about 30 when 200-300 is the max.
I'll make two points. Well, just one. BigEd summed up my feelings on Life on Kill perfectly. At best you are arguing that it's a niche property. At worst it's a waste of everyone's time. To me that's a sign that it needs to be re-thought.
Look through the list of properties you can roll on iLvl 63 legs. Note that the 30 to dex/int/str/vit are coming from the HYBRID stats. I do not see any single stat rolls (just str, just int, just dex, just vit) which are that low. But the hybrid stat properties go as low as 20 (Severe, for example). It seems that for a single stat property the lowest roll is 72. That may be a bit low, but it's nowhere near as low as 20.
The hybrid stats are what you are seeing as the problem. The ones that aren't a primary-vitality combo NEED to go because they ARE responsible for shitting up our gear. Str-Dex, Str-Int, and Dex-Int hybrid properties add absolutely nothing to our gear. Half of their itemization is outright wasted every time they show up which means that, essentially, you're getting half a roll to begin with. That's foolish and stupid.
Never noticed that, thanks. Yeah... the floor on those combo stats need improved then.
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
What is useful while leveling is irrelevant; leveling is brain-dead easy.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
What works for killing large packs of white mobs is not all that relevant either; white mobs are easy. You need life while fighting elites, not after killing them. Life after kill is a worthless stat, and certainly not comparable in any way to LoH.
I'd have no problem finding it on pre-60 gear, but on inferno gear? No thanks.
Stop talking in absolutes.
How is it worthless if I find it useful?
I can play more recklessly with having a bit of life on kill so it speeds up my runs. That itself is worthwhile right there. I don't care if you think whites are worthless. The only thing I care about is time spent during a run and that makes killing whites the most important thing for me. Elites die in under 5 seconds and the majority of time is spent inbetween packs and killing elites.
You really need to stop talking like everyone is at your gear level. Elites die quickly for me so no... I don't need healing on elites like you claim as a 100% absolute fact. Think outside your bubble please.
//edit: 2 lines got combined not making any since.
My gear level is sufficient for me to stomp all over Act III without dying, pre-patch, so I'm not sure what you mean. It is an objectively worthless stat, as the AH reflects (i.e., people won't pay for it).
You said it yourself; you find it a slight nice to have stat, but you hardly need it. No one is looking for LAK in comparison to other more valuable stats. Sure it's better than no stat in that slot at all, but in comparison to <main stat>, IAS, crit/crit damage, etc., it is junk.
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
What is useful while leveling is irrelevant; leveling is brain-dead easy.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
What works for killing large packs of white mobs is not all that relevant either; white mobs are easy. You need life while fighting elites, not after killing them. Life after kill is a worthless stat, and certainly not comparable in any way to LoH.
I'd have no problem finding it on pre-60 gear, but on inferno gear? No thanks.
Stop talking in absolutes.
How is it worthless if I find it useful?
I can play more recklessly with having a bit of life on kill so it speeds up my runs. That itself is worthwhile right there. I don't care if you think whites are worthless. The only thing I care about is time spent during a run and that makes killing whites the most important thing for me. Elites die in under 5 seconds and the majority of time is spent inbetween packs and killing elites.
You really need to stop talking like everyone is at your gear level. Elites die quickly for me so no... I don't need healing on elites like you claim as a 100% absolute fact. Think outside your bubble please.
//edit: 2 lines got combined not making any since.
My gear level is sufficient for me to stomp all over Act III without dying, pre-patch, so I'm not sure what you mean. It is an objectively worthless stat, as the AH reflects (i.e., people won't pay for it).
You said it yourself; you find it a slight nice to have stat, but you hardly need it. No one is looking for LAK in comparison to other more valuable stats. It is a garbage stat of little value.
You didn't take my advice.
No one?? Really? I guess I don't count when I was picking out my ring then. It's cheap because not everyone wants it. It's not a good stat at normal gear levels.
You are taking your personal characters and your personal gear and saying, "It's worthless for me so therefore it's worthless for everyone".
Take me for example, I'm a WD (a class you haven't even played) and my gear lacks regen + LoH + Lifesteal (unless I'm not using my MF weapon at the time). I only have 1 skill that gives me back a bit of health (and it's a very low amount). For ME, the stat is very useful. LoH does not scale well with the skills I use so I would actually prefer life on kill compared to LoH on a ring. 500 is enough to satisfy all of my health needs. Since I kill 5-10 mobs with 1 cast of zombie bears, I get healed up to full just by having 500 Life on Kill when I cast it.
Why is it cheap? Because most people don't destroy mobs in 1 hit so LoH is much better for them. It's not useful for most people, I'll agree with you there.
Why is it cheap? Because most people don't destroy mobs in 1 hit so LoH is much better for them. It's not useful for most people, I'll agree with you there.
And that's exactly what I said, so I don't think we disagree:
You said it yourself; you find it a slight nice to have stat, but you hardly need it. No one is looking for LAK in comparison to other more valuable stats. Sure it's better than no stat in that slot at all, but in comparison to <main stat>, IAS, crit/crit damage, etc., it is junk.
I see what you mean though, I think I was misleading in the way I came across. I didn't mean to say it is worthless in and of itself, it is not a useful stat in comparison to others, which really hurts is value.
Sure, I'll take some "+10k HP on health globe", it will make my life a tiny bit easier, but I don't need it, so I don't look for it. It's not worthless in absolute terms, but it is just a "nice to have", something I could live without and be just fine. I can't live without vit, all res, or str, or crit.
It's just not a good or desirable stat to the vast majority of players. It is worthless in terms of how much gold you can get for it. It is marginally useful in practice if you can afford the absence of another, more beneficial stat.
Explain this to me, I am at 300+ MF and have my 4th NV, 9 out 10 time when I kill the elite to get my 5th NV it only drop blues, why do the packs only drop 4 gear items, why not 1 to 10 or more? why do I get rare ilvl 50's in Inferno?
Because they decided that the D2 model, where you could get level 10 drops from the end bosses in the hardest difficulty level, was too punishing, so they changed it in D3 and made the lowest level endgame drops much higher level?
Great to see some civil discussions going on. If I have stepped on anyone's toes, I do apologise but I guess all of us here just want D3 to be the better game than what it is now, and we each have our opinions on it.
Well if orange/green drops were more common, I dont think it will kill the psychological effect or euphoria of seeing one drop. I dont think people are asking for 1 orange/green every elite pack, but surely 1 out of 20 is not that bad a return, given that the orange/set item may not have the best roll after identifying them? Selling 1 item for a few hundred thousand gold on the AH should be A LOT of gold, especially if you were new to the game. Heck, that item wld only sell for a ard 3k gold in-game to the nearest vendor.
Even though the prices for items on the AH has dropped, and it does take maybe 2 million gold only to effectively equip one hero for inferno, giving the players a better chance in finding their own gear helps in:
1) players do not post every other 'good gear' on the AH. There are thousands and thousands of items that are not being sold on the AH. By increasing drops, players should only post up items that are really worth it in response - a rare with nice rolls, or a orange/green item with good rolls n random affixes. It becomes more streamlined due to the curbing of item floods. If there comes a day when I want to go on the AH, it would be like what I said before, where perhaps I am missing that last piece of a set, or I feel I have saved up enough gold to get that orange item with great rolls for an upgrade, however slight it might be. At the moment, the hundreds of millions of gold some of the items cost is just crazy inflation, and if one doesnt 'play the AH' well, they are all impossible to afford. There's an achievement in the game for picking up 100million gold. Yet, we do not have an achievement for selling 100 million worth of items on the AH. I dont think blizz anticipated the crazy gold prices on some of the items that have been posted up on the AH.
2) more good items also allows people to play with their alts more. Most of us here just farm with a single hero, not paying much attention to others. Yes, playing time is a factor as we do not have time to keep playing all the different heroes, but increasing the rate of drops raises the incentive in playing something different. "oh I have 3 pieces of the tal rasha set and the 4th just dropped! time to go back to my wiz and give it a try! oh maybe i should go on the AH n get that amulet that i am missing too to complete the set!"
3) more item/gold sinks in-game are needed to make sure that the increase of items is not wasted. The blacksmith was supposed to do the task, but the scarcity of plans are stopping many from breaking down their items. crafting can easily burn through a few million in a single session just to get a good roll, not to just sell on the AH, but to equip on your hero or alts. I have thousands of crafting materials and tomes just sitting there on alts doing nothing as I have nothing nice to craft. Other mechanics like adding sockets or an affix to 4-5 affix rares would also see many people burn through gold in-game rather than on the AH.
The AH is a great, centralized way of trading, but like some have said, it could and should be better, just like D3 itself. Some quotes about the AH from wyatt and jay that the game was not meant to played so much with the auction house in mind, and this was way back before 1.03 hit.:
Wyatt: "The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House." Jay: "we tuned and balanced the game without the auction house,"
2) more good items also allows people to play with their alts more. Most of us here just farm with a single hero, not paying much attention to others. Yes, playing time is a factor as we do not have time to keep playing all the different heroes, but increasing the rate of drops raises the incentive in playing something different. "oh I have 3 pieces of the tal rasha set and the 4th just dropped! time to go back to my wiz and give it a try! oh maybe i should go on the AH n get that amulet that i am missing too to complete the set!"
People think they can outpace inflation, and get better deals on the AH. I'll sell that amulet, and then when I want it for the wizard, I'll buy it again.
The loot system in D3 is broken, hands down. I'm the biggest Diablo fan there is, for God's sake I still have D2 on my PC and played it from time to time until D3 was released. I NEVER got tired of playing it. But, after now playing D3 every day since release, the bottom line is I am now bored as hell with no reason to want to keep playing. I have not received ONE legendary or set item drop since the 1.0.4 patch. Not one! Now, my RL buddy who also plays every day, gets at LEAST one Legendary pretty much every night. In the days since the 1.0.4 patch, he has outfitted his Barb with 4 legendaries which he has equipped and is now up to 90k damage. He has ALSO equipped his brother's Monk with 3 Legendaries and 1 Set Item in the same time period. During the same time period (and I'll say this again for good measure), I have NOT HAD ONE legendary or set item drop. I am still stuck at 45-50k damage.
The point of the matter is that with the loot system in D3 the way it is, people can only farm Act 3 so many times for weeks on end without getting ANY drops whatsoever to progress their character without getting bored of the game. If I knew that at least once per week I'd get an item that I'd say "ooooohhh" about, then no doubt I'd want to keep playing, but alas that's not what has happened. Now, I'm also not sure how my RL buddy can get a legendary drop pretty much every day, but I'm starting to honestly think that some characters have an inate ablility to generate more good drops than others. I'd hate to think how many thousands of drops I've seen over the last few weeks, but when I compare what I've looted to what my buddy has looted, I can't help but think "WTF?".
I got a spare crib in my garage I can loan to you so you have a place to QQ in. Just don't forget to install the toddler bar.
Thanks for the gesture, but I already have one of those! lol
The people QQing about all the QQing obviously never played D2 and realized what a great game it was. Either that or a lot of people are just in denial about D3. Heck maybe it is my fault for hoping that D3 would be even half of what D2 was.
Dude, I played D2 even before LoD. It's 11 years old ! Is it a good game? Yeah. High replay value? Yeah. Am I sick and tired of playing it over an 11 year span? Yeah. D3 is what it is. They aren't going to make it more like D2. If you are fed up with D3's shortcomings, and want the game to be more like Diablo 2, then play D2. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go farm for awesome loot in Act 1 Inferno while my child starves in the other room. Gotta have my priorities.
Thanks for the gesture, but I already have one of those! lol
The people QQing about all the QQing obviously never played D2 and realized what a great game it was. Either that or a lot of people are just in denial about D3. Heck maybe it is my fault for hoping that D3 would be even half of what D2 was.
Have you ever played D1? I find I can come back to D1 and play for a couple days much easier than picking up D2. Personal preference is personal preference. Here's a thought, I played D1 when I was in my early teens, and I bet a lot Diablo 2.5 people played D2 in their teens. Nostalgia at its best nothing will beat the game you played when you were younger, we grow, and we change, the demographics of games change. That's just how it is.
For the record I get bored of D2 many times and quit for extended periods of time just to play and do it all over again. It is what it as and every patch so far has improved the game just like what happened in D2.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
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I appreciate you responding in a way that does, in fact, further discussion. I'm glad the mods cleaned up the thread a bit, there were some posts which were clearly flamebait and not fostering any form of actual discussion on the topic.
So a few thoughts I have for you.
First, I don't think D3 loot is perfect, at all. I've said it in a few other threads but in my opinion there are anywhere around five to six property "categories" that are simply worthless in the game as it stands:
Life on Kill (Life on Hit, Life/Sec, Life Leech are all vastly superior, Health Globe bonus is iffy)
All three hybrid stats (str/dex, str/int, and dex/int - all are worthless because we all want str/vit, dex/vit, int/vit instead)
Indestructible (repairs, as they stand, are not remotely prohibitive so this property has very little actual value)
Thorns (a very niche property)
If you simply removed them it would certainly increase the quality of loot. Better yet replace it with things that people would be more interested in. The whole loot system doesn't have to be blown up, the AH doesn't have to be removed. My point is that every affix should be desireable. Sure IAS may not be as good as crit, but you don't see IAS and think "jesus, that's an atrocious stat, now my item is gone to shit!" You think more along the lines of "well, it's not crit, but it still has some good value to me, even if it's not perfect!" And that's the ONLY major problem with loot as it stands - there are stats you can roll which are just so confoundedly useless in the current game that they instantly devalue your gear.
Secondly, Diablo 3 is a game that was released in 2012 and it SHOULD be modernized. I look at the GAH as a huge undertaking to bring the trading economy in D2 into the 21st century. It may not be perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. It allows multi-tasking (which is huge for anyone who realizes exactly how many hours they spent orchestrating trades in D2), it allows gold to be the single currency (having pSkulls, SoJs and rare runes all be currency was annoying at best, confusing at worst), and it helps curb inflation by taking 15% of each sale. It has its positives and it simply irks me that the anti-AH crowd refuses to talk about the positive things and only wants to talk about the negative things - D2 had a pretty fucked-up economy and I think the D3 team made a very good decision to let that be the past and try to move on.
Thirdly the pushback you see from myself and others is not because we're "afraid" that people won't use the AH. Honestly, I don't buy that much on the AH, I do a hell of a lot more selling than buying, and therefore all the AH is for me is a way to make a big gold pile really. However, as Bilge has pointed out, it's simple supply and demand. I've found two pair of Frostburn Gauntlets since 1.0.4. I've only been able to unload one pair and that was barely for double the price of a Fiery Brimstone. This is an example of exactly what happens when things become too common. Now, all of a sudden I'm not even happy to see orange text that says [Gloves]. By making things too common you kill the psychological effect of finding something that you don't see every day. Making things too rare has the opposite effect of people feeling beaten down.
If you look at the AH there's very little case to be made for things being "too rare." Whether you like it or not the AH is our best snapshot as to what items are being exchanged. There are a LOT of items being exchanged. These items didn't come into play for any reason other than the sheer number of people finding them. Making them more common doesn't make much sense or accomplish anything other than shifting where the bell curve lies. Now we could discuss the merits of such a shift in the curve, but this disucssion seems to not be going in that direction so I'm not sure how to address that bit.
Lastly, there's still the point that people who are claiming to go weeks and weeks without a saleable item clearly have issues with identifying what can and will sell. Either they define "good" as an item that's worth 50 million, or more, gold and have set their expectations so high that they are always going to be met with failure. Or, more likely, they simply don't have any idea how to pick up on a decent item. I am guilty of being in the second group just as much as anyone else, but I have slowly learned to fix my erroneous ways and I'm making a ton of gold on the AH at this point. As an example, a pair of pants which I was convinced was maybe worth 50k sold for almost 1.5 million. I had a ring which I thought was worth maybe 2-3 million which sold for 15 million.
The point is that undervaluing your assets is the quickest way to convince yoursel that nothing good drops. I've learned this the "hard way" so to speak as I'm sure I've left millions of gold at the vendor. It's an acquired skill, but if you truly think you're not getting anything good to drop then I can assure you that it's a skill which you have not yet acquired. Hell, right now I have a pair of boots up which are entirely lackluster but still have a 20k bid on them. So, after the AH cut, I still have taken the vendor value and increased it by 709%. It's not a "home run" item, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the only way to make money is from the home runs. The singles, doubles, triples, and even the walks, all count. After all, when that guy gets up and hits a home run you want the bases loaded, don't you?
Nope, I very much DID NOT. I said it was better, I never said it was perfect. I don't even know what "perfect" would look like here. All I do know is that D3 is about buying gear from the AH, not about finding gear to use, and that sucks.
While the expression "perfectly well" can be interpreted literally to mean "could be no better", that is not always how the expression is used. I did not mean it that way. I meant that, in contrast, it was a better system because it did not allow for the sort of issues D3 is having. It had its own issues, yes, but that in no way validates the design of D3. They are different, and as such, have their own set of problems. I would rather have the problems in D2 in this regard.
No, I do not think D2 was perfect; I think it was fun, more fun than D3. Yes, to improve you have to change, fine. They wanted a centralized AH... but did not appreciate the consequences. I don't think it was a stupid idea, I liked the idea very much initially. However, it has turned this game into a gold farming quest, which sucks.
People are constantly scammed in D3. Let's talk again about learning from mistakes; the sort of scams happening in D3 aren't possible in WoW. How did they miss that?
As to the rest of what you said... it just doesn't matter. You are the one who turned this into a D3 v D2 debate. I don't care, we can leave D2 out of it entirely. The fact is that D3, in its current form, is simply not a game which is fun to play for large periods of time... for me... and many, many other people. If you like it, that's awesome; I wish I did.
However, I don't enjoy farming the same damn Act III with almost no randomization for 40 hours just to find one item that's worth anything so that I can sell it on the AH and possibly *buy* another piece of gear for myself. That is not a fun design. They didn't think this game through, "beta testing" was a friggin' joke, and now they're scrambling.
Maybe it's just my tastes that have changed over time. Perhaps if I jumped into D2 again I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did then. There are things I just plain don't like (lack of randomization, cartoonish art being top among them), but it could be that my taste in games has just matured. However, I'm not the only one that has these issues with D3, far from it.
Well, I wish them luck, but I think this game needs a large revamp to be successful in the long run, and that is not likely to occur.
I agree with you. I'm not making a case for ever item to be epic and that the legendary drop rates need to be increased. I'm making a case for loot to have less of a margin of error and thus more drops being viable beyond the need to find "the home run". To use the baseball analogy, I want a single play - I love single plays. And I do sell items on the AH for less than 200k on a regular basis. I have to wade through piles and piles of garbage to get that. That pile of garbage needs to be significantly reduced. It can be, very easily. But the design methodology has to support it and from the lack of direction from Blizzard to that point, I'm starting to wonder if they don't care and want it to be the way it is. On purpose. I.E. - use the RMAH.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
Life on kill is not as worthless as you make it out to be.
1.) While leveling up an alt, I had a weapon with 1k+ life on kill (it was a reduced level requirement item) and it was AWESOME. I was immortal.
2.) When you reach top tiers of gear, life on kill is really neat. I find it's a useful and much cheaper version of life return for my WD. LoH is very expensive and does not work very well with zombie bears. Lifesteal only comes on my mainhand so if I want my life return, I get life on kill from rings. It heals quite a bit on trash when you're killing 5-6 monsters at a time. It allows me to run into the middle of massive mobs with 25k HP and come out without a scratch. It's not worthless.
I would say reduced CC effects and thorns are pretty worthless though. That's not the loot problem though. The loot problem is that most ilvl63 items only roll main stats of about 30 when 200-300 is the max.
What is useful while leveling is irrelevant; leveling is brain-dead easy.
What works for killing large packs of white mobs is not all that relevant either; white mobs are easy. You need life while fighting elites, not after killing them. Life after kill is a worthless stat, and certainly not comparable in any way to LoH.
I'd have no problem finding it on pre-60 gear, but on inferno gear? No thanks.
I'll make two points. Well, just one. BigEd summed up my feelings on Life on Kill perfectly. At best you are arguing that it's a niche property. At worst it's a waste of everyone's time. To me that's a sign that it needs to be re-thought.
http://d3db.com/item/i/archon-faulds
Look through the list of properties you can roll on iLvl 63 legs. Note that the 30 to dex/int/str/vit are coming from the HYBRID stats. I do not see any single stat rolls (just str, just int, just dex, just vit) which are that low. But the hybrid stat properties go as low as 20 (Severe, for example). It seems that for a single stat property the lowest roll is 72. That may be a bit low, but it's nowhere near as low as 20.
The hybrid stats are what you are seeing as the problem. The ones that aren't a primary-vitality combo NEED to go because they ARE responsible for shitting up our gear. Str-Dex, Str-Int, and Dex-Int hybrid properties add absolutely nothing to our gear. Half of their itemization is outright wasted every time they show up which means that, essentially, you're getting half a roll to begin with. That's foolish and stupid. At least when you roll primary-vitality properties you can get some use out of the vitality and you're not completely wasting half of the stats.
Stop talking in absolutes.
How is it worthless if I find it useful?
I can play more recklessly with having a bit of life on kill so it speeds up my runs. That itself is worthwhile right there. I don't care if you think whites are worthless. The only thing I care about is time spent during a run and that makes killing whites the most important thing for me. Elites die in under 5 seconds and the majority of time is spent inbetween packs and killing trash.
You really need to stop talking like everyone is at your gear level. Elites die quickly for me so no... I don't need healing on elites like you claim as a 100% absolute fact. Think outside your bubble please.
//edit: 2 lines got combined not making any since.
Never noticed that, thanks. Yeah... the floor on those combo stats need improved then.
My gear level is sufficient for me to stomp all over Act III without dying, pre-patch, so I'm not sure what you mean. It is an objectively worthless stat, as the AH reflects (i.e., people won't pay for it).
You said it yourself; you find it a slight nice to have stat, but you hardly need it. No one is looking for LAK in comparison to other more valuable stats. Sure it's better than no stat in that slot at all, but in comparison to <main stat>, IAS, crit/crit damage, etc., it is junk.
You didn't take my advice.
No one?? Really? I guess I don't count when I was picking out my ring then. It's cheap because not everyone wants it. It's not a good stat at normal gear levels.
You are taking your personal characters and your personal gear and saying, "It's worthless for me so therefore it's worthless for everyone".
Take me for example, I'm a WD (a class you haven't even played) and my gear lacks regen + LoH + Lifesteal (unless I'm not using my MF weapon at the time). I only have 1 skill that gives me back a bit of health (and it's a very low amount). For ME, the stat is very useful. LoH does not scale well with the skills I use so I would actually prefer life on kill compared to LoH on a ring. 500 is enough to satisfy all of my health needs. Since I kill 5-10 mobs with 1 cast of zombie bears, I get healed up to full just by having 500 Life on Kill when I cast it.
Why is it cheap? Because most people don't destroy mobs in 1 hit so LoH is much better for them. It's not useful for most people, I'll agree with you there.
And that's exactly what I said, so I don't think we disagree:
I see what you mean though, I think I was misleading in the way I came across. I didn't mean to say it is worthless in and of itself, it is not a useful stat in comparison to others, which really hurts is value.
Sure, I'll take some "+10k HP on health globe", it will make my life a tiny bit easier, but I don't need it, so I don't look for it. It's not worthless in absolute terms, but it is just a "nice to have", something I could live without and be just fine. I can't live without vit, all res, or str, or crit.
It's just not a good or desirable stat to the vast majority of players. It is worthless in terms of how much gold you can get for it. It is marginally useful in practice if you can afford the absence of another, more beneficial stat.
Because they decided that the D2 model, where you could get level 10 drops from the end bosses in the hardest difficulty level, was too punishing, so they changed it in D3 and made the lowest level endgame drops much higher level?
Well if orange/green drops were more common, I dont think it will kill the psychological effect or euphoria of seeing one drop. I dont think people are asking for 1 orange/green every elite pack, but surely 1 out of 20 is not that bad a return, given that the orange/set item may not have the best roll after identifying them? Selling 1 item for a few hundred thousand gold on the AH should be A LOT of gold, especially if you were new to the game. Heck, that item wld only sell for a ard 3k gold in-game to the nearest vendor.
Even though the prices for items on the AH has dropped, and it does take maybe 2 million gold only to effectively equip one hero for inferno, giving the players a better chance in finding their own gear helps in:
1) players do not post every other 'good gear' on the AH. There are thousands and thousands of items that are not being sold on the AH. By increasing drops, players should only post up items that are really worth it in response - a rare with nice rolls, or a orange/green item with good rolls n random affixes. It becomes more streamlined due to the curbing of item floods. If there comes a day when I want to go on the AH, it would be like what I said before, where perhaps I am missing that last piece of a set, or I feel I have saved up enough gold to get that orange item with great rolls for an upgrade, however slight it might be. At the moment, the hundreds of millions of gold some of the items cost is just crazy inflation, and if one doesnt 'play the AH' well, they are all impossible to afford. There's an achievement in the game for picking up 100million gold. Yet, we do not have an achievement for selling 100 million worth of items on the AH. I dont think blizz anticipated the crazy gold prices on some of the items that have been posted up on the AH.
2) more good items also allows people to play with their alts more. Most of us here just farm with a single hero, not paying much attention to others. Yes, playing time is a factor as we do not have time to keep playing all the different heroes, but increasing the rate of drops raises the incentive in playing something different. "oh I have 3 pieces of the tal rasha set and the 4th just dropped! time to go back to my wiz and give it a try! oh maybe i should go on the AH n get that amulet that i am missing too to complete the set!"
3) more item/gold sinks in-game are needed to make sure that the increase of items is not wasted. The blacksmith was supposed to do the task, but the scarcity of plans are stopping many from breaking down their items. crafting can easily burn through a few million in a single session just to get a good roll, not to just sell on the AH, but to equip on your hero or alts. I have thousands of crafting materials and tomes just sitting there on alts doing nothing as I have nothing nice to craft. Other mechanics like adding sockets or an affix to 4-5 affix rares would also see many people burn through gold in-game rather than on the AH.
The AH is a great, centralized way of trading, but like some have said, it could and should be better, just like D3 itself. Some quotes about the AH from wyatt and jay that the game was not meant to played so much with the auction house in mind, and this was way back before 1.03 hit.:
Wyatt: "The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House."
Jay: "we tuned and balanced the game without the auction house,"
People think they can outpace inflation, and get better deals on the AH. I'll sell that amulet, and then when I want it for the wizard, I'll buy it again.
The point of the matter is that with the loot system in D3 the way it is, people can only farm Act 3 so many times for weeks on end without getting ANY drops whatsoever to progress their character without getting bored of the game. If I knew that at least once per week I'd get an item that I'd say "ooooohhh" about, then no doubt I'd want to keep playing, but alas that's not what has happened. Now, I'm also not sure how my RL buddy can get a legendary drop pretty much every day, but I'm starting to honestly think that some characters have an inate ablility to generate more good drops than others. I'd hate to think how many thousands of drops I've seen over the last few weeks, but when I compare what I've looted to what my buddy has looted, I can't help but think "WTF?".
Thanks for the gesture, but I already have one of those! lol
The people QQing about all the QQing obviously never played D2 and realized what a great game it was. Either that or a lot of people are just in denial about D3. Heck maybe it is my fault for hoping that D3 would be even half of what D2 was.
Have you ever played D1? I find I can come back to D1 and play for a couple days much easier than picking up D2. Personal preference is personal preference. Here's a thought, I played D1 when I was in my early teens, and I bet a lot Diablo 2.5 people played D2 in their teens. Nostalgia at its best nothing will beat the game you played when you were younger, we grow, and we change, the demographics of games change. That's just how it is.
For the record I get bored of D2 many times and quit for extended periods of time just to play and do it all over again. It is what it as and every patch so far has improved the game just like what happened in D2.