1) "The AH takes all the fun out of finding useful items."
Also, it makes searching for items and trading easier. You want to see a chat, with lots of spam msg's? You want to see even more item/gold sellers? More scammers? No thanks.
And people who are saying this, is actually people who cant find items(casual players), even after the huge changes.
1) The AH makes trading too easy.
2) You can stop the casual player bashing, casual players actually don't play the AH, it's rather the 500h+ players who can't upgrade anymore without the AH and need to look for BiS there to proceed.
3) The original idea of this thread does does not move trades from the AH to ingame msg spams.
2) "Items found while "playing the game" are Auctioned 99.99% of the time to be able to purchase upgrades, via Auction House."
You WILL trade items. You cannot avoid it. If not your items are auctioned, your items are traded. No sense playing a game, where you find all your stuff yourself. This is the very essence of this game. There is no fun at all, if not you find stuff, to trade them and AH is a great tool.
You know, there are quite a lot of people who want to avoid trading. And for quite a lot of people the very core of the game is about finding all the stuff themselves. Actually, Blizzard has already said that they want to help making self-found a better experience (right now it's just a pain in the ass). Please refrain from making generalizations based on your play style, because it's obviously not everyone's play style.
3) "Finding your own gear and progressing at the rate of the general community is impossible. While this shouldn't necessarily be as fast, the difference is too vast."
What you are saying is "I want to play less, but get badass quick as possible". This isnt fair for those, that actually dedicates time and energy to get better. They deserve the loot and fame, just like in every other game. Again, what is the point, if not you work hard to get your loot?
Read the last sentence you quoted again. The difference is too vast. No one said that casual/self-found players should have same or even similar loot than players with 1000+ hours or credit card warriors. However, right now the gap it too big: Self-found players can't get past low MP levels unless they are exceptionally lucky; players using every aspect of the AH get bored with their 500k+ DPS cookie cutter barb because the game is a joke even on MP10.
What you are saying is "I want to play less, but get badass quick as possible". This isnt fair for those, that actually dedicates time and energy to get better. They deserve the loot and fame, just like in every other game. Again, what is the point, if not you work hard to get your loot?
You may have your opinion, but I'd say several people around here think exactly the opposite. You want to claim rewards for using the auction house, which is fine by itself. But talking about fame or glory.. Who is more of a hero, the one who slays Diablo and saves the world or the accountant who lurks the AH 24/7 and doesn't even "play" the game?
People, who like this thread, generally want the rewards shifted towards the monster killers and away from the book keepers, though it actually doesn't take much from them. See what I have to say about..
Regardless of how loot 2.0 turns out, the ah will always be to go to place to farm gear, unless we shift the end game towards finding the best gear by yourself.
And there are 100 ways to do that without making self-found loot significantly better than traded loot. Thank God that Blizzard understands this and it's the whole point of Loot 2.0.
You act, like people would take something away from you, but -under the assumption that this went live- you wouldn't really lose much. Your power level doesn't change before you first find (and equip) a pristine item. If your gear is great, then you probably wouldn't even find an upgrade despite the 20% bonus. Those who would get pristine items as upgrades had weaker gear than you before and those items won't really close that gap, only lessen it. By that, you lose relative power over players below you. Is that something, you care about?
I would go as far and say, that there is no way to give self-found items an appeal equal to those off the AH without making them inherently better by a sizeable amount. Any item that goes undiminished to the AH will probably be found by 5 million Chinese players before I first see it and therefore will be available to me much sooner via the AH. So, in effect, the Mystic doesn't even solve half the problem, whereas this idea remains brilliant.
Therefore any Skorns above 1230 DPS would have the potential to be better Pristine items. 1230, according to the game guide, is basically a middle-of-the-road Skorn. So this 20% that you claim doesn't really matter that much essentially makes an average item equal to a top-end item. That's the whole friggen problem and I don't understand why you people can't wrap your heads around this.
A PERFECTLY ROLLED "worn" Skorn isn't even an AVERAGE "pristine" Skorn (1516.8 DPS). If you think that "worn" items would remain a commodity you're kidding yourself. Why would anyone want a dogshit 1476 DPS "worn" Skorn when your average "pristine" Skorn has 30 more DPS despite being significantly more common?
Even people with top-rolled items would be pushed into pristine items pretty quickly and simple math proves this. It's particularly obvious on weapon slots just how overpowered this particular system is and if you think that making skorns roll almost 1800 DPS instead of 1500 DPS is necessary to "make self-found viable" then you have absolutely no clue why self-found isn't currently viable.
All you've accomplished is, instead of having some kind of recourse for shitty luck (the AH), making everyone 100% dependent on RNG since trading doesn't even net you "average" loot anymore. Bad luck? Too fuckin bad! You haven't made self-found more enjoyable, you've just made the alternative shittier.
I don't see how the solution isn't to fix the drops themselves, period. Ruksak's idea allows this to become a choice, instead of a mandatory playstyle, and, as a result, it's a far better system.
Therefore any Skorns above 1230 DPS would have the potential to be better Pristine items. 1230, according to the game guide, is basically a middle-of-the-road Skorn. So this 20% that you claim doesn't really matter that much essentially makes an average item equal to a top-end item. That's the whole friggen problem and I don't understand why you people can't wrap your heads around this.
A PERFECTLY ROLLED "worn" Skorn isn't even an AVERAGE "pristine" Skorn (1516.8 DPS). If you think that "worn" items would remain a commodity you're kidding yourself. Why would anyone want a dogshit 1476 DPS "worn" Skorn when your average "pristine" Skorn has 30 more DPS despite being significantly more common?
Can't get through the numbers from A-Z now, but you might have a point, that 20% on weapons is a bit much.
I don't agree however, that pristine Skorns would be much more common, quite the opposite actually. You have to understand, that the set of pristine Skorns for each player is only the set that he has found himself. For example, I may have found about 5 so far. From my personal point of view (self-found stuff + AH), there are more 1500+ dps Skorns available via the AH than from my personal adventures, even with the pristine bonus.
It's true -and quite intended by some of us- that the top end players would have to spend more time ingame (as opposed to in the menus) to get the very best gear.
What you are saying is "I want to play less, but get badass quick as possible". This isnt fair for those, that actually dedicates time and energy to get better. They deserve the loot and fame, just like in every other game. Again, what is the point, if not you work hard to get your loot?
While others:
Only the hardcore players would benefit from this because 1 of 100 Skorns might be good and the rest is crap. So "people" farming 24/7 will be able to farm even faster and the rest has to pay for their crap because it isn't fun to get 10 brimstones out of your 4h farming session after work.
Obviously, not everyone knows exactly what would happen.
Average stat gear drops are usually vendor trash at this point. They also drop 100 times more often than high-end stat drops. With those drops becoming more useful to people with lesser gear, this rewards casuals.
Really, it helps many casuals find more interesting gear while also giving hardcores the better chance at finding super weapons.
Therefore any Skorns above 1230 DPS would have the potential to be better Pristine items. 1230, according to the game guide, is basically a middle-of-the-road Skorn. So this 20% that you claim doesn't really matter that much essentially makes an average item equal to a top-end item. That's the whole friggen problem and I don't understand why you people can't wrap your heads around this.
Shaggy, I don't think you read the whole post well.
First of all, I said the % increase is TBD, I just used 20% as an example to discuss. It can obviously be any other number with ease.
Second, I also stated that the % increase applies to "affixes" only, not directly to weapon damage and dps. Weapons have a "base damage", and this is not affected by Pristine. The dps increase examples you provided are much more extreme than what I've proposed.
But again, i think those changes will help the casual players more. This game should be like every other, where the rich gets richer and the poor dude must work hard. That is how the gaming culture is. Im actually tired of reading all those threads about people whining, because they play 1-5 hours per week and expecting glory and women. In the other hand, we got players who dedicates 20-30 hours atleast per week, to overcome the challenges.
So with all those changes, the casual dude gets almost as strong as the hardcore guy and that is not fair.
You're fighting the wrong battle. It's not casual vs hardcore gamer. Yes, casual players tend to spend more time playing than AH'ing, but they are not the only group that would profit from a buff to self-found items.
Let me turn around your own numbers and throw them back at you. You try to find a hole:
Currently, someone who dedicates 20-30 hours playing the game (you know, monsters and stuff) gets much less reward than someone who skulks the AH for 1-5 hours. That fair?
It's about the efficiency of time spent playing vs time spent AH'ing.
You keep quoting that. You do realize that article makes it PATENTLY clear that Blizzard believes Loot 2.0, crafting, and the Mystic will very much achieve the goal of de-emphasizing the AH right?
Nowhere in that article did ANYONE at Blizzard say that killing monsters should result in BETTER gear than trading. They simply said they want to change people's play priorities. That's the whole problem with this suggestion and I can't believe I continue to explain this.
This doesn't fix the itemization problems that are driving people to the AH. You can throw all the "pristine" shit around that you want, it doesn't change a fuckin thing. All that "pristine" becomes, based on the OP suggestion, is a shot in the dark to have a 20% better item. People are pushed towards the AH because of itemization issues, period. When you have less than a .1% chance to actually find your own gear then you're going to move on to what satisfies that need to find an upgrade.
I know plenty of people who WANT to play self-found but won't do so until it's a rewarding experience. They don't care if some guy uses the AH and gets more DPS than they do. What they want is self-found to be REWARDING. It currently is not. if you change that, there are tons of people who would switch, regardless.
Nothing about these "pristine" items makes self-found more rewarding. At best it's a half-baked add-on to the upcoming changes Blizzard has planned. But, without those changes, this suggestion doesn't do anything to fix the core problems players are facing. Without Loot 2.0 items will still be random, legendaries will still be brimstones most of the time, etc. You can stick a "pristine" tag on a piece of shit, but it's still a piece of shit.
I'd rather focus on making sure that items aren't pieces of shit as opposed to try and figure out how to fake people into thinking they're good. When I find a pair of Frosties I'm not going to give two fucks if they're pristine or not. What I want to know is that the damned item is good, and useable, not that it's a dogshit item with 20% more stats on it.
So, given that "pristine" items hinge on Loot 2.0 to actually be part of that rewarding self-found experience, why not just focus feedback directly on Loot 2.0 instead of ancillary systems? Why not fix the crux of the problem instead of performing a rain dance around the problem without ever addressing it?
shaggy, you're missing an important point:
No matter, how good the items are that the individual finds during his play sessions. If the very same items can be traded penalty-free, they will be on the AH long before he gets to find them himself. Thus he is still better off getting them there. Carrot in your face syndrome all over again.
shaggy, you're missing an important point:
No matter, how good the items are that the individual finds during his play sessions. If the very same items can be traded penalty-free, they will be on the AH long before he gets to find them himself. Thus he is still better off getting them there. Carrot in your face syndrome all over again.
If self-found is enjoyable enough that people don't click the AH button then what's it matter what's on the AH?
That was the whole fucking point of that article... making self-found fun, and rewarding, enough that people don't bother with the AH button. This was very much do-able in D2. I don't know why, suddenly, in D3 people are whining that trading will always be better. It was better in D2 too. No one gave a shit because self-found was rewarding and enjoyable so people who didn't want to trade .... didn't.
You keep quoting that. You do realize that article makes it PATENTLY clear that Blizzard believes Loot 2.0, crafting, and the Mystic will very much achieve the goal of de-emphasizing the AH right?
Nowhere in that article did ANYONE at Blizzard say that killing monsters should result in BETTER gear than trading. They simply said they want to change people's play priorities. That's the whole problem with this suggestion and I can't believe I continue to explain this.
This doesn't fix the itemization problems that are driving people to the AH. You can throw all the "pristine" shit around that you want, it doesn't change a fuckin thing. All that "pristine" becomes, based on the OP suggestion, is a shot in the dark to have a 20% better item. People are pushed towards the AH because of itemization issues, period. When you have less than a .1% chance to actually find your own gear then you're going to move on to what satisfies that need to find an upgrade.
I know plenty of people who WANT to play self-found but won't do so until it's a rewarding experience. They don't care if some guy uses the AH and gets more DPS than they do. What they want is self-found to be REWARDING. It currently is not. if you change that, there are tons of people who would switch, regardless.
Nothing about these "pristine" items makes self-found more rewarding. At best it's a half-baked add-on to the upcoming changes Blizzard has planned. But, without those changes, this suggestion doesn't do anything to fix the core problems players are facing. Without Loot 2.0 items will still be random, legendaries will still be brimstones most of the time, etc. You can stick a "pristine" tag on a piece of shit, but it's still a piece of shit.
I'd rather focus on making sure that items aren't pieces of shit as opposed to try and figure out how to fake people into thinking they're good. When I find a pair of Frosties I'm not going to give two fucks if they're pristine or not. What I want to know is that the damned item is good, and useable, not that it's a dogshit item with 20% more stats on it.
So, given that "pristine" items hinge on Loot 2.0 to actually be part of that rewarding self-found experience, why not just focus feedback directly on Loot 2.0 instead of ancillary systems? Why not fix the crux of the problem instead of performing a rain dance around the problem without ever addressing it?
I agree with you. Blizzard's upcoming changes are more important than Pristine. Having interesting items and affixes is more important than Pristine. I never said Pristine should be implemented instead of Loot 2.0. Loot 2.0 is by far more important and the major issue with having items be fun at the moment. But that doesn't mean it has to be one or the other. But maybe you're right, maybe Loot 2.0 will solve everything and motivate us away from the AH somehow. I don't think it's impossible, but bringing ideas to the table shouldn't hurt. Just in case people will still play the AH, more than the game, to improve, we want some ideas flowing.
shaggy, you're missing an important point:
No matter, how good the items are that the individual finds during his play sessions. If the very same items can be traded penalty-free, they will be on the AH long before he gets to find them himself. Thus he is still better off getting them there. Carrot in your face syndrome all over again.
If self-found is enjoyable enough that people don't click the AH button then what's it matter what's on the AH?
That was the whole fucking point of that article... making self-found fun, and rewarding, enough that people don't bother with the AH button. This was very much do-able in D2. I don't know why, suddenly, in D3 people are whining that trading will always be better. It was better in D2 too. No one gave a shit because self-found was rewarding and enjoyable so people who didn't want to trade .... didn't.
There might be ladders and PvP at some point. If people want to play semi-competitively, they will have to play the AH all day to win.
shaggy, you're missing an important point:
No matter, how good the items are that the individual finds during his play sessions. If the very same items can be traded penalty-free, they will be on the AH long before he gets to find them himself. Thus he is still better off getting them there. Carrot in your face syndrome all over again.
If self-found is enjoyable enough that people don't click the AH button then what's it matter what's on the AH?
That was the whole fucking point of that article... making self-found fun, and rewarding, enough that people don't bother with the AH button. This was very much do-able in D2. I don't know why, suddenly, in D3 people are whining that trading will always be better. It was better in D2 too. No one gave a shit because self-found was rewarding and enjoyable so people who didn't want to trade .... didn't.
It's that carrot in your face problem. If I only have to make 3 simple clicks to get a better Mempo than I could ever find, it feels stupid not to take it, rendering my own stuff useless in the process.
Shaggy's point is correct and it's the same point that blizzard is trying to make; if you're actually able to find upgrades for yourself, then the game will be a LOT more fun. I know I personally won't care what's on the AH when I know there's actually a good chance I'll find it.
It's that carrot in your face problem. If I only have to make 3 simple clicks to get a better Mempo than I could ever find, it feels stupid not to take it, rendering my own stuff useless in the process.
It's called self-control. Just because the AH is there doesn't mean you have to use it. No one is forcing you.
Shaggy's point is correct and it's the same point that blizzard is trying to make; if you're actually able to find upgrades for yourself, then the game will be a LOT more fun. I know I personally won't care what's on the AH when I know there's actually a good chance I'll find it.
Define "good chance" to find it on your own. You know that the AH has about 5 million times that chance to "drop" this item for you.
Shaggy's point is correct and it's the same point that blizzard is trying to make; if you're actually able to find upgrades for yourself, then the game will be a LOT more fun. I know I personally won't care what's on the AH when I know there's actually a good chance I'll find it.
Define "good chance" to find it on your own. You know that the AH has about 5 million times that chance to "drop" this item for you.
Well we can take from the games con reveal that legendaries have a roughly 500% higher drop rate. We know that items can be smart drops suited for your class, and that the pool of over 200 legendaries have all been upgraded.
I'm going out on a limb here and I'll say that playing self found will actually kick ass now.
While i agree that fixing the problem at its core is ideal
OK so you and I agree. This is a breakthrough! And it only took like 7 pages!
Given that Blizzard is a very prominent A-One studio, why shouldn't we expect them to give us the best possible solution? Why shouldn't we expect that they knuckle down and fix the core problem?
I don't know people who played D2 online who knew the value of an 8/8/20 Vamp Gaze. I didn't know people who would drop a 6/6/15 Vamp Gaze on the ground because they could just go to trade chat and get better items. Why? Because, somehow, D2 made a self-found experience that was rewarding enough to make people simply not worry about what they could get from trading.
This threshold obviously differs from you to me to the next guy and is hard to peg, but it's out there because it's been done in the past.
Bear in mind that some people WANT to be able to max their characters in a short timeframe. Some people WANT to never use the AH. And some people (I fit mostly into this bucket) simply WANT to play however we feel like at the time. I am primarily a self-found player, but if I decide I want to go to the AH and buy something I don't need Bobby Kotick to come to my house, break my kneecaps, and tell me that I'm a disgusting human being and that my mother would be disappointed in me for "cheating" my video game experience.
So, really, what are YOU looking for from a self-found experience? If you don't want to use the AH, what would it take to make you forget it exists, regardless of what other people are doing? I'm not asking anyone to answer that publically, but figuring out what the answer is will lead you to a better understanding of the situation for yourself.
EDIT
I'll attempt to answer those questions here... attempt.
In a self-found experience I simply want to feel that I have a shot to get the gear I want. I don't necessarily need BiS items, but on a scale of 1-100 (1 being a perfectly weak character and 100 being a completely decked-out character), I want self-found to give me a legitemate chance to get around 90-95. I understand that the AH and trading will generally do so faster, and that they *may* be the only way to get to 96+, and I'm generally OK with that. I just want the gap between self-found and AH to be significantly smaller than it currently is. That, in and of itself, would get me to essentially forget that the AH exists.
While i agree that fixing the problem at its core is ideal
OK so you and I agree. This is a breakthrough! And it only took like 7 pages!
Given that Blizzard is a very prominent A-One studio, why shouldn't we expect them to give us the best possible solution? Why shouldn't we expect that they knuckle down and fix the core problem?
I don't know people who played D2 online who knew the value of an 8/8/20 Vamp Gaze. I didn't know people who would drop a 6/6/15 Vamp Gaze on the ground because they could just go to trade chat and get better items. Why? Because, somehow, D2 made a self-found experience that was rewarding enough to make people simply not worry about what they could get from trading.
This threshold obviously differs from you to me to the next guy and is hard to peg, but it's out there because it's been done in the past.
Bear in mind that some people WANT to be able to max their characters in a short timeframe. Some people WANT to never use the AH. And some people (I fit mostly into this bucket) simply WANT to play however we feel like at the time. I am primarily a self-found player, but if I decide I want to go to the AH and buy something I don't need Bobby Kotick to come to my house, break my kneecaps, and tell me that I'm a disgusting human being and that my mother would be disappointed in me for "cheating" my video game experience.
So, really, what are YOU looking for from a self-found experience? If you don't want to use the AH, what would it take to make you forget it exists, regardless of what other people are doing? I'm not asking anyone to answer that publically, but figuring out what the answer is will lead you to a better understanding of the situation for yourself.
EDIT
I'll attempt to answer those questions here... attempt.
In a self-found experience I simply want to feel that I have a shot to get the gear I want. I don't necessarily need BiS items, but on a scale of 1-100 (1 being a perfectly weak character and 100 being a completely decked-out character), I want self-found to give me a legitemate chance to get around 90-95. I understand that the AH and trading will generally do so faster, and that they *may* be the only way to get to 96+, and I'm generally OK with that. I just want the gap between self-found and AH to be significantly smaller than it currently is. That, in and of itself, would get me to essentially forget that the AH exists.
What if competitive gametypes are introduced like PvP? Gear will be a large factor towards success. While Self-finding items may be fun by that point, it doesn't mean they will be efficient enough to compete.
I do think it's possible for Loot 2.0 to make item affixes interesting enough to reduce AH use. I think it will be very difficult to reduce the efficiency of the AH though unfortunately. I am open-minded enough to wait and see. Just thought I would bring an idea to the table, even if just a fraction it could help Blizz spark some ideas.
As far as D2 and enjoying self-found over trading, D2 didn't have the convenience of an auction house. The Auction House sells things for you 24/7 and doesn't require hoping someone is currently online who has the item you're looking for. I'm sure if it did, the self-found experience would not be the same.
What if competitive gametypes are introduced like PvP? Gear will be a large factor towards success. While Self-finding items may be fun by that point, it doesn't mean they will be efficient enough to compete.
if they introduced any sort of PvP (and this overall discussion is probably for a whole different thread), I'd hope they'd create PvP only skill tree and PvP only items (gained through PvPing).
No matter what they would do they'd run into people complaining about items being bought off the AH or the exact inverse. "Man that guy is only beating me because he was lucky and has a near perfect-pristine Skorn and a bunch of other near perfect-pristine items. My RNG is shit, I quit!"
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1) The AH makes trading too easy.
2) You can stop the casual player bashing, casual players actually don't play the AH, it's rather the 500h+ players who can't upgrade anymore without the AH and need to look for BiS there to proceed.
3) The original idea of this thread does does not move trades from the AH to ingame msg spams.
You know, there are quite a lot of people who want to avoid trading. And for quite a lot of people the very core of the game is about finding all the stuff themselves. Actually, Blizzard has already said that they want to help making self-found a better experience (right now it's just a pain in the ass). Please refrain from making generalizations based on your play style, because it's obviously not everyone's play style.
Read the last sentence you quoted again. The difference is too vast. No one said that casual/self-found players should have same or even similar loot than players with 1000+ hours or credit card warriors. However, right now the gap it too big: Self-found players can't get past low MP levels unless they are exceptionally lucky; players using every aspect of the AH get bored with their 500k+ DPS cookie cutter barb because the game is a joke even on MP10.
You may have your opinion, but I'd say several people around here think exactly the opposite. You want to claim rewards for using the auction house, which is fine by itself. But talking about fame or glory.. Who is more of a hero, the one who slays Diablo and saves the world or the accountant who lurks the AH 24/7 and doesn't even "play" the game?
People, who like this thread, generally want the rewards shifted towards the monster killers and away from the book keepers, though it actually doesn't take much from them. See what I have to say about..
You act, like people would take something away from you, but -under the assumption that this went live- you wouldn't really lose much. Your power level doesn't change before you first find (and equip) a pristine item. If your gear is great, then you probably wouldn't even find an upgrade despite the 20% bonus. Those who would get pristine items as upgrades had weaker gear than you before and those items won't really close that gap, only lessen it. By that, you lose relative power over players below you. Is that something, you care about?
I would go as far and say, that there is no way to give self-found items an appeal equal to those off the AH without making them inherently better by a sizeable amount. Any item that goes undiminished to the AH will probably be found by 5 million Chinese players before I first see it and therefore will be available to me much sooner via the AH. So, in effect, the Mystic doesn't even solve half the problem, whereas this idea remains brilliant.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Skorn
The highest DPS roll is 1476.
1230 x 1.2 = 1476
Therefore any Skorns above 1230 DPS would have the potential to be better Pristine items. 1230, according to the game guide, is basically a middle-of-the-road Skorn. So this 20% that you claim doesn't really matter that much essentially makes an average item equal to a top-end item. That's the whole friggen problem and I don't understand why you people can't wrap your heads around this.
"Worn" Skorn damage range: 1051.9 - 1476.0
"Pristine" Skorn damage range: 1262.3 - 1771.2
A PERFECTLY ROLLED "worn" Skorn isn't even an AVERAGE "pristine" Skorn (1516.8 DPS). If you think that "worn" items would remain a commodity you're kidding yourself. Why would anyone want a dogshit 1476 DPS "worn" Skorn when your average "pristine" Skorn has 30 more DPS despite being significantly more common?
Even people with top-rolled items would be pushed into pristine items pretty quickly and simple math proves this. It's particularly obvious on weapon slots just how overpowered this particular system is and if you think that making skorns roll almost 1800 DPS instead of 1500 DPS is necessary to "make self-found viable" then you have absolutely no clue why self-found isn't currently viable.
All you've accomplished is, instead of having some kind of recourse for shitty luck (the AH), making everyone 100% dependent on RNG since trading doesn't even net you "average" loot anymore. Bad luck? Too fuckin bad! You haven't made self-found more enjoyable, you've just made the alternative shittier.
I don't see how the solution isn't to fix the drops themselves, period. Ruksak's idea allows this to become a choice, instead of a mandatory playstyle, and, as a result, it's a far better system.
Can't get through the numbers from A-Z now, but you might have a point, that 20% on weapons is a bit much.
I don't agree however, that pristine Skorns would be much more common, quite the opposite actually. You have to understand, that the set of pristine Skorns for each player is only the set that he has found himself. For example, I may have found about 5 so far. From my personal point of view (self-found stuff + AH), there are more 1500+ dps Skorns available via the AH than from my personal adventures, even with the pristine bonus.
It's true -and quite intended by some of us- that the top end players would have to spend more time ingame (as opposed to in the menus) to get the very best gear.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
While others:
Only the hardcore players would benefit from this because 1 of 100 Skorns might be good and the rest is crap. So "people" farming 24/7 will be able to farm even faster and the rest has to pay for their crap because it isn't fun to get 10 brimstones out of your 4h farming session after work.
Obviously, not everyone knows exactly what would happen.
Average stat gear drops are usually vendor trash at this point. They also drop 100 times more often than high-end stat drops. With those drops becoming more useful to people with lesser gear, this rewards casuals.
Really, it helps many casuals find more interesting gear while also giving hardcores the better chance at finding super weapons.
Shaggy, I don't think you read the whole post well.
First of all, I said the % increase is TBD, I just used 20% as an example to discuss. It can obviously be any other number with ease.
Second, I also stated that the % increase applies to "affixes" only, not directly to weapon damage and dps. Weapons have a "base damage", and this is not affected by Pristine. The dps increase examples you provided are much more extreme than what I've proposed.
You're fighting the wrong battle. It's not casual vs hardcore gamer. Yes, casual players tend to spend more time playing than AH'ing, but they are not the only group that would profit from a buff to self-found items.
Let me turn around your own numbers and throw them back at you. You try to find a hole:
Currently, someone who dedicates 20-30 hours playing the game (you know, monsters and stuff) gets much less reward than someone who skulks the AH for 1-5 hours. That fair?
It's about the efficiency of time spent playing vs time spent AH'ing.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Sounds like a nice change.
You keep quoting that. You do realize that article makes it PATENTLY clear that Blizzard believes Loot 2.0, crafting, and the Mystic will very much achieve the goal of de-emphasizing the AH right?
Nowhere in that article did ANYONE at Blizzard say that killing monsters should result in BETTER gear than trading. They simply said they want to change people's play priorities. That's the whole problem with this suggestion and I can't believe I continue to explain this.
This doesn't fix the itemization problems that are driving people to the AH. You can throw all the "pristine" shit around that you want, it doesn't change a fuckin thing. All that "pristine" becomes, based on the OP suggestion, is a shot in the dark to have a 20% better item. People are pushed towards the AH because of itemization issues, period. When you have less than a .1% chance to actually find your own gear then you're going to move on to what satisfies that need to find an upgrade.
I know plenty of people who WANT to play self-found but won't do so until it's a rewarding experience. They don't care if some guy uses the AH and gets more DPS than they do. What they want is self-found to be REWARDING. It currently is not. if you change that, there are tons of people who would switch, regardless.
Nothing about these "pristine" items makes self-found more rewarding. At best it's a half-baked add-on to the upcoming changes Blizzard has planned. But, without those changes, this suggestion doesn't do anything to fix the core problems players are facing. Without Loot 2.0 items will still be random, legendaries will still be brimstones most of the time, etc. You can stick a "pristine" tag on a piece of shit, but it's still a piece of shit.
I'd rather focus on making sure that items aren't pieces of shit as opposed to try and figure out how to fake people into thinking they're good. When I find a pair of Frosties I'm not going to give two fucks if they're pristine or not. What I want to know is that the damned item is good, and useable, not that it's a dogshit item with 20% more stats on it.
So, given that "pristine" items hinge on Loot 2.0 to actually be part of that rewarding self-found experience, why not just focus feedback directly on Loot 2.0 instead of ancillary systems? Why not fix the crux of the problem instead of performing a rain dance around the problem without ever addressing it?
No matter, how good the items are that the individual finds during his play sessions. If the very same items can be traded penalty-free, they will be on the AH long before he gets to find them himself. Thus he is still better off getting them there. Carrot in your face syndrome all over again.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
If self-found is enjoyable enough that people don't click the AH button then what's it matter what's on the AH?
That was the whole fucking point of that article... making self-found fun, and rewarding, enough that people don't bother with the AH button. This was very much do-able in D2. I don't know why, suddenly, in D3 people are whining that trading will always be better. It was better in D2 too. No one gave a shit because self-found was rewarding and enjoyable so people who didn't want to trade .... didn't.
I agree with you. Blizzard's upcoming changes are more important than Pristine. Having interesting items and affixes is more important than Pristine. I never said Pristine should be implemented instead of Loot 2.0. Loot 2.0 is by far more important and the major issue with having items be fun at the moment. But that doesn't mean it has to be one or the other. But maybe you're right, maybe Loot 2.0 will solve everything and motivate us away from the AH somehow. I don't think it's impossible, but bringing ideas to the table shouldn't hurt. Just in case people will still play the AH, more than the game, to improve, we want some ideas flowing.
There might be ladders and PvP at some point. If people want to play semi-competitively, they will have to play the AH all day to win.
It's that carrot in your face problem. If I only have to make 3 simple clicks to get a better Mempo than I could ever find, it feels stupid not to take it, rendering my own stuff useless in the process.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
It's called self-control. Just because the AH is there doesn't mean you have to use it. No one is forcing you.
Define "good chance" to find it on your own. You know that the AH has about 5 million times that chance to "drop" this item for you.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Well we can take from the games con reveal that legendaries have a roughly 500% higher drop rate. We know that items can be smart drops suited for your class, and that the pool of over 200 legendaries have all been upgraded.
I'm going out on a limb here and I'll say that playing self found will actually kick ass now.
OK so you and I agree. This is a breakthrough! And it only took like 7 pages!
Given that Blizzard is a very prominent A-One studio, why shouldn't we expect them to give us the best possible solution? Why shouldn't we expect that they knuckle down and fix the core problem?
I don't know people who played D2 online who knew the value of an 8/8/20 Vamp Gaze. I didn't know people who would drop a 6/6/15 Vamp Gaze on the ground because they could just go to trade chat and get better items. Why? Because, somehow, D2 made a self-found experience that was rewarding enough to make people simply not worry about what they could get from trading.
This threshold obviously differs from you to me to the next guy and is hard to peg, but it's out there because it's been done in the past.
Bear in mind that some people WANT to be able to max their characters in a short timeframe. Some people WANT to never use the AH. And some people (I fit mostly into this bucket) simply WANT to play however we feel like at the time. I am primarily a self-found player, but if I decide I want to go to the AH and buy something I don't need Bobby Kotick to come to my house, break my kneecaps, and tell me that I'm a disgusting human being and that my mother would be disappointed in me for "cheating" my video game experience.
So, really, what are YOU looking for from a self-found experience? If you don't want to use the AH, what would it take to make you forget it exists, regardless of what other people are doing? I'm not asking anyone to answer that publically, but figuring out what the answer is will lead you to a better understanding of the situation for yourself.
EDIT
I'll attempt to answer those questions here... attempt.
In a self-found experience I simply want to feel that I have a shot to get the gear I want. I don't necessarily need BiS items, but on a scale of 1-100 (1 being a perfectly weak character and 100 being a completely decked-out character), I want self-found to give me a legitemate chance to get around 90-95. I understand that the AH and trading will generally do so faster, and that they *may* be the only way to get to 96+, and I'm generally OK with that. I just want the gap between self-found and AH to be significantly smaller than it currently is. That, in and of itself, would get me to essentially forget that the AH exists.
What if competitive gametypes are introduced like PvP? Gear will be a large factor towards success. While Self-finding items may be fun by that point, it doesn't mean they will be efficient enough to compete.
I do think it's possible for Loot 2.0 to make item affixes interesting enough to reduce AH use. I think it will be very difficult to reduce the efficiency of the AH though unfortunately. I am open-minded enough to wait and see. Just thought I would bring an idea to the table, even if just a fraction it could help Blizz spark some ideas.
As far as D2 and enjoying self-found over trading, D2 didn't have the convenience of an auction house. The Auction House sells things for you 24/7 and doesn't require hoping someone is currently online who has the item you're looking for. I'm sure if it did, the self-found experience would not be the same.
if they introduced any sort of PvP (and this overall discussion is probably for a whole different thread), I'd hope they'd create PvP only skill tree and PvP only items (gained through PvPing).
No matter what they would do they'd run into people complaining about items being bought off the AH or the exact inverse. "Man that guy is only beating me because he was lucky and has a near perfect-pristine Skorn and a bunch of other near perfect-pristine items. My RNG is shit, I quit!"