Upon reading about the RMAH/GAH removal, I am shocked. Shocked that Blizzard would admit they made a mistake, and shocked that they would fix it. That takes a huge amount of chutzpah, and I give them a ton of respect for it.
I've heard a lot of people argue that "barter trade is really painful" and therefore it is a mistake to remove the AH's. I beg to differ.
To put it simply, trade needs to be painful or else itemization will suck. It doesn't matter what they do with Loot 2.0, the AH removal is actually the most important part. And here's why:
----- *** THE MATH ***
The simple mathematical fact is that AH's dramatically skew itemization. Let's assume there are 2 versions of the game with identical itemization: self-found and AH:
*Self-Found*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. However, 80% of the time, it's designed for a different class or spec. So I equip one "awesome" item after 100 hours of gameplay. Once I have one slot occupied by an "awesome" item, the next one that drops has a 1/12 chance of being a sidegrade. After two slots, each item has a 2/12 chance of being a sidegrade, etc.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me an average of 3,723 hours to find an "awesome" item in every slot.
*GAH*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. 80% of the time it's designed for a different class or spec, so I sell it on the AH and get 85% of the Gold required to purchase an equally awesome item. Better yet, I know exactly which item slot needs the upgrade. Even if I have terrible luck and never find a usable item in my life, on average I only need to play for 23.5 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me 306 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item in every slot.
Using the GAH decreases the time needed to gear out your character by a factor of 12! Remember that this is a paper napkin estimate, completely ignoring the increase in kill speed and MF/GF for the GAH user.
If itemization was tuned to be "reasonable" for self-found characters, an AH user would have every item BiS after 2 weeks and could never get another upgrade again. In order to prevent this, Blizzard has to intentionally tune itemization to be extremely slow. (ie 3700+ hours to get all-BiS, the real number is probably even higher)
This is the reason why itemization is so bad on PC.
***
There are other reasons why the AH is so bad for itemization. One reason is that the AH is equally efficient regardless of your gear/wealth level. A player with 500k to his name can buy a whole bunch of 50k items just as easily as a player with 2B can buy a bunch of 200M items. This causes three harmful effects:
There is no gear level at which AH'ing is not optimal (by an order of magnitude or more). D3 players are AH dependent from "cradle to grave".
There is no change in optimal behavior from "poor" to "rich", therefore no sense of progression for the player.
Since it is easy to turn items into gold, players sell all their items and don't just drop them on the ground. Think about how often you saw people give away stuff for free in D2, and compare to how often it happens in D3.
This is completely different from a barter economy. Bartering requires time and effort, and is highly inefficient - this is exactly why it is good for the game:
Bartering takes a large time investment. At a poor gear level, you will get more items playing the game rather than hanging out in trade chat. Only high-value items are worth the time and effort required to barter them.
Therefore, the optimal behavior changes dramatically when going from a "poor" account (never barter) to a "rich" account (frequent barter). This gives a sense of progression.
Bartering requires a huge amount of game knowledge. Therefore, the "real money player" does not have an insurmountable advantage over "in game players", unlike with GAH/RMAH.
Bartering is a huge pain in the ass and a lot of players would rather play the game self-found. This is a good thing if you believe that videogames should be about gameplay.
The players who don't barter because it's too much hassle give away their items for free. This feels really good for the newbies in their games and generally helps the sense of "friendliness" and "community".
So anyone who thinks that Blizzard will introduce another "efficient" method of trading, I beg to differ. They may put in trade channels and game names, but they will remain inefficient, spammy, and painful - just like D2. It's not a problem, it's intentional.
Trade needs to be painful. It's the best way to improve the game.
Expect for one thing... the more painful trading is, the more attractive it becomes to use 3rd-party sites that make it less painful. Those sites are infested with scammers, which adds a real cost to Blizzard's ongoing support for D3 and to our enjoyment of the game.
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
Expect for one thing... the more painful trading is, the more attractive it becomes to use 3rd-party sites that make it less painful. Those sites are infested with scammers, which adds a real cost to Blizzard's ongoing support for D3 and to our enjoyment of the game.
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
Well tbh i hope so, if you get a compromised account it's your fault for not playing the game and trying the "free market" ^^
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
These victims just aren't as angry as everyone on the internet, ever, that has given D3 such a terrible name thanks to the AH. Blizzard's willing to put up with this if it gets them another 10 mil + copies.
Regardless of whether you think OP is right, I think this describes the current Blizzard's stance on why they are doing this.
Well tbh i hope so, if you get a compromised account it's your fault for not playing the game and trying the "free market" ^^
Well yeah... If Blizzard's response to hacked accounts was "tough shit, we won't reverse any charges or restore any items, and you can't have your characters back. Buy another copy.", none of this would be an issue, but would that be better than the status quo?
Balancing the game only around selffound makes it way too easy.
Trading must be taken into consideration. But obviously enugh people whined just like you did rigth here. You'll see when the changes go live that the gameplay does not offer you more long term motivation, but the traders will just pull further ahead of you.
Balancing the game only around selffound makes it way too easy.
Trading must be taken into consideration. But obviously enugh people whined just like you did rigth here. You'll see when the changes go live that the gameplay does not offer you more long term motivation, but the traders will just pull further ahead of you.
You should always be more motivated to play and find new items rather than to browse the AH or any other comparable item source.
The AH was just too simple, too easy, and made playing obsolete. This is why OP is absolutely right. As I mentioned somewhere else, if they allow some "AH in the nutshell" via the vendor where you can put up some items like on the AH and random other items show up, it could work, as it doesn't allow for millions of items being searched and traded, but only a few occasional trades.
The fact that people were trading items for ~10k gold and every single legendary ended up in the AH made 99% of legendary drops useless. The removal of the AH (and possibly introducing a new but more complicated trading system) was the only fix.
Expect for one thing... the more painful trading is, the more attractive it becomes to use 3rd-party sites that make it less painful. Those sites are infested with scammers, which adds a real cost to Blizzard's ongoing support for D3 and to our enjoyment of the game.
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
+1
As i said in another thread, i hope Blizzard completely abolishes trading.
The AH was just too simple, too easy, and made playing obsolete. This is why OP is absolutely right. As I mentioned somewhere else, if they allow some "AH in the nutshell" via the vendor where you can put up some items like on the AH and random other items show up, it could work, as it doesn't allow for millions of items being searched and traded, but only a few occasional trades.
And where did you get the value to trade in the AH ? Oh, by playing the game you say ? Oh the irony.
"only a few occasional trades" is a illusion. People will just trade outside the game. Removing the AH does only make it more time consuming, nothing else. Which is great cause that way we will spend less time playing the game, that's what we always wanted rigth ?
You guys just dont think it trough. Nothing new on this site though...
+1
As i said in another thread, i hope Blizzard completely abolishes trading.
And what would that accomplish? If you abolish trading, you're back to console version where legendaries rain from the sky, so that you can beat the game quickly and shelf it, because that's how console games work. Or, alternatively, drop rates will be slow and it will be a whole lot of grind, which will make people whine and quit the game. Both variants are silly.
you DON'T find a good item every 20h with this itemization...
Itemization at launch IS what killed the AH. Not the easy access to it.
We had NO CHOICE other than to use both AH's because items that drop are just EXTREMELY BAD unless you run a bot and manage to have tons of each items to ID and roll one good.
Fix the goddamn itemization and people will leave AH by themselves! or maybe only using it to buy crafting mats and gems.
"only a few occasional trades" is a illusion. People will just trade outside the game. Removing the AH does only make it more time consuming, nothing else. Which is great cause that way we will spend less time playing the game, that's what we always wanted rigth ?
You guys just dont think it trough. Nothing new on this site though...
If you consider browsing the AH as playing the game, you have a rather individual opinion.
If trading items will in fact take much longer than it used to, we'll have a "working as intended"-situation, where time spent actually playing (=killing stuff) might be as (or rather: more!) effective as (than) time spent browsing some sort of item-database. Whether this database is integrated into the game menu or not, who cares?
I thought that's obvious: D3 would be used for actually playing the game
in contrast to D2 where in my perception 99% of the games where
opened exclusively for trade.
I thought that's obvious: D3 would be used for actually playing the game
in contrast to D2 where in my perception 99% of the games where
opened exclusively for trade.
Ofc it's obvious. What is less obvious is the fact that such a "solution" will create a lot of other problems (see "drop rate balance").
So no, it's not a good idea.
Thank you, brx, for pulling out this picture. I'm gonna bookmark your post, I feel it will come in handy a couple of times within the next few days/weeks ;-)
It's been a long time since I've read the original post.
If trading items will in fact take much longer than it used to, we'll have a "working as intended"-situation, where time spent actually playing (=killing stuff) might be as (or rather: more!) effective as (than) time spent browsing some sort of item-database. Whether this database is integrated into the game menu or not, who cares?
As long as a single desirable item with a low drop rate is in the game, trading will be more efficient. Having to trade outside the game will lead to more time away from killing monsters. You really dont get it, do you ?
I just don't understand this post. The game is supposed to be painful? No, it needs to be fun and enjoyable. Trading is an optional feature in the game, just like the AH was. Now instead of everyone being close to the same level, only the people willing to take the risk of buying gold and items from third parties are going to have the upper hand in the game, just as before with using the RMAH. Except now it's all behind doors and not supported by Blizzard, so maybe that's what everyone wanted, but I think it's ignorant.
So how are we really solving here? People are still going to complain, unless they come up with an amazing and PAINLESS trading system that doesn't make you turn into a Blizzard CM and scour through a wall of text just to find something legit.
If you truly can't avoid spending hours and hours on 3rd party sale sites and risk getting scammed just to "get ahead" in a game with basically no competitive elements in it, then your problems go well beyond Diablo 3.
Agreed... but I think that mentality applies equally to people who can't avoid spending hours in the RMAH or the GAH, honestly. People like to talk about visibility, but my buddy today was raging that they're taking out the AH because he spends "50% of his time" in the AHs and he "enjoys it more than the actual game" and I thought.... well, buddy, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
That being said, I don't think that trading needs to be punitive. I don't think ANY aspect of a game should be not fun by design. That's asinine, and that's where I take issue with the OPs idea. This is a game - a franchise - with tradeable loot. Saying that trading should be punitive and painful is, frankly, douchey. I agree that people who choose not to trade should be able to see success in the game. But I don't agree that someone who has been unlucky and not found a Windforce, but who has found 14 Lacuni Prowlers, should feel like the game is out to get him when he attempts to trade surplus for shortages. The game already has screwed him by RNG. There needs not be more screwing in the name of forcing people to play the "real" way.
Just remember, this is a game. If you find an item that you truly don't want to use, you shouldn't think "Wow, I'd like to trade this for something more useful but trading makes me want to stick my testicles in a blender so I'll just put it in my stash and hope RNG is better for me." That's decidedly NOT fun. And games should be fun.
* As long as trading is relatively "effortless", you will get loot 10-20x faster by selling every item you find, and only getting upgrades from the AH. This order-of-magnitude multiplier is a mathematical certainty, regardless of how bad or how good the loot is.
* Making trading "painful" (difficult and time consuming) introduces the possibility that you will get loot faster by playing self-found and not trading at all. This is a good thing.
* No matter how difficult trading is, there will always exist a certain gear level where trading is more efficient than self-found. However, it is possible that most players are optimal, or near-optimal with self-found play. (for example - nearly all "casual" Diablo 2 players played self-found or very close to self-found)
* In an "efficient trading" universe, you only get a 15% incremental value from sharing free items among a trusted social circle - the difference between AH tax and no AH tax. Yet you get 1000% or more value from selling items on the AH, compared to playing self-found. This creates a strong disincentive to share items with your friends. In D2 if my RL friend found an item that's godly for my Sorc (and he doesn't have a Sorc), he would give me the item for free. (and vice versa if I found something for his Zon) In D3 if he found a comparable item, he would look on the RMAH and see that it's $100, and there's no way he'd give me the item for free.
* In a "painful trading" universe, you get an extremely high incremental value from freely sharing items. If a group of 6 friends shares free items, each friend has access to a pool of items that's 6x as large as self-found. (+500%) This is a much larger efficiency benefit than barter-style trading (which is inefficient and vulnerable to mistrades and/or scamming). Therefore, everyone has an incentive to share, and having trustworthy friends is worth major in-game benefits.
I made a ton of money in the auction house, and in that regard, I am sad to see it go. However, I know it ultimately robbed me of the experience I yearned for before its release. I agree with the OP. 1000%.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I've heard a lot of people argue that "barter trade is really painful" and therefore it is a mistake to remove the AH's. I beg to differ.
To put it simply, trade needs to be painful or else itemization will suck. It doesn't matter what they do with Loot 2.0, the AH removal is actually the most important part. And here's why:
-----
*** THE MATH ***
The simple mathematical fact is that AH's dramatically skew itemization. Let's assume there are 2 versions of the game with identical itemization: self-found and AH:
*Self-Found*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. However, 80% of the time, it's designed for a different class or spec. So I equip one "awesome" item after 100 hours of gameplay. Once I have one slot occupied by an "awesome" item, the next one that drops has a 1/12 chance of being a sidegrade. After two slots, each item has a 2/12 chance of being a sidegrade, etc.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me an average of 3,723 hours to find an "awesome" item in every slot.
*GAH*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. 80% of the time it's designed for a different class or spec, so I sell it on the AH and get 85% of the Gold required to purchase an equally awesome item. Better yet, I know exactly which item slot needs the upgrade. Even if I have terrible luck and never find a usable item in my life, on average I only need to play for 23.5 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me 306 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item in every slot.
Using the GAH decreases the time needed to gear out your character by a factor of 12! Remember that this is a paper napkin estimate, completely ignoring the increase in kill speed and MF/GF for the GAH user.
If itemization was tuned to be "reasonable" for self-found characters, an AH user would have every item BiS after 2 weeks and could never get another upgrade again. In order to prevent this, Blizzard has to intentionally tune itemization to be extremely slow. (ie 3700+ hours to get all-BiS, the real number is probably even higher)
This is the reason why itemization is so bad on PC.
***
There are other reasons why the AH is so bad for itemization. One reason is that the AH is equally efficient regardless of your gear/wealth level. A player with 500k to his name can buy a whole bunch of 50k items just as easily as a player with 2B can buy a bunch of 200M items. This causes three harmful effects:
Trade needs to be painful. It's the best way to improve the game.
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
Well tbh i hope so, if you get a compromised account it's your fault for not playing the game and trying the "free market" ^^
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
These victims just aren't as angry as everyone on the internet, ever, that has given D3 such a terrible name thanks to the AH. Blizzard's willing to put up with this if it gets them another 10 mil + copies.
Regardless of whether you think OP is right, I think this describes the current Blizzard's stance on why they are doing this.
Well yeah... If Blizzard's response to hacked accounts was "tough shit, we won't reverse any charges or restore any items, and you can't have your characters back. Buy another copy.", none of this would be an issue, but would that be better than the status quo?
Trading must be taken into consideration. But obviously enugh people whined just like you did rigth here. You'll see when the changes go live that the gameplay does not offer you more long term motivation, but the traders will just pull further ahead of you.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
You should always be more motivated to play and find new items rather than to browse the AH or any other comparable item source.
The AH was just too simple, too easy, and made playing obsolete. This is why OP is absolutely right. As I mentioned somewhere else, if they allow some "AH in the nutshell" via the vendor where you can put up some items like on the AH and random other items show up, it could work, as it doesn't allow for millions of items being searched and traded, but only a few occasional trades.
The fact that people were trading items for ~10k gold and every single legendary ended up in the AH made 99% of legendary drops useless. The removal of the AH (and possibly introducing a new but more complicated trading system) was the only fix.
+1
As i said in another thread, i hope Blizzard completely abolishes trading.
And where did you get the value to trade in the AH ? Oh, by playing the game you say ? Oh the irony.
"only a few occasional trades" is a illusion. People will just trade outside the game. Removing the AH does only make it more time consuming, nothing else. Which is great cause that way we will spend less time playing the game, that's what we always wanted rigth ?
You guys just dont think it trough. Nothing new on this site though...
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
And what would that accomplish? If you abolish trading, you're back to console version where legendaries rain from the sky, so that you can beat the game quickly and shelf it, because that's how console games work. Or, alternatively, drop rates will be slow and it will be a whole lot of grind, which will make people whine and quit the game. Both variants are silly.
Itemization at launch IS what killed the AH. Not the easy access to it.
We had NO CHOICE other than to use both AH's because items that drop are just EXTREMELY BAD unless you run a bot and manage to have tons of each items to ID and roll one good.
Fix the goddamn itemization and people will leave AH by themselves! or maybe only using it to buy crafting mats and gems.
If you consider browsing the AH as playing the game, you have a rather individual opinion.
If trading items will in fact take much longer than it used to, we'll have a "working as intended"-situation, where time spent actually playing (=killing stuff) might be as (or rather: more!) effective as (than) time spent browsing some sort of item-database. Whether this database is integrated into the game menu or not, who cares?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
I thought that's obvious: D3 would be used for actually playing the game
in contrast to D2 where in my perception 99% of the games where
opened exclusively for trade.
Ofc it's obvious. What is less obvious is the fact that such a "solution" will create a lot of other problems (see "drop rate balance").
So no, it's not a good idea.
It's been a long time since I've read the original post.
As long as a single desirable item with a low drop rate is in the game, trading will be more efficient. Having to trade outside the game will lead to more time away from killing monsters. You really dont get it, do you ?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
So how are we really solving here? People are still going to complain, unless they come up with an amazing and PAINLESS trading system that doesn't make you turn into a Blizzard CM and scour through a wall of text just to find something legit.
Agreed... but I think that mentality applies equally to people who can't avoid spending hours in the RMAH or the GAH, honestly. People like to talk about visibility, but my buddy today was raging that they're taking out the AH because he spends "50% of his time" in the AHs and he "enjoys it more than the actual game" and I thought.... well, buddy, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
That being said, I don't think that trading needs to be punitive. I don't think ANY aspect of a game should be not fun by design. That's asinine, and that's where I take issue with the OPs idea. This is a game - a franchise - with tradeable loot. Saying that trading should be punitive and painful is, frankly, douchey. I agree that people who choose not to trade should be able to see success in the game. But I don't agree that someone who has been unlucky and not found a Windforce, but who has found 14 Lacuni Prowlers, should feel like the game is out to get him when he attempts to trade surplus for shortages. The game already has screwed him by RNG. There needs not be more screwing in the name of forcing people to play the "real" way.
Just remember, this is a game. If you find an item that you truly don't want to use, you shouldn't think "Wow, I'd like to trade this for something more useful but trading makes me want to stick my testicles in a blender so I'll just put it in my stash and hope RNG is better for me." That's decidedly NOT fun. And games should be fun.
* Making trading "painful" (difficult and time consuming) introduces the possibility that you will get loot faster by playing self-found and not trading at all. This is a good thing.
* No matter how difficult trading is, there will always exist a certain gear level where trading is more efficient than self-found. However, it is possible that most players are optimal, or near-optimal with self-found play. (for example - nearly all "casual" Diablo 2 players played self-found or very close to self-found)
* In an "efficient trading" universe, you only get a 15% incremental value from sharing free items among a trusted social circle - the difference between AH tax and no AH tax. Yet you get 1000% or more value from selling items on the AH, compared to playing self-found. This creates a strong disincentive to share items with your friends. In D2 if my RL friend found an item that's godly for my Sorc (and he doesn't have a Sorc), he would give me the item for free. (and vice versa if I found something for his Zon) In D3 if he found a comparable item, he would look on the RMAH and see that it's $100, and there's no way he'd give me the item for free.
* In a "painful trading" universe, you get an extremely high incremental value from freely sharing items. If a group of 6 friends shares free items, each friend has access to a pool of items that's 6x as large as self-found. (+500%) This is a much larger efficiency benefit than barter-style trading (which is inefficient and vulnerable to mistrades and/or scamming). Therefore, everyone has an incentive to share, and having trustworthy friends is worth major in-game benefits.