From all the complaints Blizzard is seeing related to the AH and drop ratios, the only sensible solution to all this problem would either have a completely separete mode without the AH (which I'm pretty sure they definitely don't want), or having a Bind on Pickup/Equip system on the expansion.
I hear from a lot of players that the economy on WoW works a lot better with those mechanics than the economy in D3. And that for most epic/legendary items they're all bind on pickup so you really have to work for them, and that pleases both the hardcore and casual players.
Anyone here with a good knowledge on that game's economy?
I wouldn't be surprised with all the outrage from the playerbase if they implemented such a system on D3's expansion, even with the huge risk of pissing off all who would rage with the "this isn't WoW" argument.
I hope they can find another solution other than the two you suggest,
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding.
This results from; inability to acquire good gear. So gear progression. This frustration is amplified because besides Plvls its the only way to progress.
Difficulty in gear progression is the result of random stats.
When you compare D2 and D3 rares were not as common but finding a good rare is very improbable in both.
In D2 uniques are much more commmon than lengendaries. But only uniques of a certain class. Good uniques are much more difficult to find but lower level uniques and sets are more common and some are quite useful.
So i do think that the problem could be solved by making some useful by not godly legendaries and sets that drop at a rate much higher than currently. Maybe you could even call them uniques or some such thing but you need an item class or multiple classes which has some more certainty in it and thus helps player progress to ledgendary items. Basically items are too random ATM drop rates are consistent but item rolls are too random. Patch 1.05 will help with this abit but probably not completely appease it.
Making crafting better could help too, but once again you need something to make it more certain A crafting stat? or crafting material which increases your odds, or gauntnesses a primary attribute roll or something along those line. Crafting is so pointless right now i would love to see it improved, especially in a way which makes it a specialisation so that getting good at crafting is costly but effective the same way item farming improves with magic find etc...the more you craft the better you get? the more you farm a certain area/boss the better your crafting gets... etc.
I hope they can find another solution other than the two you suggest,
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding.
I don't think they can without giving us so many good drops that you'll be able to defeat the game with 50k gold on the AH.
Difficulty in gear progression is the result of random stats.
Random stats is the whole point of the Diablo series
When you compare D2 and D3 rares were not as common but finding a good rare is very improbable in both.
In D2 uniques are much more commmon than lengendaries. But only uniques of a certain class. Good uniques are much more difficult to find but lower level uniques and sets are more common and some are quite useful.
I get where you're saying here. And I see a lot of people saying that TL2 beats D3 in this aspect as well.
The problem I see today (that I didn't back when I played D2) is how 99,9% of the affixes on D2 had absolutely 0 impact on the result of the battles. You could literally roflstomp content with the right class/build with insanely shitty items. TL2 to me suffers from that as well.
Yes I can find the most awesome rares and uniques, and yes it kinda feels good at first, but when you realize that to beat the challenge you don't really have a gear check (and that's standard in every rpg game out there, so it's definitely a traditional standard of the genre). I can simply cast a single spell over and over again to defeat the enemies and clear content. To me, D3's itemization and combat is a lot more dynamic than those 2.
So i do think that the problem could be solved by making some useful by not godly legendaries and sets that drop at a rate much higher than currently.
They already did this. I have a friend who had crappy resists to have high crit chance/attackspeed on his gear (foregoing resists which makes it insanely expensive), so he got an Empyrean Messenger to counterbalance that and he's dealing a decent 50k+ dmg on his Monk. My ranged Barb is using a 1k dps Butcher's Sickle. I paid 150k for it, it's definitely not BiS, but then again it fits my current needs (Life Steal) while boosting my dps, for much cheaper than a similar rare (cheapest one is 4 mil). Previously, these legendaries had such bad dmg rolls they were unuseable. Now, they can be pretty useful for some people.
Making crafting better could help too, but once again you need something to make it more certain A crafting stat? or crafting material which increases your odds, or gauntnesses a primary attribute roll or something along those line. Crafting is so pointless right now i would love to see it improved, especially in a way which makes it a specialisation so that getting good at crafting is costly but effective the same way item farming improves with magic find etc...the more you craft the better you get? the more you farm a certain area/boss the better your crafting gets... etc.
Agreed that crafting needs some tweaks. But then again, I don't think they can buff crafting without implementing something like BoE/BoP. There's enough great items for very cheap on the AH as it is now.
1) How does it tangibly affect you? I hear a lot of people say "it ruins the game" or somesuch, but I'd like to know how it does this in your opinion. Or do you have very bad internet, or a firewall at your university, or whatever, and have trouble connecting to battle.net?
2) In D2 we had to join trading games if we wanted to trade, limited to 8 players. The other players might be afk, might not have good stuff for trade, might not want what we had for trade, etc. We began to use SoJs (unique ring ) and perfect skulls (good gems) for currency.
But even this wasn't enough, and a site called d2jsp was born. Because it addressed a glaring need among d2 players by giving us a currency (forum gold), the site's founder got rich off it.
2) And so my second question is, how could Blizzard have addressed players' need to trade easily with a fluid currency *without* implementing an AH?
1, It affects me because i as a player Cannot trade with other players items for other items. Or find upgrades.. Why? Because for one its not secret that the RNG right now sucks big time, and that with botters running the AH and Blizzard doing nothing to stop it pumps to much money into the economy which means upgrade i want to buy cost 300m or 100m I can understand 100m But anything higher then that is just plain ludacris
2.The AH can be a good and bad thing Right now its a bad thing because blizzard isn't doing anything to help it as long as they get their RMAH transactions they could care less about in game gold.
1) How does it tangibly affect you? I hear a lot of people say "it ruins the game" or somesuch, but I'd like to know how it does this in your opinion. Or do you have very bad internet, or a firewall at your university, or whatever, and have trouble connecting to battle.net?
2) In D2 we had to join trading games if we wanted to trade, limited to 8 players. The other players might be afk, might not have good stuff for trade, might not want what we had for trade, etc. We began to use SoJs (unique ring ) and perfect skulls (good gems) for currency.
But even this wasn't enough, and a site called d2jsp was born. Because it addressed a glaring need among d2 players by giving us a currency (forum gold), the site's founder got rich off it.
2) And so my second question is, how could Blizzard have addressed players' need to trade easily with a fluid currency *without* implementing an AH?
I started to read the thread, but I got bored, so I may be repeating points someone already made, but here it goes:
1) Drops are balanced taking the AH into account. There's no question about it. Steps are being taken in the right direction (doubling the legendary drop chance, at least in the PTR,) but for someone who plays solo and without the action house, it can become very frustrating when nothing useful drops. Not only that, the chance of finding one of the fun legendaries is very low.
Since you brought up internet connection, I might add that playing with a minimum of 250 ping can get annoying too. Some skills become semi-useless (Dashing Strike, for example) and many feel quite clunky. I'm sure the AH played a big role when the always-online decision was taken.
I also think that games and real money should stay as far away from each other as possible, but that's just my opinion.
2) This is a good point. I acknowledge that most people enjoy trading, and the AH made that so much simpler. As a solution, for those of us who don't like the AH, implement a non-AH mode: separate stash, no way to interact with AH users. The drop rate could be raised to a point where you can experience late game without having to grind for 1000 hours. Throw offline into the mix, and you have a perfect recipe: we would stop complaining about the AH and you would stop complaining about us (using we/you/us in a non-specific way.)
1) How does it tangibly affect you? I hear a lot of people say "it ruins the game" or somesuch, but I'd like to know how it does this in your opinion. Or do you have very bad internet, or a firewall at your university, or whatever, and have trouble connecting to battle.net?
2) In D2 we had to join trading games if we wanted to trade, limited to 8 players. The other players might be afk, might not have good stuff for trade, might not want what we had for trade, etc. We began to use SoJs (unique ring ) and perfect skulls (good gems) for currency.
But even this wasn't enough, and a site called d2jsp was born. Because it addressed a glaring need among d2 players by giving us a currency (forum gold), the site's founder got rich off it.
2) And so my second question is, how could Blizzard have addressed players' need to trade easily with a fluid currency *without* implementing an AH?
One answer will suffice for both of your questions
Blizzard created a shitty drop rate and the ability to roll shitty gear, so that the most sought after pieces would sky rocket in price so that they could make more money than they need to. The AH is fine, but the prices for everything is too high, and the droprates are crap for good rolls. What a lot of people don't seem to understand, is that the players playing 20+ hours a week, are the minority. If I could farm like that I am sure I would find nice drops each week too. As it is I play less than 10 hours a week, average maybe an hour a day, and I rarely find anything useful.
Fix this by giving us an AH according to region (east / central / west anyone?), and increasing the droprate. Increased drop means more items in the system and more chances for good rolls, since you cannot deny that 95% of the rolls on rare / legendaries pre 1.04 were crap, and still after a lot are not that amazing. More drops = more good loot for players. Making regional servers / AH will allow for a smaller pool of players to post, there by not flooding the AH.
TL:DR - The AH didn't ruin the game, blizzards droprates did. So the way the AH has been implemented has been a bad start but the moves they are making are good fixes.
Edit - I should not have to farm for 3 weeks to get 3 drops that I don;t need but can sell, to buy something on the AH I do need. I should be able to find upgrades on a semi regular basis, until I am such a badass I roll a new toon, or try a challenge mode (HC, no vit gear, no pots etc).
First, psychological speaking, there is a huge difference between finding your items in the floor, than buying them in the AH. Buying an item feels empty. There is no joy at doing that, at all. The same applies to the real life, when you struggle with something and you finally can do what you were trying to achieve, it feels great!, you've earned it!, you feel like you achieved something amazing, even if it was nothing impressive.
Now, if you bought your way to your goal, sure, the result is the same, in less time, with less effort, but the emptiness that it leaves behind already destroyed that experience for you. It is just not the same.
And, this is not an opinion, this is human behavior.
Now, there are several ways to fix/change/alter/improve this, pick the verb you like. The only problem, is that Blizzard has a brilliant business design, and anything that jeopardize that, its a no-no. That is why Im afraid that the game (for me) is kind of dead, as a non-AH user.
After the 1.05 hits, I'll play a little, I'll see how the game feels now (I'm not playing the PTR), I'll see how hard to get/worthy is the new ring, and I'll see if MP brings some new air to this game, even with the current loot/AH system.
Talking about the gold AH not the RMAH here....
You are overlooking how you got the gold though. Sure, buying an item on the AH is less exciting than finding an upgrade in the game, but you are overlooking the excitement of finding a good item that got you that gold. When I find an awesome item in the game that is worth 100M or whatever AND it's not for my character I get excited. The excitement is still there because I embrace the AH and I know that while this item isn't for me, this item = 1-2 awesome items I can achieve through trading (aka the AH). I think the problem is some people are too hesistant to embrace the AH. It's simply a trading system.
The RMAH on the other hand I can understand the hate there. Personally though, it's been nice on my wallet since I've made a lot of money thanks to those types of people.
2: Oh well, let the AH flood with useless junk and have the value of items go down, and increase droprate
This exactly.
Microtransactions become Micro.
BiS Items for maybe 20-50 Bucks.
It actually gives you the Option to buy Stuff for your "other" Chars, and actually play them.
Right now you are pretty much stuck with 1 Class, because you cant affort to equip multiple Chars with "good" Items and actually run Inferno Act3...this will become even worst with the MP System.
First, psychological speaking, there is a huge difference between finding your items in the floor, than buying them in the AH. Buying an item feels empty. There is no joy at doing that, at all. The same applies to the real life, when you struggle with something and you finally can do what you were trying to achieve, it feels great!, you've earned it!, you feel like you achieved something amazing, even if it was nothing impressive.
Now, if you bought your way to your goal, sure, the result is the same, in less time, with less effort, but the emptiness that it leaves behind already destroyed that experience for you. It is just not the same.
And, this is not an opinion, this is human behavior.
Now, there are several ways to fix/change/alter/improve this, pick the verb you like. The only problem, is that Blizzard has a brilliant business design, and anything that jeopardize that, its a no-no. That is why Im afraid that the game (for me) is kind of dead, as a non-AH user.
After the 1.05 hits, I'll play a little, I'll see how the game feels now (I'm not playing the PTR), I'll see how hard to get/worthy is the new ring, and I'll see if MP brings some new air to this game, even with the current loot/AH system.
Talking about the gold AH not the RMAH here....
You are overlooking how you got the gold though. Sure, buying an item on the AH is less exciting than finding an upgrade in the game, but you are overlooking the excitement of finding a good item that got you that gold. When I find an awesome item in the game that is worth 100M or whatever AND it's not for my character I get excited. The excitement is still there because I embrace the AH and I know that while this item isn't for me, this item = 1-2 awesome items I can achieve through trading (aka the AH). I think the problem is some people are too hesistant to embrace the AH. It's simply a trading system.
The RMAH on the other hand I can understand the hate there. Personally though, it's been nice on my wallet since I've made a lot of money thanks to those types of people.
And I am talking about both, I already said, a very nice item can be bought for 20k in the AH, an item that it would take me weeks to find with my non-AH level 8 WD. Believe me, I pick every single item from the floor, and the amount of crap that I see.. is too damn high. An item with 1100+ DPS?, never happened. And I'm talking about 2H. And farming 20k gold?, 25 mins, if I'm lazy.
And of course I would get exited if I find an amazing item for a, let say, barb, because I would give it to him, and I would start playing him, but there is a problem, is not efficient. Because, the way things work right now, the best way to farm is to use only one character.
Your definition of good item and mine differ greatly.
Either way, I was just showing you that many people find enjoyment out of using the AH. Why does it matter though? If you don't find enjoyment in using the AH, then don't use it.
I'm not sure how you haven't found a 2 hander higher than 1100 yet. My friends and I play a weekly game for 3 hours together and we hold a small contest for finding the highest dps 1 hander and 2 handers of the night (winner gets 50k). Almost every night the winner for 2 hander is 1100-1300 and the 1 hander is 900-1000. You are overstating things a bit or just kill amazingly slowly/don't play much?
The best way to farm no matter the loot system is to use 1 character. It's best to pool all of your resource into 1 character, that would be true no matter how the game is designed. I don't understand you here....
I don't vocally dislike it. But it's a strong part of what makes me disinterested in playing the game.
It is basically a product of Blizzard's relationship with the IP (and genre) itself. They obviously don't get it and would rather use it as an economics R&D project than attempt to do justice to the legacy of the series.
The game was not made around the AH, the problem is that Inferno was way too hard, the item pool was broken at lauch and you couldn't find at act 1 the itens you would need to play at act 2, at act 2 you wouldn't find itens to play at act 3, you had to either farm gold and buy itens at the action house or farm vases at act 4 using a exploit.Also the itemizations is not the standards, the affixes are unbalanced, All resistance and increased damage are so mandatory that all itens must roll it or will be considered crap.
That created a feeling that changed the real purpose of the AH, the real purpose was:" I will finnish the game and use the AH to get very specific itens for my build."
What those problems i described caused: " I have to use the AH if in order to progress through the game, people who pay real money can finnish the game and i can't"
Blizzard listened to the wrong players before lauching the game, they shouldn't have listened to very hardcore fanplayers who post on foruns, they asked for a very hard game but that wasn't what the Diablo player base wanted, ARPGs were never about difficulty, too say the minimim:
-That makes most of fun builds unuseful,impossible to use.
-Separates too much the player base, imagine 2 friends playing together from normal to hell, on inferno act 2 player A finds a godly item, player B finds nothing good, player A ,so, sells it for hundreeds of millions of gold, buys a entire gear for himself and finnish the game, his friend who did not find anything godly just keep farming Magda, that's a terrible design.
Above i defended AH, bellow i will why it should not be in the game:
I think every system that spoils players interactions should not be implemented, in Diablo or in any other game, you talked about trade channels, rooms, stone of Jordans being used as currency, AFK traders, but you forgot to say that you met a lot of people doind that, some may even have become your friends, your contacts on DIablo 3, you ignored the sense of community that it created.
The problem is that AH was/is a necessity to succceed. I started this game playing no AH, but quickly found that I couldn't progress past act 1 inferno. Grinding and farming was doing nothing.
Paragon levels helped, as they gave grinding and farming a point, even when you weren't finding anything. Still, not enough.
Monster Power will help tremendously as you can slowly make your way through the levels. I think I will build a 'No AH'/All finds character when Monster Power comes out. Pretty excited about it actually.
The problem is that AH was/is a necessity to succceed. I started this game playing no AH, but quickly found that I couldn't progress past act 1 inferno. Grinding and farming was doing nothing.
Paragon levels helped, as they gave grinding and farming a point, even when you weren't finding anything. Still, not enough.
Monster Power will help tremendously as you can slowly make your way through the levels. I think I will build a 'No AH'/All finds character when Monster Power comes out. Pretty excited about it actually.
Yes that is the problem, and to fix it they need to revert that so it is not a necessity, but a supplement to gear you find on your own.
I'm not sure how you haven't found a 2 hander higher than 1100 yet. My friends and I play a weekly game for 3 hours together and we hold a small contest for finding the highest dps 1 hander and 2 handers of the night (winner gets 50k). Almost every night the winner for 2 hander is 1100-1300 and the 1 hander is 900-1000. You are overstating things a bit or just kill amazingly slowly/don't play much?
I can't recall ever seeing an 1100+ dps 2-hander or 900+ dps 1-hander drop. That's from 3500 elite kills on my main.
I did find a bow with more than 1000 and a socket and good +crit damage, which sold for 7.5 million, but no, I don't think I've ever seen a drop with raw dps numbers like you describe.
"I hope they can find another solution other than the two you suggest,
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding."
If you dont want grinding... You sir are playing the wrong game. Diablo is 1 big none needed gear grind. And sup with "the ah requirement to progress" its been shown and proven a gazillion times you can complete inferno in absolutely crapper items. Because you want the finest shinies in every slot, but without having to invest the hours to do so. In order for that to happen, imagine how the drop rates would be? everyone would be running around in BiS gear in a month. Its supose to take years of hard work to get the finest gear, either via 5 million act 3 runs or via trading.
I personally wouldnt be playing this game if they removed the RMAH, i enjoy having the chance to be rewarded with real money, for either my dedicated farming or clever moves trading. Its a genious move in my oppinion by blizzard introducing the rmah, it really makes the game more exiting.
I'm only paragon lvl 37, yet i enjoy doing runs. I love the game for its posibilities in economic matters. Im currently at 1.6b gold and 4380 made on rmah. Both numbers are increasing daily. I LOVE it. Blizzard managed to inside of a good game, create an awesome economic game. People who talk about the game is not rewarding. My paypal account says otherwise :=) And yes it can be about luck, finding that 250 euro item. But ive not been that lucky yet. I made my fortune by being clever on ah, doing my research - a little example: Who do you think grabed 40+ close to perfect SoJ's (28-30% elite dmg) with the good class affix for less than 2 mill each? Moi. They already increased to 50m and i reckon they will increase to over 100m each in 1.0.5 when people realise its going to be the BiS ring for farming ubbers and keyholders on mp10 for pretty much guaranteed drop rate. Yes now they "suck" because elites doesnt have much hp. But say hallo to 30% elite dmg when stuff got 150+Million hp. Ladies and gentlemen, we got a new BiS ring incoming and those of us who were clever already stockpiled our new Fortune. Did i mention how rewarding this game can be? You take the effort to learn the know how, you take the effort being on top of things and it gets rewarded with real money.
I think the issue we got in todays gaming world, is the average age of players have rocket dropped to new lows. And thats why we see in each and every game how the *QQ ruins everything over time. Just look at what happent to wow. Everything is being casualized and it make games worse. Before you flame me to death, its just a little personel theory ive had : p
I don't like the AH for a very simple reason - I like playing more than I like browsing. But even more than I like playing I like being effective. When being effective and having fun conflict with each other that's where the games becomes much less fun. Even Blizzard themselves said that a good game is one where being effective and having fun go hand in hand rather than conflict with each other, and I very much support this claim. Unfortunately, their design decisions don't implement this philosophy very well, and the changes they implement every patch don't bring them any closer, either.
The game is still cool and way better than any alternative out there, but is quite a big disappointment in the aspect of "having fun vs being effective" rather than "having fun being effective".
"I hope they can find another solution other than the two you suggest,
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding."
If you dont want grinding... You sir are playing the wrong game. Diablo is 1 big none needed gear grind. And sup with "the ah requirement to progress" its been shown and proven a gazillion times you can complete inferno in absolutely crapper items. Because you want the finest shinies in every slot, but without having to invest the hours to do so. In order for that to happen, imagine how the drop rates would be? everyone would be running around in BiS gear in a month. Its supose to take years of hard work to get the finest gear, either via 5 million act 3 runs or via trading.
I personally wouldnt be playing this game if they removed the RMAH, i enjoy having the chance to be rewarded with real money, for either my dedicated farming or clever moves trading. Its a genious move in my oppinion by blizzard introducing the rmah, it really makes the game more exiting.
I'm only paragon lvl 37, yet i enjoy doing runs. I love the game for its posibilities in economic matters. Im currently at 1.6b gold and 4380 made on rmah. Both numbers are increasing daily. I LOVE it. Blizzard managed to inside of a good game, create an awesome economic game. People who talk about the game is not rewarding. My paypal account says otherwise :=) And yes it can be about luck, finding that 250 euro item. But ive not been that lucky yet. I made my fortune by being clever on ah, doing my research - a little example: Who do you think grabed 40+ close to perfect SoJ's (28-30% elite dmg) with the good class affix for less than 2 mill each? Moi. They already increased to 50m and i reckon they will increase to over 100m each in 1.0.5 when people realise its going to be the BiS ring for farming ubbers and keyholders on mp10 for pretty much guaranteed drop rate. Yes now they "suck" because elites doesnt have much hp. But say hallo to 30% elite dmg when stuff got 150+Million hp. Ladies and gentlemen, we got a new BiS ring incoming and those of us who were clever already stockpiled our new Fortune. Did i mention how rewarding this game can be? You take the effort to learn the know how, you take the effort being on top of things and it gets rewarded with real money.
I think the issue we got in todays gaming world, is the average age of players have rocket dropped to new lows. And thats why we see in each and every game how the *QQ ruins everything over time. Just look at what happent to wow. Everything is being casualized and it make games worse. Before you flame me to death, its just a little personel theory ive had : p
I don't like the AH for a very simple reason - I like playing more than I like browsing. But even more than I like playing I like being effective. When being effective and having fun conflict with each other that's where the games becomes much less fun. Even Blizzard themselves said that a good game is one where being effective and having fun go hand in hand rather than conflict with each other, and I very much support this claim. Unfortunately, their design decisions don't implement this philosophy very well, and the changes they implement every patch don't bring them any closer, either.
The game is still cool and way better than any alternative out there, but is quite a big disappointment in the aspect of "having fun vs being effective" rather than "having fun being effective".
I consider myself being effective while having fun. My farm runs are effective, heck im a monk almost at a ww barbs farming speed. And im effective when it comes to trading. I dont see why you shouldnt be able to do the same. Unless ofc if your lazy and if thats so, you wont get any pitty from me.
I hope they can find another solution other than the two you suggest,
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding.
This results from; inability to acquire good gear. So gear progression. This frustration is amplified because besides Plvls its the only way to progress.
Difficulty in gear progression is the result of random stats.
When you compare D2 and D3 rares were not as common but finding a good rare is very improbable in both.
In D2 uniques are much more commmon than lengendaries. But only uniques of a certain class. Good uniques are much more difficult to find but lower level uniques and sets are more common and some are quite useful.
So i do think that the problem could be solved by making some useful by not godly legendaries and sets that drop at a rate much higher than currently. Maybe you could even call them uniques or some such thing but you need an item class or multiple classes which has some more certainty in it and thus helps player progress to ledgendary items. Basically items are too random ATM drop rates are consistent but item rolls are too random. Patch 1.05 will help with this abit but probably not completely appease it.
Making crafting better could help too, but once again you need something to make it more certain A crafting stat? or crafting material which increases your odds, or gauntnesses a primary attribute roll or something along those line. Crafting is so pointless right now i would love to see it improved, especially in a way which makes it a specialisation so that getting good at crafting is costly but effective the same way item farming improves with magic find etc...the more you craft the better you get? the more you farm a certain area/boss the better your crafting gets... etc.
I don't think they can without giving us so many good drops that you'll be able to defeat the game with 50k gold on the AH.
Random stats is the whole point of the Diablo series
I get where you're saying here. And I see a lot of people saying that TL2 beats D3 in this aspect as well.
The problem I see today (that I didn't back when I played D2) is how 99,9% of the affixes on D2 had absolutely 0 impact on the result of the battles. You could literally roflstomp content with the right class/build with insanely shitty items. TL2 to me suffers from that as well.
Yes I can find the most awesome rares and uniques, and yes it kinda feels good at first, but when you realize that to beat the challenge you don't really have a gear check (and that's standard in every rpg game out there, so it's definitely a traditional standard of the genre). I can simply cast a single spell over and over again to defeat the enemies and clear content. To me, D3's itemization and combat is a lot more dynamic than those 2.
They already did this. I have a friend who had crappy resists to have high crit chance/attackspeed on his gear (foregoing resists which makes it insanely expensive), so he got an Empyrean Messenger to counterbalance that and he's dealing a decent 50k+ dmg on his Monk. My ranged Barb is using a 1k dps Butcher's Sickle. I paid 150k for it, it's definitely not BiS, but then again it fits my current needs (Life Steal) while boosting my dps, for much cheaper than a similar rare (cheapest one is 4 mil). Previously, these legendaries had such bad dmg rolls they were unuseable. Now, they can be pretty useful for some people.
Agreed that crafting needs some tweaks. But then again, I don't think they can buff crafting without implementing something like BoE/BoP. There's enough great items for very cheap on the AH as it is now.
1, It affects me because i as a player Cannot trade with other players items for other items. Or find upgrades.. Why? Because for one its not secret that the RNG right now sucks big time, and that with botters running the AH and Blizzard doing nothing to stop it pumps to much money into the economy which means upgrade i want to buy cost 300m or 100m I can understand 100m But anything higher then that is just plain ludacris
2.The AH can be a good and bad thing Right now its a bad thing because blizzard isn't doing anything to help it as long as they get their RMAH transactions they could care less about in game gold.
as someone have said before: full random drop are made to make the AH works.
so, you find only crap in act2 or later.
it makes you a slave working for gold to buy stuff in AH.
I started to read the thread, but I got bored, so I may be repeating points someone already made, but here it goes:
1) Drops are balanced taking the AH into account. There's no question about it. Steps are being taken in the right direction (doubling the legendary drop chance, at least in the PTR,) but for someone who plays solo and without the action house, it can become very frustrating when nothing useful drops. Not only that, the chance of finding one of the fun legendaries is very low.
Since you brought up internet connection, I might add that playing with a minimum of 250 ping can get annoying too. Some skills become semi-useless (Dashing Strike, for example) and many feel quite clunky. I'm sure the AH played a big role when the always-online decision was taken.
I also think that games and real money should stay as far away from each other as possible, but that's just my opinion.
2) This is a good point. I acknowledge that most people enjoy trading, and the AH made that so much simpler. As a solution, for those of us who don't like the AH, implement a non-AH mode: separate stash, no way to interact with AH users. The drop rate could be raised to a point where you can experience late game without having to grind for 1000 hours. Throw offline into the mix, and you have a perfect recipe: we would stop complaining about the AH and you would stop complaining about us (using we/you/us in a non-specific way.)
One answer will suffice for both of your questions
Blizzard created a shitty drop rate and the ability to roll shitty gear, so that the most sought after pieces would sky rocket in price so that they could make more money than they need to. The AH is fine, but the prices for everything is too high, and the droprates are crap for good rolls. What a lot of people don't seem to understand, is that the players playing 20+ hours a week, are the minority. If I could farm like that I am sure I would find nice drops each week too. As it is I play less than 10 hours a week, average maybe an hour a day, and I rarely find anything useful.
Fix this by giving us an AH according to region (east / central / west anyone?), and increasing the droprate. Increased drop means more items in the system and more chances for good rolls, since you cannot deny that 95% of the rolls on rare / legendaries pre 1.04 were crap, and still after a lot are not that amazing. More drops = more good loot for players. Making regional servers / AH will allow for a smaller pool of players to post, there by not flooding the AH.
TL:DR - The AH didn't ruin the game, blizzards droprates did. So the way the AH has been implemented has been a bad start but the moves they are making are good fixes.
Edit - I should not have to farm for 3 weeks to get 3 drops that I don;t need but can sell, to buy something on the AH I do need. I should be able to find upgrades on a semi regular basis, until I am such a badass I roll a new toon, or try a challenge mode (HC, no vit gear, no pots etc).
Talking about the gold AH not the RMAH here....
You are overlooking how you got the gold though. Sure, buying an item on the AH is less exciting than finding an upgrade in the game, but you are overlooking the excitement of finding a good item that got you that gold. When I find an awesome item in the game that is worth 100M or whatever AND it's not for my character I get excited. The excitement is still there because I embrace the AH and I know that while this item isn't for me, this item = 1-2 awesome items I can achieve through trading (aka the AH). I think the problem is some people are too hesistant to embrace the AH. It's simply a trading system.
The RMAH on the other hand I can understand the hate there. Personally though, it's been nice on my wallet since I've made a lot of money thanks to those types of people.
This exactly.
Microtransactions become Micro.
BiS Items for maybe 20-50 Bucks.
It actually gives you the Option to buy Stuff for your "other" Chars, and actually play them.
Right now you are pretty much stuck with 1 Class, because you cant affort to equip multiple Chars with "good" Items and actually run Inferno Act3...this will become even worst with the MP System.
And I am talking about both, I already said, a very nice item can be bought for 20k in the AH, an item that it would take me weeks to find with my non-AH level 8 WD. Believe me, I pick every single item from the floor, and the amount of crap that I see.. is too damn high. An item with 1100+ DPS?, never happened. And I'm talking about 2H. And farming 20k gold?, 25 mins, if I'm lazy.
And of course I would get exited if I find an amazing item for a, let say, barb, because I would give it to him, and I would start playing him, but there is a problem, is not efficient. Because, the way things work right now, the best way to farm is to use only one character.
Either way, I was just showing you that many people find enjoyment out of using the AH. Why does it matter though? If you don't find enjoyment in using the AH, then don't use it.
I'm not sure how you haven't found a 2 hander higher than 1100 yet. My friends and I play a weekly game for 3 hours together and we hold a small contest for finding the highest dps 1 hander and 2 handers of the night (winner gets 50k). Almost every night the winner for 2 hander is 1100-1300 and the 1 hander is 900-1000. You are overstating things a bit or just kill amazingly slowly/don't play much?
The best way to farm no matter the loot system is to use 1 character. It's best to pool all of your resource into 1 character, that would be true no matter how the game is designed. I don't understand you here....
It is basically a product of Blizzard's relationship with the IP (and genre) itself. They obviously don't get it and would rather use it as an economics R&D project than attempt to do justice to the legacy of the series.
That created a feeling that changed the real purpose of the AH, the real purpose was:" I will finnish the game and use the AH to get very specific itens for my build."
What those problems i described caused: " I have to use the AH if in order to progress through the game, people who pay real money can finnish the game and i can't"
Blizzard listened to the wrong players before lauching the game, they shouldn't have listened to very hardcore fanplayers who post on foruns, they asked for a very hard game but that wasn't what the Diablo player base wanted, ARPGs were never about difficulty, too say the minimim:
-That makes most of fun builds unuseful,impossible to use.
-Separates too much the player base, imagine 2 friends playing together from normal to hell, on inferno act 2 player A finds a godly item, player B finds nothing good, player A ,so, sells it for hundreeds of millions of gold, buys a entire gear for himself and finnish the game, his friend who did not find anything godly just keep farming Magda, that's a terrible design.
Above i defended AH, bellow i will why it should not be in the game:
I think every system that spoils players interactions should not be implemented, in Diablo or in any other game, you talked about trade channels, rooms, stone of Jordans being used as currency, AFK traders, but you forgot to say that you met a lot of people doind that, some may even have become your friends, your contacts on DIablo 3, you ignored the sense of community that it created.
Paragon levels helped, as they gave grinding and farming a point, even when you weren't finding anything. Still, not enough.
Monster Power will help tremendously as you can slowly make your way through the levels. I think I will build a 'No AH'/All finds character when Monster Power comes out. Pretty excited about it actually.
Yes that is the problem, and to fix it they need to revert that so it is not a necessity, but a supplement to gear you find on your own.
I can't recall ever seeing an 1100+ dps 2-hander or 900+ dps 1-hander drop. That's from 3500 elite kills on my main.
I did find a bow with more than 1000 and a socket and good +crit damage, which sold for 7.5 million, but no, I don't think I've ever seen a drop with raw dps numbers like you describe.
Maybe im wrong but i do think that the main issue for Non -AHers is the inability to progress without excessive grinding."
If you dont want grinding... You sir are playing the wrong game. Diablo is 1 big none needed gear grind. And sup with "the ah requirement to progress" its been shown and proven a gazillion times you can complete inferno in absolutely crapper items. Because you want the finest shinies in every slot, but without having to invest the hours to do so. In order for that to happen, imagine how the drop rates would be? everyone would be running around in BiS gear in a month. Its supose to take years of hard work to get the finest gear, either via 5 million act 3 runs or via trading.
I personally wouldnt be playing this game if they removed the RMAH, i enjoy having the chance to be rewarded with real money, for either my dedicated farming or clever moves trading. Its a genious move in my oppinion by blizzard introducing the rmah, it really makes the game more exiting.
I'm only paragon lvl 37, yet i enjoy doing runs. I love the game for its posibilities in economic matters. Im currently at 1.6b gold and 4380 made on rmah. Both numbers are increasing daily. I LOVE it. Blizzard managed to inside of a good game, create an awesome economic game. People who talk about the game is not rewarding. My paypal account says otherwise :=) And yes it can be about luck, finding that 250 euro item. But ive not been that lucky yet. I made my fortune by being clever on ah, doing my research - a little example: Who do you think grabed 40+ close to perfect SoJ's (28-30% elite dmg) with the good class affix for less than 2 mill each? Moi. They already increased to 50m and i reckon they will increase to over 100m each in 1.0.5 when people realise its going to be the BiS ring for farming ubbers and keyholders on mp10 for pretty much guaranteed drop rate. Yes now they "suck" because elites doesnt have much hp. But say hallo to 30% elite dmg when stuff got 150+Million hp. Ladies and gentlemen, we got a new BiS ring incoming and those of us who were clever already stockpiled our new Fortune. Did i mention how rewarding this game can be? You take the effort to learn the know how, you take the effort being on top of things and it gets rewarded with real money.
I think the issue we got in todays gaming world, is the average age of players have rocket dropped to new lows. And thats why we see in each and every game how the *QQ ruins everything over time. Just look at what happent to wow. Everything is being casualized and it make games worse. Before you flame me to death, its just a little personel theory ive had : p
Currently played toon: https://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Rage-2973/hero/97362116
The game is still cool and way better than any alternative out there, but is quite a big disappointment in the aspect of "having fun vs being effective" rather than "having fun being effective".
Stopped reading there.
I consider myself being effective while having fun. My farm runs are effective, heck im a monk almost at a ww barbs farming speed. And im effective when it comes to trading. I dont see why you shouldnt be able to do the same. Unless ofc if your lazy and if thats so, you wont get any pitty from me.
Currently played toon: https://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Rage-2973/hero/97362116