Mass buying Unids is promoting bots in the game and makes the difference between poor and rich bigger. Good items leave auction house floor and ppl are forced into investing real money on the game.
Discuss!
2) Why does buying unidentified items increase the gap between poor and rich people? I just don't see it.
3) Good items aren't traded via auction house, that's true. But what has this to do with unidentified items? You don't know if an unidentified item is "good", most of them end up in the AH or at your local vendor/brimstone producer.
4) How does buying stuff outside the AH force people into investing real money into the game? Paying for an item with real money outside the AH is against the ToS and might get you banned (though it's difficult to spot for Blizzard).
Im basing my theory on the fact that money makes money. The few people that can afford mass buying unids have a higher chance of identifying a top end item.
The demand for close to perfect items increases as the distance from a good item and perfect item gets shorter.
Were seeing item differences of 10 or 20 stat points being worth half a billion, a billion and so on.
All really good items are pushed out of the auction house and the common mortal lowers his chances of putting their hands on a good item.
Ofc we can say that average items are more than enought to complete the game.
But the big ammount of gold were willing to spend on a better item is just a reflex of how much the player base wants to farm content faster. Thus increasing their chances on looting a top end item.
As a consequence of all this, botting and the increasing devaluation of good rolled items creates, in my opinion, the necessity of spending real money to remain competitive.
All really good items are pushed out of the auction house and the common mortal lowers his chances of putting their hands on a good item.
That has nothing to do with the unidentified item trades. Unidentified items aren't good or bad, they're just unidentified (and of course traded outside the AH). After identifying it, it might very well show up on the AH. If an item surfaces on the AH is just a question of "how good it is". If you invest more than 2b/$200 you need to go to D2JSP or other channels, but you're not a "common mortal" anymore anyways.
Ofc we can say that average items are more than enought to complete the game.
But the big ammount of gold were willing to spend on a better item is just a reflex of how much the player base wants to farm content faster. Thus increasing their chances on looting a top end item.
As a consequence of all this, botting and the increasing devaluation of good rolled items creates, in my opinion, the necessity of spending real money to remain competitive.
Woot... what? Man, it just doesn't add up.
1) Diablo 3 is a non-competitive game.
2) How does botting or "the increasing devaluation" make it necessary to spend real money? It's rather the opposite, since bots "flood the game with good rolled items and devaluate everything" everyone can afford good items. Just look at how cheap 6% Lacuni's have become, or the fact that everyone can get a Witching Hour. If anything, botting and the devaluation of good rolls makes it LESS NECESSARY to spend real money in order to reach a certain gear level.
Bagstone, you sound like youre happy with way the end game is taking.
Were no longer competitive if the competition is against bots and ppl that mass buy unids.
If u have a reasonable amount of gold you no longer spend half an hour or an hour playing the game to loot a couple of trash legendaries/brimstones. You buy a bunch on unids instead.
Your drawing a line on the obvious direction of - more legendaries are identified, so more good legendaries are on the auction house, available to the players at a normal price.
The thing is that your calling good items to what im calling bad.
The people no longer want a witching hour, they want a very good and rare rolled witching hour.
The prices skyrocket at this point bcs theres demand for it. So these items start to leave the gold auction house.
The once very good items are now complete trash, u easily reach a gearing ceiling and u cant afford going over it without spending real money.
The competition is made amongst players and groups of friends.
My point is that u cant compete with bot owners and users. They are devaluating quite good items, quite easy to farm and quite enough to be an upgrade for you.
I hope you get my point. Im done trying to explain myself, im sorry if i wasnt able to!
I hope you get my point. Im done trying to explain myself, im sorry if i wasnt able to!
Okay, so I won't comment on every single point you made (which I was going to, but there's no point if you don't want to go further). Just two final points I want to make:
1) I'm not very happy with the end game in particular, I think D3 end game is unfinished (not only in terms of itemization, but also in terms of things to do for the super uber geared people who breeze through MP10, to which I not necessarily belong). I'm also a bit on the fence with Blizzard's recent announcements as I pointed out here: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/97600-so-whats-the-story-with-109/ - my happiness about D3's current state is challenged, to say the least.
2) You're making a lot of assumptions and generalizations; while some of them may be right, some are questionable and some are just wrong (as a generalization). For example, there is no "competition against bots or mass unid buyers". There is no reason why you should care what other people do. Especially since some of the most famous and widely regarded "D3 rockstars" are playing 24/7 (you can even watch their streams) and thus doing exactly the same thing as a bot. Furthermore, I think you're contradicting yourself with many of your statements and making wrong assumptions. "The people no longer want a witching hour, they want a very good and rare rolled witching hour." Who are "the people" you're referring to? Every single guy on my friends list has a mediocre Witching Hour and is more than happy about it. Everyone knows the Witching Hours that give you 5k more DPS are gonna cost you half a billion and they'll be worth nothing in a few months. Why should anyone buy these? Just be happy with the cheap and still quite good Witching Hour. Skyrocketing prices also applies to high-level items only, and this is only an issue for the 0.1% of people who're trying to max out their gear. If the only guys on your friends list are Jaetch or INVIS and you're trying to compete with them, that's you problem, but if you'd invite 100 random people you'd "win" against 99 of them I'd say (looking at your gear).
I just think your theory doesn't hold up. Looking at your posts and at your character I think there are two different issues that are really troubling you: 1) You're worried about YOUR GEAR getting devalued as the market will be flooded with good items (and you should be, because this is just what's gonna happen) and 2) you're worried that upgrades will get more expensive as the top high-end items - and this is what you need to get to upgrade your character - are becoming more and more expensive. Bots magnify this effect, but to what extent - we don't know. But bots (or unid mass buyers) are not the cause of your problem, not at all.
I love how people complain about the AH and yet right now I think there's more exchange going on via third party site (2B+, $250+, etc) or UNID through chat/etc. Everyone I've talked to that is buying massive amounts of UNID (at least in game) is reselling them for profit. UNID are the new commodity just like gems were. I don't think anyone is buying massive amounts of UNID to actually ID them.
Discuss!
1) We had the discussion, whether all unid items come from bots, earlier: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/96805-those-people-with-massive-amounts-of-unid-legendaries/
2) Why does buying unidentified items increase the gap between poor and rich people? I just don't see it.
3) Good items aren't traded via auction house, that's true. But what has this to do with unidentified items? You don't know if an unidentified item is "good", most of them end up in the AH or at your local vendor/brimstone producer.
4) How does buying stuff outside the AH force people into investing real money into the game? Paying for an item with real money outside the AH is against the ToS and might get you banned (though it's difficult to spot for Blizzard).
Not sure what you want to "discuss" about.
The demand for close to perfect items increases as the distance from a good item and perfect item gets shorter.
Were seeing item differences of 10 or 20 stat points being worth half a billion, a billion and so on.
All really good items are pushed out of the auction house and the common mortal lowers his chances of putting their hands on a good item.
Ofc we can say that average items are more than enought to complete the game.
But the big ammount of gold were willing to spend on a better item is just a reflex of how much the player base wants to farm content faster. Thus increasing their chances on looting a top end item.
As a consequence of all this, botting and the increasing devaluation of good rolled items creates, in my opinion, the necessity of spending real money to remain competitive.
That has nothing to do with the unidentified item trades. Unidentified items aren't good or bad, they're just unidentified (and of course traded outside the AH). After identifying it, it might very well show up on the AH. If an item surfaces on the AH is just a question of "how good it is". If you invest more than 2b/$200 you need to go to D2JSP or other channels, but you're not a "common mortal" anymore anyways.
Woot... what? Man, it just doesn't add up.
1) Diablo 3 is a non-competitive game.
2) How does botting or "the increasing devaluation" make it necessary to spend real money? It's rather the opposite, since bots "flood the game with good rolled items and devaluate everything" everyone can afford good items. Just look at how cheap 6% Lacuni's have become, or the fact that everyone can get a Witching Hour. If anything, botting and the devaluation of good rolls makes it LESS NECESSARY to spend real money in order to reach a certain gear level.
Were no longer competitive if the competition is against bots and ppl that mass buy unids.
If u have a reasonable amount of gold you no longer spend half an hour or an hour playing the game to loot a couple of trash legendaries/brimstones. You buy a bunch on unids instead.
Your drawing a line on the obvious direction of - more legendaries are identified, so more good legendaries are on the auction house, available to the players at a normal price.
The thing is that your calling good items to what im calling bad.
The people no longer want a witching hour, they want a very good and rare rolled witching hour.
The prices skyrocket at this point bcs theres demand for it. So these items start to leave the gold auction house.
The once very good items are now complete trash, u easily reach a gearing ceiling and u cant afford going over it without spending real money.
The competition is made amongst players and groups of friends.
My point is that u cant compete with bot owners and users. They are devaluating quite good items, quite easy to farm and quite enough to be an upgrade for you.
I hope you get my point. Im done trying to explain myself, im sorry if i wasnt able to!
Okay, so I won't comment on every single point you made (which I was going to, but there's no point if you don't want to go further). Just two final points I want to make:
1) I'm not very happy with the end game in particular, I think D3 end game is unfinished (not only in terms of itemization, but also in terms of things to do for the super uber geared people who breeze through MP10, to which I not necessarily belong). I'm also a bit on the fence with Blizzard's recent announcements as I pointed out here: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/97600-so-whats-the-story-with-109/ - my happiness about D3's current state is challenged, to say the least.
2) You're making a lot of assumptions and generalizations; while some of them may be right, some are questionable and some are just wrong (as a generalization). For example, there is no "competition against bots or mass unid buyers". There is no reason why you should care what other people do. Especially since some of the most famous and widely regarded "D3 rockstars" are playing 24/7 (you can even watch their streams) and thus doing exactly the same thing as a bot. Furthermore, I think you're contradicting yourself with many of your statements and making wrong assumptions. "The people no longer want a witching hour, they want a very good and rare rolled witching hour." Who are "the people" you're referring to? Every single guy on my friends list has a mediocre Witching Hour and is more than happy about it. Everyone knows the Witching Hours that give you 5k more DPS are gonna cost you half a billion and they'll be worth nothing in a few months. Why should anyone buy these? Just be happy with the cheap and still quite good Witching Hour. Skyrocketing prices also applies to high-level items only, and this is only an issue for the 0.1% of people who're trying to max out their gear. If the only guys on your friends list are Jaetch or INVIS and you're trying to compete with them, that's you problem, but if you'd invite 100 random people you'd "win" against 99 of them I'd say (looking at your gear).
I just think your theory doesn't hold up. Looking at your posts and at your character I think there are two different issues that are really troubling you: 1) You're worried about YOUR GEAR getting devalued as the market will be flooded with good items (and you should be, because this is just what's gonna happen) and 2) you're worried that upgrades will get more expensive as the top high-end items - and this is what you need to get to upgrade your character - are becoming more and more expensive. Bots magnify this effect, but to what extent - we don't know. But bots (or unid mass buyers) are not the cause of your problem, not at all.
I still enjoyed this game for hundreds of hours and plan to come back whenever a new patch hits.
Yeah, this. One just simply shouldn't try to compete and be "clean" at the same time
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450