It's probably becoming apparent to everyone as they start to get a handle on what inferno level gear looks like, but I thought I'd put it out there for discussion: Gear progression in D3 is effectively endless.
Since even legendaries have random affixes, and most affixes include randomized numbers within themselves, a legendary drop is itself a lottery ticket, not the grand prize.
Lets look at potential BiS 2-hand axe as an example:
First you need it to drop.
Then you have the following ranges:
+87-173 Minimum Damage (87 states)
+116-231 Maximum Damage (116 states)
+31-35% Damage (5 states)
1.0-5.1% Chance to Fear on Hit (42 states)
10.0-35.0% chance to inflict Bleed for 397-795–398-1590 damage over 5 seconds. (double factor 26 x 1192 States)
One of 3 Magic Properties (varies) (Y/N Factor 1:3 is INT/DEX possibly invalidating the weapon, Then 20 states)
+130-149 Intelligence
+130-149 Dexterity
+130-149 Strength
+1 Random Magic Property (Again, a possibly invalidating affix could keep this weapon from even being viable, we'll be generous and say 1 out of 3 possible affixes wil be viable, and not count the added mutilplicative factors in the math for now)
So, for a chance at a perfect weapon, we our formula is:
1 : (chance of correct stat affix)*(Chance of useful random Affix)*(multiplicative Factors)
or
1: (3)*(3)*(87*116*5*42*26*1192*20)
or
1: 11,822,753,779,200 (One in ~12 quadrillion)
So, if 12 quadrillion skorns drop. roughly 1 of them will have perfect stats. Even long odds can come up with a winner once in a while, though. Say someone ever actually does get the perfect legendary 2 hander. They have 5 other gear slots to fill.
That means everyone's gear will always have room to improve to some degree, even if those increments are small, they will likely be meaningful and hard to come by.
Lets break it down more practically though. You don't need a weapon to be absolutely spot on perfect since as noted, a purely perfect weapon will likely never drop. Lets just say you'd like the upper range of each factor. Instead of multiplying by up to 1192 states, lets simplify, split every affix in 2 and judge it by "top half of the range vs bottom half of the range. We want all the affixes in the top half of the range so each affix has a multiplicative value of 2.
That gives us:
1:(3*3)(2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2) (i added in the factor of the random affix since we now have a practical approach to qualitatively assessing it)
1: 2,304
So in practical terms each skorn that drops has a 1:2304 chance of being better than average in each of it's affixes. There's some wiggle room to say I'd accept a lower chance of bleed for a higher draw on minimum damage, but it does start to paint a picture of just how rare the best items will be, and why no matter how good your gear seems, it will still have room to be upgraded. Hence why gear progression has no practical finish line.
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I grew up gaming without internet forums. The entire phenomenon of being upset with a game developer makes no sense to me. No sense. I cannot imagine spending my time and energy being upset about something I choose to do for recreation.
Thanks for the research. This is also the reason why people are saying "legendaries aren't good". Item quality is based on such random ranges that you could have a top-end rare that is much better than a mid-low end legendary.
Exactly. I had this discussion with Keranov in another thread. We're so conditioned to see orange and drool. This game isn't quite set up that way. You have to look at the details and do a little digging before you really get excited.
Maybe that feels like a bit of a let-down, but the trade off is infinite end game progression.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I grew up gaming without internet forums. The entire phenomenon of being upset with a game developer makes no sense to me. No sense. I cannot imagine spending my time and energy being upset about something I choose to do for recreation.
As a corrolary to this, if the AH eventually stagnates with tons of really superb gear, all Blizzard has to do is slightly increase the maximum possible values for certain key affixes on newly rolled items. They don't have to go out and make all new legendaries and such.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
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Since even legendaries have random affixes, and most affixes include randomized numbers within themselves, a legendary drop is itself a lottery ticket, not the grand prize.
Lets look at potential BiS 2-hand axe as an example:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/skorn
First you need it to drop.
Then you have the following ranges:
1 : (chance of correct stat affix)*(Chance of useful random Affix)*(multiplicative Factors)
or
1: (3)*(3)*(87*116*5*42*26*1192*20)
or
1: 11,822,753,779,200 (One in ~12 quadrillion)
So, if 12 quadrillion skorns drop. roughly 1 of them will have perfect stats. Even long odds can come up with a winner once in a while, though. Say someone ever actually does get the perfect legendary 2 hander. They have 5 other gear slots to fill.
That means everyone's gear will always have room to improve to some degree, even if those increments are small, they will likely be meaningful and hard to come by.
Lets break it down more practically though. You don't need a weapon to be absolutely spot on perfect since as noted, a purely perfect weapon will likely never drop. Lets just say you'd like the upper range of each factor. Instead of multiplying by up to 1192 states, lets simplify, split every affix in 2 and judge it by "top half of the range vs bottom half of the range. We want all the affixes in the top half of the range so each affix has a multiplicative value of 2.
That gives us:
1:(3*3)(2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2) (i added in the factor of the random affix since we now have a practical approach to qualitatively assessing it)
1: 2,304
So in practical terms each skorn that drops has a 1:2304 chance of being better than average in each of it's affixes. There's some wiggle room to say I'd accept a lower chance of bleed for a higher draw on minimum damage, but it does start to paint a picture of just how rare the best items will be, and why no matter how good your gear seems, it will still have room to be upgraded. Hence why gear progression has no practical finish line.
Maybe that feels like a bit of a let-down, but the trade off is infinite end game progression.