Indeed. By far the best breakdown I have seen. Looking forward to the Skill / Monster ability parts the most. Going to bite my lip and read quickly as positive things are said about the auction house though
The slider image you mention of offense vs, defense is very good at depicting the current problem. I don't mind having it so cut and dried, but there does need to be more ways of variation involved in the process, even if I'm not entirely sure how to achieve it.
Legendaries' crazy affixes. They mentioned one that could allow a Wizard to summon 2 Hydras
The other thing that could also improve the situation is improving the efficiency of those "secondary" stats. I'm sure we would all trade 30-40 Mainstat for 100 Dexterity if it was more efficient at boosting our dodge ratio, or for 100-120 Arcane Resist (if it could go that high).
I'm not sure if making main stat+vit auto roll on gear would affect things well in the games current state, but adding in lots of new affixes could be very beneficial. So items could be forced to roll main stat+vit as standard, but with the remainder slots a wider range of secondary attributes.
Yes, and then what would define how good the gear is (the RNG part of it) would be left for the "range" of which Main Stat + Vit could roll.
The problem with this approach (which I mentioned, but didn't create - read it somewhere in the official forums) is "do you put +armor, +resall, +life%" in the list of affixes that can roll with these? Or do you leave them as secondary? Do you put 2 or 3 predefined rolls (with AllRes being as important as Vit on Inferno)?
It's a tough approach.
I can understand the pain Blizzard must be feeling. Identifying the problem is easy enough most of the time, but working out a solution to fix it is not easy. Every small change will have a ripple effect on other features, and as we're all too well aware, you can never please everyone.
Yup, as I tried to show, solving one problem creates a slew of new ones. Yay, just like in real life!
That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't keep fighting to try to achieve perfection.
I feel that the loot system more or less fell apart because they give us too many affix rolls on items.
IMO there should be multiple items considered as BiS per slot, in that items have a max of like 4 affixes on most slots. So for example:
Dex, IAS, CritC, CritD would be considered BiS for one player, but
Dex, CritC, CritD, AR could be considered BiS to another player.
Vit, IAS, CritC, AR could be considered BiS to a third player.
IMO the biggest issue with the system is we have hardly any choices to make, because we can just get items like:
Dex, IAS, CritC, CritD, AR, Vit. Basically everything we want.
In the first month+ of the game, I actually felt like we had pretty good gear diversity for a few reasons: 6 affix items were pretty rare, MF was a top priority stat, and the AH let us search 3 affixes at a time.
This meant searching things like "MF, CritC, Dex" and TRYING to find something with 4 good affixes. It's not like now where you stick every good stat into the search box, then people wonder why there's no choices.
I have a question though.What makes you think that this or any other post(The awesome talisman thing by some guy in diablofans general discussion) is reaching the developers???
Hell even half the threads of b.net are not seen by the devs.I dont blame them for that they're too many.
But when they fail to see threads in the main site then what's the point in giving feedback here????
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Grinding Gear Games (Company that produced POE): "These are great Ideas, we will use them for sure as they are clearly what the player base is looking for."
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
I have a question though.What makes you think that this or any other post(The awesome talisman thing by some guy in diablofans general discussion) is reaching the developers???
Hell even half the threads of b.net are not seen by the devs.I dont blame them for that they're too many.
But when they fail to see threads in the main site then what's the point in giving feedback here????
Blizzard has said this so many times, it almost makes me angry if someone says something like "no point in giving feedback b/c they don't even read it anyways". Blizzard has so many CMs, almost every well-articulated thread is read by at least *someone* from Blizzard. Just because they're not putting a blue "read it" sign on every single thread, it doesn't mean it hasn't been read. Seriously, they have explained this a hundred times.
At some point they even say they DON'T respond to topics even after having read them because then everyone and their dog just jumps onto it and posts random stuff about their favorite button color, and give the impression that other threads are less important, which they aren't.
I mean, just look at this thread. Someone posts a suggestion on a developer's forum of a game. Within a couple of days (here actually it's just a few dozen hours) the feature gets implemented. Just as proposed. Hell will freeze before this ever happens on any EA game. As a developer, I am so impressed that they just take this suggestion up 1:1 and implement it right away, but I would also be extremely frustrated if random gamers just a few days later utter blurbs like "meh, no one reads our feedback, it's all pointless". This is - sorry that I can't find a different, more polite word here - just ignorant.
Whew! that was long but well worth the read. Appreciate the effort & time spent ... well done :Thumbs Up: . I don't have anything to add ... just wanted to read as I am almost satisfied with my D3 gaming experience. There is always something that needs improvement or could be changed, but I'm just playing to have FUN .
Again, thank you for your excellent presentation & clear thoughts on many D3 matters. I look forward to reading more
What's the point in going too in depth with the whole Best in slot thing when this just isn't the game to focus on it. You figure out what the minimum requirements for defense are, get it and then load up as much damage you possibly can. There is absolutely no point in paying for more health or resistance when you already cannot die so why spend energy on discussing it?
This goes back to the whole "slider" idea I was talking about. While there's a very clear "Offense vs Defense" balance and minimum defense requirements, some players definitely feel like improving their EHP, as a "just in case" buffer mechanism for those slightly more sticky situations.
Even debating about damage stats becomes silly really fast since attack speed can't compete after reaching a build specific APS limit and even then the more interesting discussing regards a spec.
I've been a huge critic of the Average-Dmg/Attackspeed/ChC/ChD issue for quite some time now. I simply didn't understand why these stats were left untouched for so long.
At this point, though, I think the developers actually intended things to work this way (although I can't understand their reasoning right now) - not having them compete (aka have a build with PURE Attackspeed or PURE critchance/dmg) but instead all be Offensive stats that we all strive to get a balance of.
I've noticed the minimum defense stat changes depending on your offensive capability, so it's not quite as simple as hit one number then dump the rest.
Isn't that more of an issue of out-levelling(gearing) the content rather than anything else?
Once you get to the point of 1-shotting everything the need for defence greatly reduces.
This goes back to the whole "slider" idea I was talking about. While there's a very clear "Offense vs Defense" balance and minimum defense requirements, some players definitely feel like improving their EHP, as a "just in case" buffer mechanism for those slightly more sticky situations.
What some players feel should not be in a guide for beginners IMO. You should just lay out the numbers and if they later down the road decide that they want a safety net of X HP, then that is up to them,
As the game is right now, and as most people build their chars, you set a class and build specific minimum of defense stats and put everything else into DPS afterwards.
Isn't that more of an issue of out-levelling(gearing) the content rather than anything else?
Once you get to the point of 1-shotting everything the need for defence greatly reduces.
That's true for lower MP levels.
For higher MP levels he probably meant that when you damage increases considerably, so does your sustainability from Lifesteal (and if you're recovering 10-15k health/second, maybe you can drop some mitigation).
The same applies for LoH and Attackspeed (if you get some more attackspeed, or change your build to contain a good proccing skill, you might be able to drop some defense).
Giving up some mitigation (all res, armor) when you deal more dps means you're choosing one scenario over another (demchoices!!!).
I mean that by decreasing the "buffer" that you have for emergency situations (with less mitigation and more sustain/dps), you're considerably more vulnerable to a Nightmarish proc, or an unlucky Frozen blast, or a Vortex pull into scissoring Arcane beams - which can outright kill you if you have too little EHP
I have recently changed some gear pieces on my [EU] WD that gave me about 20-25k DPS, but dropped my Resists by about 100-150 and my HP by a bit too. The damage and sustain boost feel great, but I definitely noticed I got a bit squishier on those situations I described.
I have a question though.What makes you think that this or any other post(The awesome talisman thing by some guy in diablofans general discussion) is reaching the developers???
Hell even half the threads of b.net are not seen by the devs.I dont blame them for that they're too many.
But when they fail to see threads in the main site then what's the point in giving feedback here????
Blizzard has said this so many times, it almost makes me angry if someone says something like "no point in giving feedback b/c they don't even read it anyways". Blizzard has so many CMs, almost every well-articulated thread is read by at least *someone* from Blizzard. Just because they're not putting a blue "read it" sign on every single thread, it doesn't mean it hasn't been read. Seriously, they have explained this a hundred times.
At some point they even say they DON'T respond to topics even after having read them because then everyone and their dog just jumps onto it and posts random stuff about their favorite button color, and give the impression that other threads are less important, which they aren't.
I mean, just look at this thread. Someone posts a suggestion on a developer's forum of a game. Within a couple of days (here actually it's just a few dozen hours) the feature gets implemented. Just as proposed. Hell will freeze before this ever happens on any EA game. As a developer, I am so impressed that they just take this suggestion up 1:1 and implement it right away, but I would also be extremely frustrated if random gamers just a few days later utter blurbs like "meh, no one reads our feedback, it's all pointless". This is - sorry that I can't find a different, more polite word here - just ignorant.
Of course they have to say that they read every post.But im not stupid enough to believe that.And again as i said earlier its not blizzard's fault.....the threads are too many in number.
What im saying is that why would they read sites like diablofans when they got a truckload of threads to read on their own forums?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Grinding Gear Games (Company that produced POE): "These are great Ideas, we will use them for sure as they are clearly what the player base is looking for."
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
What im saying is that why would they read sites like diablofans when they got a truckload of threads to read on their own forums?
I think they have people just for that. The same way some companies have people dedicated to scanning Social Media (FB, Google+, Twitter) for any comments about them, and Metacritic (or other websites dedicated to reviewing stuff).
The big thing about feedback or suggestions is when they're too complex (and that happens a ton of times).
For instance, in that enemy affix thread, some suggestions had people writing 3-4 paragraphs just to explain what their suggestion would do (there was this one guy wanting timed buffs for the enemy and timed unbuffs for the player). Or some regarding the Mystic, with dozens of underlying mechanics and systems to make it work. It's just too much for them to change.
They probably write those down for future consideration, but they're hardly going to try and implement a huuuuge complex mechanic (like the Tallisman one, for those who remember it) that they can't possibly predict the consequences for it.
It's probably a design philosophy to not make huge changes to the core gameplay experience. That's why these small "stupid things" (as Kripparian says) get fixed and something like "the AH" doesn't.
also the part about crafting you mentioned is very good and crafting should be a good place to have possibilities, though i am annoyed at the price / randomness aspect of the current game.
Yes. The whole idea behind crafting should be to take the focus away from "click and buy whatever I want in 30 seconds" and more towards "I'm gonna have a mid/long-term goal looking for these items so I can have some control over my upgrades".
also i hate that Ah is so good an place to "farm" items (done it a little, though it is quite boring for my taste)
And without an item sink, or a BoE/BoA feature, the bottom end of how good an item must be to be worth something is higher every minute.
The reason people consider items "worthless" is because they can get amazing items for 10-100k gold on the AH, and the rolls needed to match this "baseline" are insanely lucky and rare.
though very amazing Essay and keep up the splendid work
what a nice read.
i must say, i completly agree with you.
Everyone who has put a little thought into "how to fix diablo" must inevitably realize that its not easily done.
Before all you pointed this out - thank you for that - its very hard to explain to people without the background knowledge and experience - you did that pretty well.
Also you mention that blizzard is sooo slow - yeah they are. But yet its logical - you allready said it : They cant change the core game mechanics but need to fix a problem introduced through those mechanics. Thats paradox - thus difficult to solve.
One suggestion you make is by providing a more appealing crafting system.
I agree - a better crafting system where you can e.g collect x rares with desired mainstat and then combine them to make a guaranteed roll on a newly rolled item of same slot could make all the rares that drop worthy to pick up.
So one problem is: the worthless items problem - you commented on just above my post
The second problem is the high variance of randomness in the current loot system.
I want to comment on the worthless item problem:
Look - items are not worthless but the focus on what is worth something shifts overtime. Since there is no item reset, good items accumulate. and due to the high variance of the loot system good items accumulate far quicker thenn very good yet godly items.
This creates the problem that good items are worth nothing - allthough one player does not find them very often, the player base finds tons of them and doesnt need them since the profileration of items has changed.
This shift in profileration is not a problem, and i dont like the idea of introducing a ladder and a reset because that is not the solution to a problem but only a workaround which would piss of many , including me.
However what is a problem is the veriance of profileration between good and godly items.
This is where i come to the "key problem in diablo 3" (of course my oppinion)
Because of said variance - for every 100000 good rare drops (4 good affixes within a 75% of maximum ) there is one rare with 6 affixes which you all desire. OR thats how it feels for the average player. and even the good rares you only find once in a while. (at least i do )
while i found at the beginning of the game many items which sold for 100k and few which sold for more, i nowadays find 100k items as often as i found 100k+items when the game was released.
What hasnt changed however - allthough i invested more and more playtime into the game. ( which feels unnatural because humans expect to get something for their time - which contradicts the pure conecpt of randomness) - is the rate at which i find items which are worth a really great shitload of gold. This rate is zero - after 900 hours played
To be precise i found one skorn with lifeleech and high rolls a few days after the new legendaries where introduced. it sold for 100 milllion - to this day this is the most gold i made from a single item.
The second one will be several - let me say 10 items for about 50 millions - and a lot 20 million stuff.
Thats all the rest is small fries.
Oh and i found gloves which might be worth more then 100 mil but they where an upgrade for myself.
So including the gloves i made about 750 mil gold in 900 hours including the small fry.
Yet my gear is worth several billions - thanks rmah, sniping, flipping - thanks job. nothing to discuss here on personal choices. just for info incase someone notices my char.
So get back to the main problem of diablo:
This is it, i concider myself on the bottom side of loot luck variance. correct me if iam right - but i think at leaast 70% of players who played the same amount as i did - and still do , have found more then i have.
Since randomness is a bitch, i cant complain. the next find might be around the corner.
Thats also the factor which keeps me playing, and at the same time keeps me frustradet since i never get any gratification.
in 900 play time i felt really happy about 3 times.
Introducing said crafting system will take away variance while making me want to play even more. since i need loot to craft. Thats a concept persuing.
Also the loot variance in general should be reduced drastically. make godly items profilerate faster.
That would hurt the AH economy- for sure, but to my case this is wrong in the first place.
From my point of view there is only one way to tackle the loot problem. Reduce the amount for trading - increase self found item profileration through crafting and lower variance, make legendaries diversify the skill builds and that will fix the game.
But it will severley hurt the AH economy, Gold and RMAH - since godly items will be lower priced, maybe the time comes where 250€ is the real maximum worth of a perfect rolled d3 item. not 9000 Euros. (~10000 dollars). Thats where i like ah balance to be.
So by taking focus from the ah, basically by increasing drop rate most of the demotivation problems would simply disappear because random wouldnt be a bitch anymore.
Combine that with a little more diversity and complexity - voila game fixed , ah broken (i dont care , it was bad from the beginning)
( i dont care the offensive/defensive , no stat distribution problem - its a good choice how they did it, get used to easy to learn - easy to master, its an arpg not a shooter)
Still there are ways to give diversity and endgame.
Sorry wall of text.
TL;DR increase drop rate untill you find godly gear in about 1500hours of playtime - MAXIMUM if you're unlucky. Make drop rate so hight that a perfect item will be worth 250€ ( i mean perfect! not godly) and provide some diversity/complexity with additions like a more appealing crafting system and legendaries. This wont destroy core game mechanics - current builds, items or whatever - only destroy AH which was bad to begin with. Reduce AH to be a place of item exchange and trade if you found something good you dont need, not a mandatory place to be to get items you cant find yourself.
again thanks for your thread, you provided the perfect entry point to provide my own thoughts combined with my personal expierience playing this game.
You mentioned ( op ) that main stat has moved to the gear instead being distributable.
Why not go the other way round now?
You have 2 secondary stats - eh: dex and str if you are a wizzard.
Provide ability to chose secondary stat bonus - not like str = armor , but str = +%attackspeed , or +crit or + pickup + or + loh or + whatever! ( of course in a blanced fasion)
This would firstly : offer you more choice with items, secondly it would make str/int rolls actually usefull reducing a lot of the variance i mentioned in my early post.
Players could use this mechanic to either boost one particular spec e.g CMWW coulduse attackspeed.
or to counter some shortages in their gear, or to provide that extra defense you cant afforrd on gear without sacrificing damage.
Introduce a high fee to swap those secondary bonuses - heck make it a world event with item/goldsink ,voila
Give a chance of an 300/300 main/secondary stat item to roll but make it only identifiyable after you swapped the bonuses - that would be ridiculously demonic *g*
Thats one not very complex to implement mechinc (i know what i talk about ) - most likely not gamebraking ,and if gamebraking its still a balancable mechanic with no impact on present gear/specs.
Indeed. By far the best breakdown I have seen. Looking forward to the Skill / Monster ability parts the most. Going to bite my lip and read quickly as positive things are said about the auction house though
Path of Exile - CleavieWonder (Elemental Cleave)
And thanks for all the feedback everyone (wish I could +1 everyone) I wouldn't have expected so many to have read it.. you guys are awesome!
The other thing that could also improve the situation is improving the efficiency of those "secondary" stats. I'm sure we would all trade 30-40 Mainstat for 100 Dexterity if it was more efficient at boosting our dodge ratio, or for 100-120 Arcane Resist (if it could go that high).
Yes, and then what would define how good the gear is (the RNG part of it) would be left for the "range" of which Main Stat + Vit could roll.
The problem with this approach (which I mentioned, but didn't create - read it somewhere in the official forums) is "do you put +armor, +resall, +life%" in the list of affixes that can roll with these? Or do you leave them as secondary? Do you put 2 or 3 predefined rolls (with AllRes being as important as Vit on Inferno)?
It's a tough approach.
Yup, as I tried to show, solving one problem creates a slew of new ones. Yay, just like in real life!
That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't keep fighting to try to achieve perfection.
IMO there should be multiple items considered as BiS per slot, in that items have a max of like 4 affixes on most slots. So for example:
Dex, IAS, CritC, CritD would be considered BiS for one player, but
Dex, CritC, CritD, AR could be considered BiS to another player.
Vit, IAS, CritC, AR could be considered BiS to a third player.
IMO the biggest issue with the system is we have hardly any choices to make, because we can just get items like:
Dex, IAS, CritC, CritD, AR, Vit. Basically everything we want.
In the first month+ of the game, I actually felt like we had pretty good gear diversity for a few reasons: 6 affix items were pretty rare, MF was a top priority stat, and the AH let us search 3 affixes at a time.
This meant searching things like "MF, CritC, Dex" and TRYING to find something with 4 good affixes. It's not like now where you stick every good stat into the search box, then people wonder why there's no choices.
I have a question though.What makes you think that this or any other post(The awesome talisman thing by some guy in diablofans general discussion) is reaching the developers???
Hell even half the threads of b.net are not seen by the devs.I dont blame them for that they're too many.
But when they fail to see threads in the main site then what's the point in giving feedback here????
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
http://s1332.photobucket.com/user/Tester_3211/media/Diablo3devs_zpscc5fbac9.jpg.html?state=replace
Blizzard has said this so many times, it almost makes me angry if someone says something like "no point in giving feedback b/c they don't even read it anyways". Blizzard has so many CMs, almost every well-articulated thread is read by at least *someone* from Blizzard. Just because they're not putting a blue "read it" sign on every single thread, it doesn't mean it hasn't been read. Seriously, they have explained this a hundred times.
At some point they even say they DON'T respond to topics even after having read them because then everyone and their dog just jumps onto it and posts random stuff about their favorite button color, and give the impression that other threads are less important, which they aren't.
I mean, just look at this thread. Someone posts a suggestion on a developer's forum of a game. Within a couple of days (here actually it's just a few dozen hours) the feature gets implemented. Just as proposed. Hell will freeze before this ever happens on any EA game. As a developer, I am so impressed that they just take this suggestion up 1:1 and implement it right away, but I would also be extremely frustrated if random gamers just a few days later utter blurbs like "meh, no one reads our feedback, it's all pointless". This is - sorry that I can't find a different, more polite word here - just ignorant.
Again, thank you for your excellent presentation & clear thoughts on many D3 matters. I look forward to reading more
This goes back to the whole "slider" idea I was talking about. While there's a very clear "Offense vs Defense" balance and minimum defense requirements, some players definitely feel like improving their EHP, as a "just in case" buffer mechanism for those slightly more sticky situations.
I've been a huge critic of the Average-Dmg/Attackspeed/ChC/ChD issue for quite some time now. I simply didn't understand why these stats were left untouched for so long.
At this point, though, I think the developers actually intended things to work this way (although I can't understand their reasoning right now) - not having them compete (aka have a build with PURE Attackspeed or PURE critchance/dmg) but instead all be Offensive stats that we all strive to get a balance of.
Isn't that more of an issue of out-levelling(gearing) the content rather than anything else?
Once you get to the point of 1-shotting everything the need for defence greatly reduces.
What some players feel should not be in a guide for beginners IMO. You should just lay out the numbers and if they later down the road decide that they want a safety net of X HP, then that is up to them,
As the game is right now, and as most people build their chars, you set a class and build specific minimum of defense stats and put everything else into DPS afterwards.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
For higher MP levels he probably meant that when you damage increases considerably, so does your sustainability from Lifesteal (and if you're recovering 10-15k health/second, maybe you can drop some mitigation).
The same applies for LoH and Attackspeed (if you get some more attackspeed, or change your build to contain a good proccing skill, you might be able to drop some defense).
I mean that by decreasing the "buffer" that you have for emergency situations (with less mitigation and more sustain/dps), you're considerably more vulnerable to a Nightmarish proc, or an unlucky Frozen blast, or a Vortex pull into scissoring Arcane beams - which can outright kill you if you have too little EHP
I have recently changed some gear pieces on my [EU] WD that gave me about 20-25k DPS, but dropped my Resists by about 100-150 and my HP by a bit too. The damage and sustain boost feel great, but I definitely noticed I got a bit squishier on those situations I described.
Of course they have to say that they read every post.But im not stupid enough to believe that.And again as i said earlier its not blizzard's fault.....the threads are too many in number.
What im saying is that why would they read sites like diablofans when they got a truckload of threads to read on their own forums?
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
http://s1332.photobucket.com/user/Tester_3211/media/Diablo3devs_zpscc5fbac9.jpg.html?state=replace
The big thing about feedback or suggestions is when they're too complex (and that happens a ton of times).
For instance, in that enemy affix thread, some suggestions had people writing 3-4 paragraphs just to explain what their suggestion would do (there was this one guy wanting timed buffs for the enemy and timed unbuffs for the player). Or some regarding the Mystic, with dozens of underlying mechanics and systems to make it work. It's just too much for them to change.
They probably write those down for future consideration, but they're hardly going to try and implement a huuuuge complex mechanic (like the Tallisman one, for those who remember it) that they can't possibly predict the consequences for it.
It's probably a design philosophy to not make huge changes to the core gameplay experience. That's why these small "stupid things" (as Kripparian says) get fixed and something like "the AH" doesn't.
Should be posting the part 2 (on Legendaries and Skill/Class Balance) soon.
And without an item sink, or a BoE/BoA feature, the bottom end of how good an item must be to be worth something is higher every minute.
The reason people consider items "worthless" is because they can get amazing items for 10-100k gold on the AH, and the rolls needed to match this "baseline" are insanely lucky and rare.
Thanks
i must say, i completly agree with you.
Everyone who has put a little thought into "how to fix diablo" must inevitably realize that its not easily done.
Before all you pointed this out - thank you for that - its very hard to explain to people without the background knowledge and experience - you did that pretty well.
Also you mention that blizzard is sooo slow - yeah they are. But yet its logical - you allready said it : They cant change the core game mechanics but need to fix a problem introduced through those mechanics. Thats paradox - thus difficult to solve.
One suggestion you make is by providing a more appealing crafting system.
I agree - a better crafting system where you can e.g collect x rares with desired mainstat and then combine them to make a guaranteed roll on a newly rolled item of same slot could make all the rares that drop worthy to pick up.
So one problem is: the worthless items problem - you commented on just above my post
The second problem is the high variance of randomness in the current loot system.
I want to comment on the worthless item problem:
Look - items are not worthless but the focus on what is worth something shifts overtime. Since there is no item reset, good items accumulate. and due to the high variance of the loot system good items accumulate far quicker thenn very good yet godly items.
This creates the problem that good items are worth nothing - allthough one player does not find them very often, the player base finds tons of them and doesnt need them since the profileration of items has changed.
This shift in profileration is not a problem, and i dont like the idea of introducing a ladder and a reset because that is not the solution to a problem but only a workaround which would piss of many , including me.
However what is a problem is the veriance of profileration between good and godly items.
This is where i come to the "key problem in diablo 3" (of course my oppinion)
Because of said variance - for every 100000 good rare drops (4 good affixes within a 75% of maximum ) there is one rare with 6 affixes which you all desire. OR thats how it feels for the average player. and even the good rares you only find once in a while. (at least i do )
while i found at the beginning of the game many items which sold for 100k and few which sold for more, i nowadays find 100k items as often as i found 100k+items when the game was released.
What hasnt changed however - allthough i invested more and more playtime into the game. ( which feels unnatural because humans expect to get something for their time - which contradicts the pure conecpt of randomness) - is the rate at which i find items which are worth a really great shitload of gold. This rate is zero - after 900 hours played
To be precise i found one skorn with lifeleech and high rolls a few days after the new legendaries where introduced. it sold for 100 milllion - to this day this is the most gold i made from a single item.
The second one will be several - let me say 10 items for about 50 millions - and a lot 20 million stuff.
Thats all the rest is small fries.
Oh and i found gloves which might be worth more then 100 mil but they where an upgrade for myself.
So including the gloves i made about 750 mil gold in 900 hours including the small fry.
Yet my gear is worth several billions - thanks rmah, sniping, flipping - thanks job. nothing to discuss here on personal choices. just for info incase someone notices my char.
So get back to the main problem of diablo:
This is it, i concider myself on the bottom side of loot luck variance. correct me if iam right - but i think at leaast 70% of players who played the same amount as i did - and still do , have found more then i have.
Since randomness is a bitch, i cant complain. the next find might be around the corner.
Thats also the factor which keeps me playing, and at the same time keeps me frustradet since i never get any gratification.
in 900 play time i felt really happy about 3 times.
Introducing said crafting system will take away variance while making me want to play even more. since i need loot to craft. Thats a concept persuing.
Also the loot variance in general should be reduced drastically. make godly items profilerate faster.
That would hurt the AH economy- for sure, but to my case this is wrong in the first place.
From my point of view there is only one way to tackle the loot problem. Reduce the amount for trading - increase self found item profileration through crafting and lower variance, make legendaries diversify the skill builds and that will fix the game.
But it will severley hurt the AH economy, Gold and RMAH - since godly items will be lower priced, maybe the time comes where 250€ is the real maximum worth of a perfect rolled d3 item. not 9000 Euros. (~10000 dollars). Thats where i like ah balance to be.
So by taking focus from the ah, basically by increasing drop rate most of the demotivation problems would simply disappear because random wouldnt be a bitch anymore.
Combine that with a little more diversity and complexity - voila game fixed , ah broken (i dont care , it was bad from the beginning)
( i dont care the offensive/defensive , no stat distribution problem - its a good choice how they did it, get used to easy to learn - easy to master, its an arpg not a shooter)
Still there are ways to give diversity and endgame.
Sorry wall of text.
TL;DR increase drop rate untill you find godly gear in about 1500hours of playtime - MAXIMUM if you're unlucky. Make drop rate so hight that a perfect item will be worth 250€ ( i mean perfect! not godly) and provide some diversity/complexity with additions like a more appealing crafting system and legendaries. This wont destroy core game mechanics - current builds, items or whatever - only destroy AH which was bad to begin with. Reduce AH to be a place of item exchange and trade if you found something good you dont need, not a mandatory place to be to get items you cant find yourself.
again thanks for your thread, you provided the perfect entry point to provide my own thoughts combined with my personal expierience playing this game.
You mentioned ( op ) that main stat has moved to the gear instead being distributable.
Why not go the other way round now?
You have 2 secondary stats - eh: dex and str if you are a wizzard.
Provide ability to chose secondary stat bonus - not like str = armor , but str = +%attackspeed , or +crit or + pickup + or + loh or + whatever! ( of course in a blanced fasion)
This would firstly : offer you more choice with items, secondly it would make str/int rolls actually usefull reducing a lot of the variance i mentioned in my early post.
Players could use this mechanic to either boost one particular spec e.g CMWW coulduse attackspeed.
or to counter some shortages in their gear, or to provide that extra defense you cant afforrd on gear without sacrificing damage.
Introduce a high fee to swap those secondary bonuses - heck make it a world event with item/goldsink ,voila
Give a chance of an 300/300 main/secondary stat item to roll but make it only identifiyable after you swapped the bonuses - that would be ridiculously demonic *g*
Thats one not very complex to implement mechinc (i know what i talk about ) - most likely not gamebraking ,and if gamebraking its still a balancable mechanic with no impact on present gear/specs.