i.e. "if we improve loot too much, traders will reach the endgame too quickly and get bored"
That's a financial decision if I ever saw one.
That's nonsense, they're not collecting any money from people who already bought the game. In fact they're removing their only source of post-launch revenue for the sake of resolving this issue.
Bored people don't buy expansions, and might even resent Blizzard, therefore having repercussions in future games/other franchises.
If not, why do they care if traders get bored?
Yes, Blizzard is a business, and they make money by creating good games. Congratulations, you cracked the code. A less cynical person might call BoA Legendaries a "make the game as good as possible" decision.
BUT ITS FOR MONEY ZOMG BIG BUSINESS = THE DEVIL WE SHOULD ALL SHARE OUR MONEY SO NO ONE GETS THEIR FEELERS HURTTT
Yes, Blizzard is a business, and they make money by creating good games. Congratulations, you cracked the code. A less cynical person might call BoA Legendaries a "make the game as good as possible" decision.
His point, since you were too busy being a smartass to actually let it sink into your skull, was that making everything BoA may very well come at a price. That price is drop rates so greatly increased (since you can't trade anymore) that the game doesn't have any longevity to it. This is a REAL concern whether or not you tap dance around it.
Let's just say, for example, that around 90 out of 100 (with 100 being absolutely BiS gear in every slot) the rate at which you acquire items gets slow. Let's also say that Blizzard tunes drop rates with the intention that you hit 90 after 8-12 months. Now you have the majority of players at 90/100 within a year who are basically in the SAME situation they are now - most items are not useful and the ones that are useful are few and far between.
Without further details, that is a recipe for attrition due to severe boredom. Us Diablo FANS don't want a game that has a predetermined shelf-life. One thing we learned from D2 is that the players make the game what it is and that having the freedom to do so is what gives the game such a long lifespan. D2 had loads of problems, but it lasted because, in a way, it was almost a sandbox. There weren't lots of rules. The game wasn't catering to self-found or traders, nor was it trying to exclude one or the other. The social engineering that you're advocating was NON-EXISTENT in D2 and that's what made it work.
Blizzard made a product and said "here, play this!" And they made a product that, because it didn't force people to play in any one manner, was amazingly successful. What they've done with D3, especially in this light, is a complete contradiction to the one thing that truly made D2 a great game: freedom to do as you wished.
Oddly enough, it's only Diablo "fans" who think that finding your own loot 100% of the time is the only "legit" way to play. Nowhere on PoE or TL2 forums would you see people whining that "trading ruins the collective experience" or anything along those lines. And I've begun to wonder why Diablo "fans" are so biggoted and narrow-minded in that regard. Day after day I see posts here which amount to "if you don't play my way then you're a cheater" and I don't get how this is a phenomenon that is almost exclusive to Diablo.
There was no "right" way to play D2. Why some of you believe that there should be a "right" way to play D3 is beyond me. Meglomania?
But if we can actually play self found, have a good chance at getting the gear we want, are still able to trade every item type up to rare, and crafting mats and gold to use to upgrade our items, then I think putting BoA on legendaries actually won't effect me.
Honestly, how does trading effect you if you are having a fun self-found experience? If you and I never meet in-game, but maka and I trade an item..... how in the world does that diminish your enjoyment of the game? Do you loose sleep at night knowing that maka and I are 1% ahead of you in a non-competitive game? Do your legendaries lose 1 from each stat?
My point is this: clans offer sub-communities. If you surround yourself with, and only play with, other like-minded people.... then what's it matter what people who aren't involved in your little world are doing?
At the end of the day the only question that matters is "Did I have fun?" And, truthfully, I have a hard time believing anyone who says that people who trade items ruin their fun. It sounds a lot to me like you can't enjoy your Christmas presents because your neighbor's father is a rich doctor and bought him nicer presents... and if that's the case, it's sad. Life is far too short to ruin it for yourself by letting jealousy take over like that.
But if we can actually play self found, have a good chance at getting the gear we want, are still able to trade every item type up to rare, and crafting mats and gold to use to upgrade our items, then I think putting BoA on legendaries actually won't effect me.
Honestly, how does trading effect you if you are having a fun self-found experience? If you and I never meet in-game, but maka and I trade an item..... how in the world does that diminish your enjoyment of the game? Do you loose sleep at night knowing that maka and I are 1% ahead of you in a non-competitive game? Do your legendaries lose 1 from each stat?
I think you misinterpret his post... he was saying that if self-found feels "okay" in RoS, he can live with the BoA restriction. Nowhere in a post do I see anything that hints at other people trading as having an effect on his experience.
Yes, Blizzard is a business, and they make money by creating good games. Congratulations, you cracked the code. A less cynical person might call BoA Legendaries a "make the game as good as possible" decision.
His point, since you were too busy being a smartass to actually let it sink into your skull, was that making everything BoA may very well come at a price. That price is drop rates so greatly increased (since you can't trade anymore) that the game doesn't have any longevity to it. This is a REAL concern whether or not you tap dance around it.
Let's just say, for example, that around 90 out of 100 (with 100 being absolutely BiS gear in every slot) the rate at which you acquire items gets slow. Let's also say that Blizzard tunes drop rates with the intention that you hit 90 after 8-12 months. Now you have the majority of players at 90/100 within a year who are basically in the SAME situation they are now - most items are not useful and the ones that are useful are few and far between.
Without further details, that is a recipe for attrition due to severe boredom. Us Diablo FANS don't want a game that has a predetermined shelf-life. One thing we learned from D2 is that the players make the game what it is and that having the freedom to do so is what gives the game such a long lifespan. D2 had loads of problems, but it lasted because, in a way, it was almost a sandbox. There weren't lots of rules. The game wasn't catering to self-found or traders, nor was it trying to exclude one or the other. The social engineering that you're advocating was NON-EXISTENT in D2 and that's what made it work.
You're saying that by making it easier to trade, it will actually take longer for people to reach the power cap? Sorry, that doesn't make any sense at all. The auction house showed pretty definitively that unrestricted trading results in an item economy that is greatly inflated. For a handful of gold now you can get a set of gear that anybody would have salivated over back at launch.
The open trading metagame basically consists of "I know exactly what I want, so I'm going to go and buy it, and now my build is done." There isn't any real randomness, it's basically just pick-and-choose all your stats because there's so much abundance of everything that you can definitely find what you're looking for. With self-found however, you have to work with what you get, which means a lot more creative builds based on what's available rather than what's cookie cutter. It's going to take longer to fill every slot with exactly the Legendaries that you want, and that means more longevity no matter how you look at it.
You're saying that by making it easier to trade, it will actually take longer for people to reach the power cap? Sorry, that doesn't make any sense at all.
That's not what I'm saying at all. Re-read and try again. I'm not advocating for ANY form of mass trading. I'm advocating for what I refer to as "bind to friends/clan" instead of "bind to game."
I'm advocating for a framework whereby we can define our own game-within-a-game without defining what others are doing. Nothing more, nothing less.
You're saying that by making it easier to trade, it will actually take longer for people to reach the power cap? Sorry, that doesn't make any sense at all.
That's not what I'm saying at all. Re-read and try again. I'm not advocating for ANY form of mass trading. I'm advocating for what I refer to as "bind to friends/clan" instead of "bind to game."
I'm advocating for a framework whereby we can define our own game-within-a-game without defining what others are doing. Nothing more, nothing less.
Once you start defining all these weird rules, you're just begging the trading community to find a way around them. Bind to friends means anyone can just add someone as a friend first before trading with them. Oops, now it has to be people who were friends when the item dropped. Then people will just add every person on their favorite trading forum as a friend in advance so they're free to trade as they like. Same for clans, people would just join huge trading clans with players they don't actually know at all. And now my group of friends can't be in a clan together because some of them are in the Trading Alliance or whatever. Now all these nice social tools have been warped beyond recognition and are screwing with the in-game economy all over again, not to mention the return of sleezy scammers, etc. And once again, because Blizzard chose to allow this behavior they are responsible for pleasing these players and their design decisions are affected. And of course the traders are still not happy because the trading experience is such a convoluted pain in the ass.
You can't make one game that pleases everyone, it simply can't be done. The more you try, the messier things get. Path of Exile is obviously going for a different approach that appeals to that audience, why not just play that game?
I'm probably not going too far out on a limb on this one, but I have this gut feeling that the people that are so adamant about "preserving the integrity of the loot" by removing trading are either 1) going to be complaining that loot is falling from the skies and is too easy to come by like in the PS version or 2) that they are unhappy because they want to try out this new fun build, but they are not sure if they are ever going to see the items to make this build since it may take between 0 and 100 years for the item just to drop let alone if it rolls useful stats.
We're talking about going from one extreme to a different extreme and expecting a different outcome ...
What they've done with D3, especially in this light, is a complete contradiction to the one thing that truly made D2 a great game: freedom to do as you wished.
The only restriction in Diablo 3 (after RoS) will be that you can't trade legendary/set items (and only those types) with players other than your party members. Which by the way, is only the current plan. That might change in some way too. Otherwise, RoS will be the most open Diablo game yet.
It's not "no trading", it's no trading of legs/sets outside of the party when they dropped. It's not the "other extreme" from the AH. That would be everything BoA.
Bind to friends means anyone can just add someone as a friend first before trading with them. Oops, now it has to be people who were friends when the item dropped. Then people will just add every person on their favorite trading forum as a friend in advance so they're free to trade as they like. Same for clans, people would just join huge trading clans with players they don't actually know at all. And now my group of friends can't be in a clan together because some of them are in the Trading Alliance or whatever. Now all these nice social tools have been warped beyond recognition and are screwing with the in-game economy all over again, not to mention the return of sleezy scammers, etc.
There's a limit to friends lists which is relatively low (100, "relatively low" compared to for example Facebook ;-)); and there might as well be an (even lower) limit on clans (like 50, why not). So you can't just join with everyone on D2JSP. If you have some people you add in advance because you want to trade with them, keep in mind these people have to add you to, and there are no more than 99 people more important than you for this person (and vice versa). Isn't this already the loose definition of friendship? I don't see the problem here.
And why would anyone add scammers to their friends list/clan? Rather the opposite, this solution would actually allow for an easy way of getting rid of them - kick them out of your clan/friends list and the scammer is screwed. He can't even get rid of his items by joining another clan.
I could totally live with this functionality implemented, to be honest.
What it comes down to is that I think Diablo is considerably more fun when you find all your own gear than when you trade for it(outside your immediate teammates), and I would argue that most players feel the same.
The fun thing is that you can allready do that.
If they improve drop chances, you can do so even better.
The only thing that BoA takes away is the option for people who want to play differently. So Blizzard made a 180 degrees turn from "you can play selffound, but it is not optimal cause of low drop rates" to "you HAVE to play selffound".
I dont get why people who are in favor of selffound play style want BoA items. As long as they get their improved drop rates, they should be happy. If you really only care about your own selffound experience, it does not matter to you if other people trade or if the AH still exists. Cause you have your own style and the rest has no influence on the enjoyment of your game time. The entire "dont let others trade" has nothing to do with your own game experience ( again, as long as blizzard fixes drop rates ). It's about stopping others from gaining an advantage over the play style that the self-finders chose themself.
edit : what blizzard actually should do is make a selffound and a non selffound ladder and see how many people play on each. So far they just change the game based on who whines the most on their forum.
And that's the actual flaw of the game. Nothing to do. And what will we get with RoS? More loot sources, but no playground for the perfect characters those have that fall for this expansion.
So then the people that farm enough to get bored because they have a "perfect" character will stop playing. Though the majority of players will be continuing to farm over a much longer period.
And that's the actual flaw of the game. Nothing to do. And what will we get with RoS? More loot sources, but no playground for the perfect characters those have that fall for this expansion.
So then the people that farm enough to get bored because they have a "perfect" character will stop playing. Though the majority of players will be continuing to farm over a much longer period.
I don't think it will be so much longer if drop rates are even close to consoles and enchanting around.
It would be quite a stretch to get them to the console level, which (as you've stated) would be too much loot too fast. The console game is designed around being rewarding in one session, so I guess we'll see for sure whenever a loot 2.0 ptr is running.
On the other hand, gearing a character faster means folks will have the opportunity to mess with other classes or parts of the game they might not have explored yet (like Hardcore).
One thing I will miss now that BoA is here, is the guy who comes into chat fully decked out in very slot with all kinds of nonsense legendary items and asks: "How do you play this game?"
One thing I will miss now that BoA is here, is the guy who comes into chat fully decked out in very slot with all kinds of nonsense legendary items and asks: "How do you play this game?"
Yeah stupid stereotypes about the few people who bougth their way to a good char will bring this along smoothly.
Not to mention that my question still stands. How does this guy have any effect on you whatsoever? Except of course your jaelousy... I said it above, once selffound players get their droprates fixed, there is nothing to complain about except if you are jaelous.
Yikes. Never did I say this represented everyone who traded, or accused anyone in this thread of being a CC warrior, it was just something that happened the other day and I found amusing.
Yeah, dont reply to the main point of my post. That's going well...
You read too much into my post.
No, trading has no affect on me, but that wasn't the point of my post. The point (and it's not really a big one anyway) is when someone buys all their gear and is completely lost in the game, I just find that funny. That's all. lol I am sorry my mild amusement at the situation has caused you any offense. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have brought it up, this topic making people as touchy as they are.
But I swear, I have no personal vendetta against traders. If people want to trade for every piece of their gear, that's their prerogative. But I don't see why this even has to be said, because the issue is a lot more complicated than us vs. them that so many of these discussions turn into. I think you can actually discuss the merits of BoA, without actually vilifying traders.
edit : what blizzard actually should do is make a selffound and a non selffound ladder and see how many people play on each. So far they just change the game based on who whines the most on their forum.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, this is where you're wrong.
Maybe you haven't noticed, Twoflower, but people have been whining and crying for a self-found ladder/realm/server and a trading ladder/realm/server for MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS. Obviously...no such thing exists.
The reason they're going this way...not just with BOA legendaries, but also boosted item quality, Mystic enchantments, etc...is because they want items to be meaningful, desirable, and HARD TO GET, as oppposed to just patching in a way to separate self-found and trade-minded players.
At best, that kind of plan would be an absolute band-aid that would VALIDATE how Blizzard adjusted droprates for the AH, and how they let RNG get way out of control.
Yes...I acknowledge how far the other direction this pendulum is swinging, but this is a far healthier way to swing than separating self-found and trading.
It's healthier to alienate a portion of your player base because another portion feels (rightly right now, but with coming changes to drop rates this won't be the case) that they're being screwed? It's healthier to tell a portion of your fan base that "you can't play the way you want to because those guys over there don't like it?" Healthier than separating out the two, maybe. But healthier than continuing to allow trading amongst those who want to trade while still adjusting drop rates to a more viable level for self-found. How is wiping out a play style in favor of another healthy when there's clearly room for a compromise that is largely being ignored by devs and blues?
No, trading has no affect on me, but that wasn't the point of my post. The point (and it's not really a big one anyway) is when someone buys all their gear and is completely lost in the game, I just find that funny. That's all. lol I am sorry my mild amusement at the situation has caused you any offense. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have brought it up, this topic making people as touchy as they are.
I probably was, sorry for that.
I met some of the people you described aswell, and yes their lost wandering around in the game has potential for amusement. But it's also the stereotype that people paint of the "trader", sorry for jumping all over that.
The reason they're going this way...not just with BOA legendaries, but also boosted item quality, Mystic enchantments, etc...is because they want items to be meaningful, desirable, and HARD TO GET, as oppposed to just patching in a way to separate self-found and trade-minded players.
Items are meaningful and desirable. At least to me. I would love some better items ( desire ) and they would maybe help me to beat harder mobs ( well, kinda meaningful. Pvp would help a lot with meaning ). I dont know why you highligth the hard to get part when one of the main complaints about the state now is that we dont get enugh good loot.
I get why the mystic is helping with item quality, it basically turns a item with 5 out of 6 good stats into a 6/6 item ( with enugh gold invested ). I dont get why BoA helps at all though.
At best, that kind of plan would be an absolute band-aid that would VALIDATE how Blizzard adjusted droprates for the AH, and how they let RNG get way out of control.
We all know that blizz adjusted drop rates for the AH. They are gonna change that hopefully for loot 2.0 or whatever they will call it. That does not change that some statistics on how many people wanna trade and how many want to play selffound would help in the design process. Specially when deciding what direction to go for. And very very specially when you gonna introduce mechanics that more or less stop one part from playing like they want.
Yes...I acknowledge how far the other direction this pendulum is swinging, but this is a far healthier way to swing than separating self-found and trading.
How is just shutting down one option healthier than creating two options ?
BUT ITS FOR MONEY ZOMG BIG BUSINESS = THE DEVIL WE SHOULD ALL SHARE OUR MONEY SO NO ONE GETS THEIR FEELERS HURTTT
His point, since you were too busy being a smartass to actually let it sink into your skull, was that making everything BoA may very well come at a price. That price is drop rates so greatly increased (since you can't trade anymore) that the game doesn't have any longevity to it. This is a REAL concern whether or not you tap dance around it.
Let's just say, for example, that around 90 out of 100 (with 100 being absolutely BiS gear in every slot) the rate at which you acquire items gets slow. Let's also say that Blizzard tunes drop rates with the intention that you hit 90 after 8-12 months. Now you have the majority of players at 90/100 within a year who are basically in the SAME situation they are now - most items are not useful and the ones that are useful are few and far between.
Without further details, that is a recipe for attrition due to severe boredom. Us Diablo FANS don't want a game that has a predetermined shelf-life. One thing we learned from D2 is that the players make the game what it is and that having the freedom to do so is what gives the game such a long lifespan. D2 had loads of problems, but it lasted because, in a way, it was almost a sandbox. There weren't lots of rules. The game wasn't catering to self-found or traders, nor was it trying to exclude one or the other. The social engineering that you're advocating was NON-EXISTENT in D2 and that's what made it work.
Blizzard made a product and said "here, play this!" And they made a product that, because it didn't force people to play in any one manner, was amazingly successful. What they've done with D3, especially in this light, is a complete contradiction to the one thing that truly made D2 a great game: freedom to do as you wished.
Oddly enough, it's only Diablo "fans" who think that finding your own loot 100% of the time is the only "legit" way to play. Nowhere on PoE or TL2 forums would you see people whining that "trading ruins the collective experience" or anything along those lines. And I've begun to wonder why Diablo "fans" are so biggoted and narrow-minded in that regard. Day after day I see posts here which amount to "if you don't play my way then you're a cheater" and I don't get how this is a phenomenon that is almost exclusive to Diablo.
There was no "right" way to play D2. Why some of you believe that there should be a "right" way to play D3 is beyond me. Meglomania?
Honestly, how does trading effect you if you are having a fun self-found experience? If you and I never meet in-game, but maka and I trade an item..... how in the world does that diminish your enjoyment of the game? Do you loose sleep at night knowing that maka and I are 1% ahead of you in a non-competitive game? Do your legendaries lose 1 from each stat?
My point is this: clans offer sub-communities. If you surround yourself with, and only play with, other like-minded people.... then what's it matter what people who aren't involved in your little world are doing?
At the end of the day the only question that matters is "Did I have fun?" And, truthfully, I have a hard time believing anyone who says that people who trade items ruin their fun. It sounds a lot to me like you can't enjoy your Christmas presents because your neighbor's father is a rich doctor and bought him nicer presents... and if that's the case, it's sad. Life is far too short to ruin it for yourself by letting jealousy take over like that.
I think you misinterpret his post... he was saying that if self-found feels "okay" in RoS, he can live with the BoA restriction. Nowhere in a post do I see anything that hints at other people trading as having an effect on his experience.
You're saying that by making it easier to trade, it will actually take longer for people to reach the power cap? Sorry, that doesn't make any sense at all. The auction house showed pretty definitively that unrestricted trading results in an item economy that is greatly inflated. For a handful of gold now you can get a set of gear that anybody would have salivated over back at launch.
The open trading metagame basically consists of "I know exactly what I want, so I'm going to go and buy it, and now my build is done." There isn't any real randomness, it's basically just pick-and-choose all your stats because there's so much abundance of everything that you can definitely find what you're looking for. With self-found however, you have to work with what you get, which means a lot more creative builds based on what's available rather than what's cookie cutter. It's going to take longer to fill every slot with exactly the Legendaries that you want, and that means more longevity no matter how you look at it.
That's not what I'm saying at all. Re-read and try again. I'm not advocating for ANY form of mass trading. I'm advocating for what I refer to as "bind to friends/clan" instead of "bind to game."
I'm advocating for a framework whereby we can define our own game-within-a-game without defining what others are doing. Nothing more, nothing less.
Once you start defining all these weird rules, you're just begging the trading community to find a way around them. Bind to friends means anyone can just add someone as a friend first before trading with them. Oops, now it has to be people who were friends when the item dropped. Then people will just add every person on their favorite trading forum as a friend in advance so they're free to trade as they like. Same for clans, people would just join huge trading clans with players they don't actually know at all. And now my group of friends can't be in a clan together because some of them are in the Trading Alliance or whatever. Now all these nice social tools have been warped beyond recognition and are screwing with the in-game economy all over again, not to mention the return of sleezy scammers, etc. And once again, because Blizzard chose to allow this behavior they are responsible for pleasing these players and their design decisions are affected. And of course the traders are still not happy because the trading experience is such a convoluted pain in the ass.
You can't make one game that pleases everyone, it simply can't be done. The more you try, the messier things get. Path of Exile is obviously going for a different approach that appeals to that audience, why not just play that game?
We're talking about going from one extreme to a different extreme and expecting a different outcome ...
It's not "no trading", it's no trading of legs/sets outside of the party when they dropped. It's not the "other extreme" from the AH. That would be everything BoA.
There's a limit to friends lists which is relatively low (100, "relatively low" compared to for example Facebook ;-)); and there might as well be an (even lower) limit on clans (like 50, why not). So you can't just join with everyone on D2JSP. If you have some people you add in advance because you want to trade with them, keep in mind these people have to add you to, and there are no more than 99 people more important than you for this person (and vice versa). Isn't this already the loose definition of friendship? I don't see the problem here.
And why would anyone add scammers to their friends list/clan? Rather the opposite, this solution would actually allow for an easy way of getting rid of them - kick them out of your clan/friends list and the scammer is screwed. He can't even get rid of his items by joining another clan.
I could totally live with this functionality implemented, to be honest.
The fun thing is that you can allready do that.
If they improve drop chances, you can do so even better.
The only thing that BoA takes away is the option for people who want to play differently. So Blizzard made a 180 degrees turn from "you can play selffound, but it is not optimal cause of low drop rates" to "you HAVE to play selffound".
I dont get why people who are in favor of selffound play style want BoA items. As long as they get their improved drop rates, they should be happy. If you really only care about your own selffound experience, it does not matter to you if other people trade or if the AH still exists. Cause you have your own style and the rest has no influence on the enjoyment of your game time. The entire "dont let others trade" has nothing to do with your own game experience ( again, as long as blizzard fixes drop rates ). It's about stopping others from gaining an advantage over the play style that the self-finders chose themself.
edit : what blizzard actually should do is make a selffound and a non selffound ladder and see how many people play on each. So far they just change the game based on who whines the most on their forum.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
So then the people that farm enough to get bored because they have a "perfect" character will stop playing. Though the majority of players will be continuing to farm over a much longer period.
On the other hand, gearing a character faster means folks will have the opportunity to mess with other classes or parts of the game they might not have explored yet (like Hardcore).
Yeah stupid stereotypes about the few people who bougth their way to a good char will bring this along smoothly.
Not to mention that my question still stands. How does this guy have any effect on you whatsoever? Except of course your jaelousy... I said it above, once selffound players get their droprates fixed, there is nothing to complain about except if you are jaelous.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Yeesh, lighten up. Not everyone is attacking you.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
You read too much into my post.
No, trading has no affect on me, but that wasn't the point of my post. The point (and it's not really a big one anyway) is when someone buys all their gear and is completely lost in the game, I just find that funny. That's all. lol I am sorry my mild amusement at the situation has caused you any offense. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have brought it up, this topic making people as touchy as they are.
But I swear, I have no personal vendetta against traders. If people want to trade for every piece of their gear, that's their prerogative. But I don't see why this even has to be said, because the issue is a lot more complicated than us vs. them that so many of these discussions turn into. I think you can actually discuss the merits of BoA, without actually vilifying traders.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, this is where you're wrong.
Maybe you haven't noticed, Twoflower, but people have been whining and crying for a self-found ladder/realm/server and a trading ladder/realm/server for MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS. Obviously...no such thing exists.
The reason they're going this way...not just with BOA legendaries, but also boosted item quality, Mystic enchantments, etc...is because they want items to be meaningful, desirable, and HARD TO GET, as oppposed to just patching in a way to separate self-found and trade-minded players.
At best, that kind of plan would be an absolute band-aid that would VALIDATE how Blizzard adjusted droprates for the AH, and how they let RNG get way out of control.
Yes...I acknowledge how far the other direction this pendulum is swinging, but this is a far healthier way to swing than separating self-found and trading.
Edited for addition of "
I probably was, sorry for that.
I met some of the people you described aswell, and yes their lost wandering around in the game has potential for amusement. But it's also the stereotype that people paint of the "trader", sorry for jumping all over that.
Items are meaningful and desirable. At least to me. I would love some better items ( desire ) and they would maybe help me to beat harder mobs ( well, kinda meaningful. Pvp would help a lot with meaning ). I dont know why you highligth the hard to get part when one of the main complaints about the state now is that we dont get enugh good loot.
I get why the mystic is helping with item quality, it basically turns a item with 5 out of 6 good stats into a 6/6 item ( with enugh gold invested ). I dont get why BoA helps at all though.
We all know that blizz adjusted drop rates for the AH. They are gonna change that hopefully for loot 2.0 or whatever they will call it. That does not change that some statistics on how many people wanna trade and how many want to play selffound would help in the design process. Specially when deciding what direction to go for. And very very specially when you gonna introduce mechanics that more or less stop one part from playing like they want.
How is just shutting down one option healthier than creating two options ?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841