In my opinion the "whiners" as you so insultingly call us are not whining about wanting a higher drop rate % - they are wanting better quality of items. Gear that rolls such completely random affixes, more often than not, become so discouraging - WHEN - you factor in as others have said, how pissed the game makes you to get that loot. The Champion affixes can not be the random rolls with the categorical system they have right now. Its unbalanced and is lazy, poor design. When the vast majority struggle to kill an elite pack with ridiculous rolls and they get a rare class item like a Monk i63 helm and it has +23 to Strength, +30 to Intelligence, +3.5% chance to make biscuits or some stupid shit; they can only take that for so long before they go to the AH or quit.
Further more - you freely state you farm Act 3, two full clears and find all this great loot and gold. Good for you. Do you know how many players can't get past the first quest in Act 3? So we do what we are supposed to do - farm Act 2 or 1. And albeit we can survive the stupid affixes on Champion packs a bit better - we farm for hours to find what? - gear that has +3.5% chance to make biscuits. So we sell that for nothing on the AH and hope that one day we can afford 45 million for an item. And YES, there are items that are good and cheaper than that. You also have to set an alarm and be ready to get up at 4:00 a.m. to wait until the last few seconds to bid on that and hopefully not drive its price up 100% before you've spent more gold than you wanted. THAT'S AH FARMING. And that's not the farming game these "whiners" want.
And last but not least - you my DEMON HUNTER friend are an elite "whiner" because you sit on your high ranged class hill in Act 3 and farm all day. How positivily arrogant of you to call the rest of the players whiners because we can't be were you are, farming all that sick loot you claim to find. Did you get that gear and all this amazing progression BEFORE they nerfed Nether Tentcles to the ground? You realize what you are? You are the kid that gets to buy ice-cream cones every minute, looking at the rest of us outside the ice-cream shop, who can't have any ice-cream and go "pfft - you whiners."
Congrats.
forget about act 3, i can that piece of crap for 2-3 times a day, and I haven't gotten a single useful loot, the only one useful loot that I have ever gotten was a 1k dps WD weapon FROM ACT 2 that i sold on RMAH for $150, like 4 weeks ago. And I don't see a reason to keep farming when the carrot on he stick has failed terribly.
A new way to farm is actually wear max MF gears to farm act 1, you will have higher chance to get 6 properties lvl 63 roll than doing act 3 in dps gears.
this game is all disappointment, no reward, they do whatever they can to piss the user off, Blizzard is terrible to the customers, every night, when I run act 3 with friends and chat on skype, whenever we find useless lootz and nothing good for the whole run, we all curse Blizzard to go bankrupt, its funny
And you're still playing.
Way to show the evil corporation who is fucking their customers over so badly!
Well, i still do play, but i don't have the thrill to farm act 3 anymore as it used to be, when I was progressing it, and play less and less everyday, I don't even go into game, i just check the AH and chat with friends nagging how bad the loot table is, chatting is more fun than killing terrible elite packs expecting 0 useful loot drop
The gear check is a lot tighter in D3, specially in each of Inferno's acts.
Even if we could get skills to become slightly more powerful past level 60, and got +100 to all stats by gaining a couple more levels, most of us would probably still have to turn to the AH to get better gear. It's not about "outleveling" content.
I was kinda thrown off and pretty pissed off when I allowed this to hinder the enjoyment I got from playing the game and not actually think about what someone else my perceive to be a waste of time or just not worth it at all. I like farming my way even if it's not efficient.
I hate the AH at times when I think about only because I hate the idea of controlling a market. But it seems like a better option than figuring out all the 'best' sites to trade, putting people on REAL ID, etc. You know the process. I don't like RMAH because I hear all the good stuff is on there and not on the gold side. None of this do I have any actually backing to these feelings or claims I tend to put upon myself.
When I just play it in the way I do, and what's fun to me I don't even think about any of this. If you're one that can't, I don't know what to tell you other than it's your fault you feel that way, no one else.
A couple levels weren't that big of a deal in Diablo 2. Seriously, 5 or 10 more skillpoints by the time we reached Hell (specially in Vanilla without sinergies) meant absolutely nothing. And even after sinergies, if you didn't have enough of a few base stats (life and mana leech for some, +skills to others) you probably wouldn't be able to get by content as well.
The fact being ignored here is that Diablo 2 was a much "easier" game, in the sense that you could use very few OP skills/builds and get past content with crappy gear. Things like static Field could literally carry you throughout Normal and Nightmare. The gear check is a lot tighter in D3, specially in each of Inferno's acts.
Even if we could get skills to become slightly more powerful past level 60, and got +100 to all stats by gaining a couple more levels, most of us would probably still have to turn to the AH to get better gear. It's not about "outleveling" content.
Leveling brought more than just skill points, it made it much easier to hit and not to be hit by enemies of a lower level. This helped making shit gear viable. It was somewhat annoying to hit Baal as a level 70 with 11000 AR and still only hit 40-50% of the time which than made leeching difficult which than resulted to spamming pots etc...
In the case of D3 it would allow us to take less damage and deal more... not sure if it would be significant though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
The gear check is a lot tighter in D3, specially in each of Inferno's acts.
Even if we could get skills to become slightly more powerful past level 60, and got +100 to all stats by gaining a couple more levels, most of us would probably still have to turn to the AH to get better gear. It's not about "outleveling" content.
I was kinda thrown off and pretty pissed off when I allowed this to hinder the enjoyment I got from playing the game and not actually think about what someone else my perceive to be a waste of time or just not worth it at all. I like farming my way even if it's not efficient.
I hate the AH at times when I think about only because I hate the idea of controlling a market. But it seems like a better option than figuring out all the 'best' sites to trade, putting people on REAL ID, etc. You know the process. I don't like RMAH because I hear all the good stuff is on there and not on the gold side. None of this do I have any actually backing to these feelings or claims I tend to put upon myself.
When I just play it in the way I do, and what's fun to me I don't even think about any of this. If you're one that can't, I don't know what to tell you other than it's your fault you feel that way, no one else.
I'm going to call BS here. Game design, which Blizz in the past has proven they understand, has very established concepts. There are psychological reasons for almost everything they do. Smaller indie companies are often less versed at these things and might make a game just to be fun to gamers. As proof, here is an interesting article from a writer turned game designer discussing some of this psychology:
When you are playing games by major developers, there are no two ways about it, you are being manipulated. When done well, it's fun and you don't really notice. Where I'm going with this, is that the game developer has to build in "wins". Something that is the reward, the carrot on the stick, the little motivating force behind wanting to play more. In D2, it was ID'ing drops that were incremental upgrades or even if you got lucky, godly items.
To say, "I've just accepted that there are no rewards and play only to smash monsters" is ok. If that's fun to you, awesome. To say to anyone else, "If you don't like that, you are the problem" is narrow minded and almost insulting.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
Leveling brought more than just skill points, it made it much easier to hit and not to be hit by enemies of a lower level. This helped making shit gear viable. It was somewhat annoying to hit Baal as a level 70 with 11000 AR and still only hit 40-50% of the time which than made leeching difficult which than resulted to spamming pots etc...
True. I definitely forgot about that when I posted.
I still think it wasn't that big of a deal. As I said, imveryho, in the end D2 was a much easier game once you understood the mechanics. That's what was "hardcore" about it, having the mechanics knowledge, once you had it, beating the game/farming was really easy (didn't require awesome gear or fine execution skills, which I think D3 does require - despite how some people say it's easy mode, essentially underrating their own personal skills).
I still think it wasn't that big of a deal. As I said, imveryho, in the end D2 was a much easier game once you understood the mechanics. That's what was "hardcore" about it, having the mechanics knowledge, once you had it, beating the game/farming was really easy (didn't require awesome gear or fine execution skills, which I think D3 does require - despite how some people say it's easy mode, essentially underrating their own personal skills).
True but if I knew what I know now gearing up to inferno would have been much easier and "cheaper". Things could drastically change with class buffs... too early to tell.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
In my opinion the "whiners" as you so insultingly call us are not whining about wanting a higher drop rate % - they are wanting better quality of items. Gear that rolls such completely random affixes, more often than not, become so discouraging - WHEN - you factor in as others have said, how pissed the game makes you to get that loot. The Champion affixes can not be the random rolls with the categorical system they have right now. Its unbalanced and is lazy, poor design. When the vast majority struggle to kill an elite pack with ridiculous rolls and they get a rare class item like a Monk i63 helm and it has +23 to Strength, +30 to Intelligence, +3.5% chance to make biscuits or some stupid shit; they can only take that for so long before they go to the AH or quit.
Further more - you freely state you farm Act 3, two full clears and find all this great loot and gold. Good for you. Do you know how many players can't get past the first quest in Act 3? So we do what we are supposed to do - farm Act 2 or 1. And albeit we can survive the stupid affixes on Champion packs a bit better - we farm for hours to find what? - gear that has +3.5% chance to make biscuits. So we sell that for nothing on the AH and hope that one day we can afford 45 million for an item. And YES, there are items that are good and cheaper than that. You also have to set an alarm and be ready to get up at 4:00 a.m. to wait until the last few seconds to bid on that and hopefully not drive its price up 100% before you've spent more gold than you wanted. THAT'S AH FARMING. And that's not the farming game these "whiners" want.
And last but not least - you my DEMON HUNTER friend are an elite "whiner" because you sit on your high ranged class hill in Act 3 and farm all day. How positivily arrogant of you to call the rest of the players whiners because we can't be were you are, farming all that sick loot you claim to find. Did you get that gear and all this amazing progression BEFORE they nerfed Nether Tentcles to the ground? You realize what you are? You are the kid that gets to buy ice-cream cones every minute, looking at the rest of us outside the ice-cream shop, who can't have any ice-cream and go "pfft - you whiners."
Congrats.
If you read my post in its entirety, I also have a 60 barb and wizard, both of which can farm Act 3. Like I said, that can easily be done with 5 million worth of gold spent wisely. Higher drop rate meant higher drop rate of high quality loot. Also as I mention, there's plenty of very good quality loot in the AH for very little money, for whatever reason why you're failing at the game, its not the drop rate of quality items. Also, just leveling and vendoring everything earns you about 1.5 to 2 million for just leveling from 0-60.
Also this is a farming game, if you don't enjoy farming........
And no, you're not suppose to find something awesome just because you've sunk 2 hours on it, regardless of what sort of success you had doing whatever you were doing in that two hours. Items aren't special if they give them out to everyone.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
I agree with what you say until you jump to this. The AH is a symptom of other problems. Pointing to the AH and raging at it is getting angry at your cough and not understanding that you have pnemonia.
The game shifted to buying gear for two major reasons:
1) Rares are the dominant form of gearing (due to the legendary/set itemization bungle) and therefore we are ALL heavily reliant on RNG-generated items to progress. There is no "baseline" for gear like there was in D2. There is no "crappy Vamp Gaze" that you can pick up for next to nothing. There are just randomly-generated items.
2) Inferno scales up in difficulty far faster and is significantly more difficult than anything D2 offered.
When you combine those two things you get a situation where players simply have better efficiency in the AH.
Fixing one (preferably both) would cure the "cough."
I agree with what you say until you jump to this. The AH is a symptom of other problems. Pointing to the AH and raging at it is getting angry at your cough and not understanding that you have pnemonia.
The game shifted to buying gear for two major reasons:
1) Rares are the dominant form of gearing (due to the legendary/set itemization bungle) and therefore we are ALL heavily reliant on RNG-generated items to progress. There is no "baseline" for gear like there was in D2. There is no "crappy Vamp Gaze" that you can pick up for next to nothing. There are just randomly-generated items.
2) Inferno scales up in difficulty far faster and is significantly more difficult than anything D2 offered.
When you combine those two things you get a situation where players simply have better efficiency in the AH.
Fixing one (preferably both) would cure the "cough."
Don't forget that the AH is just a different median of what existed in D2, 3rd party sites + trade spam/games.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
Do you think this was created by introducing the AH though or because the drops are just bad during farming.
And it was my impression that the fans asked for harder. I guess their definition of harder was more farming. Trust me, I don't think farming to get an item makes content hard. Hard content is looking at the ground, watching cast animations, etc.
I get and see that gear was weighted differently in d2. but the idea of having subpar gear that would get you through the content seems, half ass to me as far as a design element. I do this with WoW in having crap ilvl item in my bag that tells the system I have X when I'm really using Y. Obviously in WoW it doesn't help you. I don't think it should in D3 either. Something about the idea of not so good gear allowing you to still clear content seems backwards to me.
Or am I looking at this wrong. I'm all ears for other ways/facts/etc.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
I agree with what you say until you jump to this. The AH is a symptom of other problems. Pointing to the AH and raging at it is getting angry at your cough and not understanding that you have pnemonia.
The game shifted to buying gear for two major reasons:
1) Rares are the dominant form of gearing (due to the legendary/set itemization bungle) and therefore we are ALL heavily reliant on RNG-generated items to progress. There is no "baseline" for gear like there was in D2. There is no "crappy Vamp Gaze" that you can pick up for next to nothing. There are just randomly-generated items.
2) Inferno scales up in difficulty far faster and is significantly more difficult than anything D2 offered.
When you combine those two things you get a situation where players simply have better efficiency in the AH.
Fixing one (preferably both) would cure the "cough."
I don't think people generally have an issue with the AH, most of the complaints I've seen is that people don't think they should be getting the drops they ought to get. I farmed for 2 hours and I have nothing of value so the game sucks is what I'm hearing. Blizzard should make the items better, blah blah.
What I'm trying to say is Blizzard actually made the items too good which is why most of the items you've found is worthless (gold wise). Now if you refuse to use AH to buy/sell and relying on all drops, then you're playing the wrong game. D3 is meant for the AH, that's what alot of people complained about in D2. This game is still only 2 months old, if everyone can rolled through all the content, then Blizzard had failed. Think of it as if blizzard only made the game up to Hell mode and stopped. Is that what everyone is asking for?
I'm going to call BS here. Game design, which Blizz in the past has proven they understand, has very established concepts. There are psychological reasons for almost everything they do. Smaller indie companies are often less versed at these things and might make a game just to be fun to gamers. As proof, here is an interesting article from a writer turned game designer discussing some of this psychology:
When you are playing games by major developers, there are no two ways about it, you are being manipulated. When done well, it's fun and you don't really notice. Where I'm going with this, is that the game developer has to build in "wins". Something that is the reward, the carrot on the stick, the little motivating force behind wanting to play more. In D2, it was ID'ing drops that were incremental upgrades or even if you got lucky, godly items.
To say, "I've just accepted that there are no rewards and play only to smash monsters" is ok. If that's fun to you, awesome. To say to anyone else, "If you don't like that, you are the problem" is narrow minded and almost insulting.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
I actually just put a long post in another thread where I detail how there are so many layers of RNG on a drop that it makes your individual chance of usable gear EXTREMELY low.
This is hidden by the fact that you take a low % and multiply it by the number of hours being played by x million players and the drops per hour...suddenly, the AH makes every thing look like it's all ok.
In essence, Blizz already admitted to it and then tried to obscure the comment but they set the overall drop rates to make the economy "balanced" in the AHs. Not claiming that the drops change based on availability of gear or any kind of changing rates. I'm saying the base drop rates they put in at release consider the global scale of the game and what that does to the abundance/lack of gear. Because of scale, individual chances at even decent gear, not even perfect rolls, are terrible. Honestly, I've seen several threads around that indicate what we are seeing as the best gear on the AHs now is not even near perfects. If the best we are seeing is only 75% of perfect roll, consider that. Estimate 2 million (probably low) players putting in 2 hours a night (probably low) during the week and 6 hours a day on weekends (probably low). 2x5 + 6x2 = 22 hours. Say there are 4 iLvl 63s per hour on average. 88. Now times 2 million players = 176 million drops a week and we haven't seen a perfect roll (or almost none). I'm perfectly ok with that. That should be the long term idea. Getting that gear takes FOREVER. But getting USABLE gear should not.
In 300 hours, I have managed to collect about 6 million total with about 7k elite kills. I'm ok with being transparent about that. Those are a LOT lower than some players. But I will not use any form of exploit and I don't "play" the AH. I want to kill monsters, not play Econ 101. Never did Dank runs. That kind of short burst repitition kills my brain cells and isn't fun. I want variety in the content I farm. I want to ID the gear I equip. I want to have a smooth path of progression instead of brick walls that take weeks. That's what the previous Diablo titles let me do with plenty of reward. I played them solo and lan only and it was still enough little wins to keep me going and always wanting to go a little more.
Then you get a lot of self-righteous people who played the AH, or exploited or bought from the RMAH and since they pass the gear checks, they want to tell everyone, "It's fine, stop whining." Of course it is if you have the gear already. They love having near exclusive access to those kinds of drops.
Here's another one of my pet peeves about the AH. Let's say I spend 12 hours on Saturday farming. Given my experiene so far in the game, I'll make a fair share of gold and maybe find 5-6 pieces I can AH for 50k or so. Compare that to someone who chooses to play the AH because they find that fun. Flipping items (and assuming they have a bankroll to start with because they've been doing this all along) they will have a lot better gear than me. They haven't killed one thing. Now, if they want to, they can farm Acts that I can't to further skew the experience.
But a lot of people seem to want to say, "The AH is totally optional".
So is breathing.
The odd part to all this, is that what I would LOVE to see is the AHs so flooded with gear that everything sells for crap and if anyone wanted to, they could finish the game will less than 1 million in gear. The only way that would happen is if drop rates were high enough that I could find an upgrade. Not godly gear, just better than the assorted 58-61 Act 1 gear I have. If I found an incremental upgrade maybe every 6-12 hours, I would never even want to go the AHs. I would be happy farming gear at 13 slots x 12 hours of actually PLAYING the game to get to the next act and so on. That would mean those drop rates x 2 million people and the AH would be ruined as far as balance. And I would not care ONE bit. People who will buy their way to victory are doing it already. Who cares if it's cheaper for them to do so? Make the game rewarding for those who do want to play the game and keep doing it long term. They need that period reward, variety in farming locations and a feeling that the next ID could be the big one to keep them going. They don't need a "balanced" AH.
You also contracted yourself on your other post and doing the same here... You want good upgrades every few hours but then complain that it should take awhile to get geared so the game lasts longer.
We get it, your butthurt that you don't use the AH and you would have been butthurt in D2 because you never would have traded anything either, it’s a multiplayer game with a single player option ffs.
In that 12 hours I would have made over 1.5 million in gold alone just farming... I'm a casual player by the way and by no means have great gear.
Breathing is not optional it’s required; try using a better example such as driving compared to walking.
6 for 6 of whine.... well you do at least put intelligent thought into your posts but you seem to miss the big picture quite often as well.
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
Nice reading comprehension there. I distinctly said I played D2 without trading and loved it.
I like the combat systems in this game, which will hopefully be even better after 1.0.4. This isn't all about bashing D3 or Blizz. This is an analytical attempt at why there are so many dissatisfied players and the roll the AHs have in that.
You can ignore the math all you want and throw up straw men left and right. Finding an INCREMENTAL upgrade once every 12 hours of actual GAME PLAY is not extreme.
In the end, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely stating my observations and opinions and if you don't like it, give me some solid reasoning and logic, not 12 year old internet flaming.
Nice reading comprehension there. I distinctly said I played D2 without trading and loved it.
I like the combat systems in this game, which will hopefully be even better after 1.0.4. This isn't all about bashing D3 or Blizz. This is an analytical attempt at why there are so many dissatisfied players and the roll the AHs have in that.
You can ignore the math all you want and throw up straw men left and right. Finding an INCREMENTAL upgrade once every 12 hours of actual GAME PLAY is not extreme.
In the end, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely stating my observations and opinions and if you don't like it, give me some solid reasoning and logic, not 12 year old internet flaming.
My observations seem to show that the AH is working just fine, most items are so cheap you can farm act 1 and progress through act 2 with a couple hundred thousand. You don't need to play the AH, just spend a few minutes using filters. The UI sucks but beyond that there is no issue.
All the AH has done is changed trading spamming/games into an easy transaction using currency (gold instead of runes/soj’s). 3rd party sites existed before this and now it's mainstream, the drops are not different than before. D2 had terrible drop rates and it was rare to find upgrades within 12 hours. You had to trade to progress quickly just like you need to use the AH to quickly progress. You could also ignore inferno mode and just play to hell mode, that was what D2 had and that seems to be your take on what would make you happy. It’s meant to be hard that’s what players wanted and we got it.
Drop rates aren't the issue, it's itemization (as you posted earlier) it is the main problem with this game... the number one issue beyond anything else considering this game is all about finding gear.
Every patch has been fixing issues that Blizzard has dropped the ball on and it was the same for D2, this "woe is me" is just getting old after seeing it for two months.
1.0.4. "should" fix the majority of what people are concerned about, I just find it amusing people keep crying about it.
BTW reading giant wall of text generally doesn't help to get your point across try keeping shorter or add a tl;dr. Opinions have no merit but since that is what were both basing our "facts" from, I conclude that my observation of the AH is working fine as its infrequent use for me has helped compared to my experience with D2.
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
I think part of the forum woes everywhere lately is the inability of a lot of people to "agree to disagree" and to make their statements with that mindset.
Your post almost completely disagrees with mine and the way you state it is refreshing (this time, lol). There was no attempt at flaming or baiting. Your statements are opinions and stated so. You are as entitled to all of that as anyone is to their opinions and anyone who tried to "argue" it would be stupid.
I do want to make a point of disagreement, that again is IMO; hell vs inferno.
I feel this game takes almost zero skill. Not standing in fire is hard, amirite? I know 8 year olds who handle that just fine. Therefore, it's hard to make an inferno that requires more "skill". The hit detection that some call a "glitch" and Blizz confirmed is "working as intended" is just one indication that there is not some super special movement/twitch to be good at the game. All they can really do is make it require more gear.
But this is a game entirely focused on gear. It can't be optional if it is the primary source of the "cool" gear. It's poor logic to call it optional.
1) I like playing a game where I grind for gear
2) The best place for the best gear is in location x
/=
A) I don't want to grind for gear in location x
There is a lot of merit to saying that getting through Act 1 was supposed to take 3 months, and each act another 3 months. I actually believe that was the design intent. I think the problem with sticking to that intent, however, is that the curve has already been DESTROYED. And although it might be a small percentage of the game population that's done it, it's enough players to prove the intent did NOT work and cannot be held as a standard anymore. I really don't want to get into HOW it was destroyed because it tends to lead to flaming conversations, just looking at the state of things as they are, regardless how it got there.
The AH simply gets in the way of Blizzard tuning this young game into what it needs to be in order to remain a viable pastime. It was added into the equation way too early.
But now, every change that everyone knows needs to be made is put into terms of "Does this negatively impact the AH?" and the final truth behind it is, I didn't pay 60 dollars for an auction house. That would have been a wonderful addition for AFTER the game had been made into a sustaining experience. Trading would have carried this game at least a few months for Blizzard to be able to do that. Heck, a simple lobby system and elaborated accommodation for guilds and groups of friends would have carried it that far. And with D2 being what it was, and WoW showing how important community and role playing is to a community, they should have known what we were looking for in the early developmental stages of this game.
There's a fine line between reinventing the wheel and making a square one.
The AH simply gets in the way of Blizzard tuning this young game into what it needs to be in order to remain a viable pastime. It was added into the equation way too early.
But now, every change that everyone knows needs to be made is put into terms of "Does this negatively impact the AH?" and the final truth behind it is, I didn't pay 60 dollars for an auction house. That would have been a wonderful addition for AFTER the game had been made into a sustaining experience. Trading would have carried this game at least a few months for Blizzard to be able to do that. Heck, a simple lobby system and elaborated accommodation for guilds and groups of friends would have carried it that far. And with D2 being what it was, and WoW showing how important community and role playing is to a community, they should have known what we were looking for in the early developmental stages of this game.
There's a fine line between reinventing the wheel and making a square one.
I'm sure if they didn't have an AH and it was only trading, everyone would be complaining how come they couldn't put in an AH. Fact is, everyone have a different opinion on what suits them. What I was trying to find out was really what was the reason why people are complaining that loot is bad. Which personally I don't think is that bad. You don't need GODLY loot to beat diablo or be able to farm any act. There's very many pieces forsale you can get cheaply in the AH. Now if you don't like using the AH, then that's another story. I'm not saying using the AH mainly to make money, just to sell the gear you found and find upgrades with the money you made selling.
Lastly another point I was trying to make is dropping more GODly loot that anyone can pick up easily just make the game even more less fun since its practially like you turn 60 and you can have enough gear to roll through content, if it isn't difficult, it isn't worth attempting, but that's just me. And dropping more godly loot will only just trivialize the price of gear, if the intent is that anyone regardless of skill can play for 200 hours and get all BiS, then what fun is that. That's like welfare gear. How would that make diablo 3 last 9 more year if everyone who's complaining right now already got all BiS gear.
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forget about act 3, i can that piece of crap for 2-3 times a day, and I haven't gotten a single useful loot, the only one useful loot that I have ever gotten was a 1k dps WD weapon FROM ACT 2 that i sold on RMAH for $150, like 4 weeks ago. And I don't see a reason to keep farming when the carrot on he stick has failed terribly.
A new way to farm is actually wear max MF gears to farm act 1, you will have higher chance to get 6 properties lvl 63 roll than doing act 3 in dps gears.
Well, i still do play, but i don't have the thrill to farm act 3 anymore as it used to be, when I was progressing it, and play less and less everyday, I don't even go into game, i just check the AH and chat with friends nagging how bad the loot table is, chatting is more fun than killing terrible elite packs expecting 0 useful loot drop
I was kinda thrown off and pretty pissed off when I allowed this to hinder the enjoyment I got from playing the game and not actually think about what someone else my perceive to be a waste of time or just not worth it at all. I like farming my way even if it's not efficient.
I hate the AH at times when I think about only because I hate the idea of controlling a market. But it seems like a better option than figuring out all the 'best' sites to trade, putting people on REAL ID, etc. You know the process. I don't like RMAH because I hear all the good stuff is on there and not on the gold side. None of this do I have any actually backing to these feelings or claims I tend to put upon myself.
When I just play it in the way I do, and what's fun to me I don't even think about any of this. If you're one that can't, I don't know what to tell you other than it's your fault you feel that way, no one else.
Leveling brought more than just skill points, it made it much easier to hit and not to be hit by enemies of a lower level. This helped making shit gear viable. It was somewhat annoying to hit Baal as a level 70 with 11000 AR and still only hit 40-50% of the time which than made leeching difficult which than resulted to spamming pots etc...
In the case of D3 it would allow us to take less damage and deal more... not sure if it would be significant though.
I'm going to call BS here. Game design, which Blizz in the past has proven they understand, has very established concepts. There are psychological reasons for almost everything they do. Smaller indie companies are often less versed at these things and might make a game just to be fun to gamers. As proof, here is an interesting article from a writer turned game designer discussing some of this psychology:
http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/
When you are playing games by major developers, there are no two ways about it, you are being manipulated. When done well, it's fun and you don't really notice. Where I'm going with this, is that the game developer has to build in "wins". Something that is the reward, the carrot on the stick, the little motivating force behind wanting to play more. In D2, it was ID'ing drops that were incremental upgrades or even if you got lucky, godly items.
To say, "I've just accepted that there are no rewards and play only to smash monsters" is ok. If that's fun to you, awesome. To say to anyone else, "If you don't like that, you are the problem" is narrow minded and almost insulting.
The motivator in D3 switched from finding gear to buying gear. That is one of the fundamental reasons many are upset with the game. Another is boring itemization. Another is that players feel too weak. The Diablo title has always been about smashing hordes of mobs. Now, we run from them in a war of attrition that many find disappointing because it is so polar opposite to the previous two Diablo titles.
I still think it wasn't that big of a deal. As I said, imveryho, in the end D2 was a much easier game once you understood the mechanics. That's what was "hardcore" about it, having the mechanics knowledge, once you had it, beating the game/farming was really easy (didn't require awesome gear or fine execution skills, which I think D3 does require - despite how some people say it's easy mode, essentially underrating their own personal skills).
True but if I knew what I know now gearing up to inferno would have been much easier and "cheaper". Things could drastically change with class buffs... too early to tell.
If you read my post in its entirety, I also have a 60 barb and wizard, both of which can farm Act 3. Like I said, that can easily be done with 5 million worth of gold spent wisely. Higher drop rate meant higher drop rate of high quality loot. Also as I mention, there's plenty of very good quality loot in the AH for very little money, for whatever reason why you're failing at the game, its not the drop rate of quality items. Also, just leveling and vendoring everything earns you about 1.5 to 2 million for just leveling from 0-60.
Also this is a farming game, if you don't enjoy farming........
And no, you're not suppose to find something awesome just because you've sunk 2 hours on it, regardless of what sort of success you had doing whatever you were doing in that two hours. Items aren't special if they give them out to everyone.
I agree with what you say until you jump to this. The AH is a symptom of other problems. Pointing to the AH and raging at it is getting angry at your cough and not understanding that you have pnemonia.
The game shifted to buying gear for two major reasons:
1) Rares are the dominant form of gearing (due to the legendary/set itemization bungle) and therefore we are ALL heavily reliant on RNG-generated items to progress. There is no "baseline" for gear like there was in D2. There is no "crappy Vamp Gaze" that you can pick up for next to nothing. There are just randomly-generated items.
2) Inferno scales up in difficulty far faster and is significantly more difficult than anything D2 offered.
When you combine those two things you get a situation where players simply have better efficiency in the AH.
Fixing one (preferably both) would cure the "cough."
Don't forget that the AH is just a different median of what existed in D2, 3rd party sites + trade spam/games.
Do you think this was created by introducing the AH though or because the drops are just bad during farming.
And it was my impression that the fans asked for harder. I guess their definition of harder was more farming. Trust me, I don't think farming to get an item makes content hard. Hard content is looking at the ground, watching cast animations, etc.
I get and see that gear was weighted differently in d2. but the idea of having subpar gear that would get you through the content seems, half ass to me as far as a design element. I do this with WoW in having crap ilvl item in my bag that tells the system I have X when I'm really using Y. Obviously in WoW it doesn't help you. I don't think it should in D3 either. Something about the idea of not so good gear allowing you to still clear content seems backwards to me.
Or am I looking at this wrong. I'm all ears for other ways/facts/etc.
I don't think people generally have an issue with the AH, most of the complaints I've seen is that people don't think they should be getting the drops they ought to get. I farmed for 2 hours and I have nothing of value so the game sucks is what I'm hearing. Blizzard should make the items better, blah blah.
What I'm trying to say is Blizzard actually made the items too good which is why most of the items you've found is worthless (gold wise). Now if you refuse to use AH to buy/sell and relying on all drops, then you're playing the wrong game. D3 is meant for the AH, that's what alot of people complained about in D2. This game is still only 2 months old, if everyone can rolled through all the content, then Blizzard had failed. Think of it as if blizzard only made the game up to Hell mode and stopped. Is that what everyone is asking for?
You win the thread IMO! +1
Perfectly sums up most of my frustrations
This is hidden by the fact that you take a low % and multiply it by the number of hours being played by x million players and the drops per hour...suddenly, the AH makes every thing look like it's all ok.
In essence, Blizz already admitted to it and then tried to obscure the comment but they set the overall drop rates to make the economy "balanced" in the AHs. Not claiming that the drops change based on availability of gear or any kind of changing rates. I'm saying the base drop rates they put in at release consider the global scale of the game and what that does to the abundance/lack of gear. Because of scale, individual chances at even decent gear, not even perfect rolls, are terrible. Honestly, I've seen several threads around that indicate what we are seeing as the best gear on the AHs now is not even near perfects. If the best we are seeing is only 75% of perfect roll, consider that. Estimate 2 million (probably low) players putting in 2 hours a night (probably low) during the week and 6 hours a day on weekends (probably low). 2x5 + 6x2 = 22 hours. Say there are 4 iLvl 63s per hour on average. 88. Now times 2 million players = 176 million drops a week and we haven't seen a perfect roll (or almost none). I'm perfectly ok with that. That should be the long term idea. Getting that gear takes FOREVER. But getting USABLE gear should not.
In 300 hours, I have managed to collect about 6 million total with about 7k elite kills. I'm ok with being transparent about that. Those are a LOT lower than some players. But I will not use any form of exploit and I don't "play" the AH. I want to kill monsters, not play Econ 101. Never did Dank runs. That kind of short burst repitition kills my brain cells and isn't fun. I want variety in the content I farm. I want to ID the gear I equip. I want to have a smooth path of progression instead of brick walls that take weeks. That's what the previous Diablo titles let me do with plenty of reward. I played them solo and lan only and it was still enough little wins to keep me going and always wanting to go a little more.
Then you get a lot of self-righteous people who played the AH, or exploited or bought from the RMAH and since they pass the gear checks, they want to tell everyone, "It's fine, stop whining." Of course it is if you have the gear already. They love having near exclusive access to those kinds of drops.
Here's another one of my pet peeves about the AH. Let's say I spend 12 hours on Saturday farming. Given my experiene so far in the game, I'll make a fair share of gold and maybe find 5-6 pieces I can AH for 50k or so. Compare that to someone who chooses to play the AH because they find that fun. Flipping items (and assuming they have a bankroll to start with because they've been doing this all along) they will have a lot better gear than me. They haven't killed one thing. Now, if they want to, they can farm Acts that I can't to further skew the experience.
But a lot of people seem to want to say, "The AH is totally optional".
So is breathing.
The odd part to all this, is that what I would LOVE to see is the AHs so flooded with gear that everything sells for crap and if anyone wanted to, they could finish the game will less than 1 million in gear. The only way that would happen is if drop rates were high enough that I could find an upgrade. Not godly gear, just better than the assorted 58-61 Act 1 gear I have. If I found an incremental upgrade maybe every 6-12 hours, I would never even want to go the AHs. I would be happy farming gear at 13 slots x 12 hours of actually PLAYING the game to get to the next act and so on. That would mean those drop rates x 2 million people and the AH would be ruined as far as balance. And I would not care ONE bit. People who will buy their way to victory are doing it already. Who cares if it's cheaper for them to do so? Make the game rewarding for those who do want to play the game and keep doing it long term. They need that period reward, variety in farming locations and a feeling that the next ID could be the big one to keep them going. They don't need a "balanced" AH.
You also contracted yourself on your other post and doing the same here... You want good upgrades every few hours but then complain that it should take awhile to get geared so the game lasts longer.
We get it, your butthurt that you don't use the AH and you would have been butthurt in D2 because you never would have traded anything either, it’s a multiplayer game with a single player option ffs.
In that 12 hours I would have made over 1.5 million in gold alone just farming... I'm a casual player by the way and by no means have great gear.
Breathing is not optional it’s required; try using a better example such as driving compared to walking.
6 for 6 of whine.... well you do at least put intelligent thought into your posts but you seem to miss the big picture quite often as well.
I like the combat systems in this game, which will hopefully be even better after 1.0.4. This isn't all about bashing D3 or Blizz. This is an analytical attempt at why there are so many dissatisfied players and the roll the AHs have in that.
You can ignore the math all you want and throw up straw men left and right. Finding an INCREMENTAL upgrade once every 12 hours of actual GAME PLAY is not extreme.
In the end, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely stating my observations and opinions and if you don't like it, give me some solid reasoning and logic, not 12 year old internet flaming.
My observations seem to show that the AH is working just fine, most items are so cheap you can farm act 1 and progress through act 2 with a couple hundred thousand. You don't need to play the AH, just spend a few minutes using filters. The UI sucks but beyond that there is no issue.
All the AH has done is changed trading spamming/games into an easy transaction using currency (gold instead of runes/soj’s). 3rd party sites existed before this and now it's mainstream, the drops are not different than before. D2 had terrible drop rates and it was rare to find upgrades within 12 hours. You had to trade to progress quickly just like you need to use the AH to quickly progress. You could also ignore inferno mode and just play to hell mode, that was what D2 had and that seems to be your take on what would make you happy. It’s meant to be hard that’s what players wanted and we got it.
Drop rates aren't the issue, it's itemization (as you posted earlier) it is the main problem with this game... the number one issue beyond anything else considering this game is all about finding gear.
Every patch has been fixing issues that Blizzard has dropped the ball on and it was the same for D2, this "woe is me" is just getting old after seeing it for two months.
1.0.4. "should" fix the majority of what people are concerned about, I just find it amusing people keep crying about it.
BTW reading giant wall of text generally doesn't help to get your point across try keeping shorter or add a tl;dr. Opinions have no merit but since that is what were both basing our "facts" from, I conclude that my observation of the AH is working fine as its infrequent use for me has helped compared to my experience with D2.
I think part of the forum woes everywhere lately is the inability of a lot of people to "agree to disagree" and to make their statements with that mindset.
Your post almost completely disagrees with mine and the way you state it is refreshing (this time, lol). There was no attempt at flaming or baiting. Your statements are opinions and stated so. You are as entitled to all of that as anyone is to their opinions and anyone who tried to "argue" it would be stupid.
I do want to make a point of disagreement, that again is IMO; hell vs inferno.
I feel this game takes almost zero skill. Not standing in fire is hard, amirite? I know 8 year olds who handle that just fine. Therefore, it's hard to make an inferno that requires more "skill". The hit detection that some call a "glitch" and Blizz confirmed is "working as intended" is just one indication that there is not some super special movement/twitch to be good at the game. All they can really do is make it require more gear.
But this is a game entirely focused on gear. It can't be optional if it is the primary source of the "cool" gear. It's poor logic to call it optional.
1) I like playing a game where I grind for gear
2) The best place for the best gear is in location x
/=
A) I don't want to grind for gear in location x
There is a lot of merit to saying that getting through Act 1 was supposed to take 3 months, and each act another 3 months. I actually believe that was the design intent. I think the problem with sticking to that intent, however, is that the curve has already been DESTROYED. And although it might be a small percentage of the game population that's done it, it's enough players to prove the intent did NOT work and cannot be held as a standard anymore. I really don't want to get into HOW it was destroyed because it tends to lead to flaming conversations, just looking at the state of things as they are, regardless how it got there.
But now, every change that everyone knows needs to be made is put into terms of "Does this negatively impact the AH?" and the final truth behind it is, I didn't pay 60 dollars for an auction house. That would have been a wonderful addition for AFTER the game had been made into a sustaining experience. Trading would have carried this game at least a few months for Blizzard to be able to do that. Heck, a simple lobby system and elaborated accommodation for guilds and groups of friends would have carried it that far. And with D2 being what it was, and WoW showing how important community and role playing is to a community, they should have known what we were looking for in the early developmental stages of this game.
There's a fine line between reinventing the wheel and making a square one.
I'm sure if they didn't have an AH and it was only trading, everyone would be complaining how come they couldn't put in an AH. Fact is, everyone have a different opinion on what suits them. What I was trying to find out was really what was the reason why people are complaining that loot is bad. Which personally I don't think is that bad. You don't need GODLY loot to beat diablo or be able to farm any act. There's very many pieces forsale you can get cheaply in the AH. Now if you don't like using the AH, then that's another story. I'm not saying using the AH mainly to make money, just to sell the gear you found and find upgrades with the money you made selling.
Lastly another point I was trying to make is dropping more GODly loot that anyone can pick up easily just make the game even more less fun since its practially like you turn 60 and you can have enough gear to roll through content, if it isn't difficult, it isn't worth attempting, but that's just me. And dropping more godly loot will only just trivialize the price of gear, if the intent is that anyone regardless of skill can play for 200 hours and get all BiS, then what fun is that. That's like welfare gear. How would that make diablo 3 last 9 more year if everyone who's complaining right now already got all BiS gear.