Yeah! I mean it's not like I stopped magic finding once I found everything but a tyreals might and a zod. Which was only a few months of my over 2 years of nonstop play. Clearly that was the the most important part of the game.
Sorry, I just have to point out for those of us that played A LOT, finding the same items again and again was less and less exciting. I turned to crafting for my thrills. The irony here is that I should be calling you guys noobs because you clearly didn't play as much or find as much as I did.
I mean if I was so jaded that the only loot that was exciting for me to see was near perfect rolls then it certainly wasn't the item hunt keeping me interested. I kept playing because of PvP, Trading, and Crafting.
I'd say the game had less to do with finding awesome items for a hardcore player like myself. Since the probability of finding something I considered awesome was minimal. There was less of a chance I would even use the item since it would have had to been a truly godly zon item.
That doesn't mean I overlook the thrill of that awesome drop, but if you play long enough your criteria for an awesome item gets more and more defined. To the point that the only logical course of action is crafting the specific item, trading or giving up entirely.
I also realize that if you play less, that the drops may be the most important thing to you. Since they are still exciting. But what most don't realize, including Blizzard, is what I say above.
So, if I understood correctly, you played D2 for a grand total of 2 years, and played a grand total of one character (zon).
Yeah, you're real hardcore.
I had several 99 zons, 2 99 sorcs, 1 barb, 1 necro, a lvl 90 druid, assassin and paladin. And several lvl 90 zons with zero stat points used, just so I could perfect my stats with any new upgrades I got or builds I wanted to try. I really only enjoyed zons, sorcs were okay but not as versatile. Yes, I was hardcore.
I'm also saying 2 years of non-stop playing. I was a kid playing 12+ hours a day for 2 years. Sure I still go back and play for a couple weeks when there's a new ladder and some friends want to. Which is what people actually do when they say they have played for 10+ years. But for the most part the game lost a lot of it's appeal for me with 1.10. There's a lot of people that praise d2 and didn't even know what the game was like before 1.10. There's even more people that say they've been playing for 10+ years and have played less in those 10 years than I did in 6 months.
Btw not only did your strawman fail miserably, but you still can't logically dispute that the item hunt is NOT the main reason people play the game for thousands of hours. It's just a fact that we as humans get desensitized to things we're repeatedly exposed to. So all that is left is pvp/trading/crafting and killing shit and with enough time even crafting will lose its appeal.
The game will be balanced towards us not ever needing an auction house, I think.
Ha, I think this sentence sums up everything better than my walls of text... right now the game is balanced around the existence of AH. With the AH gone, this will change - obviously. ;-) +1
The game will be balanced towards us not ever needing an auction house, I think.
Ha, I think this sentence sums up everything better than my walls of text... right now the game is balanced around the existence of AH. With the AH gone, this will change - obviously. ;-) +1
This is THE reason its a great thing that AH will be gone. Just look at the way loot is on the console version. It will be like that, only alot better.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can see what you see not. Vision milky, then eyes rot.
When you turn, they will be gone. Whispering their hidden song.
Then you see what cannot be. Shadows move where light should be.
Out of darkness, out of mind. Cast down into the Halls of the Blind
[Btw not only did your strawman fail miserably, but you still can't logically dispute that the item hunt is NOT the main reason people play the game for thousands of hours. It's just a fact that we as humans get desensitized to things we're repeatedly exposed to. So all that is left is pvp/trading/crafting and killing shit and with enough time even crafting will lose its appeal.
Really, are you telling me why I play the game?
Loot WAS the reason why I played the game for almost a decade. The difference is that I must've played over 20 characters (probably a lot more) during that decade. Of course, if you only play a handful of characters, you're gonna run out of things to do (i.e., you're gonna run out of items to find). Games have an end, you know? At some point, you're expected to either start over (make new character, use new class, etc) or quit playing.
The fact that people play 1 character for thousands of hours and still expect to be entertained and to have things to do continues to puzzle me.
TLDR: stop trying to tell people why they played the game.
This ^, eventually you wont enjoy playing that character anymore even if you play PvP and trade and do all sorts of stuff. Eventually you'll just want a new person to play as. May take longer for others but eventually it does happen. It's not about what is fun its about eventually just growing bored of something. CoD is a perfect example of this. In CoD you start with basically no guns or at least the shittier ones, eventually you rank up and get the one you want and play with it for a while. After you dominate or don't dominate with that gun or class setup you eventually just get tired and bored of it cause it's the same repetitive shit over and over, so you change it up using a different gun or a different perk and you renew your interest, but eventually it will get boring because you'll run out of things to do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
If this game is about finding loot, as they say (to me personally it's more of the social experience, while killing monsters and finding loot doing so, upgrading your character in a rpg sense), then taking away 1 way of character progression that's not done actually killing monsters and thus finding loot, will only move the game towards the way it's meant to be played.
One thing that really has sickened me, and it seems to be a trend over the past few months, is people defining "finding your own loot" as "the right way to play" and using that to basically slander and slur anyone who might dare to think of trading or using D2JSP or whatever. You can almost hear it dripping from their words that they believe someone who executes a trade is a subhuman piece of dogshit who should be taken out into the street in the middle of the night and beaten to death in front of his family and neighbors in the moonlight.
I think it's dangerous mentality, whether people feel it's true or not, to basically green-light anyone's feeling that they're more of a "true" fan than anyone else.
When I played D1 and D2 there wasn't anyone, from any side of the discussion, getting in my face that I was playing "the wrong way." People just played. People had fun. People didn't get their sphincter muscles so uptight about how other people were playing.
eventually it will get boring because you'll run out of things to do.
And, yet, there are people who are working on 10 pLvl 100 barbs. As much as I don't buy the guy that maka quoted necessarily, I also don't buy the "if you only play one toon you're playing wrong cause you'll get bored" angle either. I really fail to understand why Diablo "fans" have become so black-and-white. It's almost like listening to American politicians.
If some guy just wants to play one toon to death.... WHO CARES? Is he really hurting you to the point that you need to educate him on how "wrong" he is playing the game?
If this game is about finding loot, as they say (to me personally it's more of the social experience, while killing monsters and finding loot doing so, upgrading your character in a rpg sense), then taking away 1 way of character progression that's not done actually killing monsters and thus finding loot, will only move the game towards the way it's meant to be played.
One thing that really has sickened me, and it seems to be a trend over the past few months, is people defining "finding your own loot" as "the right way to play" and using that to basically slander and slur anyone who might dare to think of trading or using D2JSP or whatever. You can almost hear it dripping from their words that they believe someone who executes a trade is a subhuman piece of dogshit who should be taken out into the street in the middle of the night and beaten to death in front of his family and neighbors in the moonlight.
I think it's dangerous mentality, whether people feel it's true or not, to basically green-light anyone's feeling that they're more of a "true" fan than anyone else.
When I played D1 and D2 there wasn't anyone, from any side of the discussion, getting in my face that I was playing "the wrong way." People just played. People had fun. People didn't get their sphincter muscles so uptight about how other people were playing.
eventually it will get boring because you'll run out of things to do.
And, yet, there are people who are working on 10 pLvl 100 barbs. As much as I don't buy the guy that maka quoted necessarily, I also don't buy the "if you only play one toon you're playing wrong cause you'll get bored" angle either. I really fail to understand why Diablo "fans" have become so black-and-white. It's almost like listening to American politicians.
If some guy just wants to play one toon to death.... WHO CARES? Is he really hurting you to the point that you need to educate him on how "wrong" he is playing the game?
I never said that it wasn't fun playing 10 plvl 100 barbs. I merely said playing one toon would eventually bore you, as in playing one toon to plvl 100 and just continually grinding on that character forever. Eventually you will get bored, but as I said some people will get bored quicker than others.
As to your initial point before you quoted me, I think this mentality really spawned through the AH. The game was always about trading and self-found but the AH just expedited the process way too much. It was no longer about finding gear worth trading and then finding someone to trade it to, It was about who had bigger pockets to shell out on gold that you could then use to buy the latest and greatest item. Which isn't a bad thing for casuals who don't have a lot of time to go and hunt for loot. However, at the same time it was just a bit too easy to find loot through the AH so why would anyone ever bother playing a self found mode. Therefore it spawned a mentality in people saying the "right" or "definitive" way to play D3 was self-found. I think that they really should've went a different route for the AH but I believe they had good intentions in mind. If they had made it where you had to bargain and interact with players through a trading hub where it was just a bunch of people in a room to trade I think there wouldn't be that mentality because you'd have to interact and find people willing to trade and bargain with you for your item. I think the lost social aspect is key to their argument and their reasoning to why the closing of the AH is so great for them and I think the majority of players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
[Btw not only did your strawman fail miserably, but you still can't logically dispute that the item hunt is NOT the main reason people play the game for thousands of hours. It's just a fact that we as humans get desensitized to things we're repeatedly exposed to. So all that is left is pvp/trading/crafting and killing shit and with enough time even crafting will lose its appeal.
Loot WAS the reason why I played the game for almost a decade. The difference is that I must've played over 20 characters (probably a lot more) during that decade. Of course, if you only play a handful of characters, you're gonna run out of things to do (i.e., you're gonna run out of items to find). Games have an end, you know? At some point, you're expected to either start over (make new character, use new class, etc) or quit playing.
The fact that people play 1 character for thousands of hours and still expect to be entertained and to have things to do continues to puzzle me.
TLDR: stop trying to tell people why they played the game.
I'm telling you, you didn't play half as much as me and judging by your d3 profile I highly doubt you got thousands of hours out of d2. You're that guy I'm talking about that says he's been playing d2 for years, but plays in spurts of a couple weeks here and there over that time. I do that too but I don't count that as playing the game for years. I played the game for 2 years(lod that is) and occasionally I'll go back to it, but it's always short-lived. Just like I bet it is for ALL of you guys that still go back and play. Very few people play d2 nonstop for more than a month or two.
Playing different chars and getting acceptable gear ,even the top 5% items, for a character takes almost no time at all. Getting perfect gear takes considerably more. The majority of the best items were all crafted, magical or from classic. If you were hunting for a 300 ed/63 max dmg mat bow, you'd spend decades doing it and it wouldn't be very fun for you either if that's the only item you wanted. It's just not logical.
I'm saying you can't logically dispute what I say about the loot hunt being diminished quickly as your standards get higher. Sure, if all you care about is getting GOOD gear for your character, that takes about 3-4 weeks. But, there's almost nothing I was wearing that you could hope to find.
The only things would be the perfect tgods, ravenfrost, dwarfstar that I wore situationally. In fact you probably didn't even know what was good. As an example you probably thought Windforce was the best bow. You may have found a couple 3/1x/20's or flaming sc's of vita. But it's just not mathematically possible to find the gear I had in a lifetime of playing.
The extent of my magic finding was going to nithalak and baal and getting magic items to cube. Before runewords ruined the game and made it much easier to get the best gear.
Now If I go back and play ladder it's fun for a bit, but it doesn't take long to get to the point of good gear and with ladders being the main place people play now. I can't logically go after the perfect gearset. Not to mention I'd be wearing the same gear as everyone else because Blizzard decided to make runewords more powerful than some hacked items were.
The point is, to the truly dedicated players, the game is less about the item hunt than most people would like to admit. Blizzard included. Which baffles the mind since it goes against our very nature as human beings to becoming desensitized to things we experience repeatedly.
Don't believe me? Wait until loot 2.0 when the gear that drops for you over the course of 1 month of game time is enough to do anything you want. If it's anything like the console cut the time down to 2 weeks of playtime. While I'll still be crafting and trading away to get perfect gear for months beyond that.
And, yet, there are people who are working on 10 pLvl 100 barbs. As much as I don't buy the guy that maka quoted necessarily, I also don't buy the "if you only play one toon you're playing wrong cause you'll get bored" angle either. I really fail to understand why Diablo "fans" have become so black-and-white. It's almost like listening to American politicians.
If some guy just wants to play one toon to death.... WHO CARES? Is he really hurting you to the point that you need to educate him on how "wrong" he is playing the game?
I never said he was playing it wrong. It was just that the dude was trying to say that items aren't the reason that people stick to the game even after they've played it for thousands of hours, and that's just not true. It MIGHT be true if you've played for thousands of hours with just a handful of characters, but that's to be expected. BUT if, like me, you've played it for thousands of hours with dozens of characters, then it's still about the loot, because new characters need new loot (minus the twinks I might've decided to use). When he says that the game is boring because his zon is already uber-geared.......what else do you need to hear?
EDIT: just read his reply. Yup, definitely "one of those" ("I'm hardcore"; "you probably didn't know this"; "you probably didn't do that"). Shall not be re-replying. Word of advice, though, to the self-titled "truly dedicated": maybe you play too much and/or take it too seriously. Maybe.
My original post was pretty level-headed and without ego. You are the one that questioned me being "hardcore" and it blew up in your face. Besides you only did it to try to remove the legitimacy of me saying "Sorry, I just have to point out for those of us that played A LOT, finding the same items again and again was less and less exciting." or redirect from "I'm saying you can't logically dispute what I say about the loot hunt being diminished quickly as your standards get higher." And you continue to avoid those two things and try to draw attention to my character, which you provoked.
I completely get people that play casually. I also understand that if you play on a ladder that the item hunt maintains it's appeal for much longer. But eventually you will run out of items you can actually find. If you're playing a lot, naturally that happens much faster. You think I didn't gear out all my characters? Of course I did, but I didn't try to perfect their gear to the point I did in my main zons. I'm also willing to bet casuals don't care about perfecting their gear either. It's a pretty unnecessary thing to do and very time consuming. Which doesn't fit into the idea of being casual.
However, when a casual tries to tell me what diablo is about. When I played probably 10x the amount they did. You should understand why I'd be a little annoyed. That's like a kid in a civic talking about nascar like he knows more about it than somebody that has done it for years. Because he got on the track a few times. Since me playing that much more and without pause puts me in a position to unbiasedly say the "kill monster get item" was not the reason I or any of my friends ended up playing it for so long. It was what started it all but definitely not what the game was about in the end.
As I said before most people that do play diablo 2 do exactly what I said. They make a character or two on the ladder get gear for it and once they do they stop playing altogether. Sometimes it's only a week sometimes a month. Rarely is it much more than that. The item hunt only lasts for so long. The ones that continue to play for many hours are going for ladder ranks, perfecting their gear, or are pvp'rs/trade-a-holics.
Btw I had several zons, not just 1. I didn't play for more than a few weeks at a time since 1.10 so respecing wasn't a thing.
As for the playing too much yeah probably. Though I haven't played anything for more than a couple weeks here and there since D3. But I stopped playing d3 back in august of last year with just over 650 hours played. But me taking something seriously doesn't diminish my viewpoint, it actually strengthens it.
Yeah, errmmm it wasn't really directed at YOU, although I can see why you might think it was. It's just a rash of "If you don't play <this way> then you're playing Diablo wrong" posts lately have REALLY irritated me. See the above post as an example.
Does it make people feel better about themselves to say shit like that? I've played self-found for quite a while now and I've never felt the need to bash people who trade or use the AH. It's not that difficult to be semi-respectful of the fact that others don't necessarily play the game the same way as you do. Yet that basic bit of common courtesy seems to be completely lost of late and I don't get it.
@Kamisei
Nah, honestly, it's just something I've observed in a lot of threads since the AH announcement. It's nothing specific, just some general attitude that I don't understand. When I played D2 I don't recall anyone saying to me "ahahaha ur a trader, I hope you get abducted, raped, and beaten to death" or "lul self-found, you must enjoy naked pix of 4-year-olds too" (obvious exaggeration, hopefully for some comedic value). No one seemed to care and I simply don't remember anyone ever insinuating that one way was wrong, one way was right, etc.
Back on-topic though. There is one thing I absolutely won't miss about the AH: having to list and re-list items. I hated that about the AH in WoW, I hate it about the AH in D3. I find it tedious and annoying and I absolutely won't miss a single second of it.
I am very happy. I enjoy playing self found 100% trade free in these games and now the game will support that. With the Ah in place the drops were so bad playing SF was just so painful.
I am very excited for RoS and plan to delete every character on my account so i can start over 100% SF on HC.
Nah, honestly, it's just something I've observed in a lot of threads since the AH announcement. It's nothing specific, just some general attitude that I don't understand. When I played D2 I don't recall anyone saying to me "ahahaha ur a trader, I hope you get abducted, raped, and beaten to death" or "lul self-found, you must enjoy naked pix of 4-year-olds too" (obvious exaggeration, hopefully for some comedic value). No one seemed to care and I simply don't remember anyone ever insinuating that one way was wrong, one way was right, etc.
I absolutely agree that it sucks to force a playstyle upon someone. The difference is, in D2 you could do both (trade or play self-found).
Due to the AH, the drop rates were so low that self-found was essentially impossible (or only with a very bad gaming experience).
I think both traders and self-found players are better off now:
Self-found becomes viable again because the drop rates will be increased
There's no need for BoA anymore (which was the 1.07 AH bandaid), which is beneficial for traders.
If the new game modes won't provide replayability then loot 2.0 will just ruin the game since everyone will have the best gear and no one would care about trading or anything.
The idea is that ROS will bring a couple of new game modes (possibly including the arena or any other form of pvp / moba) that will drastically increase the replayability value of D3 in general.
I think Riptide fails to understand that the fact that he was swayed away from item finding to the direction of crafting and trading, was mainly because the loot hunt in D2 was not well thought out at all and quite broken to be honest. I played D2 for 10 years on and off (about 2-4 months every year) and i never found one SOJ. Not that it matters that much, but the drop chance on certain items was simply astronomical.
People aquired wealth with their credit card in D2 just like in D3 (including me) and if you didn't buy your items, you just farmed for runes and scammed noobs untill you had enough to buy a good item off of someone who got it from a botter / duper / 3rd party site.
sure crafting was underestimated and not well known among most of the noobs in D2, but to claim that it can provide you with hundreds of hours of gameplay is just ludicrous.
I hope loot 2.0 won't ruin the already broken game that is D3 by making it even more casual and not challenging. I also hope that ROS will bring valid, replayable new game modes that have the potential to provide people with hundreds of hours of gameplay... Unlike crafting in D2
People aquired wealth with their credit card in D2 just like in D3 (including me) and if you didn't buy your items, you just farmed for runes and scammed noobs untill you had enough to buy a good item off of someone who got it from a botter / duper / 3rd party site.
I played d2 quite alot, probably upwards of 1000 hours after my 3 or 4th ladder playthrough... i never purchased anything from a site i found 3 sojs and a 2 maras at least which are failry similar in there drop rate. and i made plenty of legit trades which were profitable for me and the other person.
there is no way of knowing how many items were duped or how many were not, so enough with the pure speculation and claims that everyone acquired there items through either scamming newbs or buying them off sites. Because its false.
I'm not saying it did not happen, what i am saying is that no-one has any way of knowing how many items were duped, but obviously it was not all of them, and self found was very viable.(single player)
I think the big problem is that people look at the way loot drops are in the console version, and imagine that's what it's going to be like in Loot 2.0. It's a console game, it's meant to give quick gratification, because it's doubtful that in 2 years the same people will still be playing it. They've got to get you your quick fix. I highly doubt the PC version is going to be even remotely close, but right now the drop rates in D3 are horrendous. I've still got all but like 6 of the fiery brimstone I've ever DE'd, some of which came from rares early on in the game, and I think I'm sitting on 24 in my stash. That's roughly 600 hours of farming with nearly nothing to show for it. For me, it's impossible for Loot 2.0 to break the game, because in my opinion it can only go up from where it is right now.
I'm sure they have that in mind when designing loot 2.0. The idea is to make loot more satisfying, but not to the point there is no longer any thrill when finding a good item.
Still... I think having legendary items dropping more often, even if they're not useful to me, is better, because it instills some sort of hope in my never-ending pursuit for that great item, especially if they're close but no cigar type items. Right now, with 400 MF, I get a legendary perhaps every hour, and it's certain to be garbage, which just feels terrible, and makes you feel like that next good drop is that much further away. If that legendary dropped, and had great stats, but wasn't an upgrade, I'd still be much happier, because the game isn't giving me the middle finger every few hours. But more often than not, right now the game usually says to me, "Hey, look, it's a Manticore! lol 800 DPS 300 STR F YOU lawl."
tl;dr: Inevitable loot wall is more bearable when you're not getting slapped in the face every few hours.
If the new game modes won't provide replayability then loot 2.0 will just ruin the game since everyone will have the best gear and no one would care about trading or anything.
The idea is that ROS will bring a couple of new game modes (possibly including the arena or any other form of pvp / moba) that will drastically increase the replayability value of D3 in general.
I think Riptide fails to understand that the fact that he was swayed away from item finding to the direction of crafting and trading, was mainly because the loot hunt in D2 was not well thought out at all and quite broken to be honest. I played D2 for 10 years on and off (about 2-4 months every year) and i never found one SOJ. Not that it matters that much, but the drop chance on certain items was simply astronomical.
People aquired wealth with their credit card in D2 just like in D3 (including me) and if you didn't buy your items, you just farmed for runes and scammed noobs untill you had enough to buy a good item off of someone who got it from a botter / duper / 3rd party site.
sure crafting was underestimated and not well known among most of the noobs in D2, but to claim that it can provide you with hundreds of hours of gameplay is just ludicrous.
I hope loot 2.0 won't ruin the already broken game that is D3 by making it even more casual and not challenging. I also hope that ROS will bring valid, replayable new game modes that have the potential to provide people with hundreds of hours of gameplay... Unlike crafting in D2
I think the ladder will be enough for most people to keep coming back. There's likely going to be the perpetual paragon ladder that we are all apart of. That will make a lot of people want to be #1 .
I personally want a better pvp experience and no more boa crafting. Because as I said finding loot is not that thrilling when I've seen it all drop before. I found every major item, multiples of most, in d2 except for a zod and tyreal's might. So crafting was the only way I could realistically get excited because I was then looking for very specific stats and stat ranges.
Just like in d3, I spent a lot more time crafting (I also made a lot more money through crafting) than hunting for items. It was just the most logical way to upgrade a specific piece of gear. If it wasn't for the paragon system + DE. I would be crafting 90% of the time like before. Because the chance at finding an upgrade at this point is very very minimal. It will be like this in loot 2.0 too, if you think it's going to eventually drop perfect items then you got it wrong. Loot 2.0 is just going to remove the need to trade by dropping you items that are "good enough" but I want more than "good enough".
Diablo for me has always been about perfecting gear and builds(though d3 pretty much shit on that. Crafting and trading is the only way to do it. I'm not content with a 6 crit 200 primary 12% but with low base armor and had I not quit in 1.04, until a couple weeks ago, I would be trying to get better than what I have, but there's no point with the gear reset coming. It takes many months to perfect gear.
But for the record I've already seen a few mempo's, echoing fury, inna's chest drop and I need to replace my current ones, but I just don't give a shit when I see that beam. All that matters is when I id it that it's perfect. The closer to perfect it is the more happy I'll be.
It's messed up really, because I get more sad seeing an item that I want drop but it being worse than what I have, than if it had never dropped at all. I think I'd be addicted to buying unid's if I could rationalize trying to upgrade right now.
Kind of off topic, but I worry about loot 2.0, if it's anything like the console a lot of players that enjoy just getting the standard gear in each slot with decent rolls will have little reason to play after a few weeks. Since your gear will be so good that finding an upgrade will become much harder. If it's not necessary for your gear to get better and you don't create artificial reasons, like getting perfect gear, the fun will likely die down.
Not a fan of legendaries being BiS either. I don't mind if they are 98% as near perfect rare (which is much harder to roll btw) but I'm not a fan of legendaries taking up more than a couple of item slots or used as items to hold you over. Build changers are fine and welcomed though.
If self found is a possibility could care less if there is an AH or not... so with loot 2.0 in mind don't care. I'd still prefer having the AH as I refuse to barter and trade (takes forever and have to deal with scammers). Now there will be more spam in the chat channels... goody.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
I had several 99 zons, 2 99 sorcs, 1 barb, 1 necro, a lvl 90 druid, assassin and paladin. And several lvl 90 zons with zero stat points used, just so I could perfect my stats with any new upgrades I got or builds I wanted to try. I really only enjoyed zons, sorcs were okay but not as versatile. Yes, I was hardcore.
I'm also saying 2 years of non-stop playing. I was a kid playing 12+ hours a day for 2 years. Sure I still go back and play for a couple weeks when there's a new ladder and some friends want to. Which is what people actually do when they say they have played for 10+ years. But for the most part the game lost a lot of it's appeal for me with 1.10. There's a lot of people that praise d2 and didn't even know what the game was like before 1.10. There's even more people that say they've been playing for 10+ years and have played less in those 10 years than I did in 6 months.
Btw not only did your strawman fail miserably, but you still can't logically dispute that the item hunt is NOT the main reason people play the game for thousands of hours. It's just a fact that we as humans get desensitized to things we're repeatedly exposed to. So all that is left is pvp/trading/crafting and killing shit and with enough time even crafting will lose its appeal.
Ha, I think this sentence sums up everything better than my walls of text... right now the game is balanced around the existence of AH. With the AH gone, this will change - obviously. ;-) +1
This is THE reason its a great thing that AH will be gone. Just look at the way loot is on the console version. It will be like that, only alot better.
This ^, eventually you wont enjoy playing that character anymore even if you play PvP and trade and do all sorts of stuff. Eventually you'll just want a new person to play as. May take longer for others but eventually it does happen. It's not about what is fun its about eventually just growing bored of something. CoD is a perfect example of this. In CoD you start with basically no guns or at least the shittier ones, eventually you rank up and get the one you want and play with it for a while. After you dominate or don't dominate with that gun or class setup you eventually just get tired and bored of it cause it's the same repetitive shit over and over, so you change it up using a different gun or a different perk and you renew your interest, but eventually it will get boring because you'll run out of things to do.
One thing that really has sickened me, and it seems to be a trend over the past few months, is people defining "finding your own loot" as "the right way to play" and using that to basically slander and slur anyone who might dare to think of trading or using D2JSP or whatever. You can almost hear it dripping from their words that they believe someone who executes a trade is a subhuman piece of dogshit who should be taken out into the street in the middle of the night and beaten to death in front of his family and neighbors in the moonlight.
I think it's dangerous mentality, whether people feel it's true or not, to basically green-light anyone's feeling that they're more of a "true" fan than anyone else.
When I played D1 and D2 there wasn't anyone, from any side of the discussion, getting in my face that I was playing "the wrong way." People just played. People had fun. People didn't get their sphincter muscles so uptight about how other people were playing.
And, yet, there are people who are working on 10 pLvl 100 barbs. As much as I don't buy the guy that maka quoted necessarily, I also don't buy the "if you only play one toon you're playing wrong cause you'll get bored" angle either. I really fail to understand why Diablo "fans" have become so black-and-white. It's almost like listening to American politicians.
If some guy just wants to play one toon to death.... WHO CARES? Is he really hurting you to the point that you need to educate him on how "wrong" he is playing the game?
I never said that it wasn't fun playing 10 plvl 100 barbs. I merely said playing one toon would eventually bore you, as in playing one toon to plvl 100 and just continually grinding on that character forever. Eventually you will get bored, but as I said some people will get bored quicker than others.
As to your initial point before you quoted me, I think this mentality really spawned through the AH. The game was always about trading and self-found but the AH just expedited the process way too much. It was no longer about finding gear worth trading and then finding someone to trade it to, It was about who had bigger pockets to shell out on gold that you could then use to buy the latest and greatest item. Which isn't a bad thing for casuals who don't have a lot of time to go and hunt for loot. However, at the same time it was just a bit too easy to find loot through the AH so why would anyone ever bother playing a self found mode. Therefore it spawned a mentality in people saying the "right" or "definitive" way to play D3 was self-found. I think that they really should've went a different route for the AH but I believe they had good intentions in mind. If they had made it where you had to bargain and interact with players through a trading hub where it was just a bunch of people in a room to trade I think there wouldn't be that mentality because you'd have to interact and find people willing to trade and bargain with you for your item. I think the lost social aspect is key to their argument and their reasoning to why the closing of the AH is so great for them and I think the majority of players.
I'm telling you, you didn't play half as much as me and judging by your d3 profile I highly doubt you got thousands of hours out of d2. You're that guy I'm talking about that says he's been playing d2 for years, but plays in spurts of a couple weeks here and there over that time. I do that too but I don't count that as playing the game for years. I played the game for 2 years(lod that is) and occasionally I'll go back to it, but it's always short-lived. Just like I bet it is for ALL of you guys that still go back and play. Very few people play d2 nonstop for more than a month or two.
Playing different chars and getting acceptable gear ,even the top 5% items, for a character takes almost no time at all. Getting perfect gear takes considerably more. The majority of the best items were all crafted, magical or from classic. If you were hunting for a 300 ed/63 max dmg mat bow, you'd spend decades doing it and it wouldn't be very fun for you either if that's the only item you wanted. It's just not logical.
I'm saying you can't logically dispute what I say about the loot hunt being diminished quickly as your standards get higher. Sure, if all you care about is getting GOOD gear for your character, that takes about 3-4 weeks. But, there's almost nothing I was wearing that you could hope to find.
The only things would be the perfect tgods, ravenfrost, dwarfstar that I wore situationally. In fact you probably didn't even know what was good. As an example you probably thought Windforce was the best bow. You may have found a couple 3/1x/20's or flaming sc's of vita. But it's just not mathematically possible to find the gear I had in a lifetime of playing.
The extent of my magic finding was going to nithalak and baal and getting magic items to cube. Before runewords ruined the game and made it much easier to get the best gear.
Now If I go back and play ladder it's fun for a bit, but it doesn't take long to get to the point of good gear and with ladders being the main place people play now. I can't logically go after the perfect gearset. Not to mention I'd be wearing the same gear as everyone else because Blizzard decided to make runewords more powerful than some hacked items were.
The point is, to the truly dedicated players, the game is less about the item hunt than most people would like to admit. Blizzard included. Which baffles the mind since it goes against our very nature as human beings to becoming desensitized to things we experience repeatedly.
Don't believe me? Wait until loot 2.0 when the gear that drops for you over the course of 1 month of game time is enough to do anything you want. If it's anything like the console cut the time down to 2 weeks of playtime. While I'll still be crafting and trading away to get perfect gear for months beyond that.
My original post was pretty level-headed and without ego. You are the one that questioned me being "hardcore" and it blew up in your face. Besides you only did it to try to remove the legitimacy of me saying "Sorry, I just have to point out for those of us that played A LOT, finding the same items again and again was less and less exciting." or redirect from "I'm saying you can't logically dispute what I say about the loot hunt being diminished quickly as your standards get higher." And you continue to avoid those two things and try to draw attention to my character, which you provoked.
I completely get people that play casually. I also understand that if you play on a ladder that the item hunt maintains it's appeal for much longer. But eventually you will run out of items you can actually find. If you're playing a lot, naturally that happens much faster. You think I didn't gear out all my characters? Of course I did, but I didn't try to perfect their gear to the point I did in my main zons. I'm also willing to bet casuals don't care about perfecting their gear either. It's a pretty unnecessary thing to do and very time consuming. Which doesn't fit into the idea of being casual.
However, when a casual tries to tell me what diablo is about. When I played probably 10x the amount they did. You should understand why I'd be a little annoyed. That's like a kid in a civic talking about nascar like he knows more about it than somebody that has done it for years. Because he got on the track a few times. Since me playing that much more and without pause puts me in a position to unbiasedly say the "kill monster get item" was not the reason I or any of my friends ended up playing it for so long. It was what started it all but definitely not what the game was about in the end.
As I said before most people that do play diablo 2 do exactly what I said. They make a character or two on the ladder get gear for it and once they do they stop playing altogether. Sometimes it's only a week sometimes a month. Rarely is it much more than that. The item hunt only lasts for so long. The ones that continue to play for many hours are going for ladder ranks, perfecting their gear, or are pvp'rs/trade-a-holics.
Btw I had several zons, not just 1. I didn't play for more than a few weeks at a time since 1.10 so respecing wasn't a thing.
As for the playing too much yeah probably. Though I haven't played anything for more than a couple weeks here and there since D3. But I stopped playing d3 back in august of last year with just over 650 hours played. But me taking something seriously doesn't diminish my viewpoint, it actually strengthens it.
Yeah, errmmm it wasn't really directed at YOU, although I can see why you might think it was. It's just a rash of "If you don't play <this way> then you're playing Diablo wrong" posts lately have REALLY irritated me. See the above post as an example.
Does it make people feel better about themselves to say shit like that? I've played self-found for quite a while now and I've never felt the need to bash people who trade or use the AH. It's not that difficult to be semi-respectful of the fact that others don't necessarily play the game the same way as you do. Yet that basic bit of common courtesy seems to be completely lost of late and I don't get it.
Nah, honestly, it's just something I've observed in a lot of threads since the AH announcement. It's nothing specific, just some general attitude that I don't understand. When I played D2 I don't recall anyone saying to me "ahahaha ur a trader, I hope you get abducted, raped, and beaten to death" or "lul self-found, you must enjoy naked pix of 4-year-olds too" (obvious exaggeration, hopefully for some comedic value). No one seemed to care and I simply don't remember anyone ever insinuating that one way was wrong, one way was right, etc.
Back on-topic though. There is one thing I absolutely won't miss about the AH: having to list and re-list items. I hated that about the AH in WoW, I hate it about the AH in D3. I find it tedious and annoying and I absolutely won't miss a single second of it.
I am very excited for RoS and plan to delete every character on my account so i can start over 100% SF on HC.
I absolutely agree that it sucks to force a playstyle upon someone. The difference is, in D2 you could do both (trade or play self-found).
Due to the AH, the drop rates were so low that self-found was essentially impossible (or only with a very bad gaming experience).
I think both traders and self-found players are better off now:
The idea is that ROS will bring a couple of new game modes (possibly including the arena or any other form of pvp / moba) that will drastically increase the replayability value of D3 in general.
I think Riptide fails to understand that the fact that he was swayed away from item finding to the direction of crafting and trading, was mainly because the loot hunt in D2 was not well thought out at all and quite broken to be honest. I played D2 for 10 years on and off (about 2-4 months every year) and i never found one SOJ. Not that it matters that much, but the drop chance on certain items was simply astronomical.
People aquired wealth with their credit card in D2 just like in D3 (including me) and if you didn't buy your items, you just farmed for runes and scammed noobs untill you had enough to buy a good item off of someone who got it from a botter / duper / 3rd party site.
sure crafting was underestimated and not well known among most of the noobs in D2, but to claim that it can provide you with hundreds of hours of gameplay is just ludicrous.
I hope loot 2.0 won't ruin the already broken game that is D3 by making it even more casual and not challenging. I also hope that ROS will bring valid, replayable new game modes that have the potential to provide people with hundreds of hours of gameplay... Unlike crafting in D2
I played d2 quite alot, probably upwards of 1000 hours after my 3 or 4th ladder playthrough... i never purchased anything from a site i found 3 sojs and a 2 maras at least which are failry similar in there drop rate. and i made plenty of legit trades which were profitable for me and the other person.
there is no way of knowing how many items were duped or how many were not, so enough with the pure speculation and claims that everyone acquired there items through either scamming newbs or buying them off sites. Because its false.
I'm not saying it did not happen, what i am saying is that no-one has any way of knowing how many items were duped, but obviously it was not all of them, and self found was very viable.(single player)
Still... I think having legendary items dropping more often, even if they're not useful to me, is better, because it instills some sort of hope in my never-ending pursuit for that great item, especially if they're close but no cigar type items. Right now, with 400 MF, I get a legendary perhaps every hour, and it's certain to be garbage, which just feels terrible, and makes you feel like that next good drop is that much further away. If that legendary dropped, and had great stats, but wasn't an upgrade, I'd still be much happier, because the game isn't giving me the middle finger every few hours. But more often than not, right now the game usually says to me, "Hey, look, it's a Manticore! lol 800 DPS 300 STR F YOU lawl."
tl;dr: Inevitable loot wall is more bearable when you're not getting slapped in the face every few hours.
I think the ladder will be enough for most people to keep coming back. There's likely going to be the perpetual paragon ladder that we are all apart of. That will make a lot of people want to be #1 .
I personally want a better pvp experience and no more boa crafting. Because as I said finding loot is not that thrilling when I've seen it all drop before. I found every major item, multiples of most, in d2 except for a zod and tyreal's might. So crafting was the only way I could realistically get excited because I was then looking for very specific stats and stat ranges.
Just like in d3, I spent a lot more time crafting (I also made a lot more money through crafting) than hunting for items. It was just the most logical way to upgrade a specific piece of gear. If it wasn't for the paragon system + DE. I would be crafting 90% of the time like before. Because the chance at finding an upgrade at this point is very very minimal. It will be like this in loot 2.0 too, if you think it's going to eventually drop perfect items then you got it wrong. Loot 2.0 is just going to remove the need to trade by dropping you items that are "good enough" but I want more than "good enough".
Diablo for me has always been about perfecting gear and builds(though d3 pretty much shit on that. Crafting and trading is the only way to do it. I'm not content with a 6 crit 200 primary 12% but with low base armor and had I not quit in 1.04, until a couple weeks ago, I would be trying to get better than what I have, but there's no point with the gear reset coming. It takes many months to perfect gear.
But for the record I've already seen a few mempo's, echoing fury, inna's chest drop and I need to replace my current ones, but I just don't give a shit when I see that beam. All that matters is when I id it that it's perfect. The closer to perfect it is the more happy I'll be.
It's messed up really, because I get more sad seeing an item that I want drop but it being worse than what I have, than if it had never dropped at all. I think I'd be addicted to buying unid's if I could rationalize trying to upgrade right now.
Kind of off topic, but I worry about loot 2.0, if it's anything like the console a lot of players that enjoy just getting the standard gear in each slot with decent rolls will have little reason to play after a few weeks. Since your gear will be so good that finding an upgrade will become much harder. If it's not necessary for your gear to get better and you don't create artificial reasons, like getting perfect gear, the fun will likely die down.
Not a fan of legendaries being BiS either. I don't mind if they are 98% as near perfect rare (which is much harder to roll btw) but I'm not a fan of legendaries taking up more than a couple of item slots or used as items to hold you over. Build changers are fine and welcomed though.
If self found is a possibility could care less if there is an AH or not... so with loot 2.0 in mind don't care. I'd still prefer having the AH as I refuse to barter and trade (takes forever and have to deal with scammers). Now there will be more spam in the chat channels... goody.
Complaining has nothing to do with playing casually.