Blacksmith Cost VS AH Costs The intent was to use your Blacksmith to fill those itemization gaps that can happen due to the randomized drops. The issue is the Blacksmith compared to the AH is just not worth spending gold to level up right now. It's something we're aware of.
The reason why the AH is saturated comes down to supply and demand. People are putting more items up for sale, than people are actually buying. Blizzard should be to limit the # of items you can sell at the auction at any given time to five. That will cut down on the # of items for sale, thereby raising prices, and increasing the chance that the stuff you try and pawn off actually gets bought.
During Beta, I enjoyed using the blacksmith. It's a cool feature. But the blacksmith's function is obsolete with the AH's cheap prices. Why spend more on a gamble, than spend less on a sure thing at the auction house.
I suppose I don't understand why the BS is a necessity to begin with. There is a need to obtain gear from a source outside of champ packs and bosses. The AH is filling that need. Whether it's the AH or the BS I really don't care as long as that need is being met.
Blizz obviously didn't anticipate the effect that the AH would have on the BS, so it's not working out later on. There will probably come a time when most players have max level toons and won't flock to the AH in such numbers. The number of items will probably drop too as only the best gear, gear that is hard to obtain, will be in demand.
I don't know, I suppose I just don't care. If I need a piece of gear because I am having trouble and don't feel like farming I'll go to the most convenient source, which currently is the AH. I don't think lowering the current auction limit will change that.
While I wish the blacksmith wasn't worthless, Blizzard needs to remove the gold cost of creating items on it. That's pretty much all there is to it. The cost for an item is 50k+ a bunch of mats from salvaging.. which is unnecessary. You're going to be farming a ton of items anyways, no need to make you waste gold on it, except that Blizzard seems to only have pushed this game out so they can make money via the RMAH.
Limiting the AH to 5 won't raise prices. If you have 10 items up at once, it means your prices are too high to begin with. If you price your items right, they will sell fast. If anything, limiting the AH to 5 would most likely lower the prices, because people would not want to take the gamble of putting up 5 items that are too high and not having the ability to sell anything else for 2 days.
Blacksmith Cost VS AH Costs The intent was to use your Blacksmith to fill those itemization gaps that can happen due to the randomized drops. The issue is the Blacksmith compared to the AH is just not worth spending gold to level up right now. It's something we're aware of.
The reason why the AH is saturated comes down to supply and demand. People are putting more items up for sale, than people are actually buying. Blizzard should be to limit the # of items you can sell at the auction at any given time to five. That will cut down on the # of items for sale, thereby raising prices, and increasing the chance that the stuff you try and pawn off actually gets bought.
During Beta, I enjoyed using the blacksmith. It's a cool feature. But the blacksmith's function is obsolete with the AH's cheap prices. Why spend more on a gamble, than spend less on a sure thing at the auction house.
What are your thoughts?
Or you could just look at Blacksmithing in an isolated area. Do a Nephalem Valor run (assuming Watcher + Butcher which every class can easily do) and get ~200k plus ~6-10 rares and ~20-30 magic items. You can salvage all those items and spend all the salvaged mats, buy another bunch of mats (since you mostly get low level crap that doesn't salvage into Inferno material) and craft a single rare weapon with random stats from all you got in that run.
Basically you're spending all loot (including gold) of a whole run just to craft another single rare with completely random attributes.
Not to mention those rares (even those which come from Act 4 recipes) actually have worse base attributes (DPS, Armor, etc.) than Act 4 drops. Thus you do not even have the chance of landing a jackpot and getting an "almost best" item from your gambling.
It's even worse when you look at low level or gems (up to level 8). The sheer gold cost of combining level 1 gems up to a single level 8 gem are insane even though level 8 gems drop frequently - why would you ever combine those even without an auction house? You'd probably even farm more level 8 gems in the time it takes you to combine those gems up to a single level 8 gem, why have an additional cost on it?
Of course the game needs money sinks but those don't make sense when they don't feel rewarding whatsoever.
It'd feel way more rewarding if it worked like this for example:
Crafting the weapons costs the materials it does now but no gold.
You can choose the type of attributes on the weapon for an increasing cost per attribute (e.g. 100k for the first, 200k for the second, 400k for the third, 800k for the fourth, 1.6 mil for the fifth, 3.2 mil for the sixth).
You'd, however only choose which attributes the weapon has, not how much of each attribute. Thus you'd still not guaranteed to have a good item. Depending on how much you're willing to spend, though, you can reduce the randomness.
This way you could actually fill itemization gaps as advertised, it'd be a gold sink, you'd be able to make use of materials even without gold and in the end there'd still be a small gambling factor no matter what.
I mostly agree. The BS was a good idea, because it is pretty common just to get unlucky drops and have a few items that just don't get upgraded for a long time. But, Blizzard didn't think of how th BS would be affected by the AH - namely, if you get one of those annoying drops of an item that is just BARELY worse than a current really good one, you can post it for someone who isn't getting that slot dropped.
Personally, I think the BS needs to have 1) the items it can make better and 2) needs to be able to build some of the items earlier. I mean, I was easily able to get both my BS and Jeweler up to the point where you need tomes while I was in Act 1 of Nightmare. Which basically means that stuff he could make for me, even if rolled perfectly, wouldn't be great. The BS use to be able to make good ideas for the level in teh beta, but then he got nerfed.
The jeweler, I like the idea you need to pay to upgrade gems...for the higher level. The lower level ones, you just need so many to get anywhere it's kinda stupid. Personally, I think the Jeweler should not charge to combine gems until they are flawless or perfect.
Why can I buy multiple copies of the same item from merchants?
Though not directly related, one thing that I have not seen anyone talk about is this:
When purchasing items from merchants you are able to buy as many copies of that item as you want. So if you see a nice ring or ammy then you can buy 50 of them if you had the money. That's why you see 10 copies of the same ring or ammy on the auction house sometimes. I think it's strange how you can buy multiple of the same item. I think you should only be able to buy one of each item. This is another reason for AH market flood.
I started to level my bs to about level 7, then I realized that AH was pretty cheap to make items, and I could sell all the blues instead of salvaging them. But even with leveling the bs, there was rarely any item worth crafting since they were all so much lower level than I was. It costs a ton to level up the bs too. I think your idea is good for choosing the stats of the bs. You can already do that though in the AH since you can conveniently filter by state type. But nonetheless it is a good idea since there many not be the stats that you want current on the AH. It is obvious that they grossly underestimated how many items would be up for sale on the AH and how efficient it is to purchase them.
Another issue is that items are becoming cheaper. An easy example to this is to look at weapon dps for its cost. Over time so many people are finding more powerful items, such that what you found a few days ago is drastically cheaper today. The blacksmith stays at a constant cost, so that is another point in how the BS can get outdated.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't high-end BS crafting the only long-term gold sink in the game? That needs to stay around at least or the AH could collapse under the weight of worthless gold.
I believe that it will eventually even itself out. Right now the market is being flooded with low-level items, which is driving their prices down to below BS levels (greater supply = lower prices).
Once people have most of their characters at higher-levels, there will be less low-level gear on the auction house, driving up the prices of what is there and putting it more in line with the BS prices. Same will probably apply for the Jewelcrafter.
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The intent was to use your Blacksmith to fill those itemization gaps that can happen due to the randomized drops. The issue is the Blacksmith compared to the AH is just not worth spending gold to level up right now. It's something we're aware of.
The reason why the AH is saturated comes down to supply and demand. People are putting more items up for sale, than people are actually buying. Blizzard should be to limit the # of items you can sell at the auction at any given time to five. That will cut down on the # of items for sale, thereby raising prices, and increasing the chance that the stuff you try and pawn off actually gets bought.
During Beta, I enjoyed using the blacksmith. It's a cool feature. But the blacksmith's function is obsolete with the AH's cheap prices. Why spend more on a gamble, than spend less on a sure thing at the auction house.
What are your thoughts?
Blizz obviously didn't anticipate the effect that the AH would have on the BS, so it's not working out later on. There will probably come a time when most players have max level toons and won't flock to the AH in such numbers. The number of items will probably drop too as only the best gear, gear that is hard to obtain, will be in demand.
I don't know, I suppose I just don't care. If I need a piece of gear because I am having trouble and don't feel like farming I'll go to the most convenient source, which currently is the AH. I don't think lowering the current auction limit will change that.
Limiting the AH to 5 won't raise prices. If you have 10 items up at once, it means your prices are too high to begin with. If you price your items right, they will sell fast. If anything, limiting the AH to 5 would most likely lower the prices, because people would not want to take the gamble of putting up 5 items that are too high and not having the ability to sell anything else for 2 days.
I mostly agree. The BS was a good idea, because it is pretty common just to get unlucky drops and have a few items that just don't get upgraded for a long time. But, Blizzard didn't think of how th BS would be affected by the AH - namely, if you get one of those annoying drops of an item that is just BARELY worse than a current really good one, you can post it for someone who isn't getting that slot dropped.
Personally, I think the BS needs to have 1) the items it can make better and 2) needs to be able to build some of the items earlier. I mean, I was easily able to get both my BS and Jeweler up to the point where you need tomes while I was in Act 1 of Nightmare. Which basically means that stuff he could make for me, even if rolled perfectly, wouldn't be great. The BS use to be able to make good ideas for the level in teh beta, but then he got nerfed.
The jeweler, I like the idea you need to pay to upgrade gems...for the higher level. The lower level ones, you just need so many to get anywhere it's kinda stupid. Personally, I think the Jeweler should not charge to combine gems until they are flawless or perfect.
Though not directly related, one thing that I have not seen anyone talk about is this:
When purchasing items from merchants you are able to buy as many copies of that item as you want. So if you see a nice ring or ammy then you can buy 50 of them if you had the money. That's why you see 10 copies of the same ring or ammy on the auction house sometimes. I think it's strange how you can buy multiple of the same item. I think you should only be able to buy one of each item. This is another reason for AH market flood.
I started to level my bs to about level 7, then I realized that AH was pretty cheap to make items, and I could sell all the blues instead of salvaging them. But even with leveling the bs, there was rarely any item worth crafting since they were all so much lower level than I was. It costs a ton to level up the bs too. I think your idea is good for choosing the stats of the bs. You can already do that though in the AH since you can conveniently filter by state type. But nonetheless it is a good idea since there many not be the stats that you want current on the AH. It is obvious that they grossly underestimated how many items would be up for sale on the AH and how efficient it is to purchase them.
Another issue is that items are becoming cheaper. An easy example to this is to look at weapon dps for its cost. Over time so many people are finding more powerful items, such that what you found a few days ago is drastically cheaper today. The blacksmith stays at a constant cost, so that is another point in how the BS can get outdated.
Once people have most of their characters at higher-levels, there will be less low-level gear on the auction house, driving up the prices of what is there and putting it more in line with the BS prices. Same will probably apply for the Jewelcrafter.