At first I was like "WTF, this can't be true". And I still think there's a good chance this change will never make it to live. But if you think about it for a while, it makes sense:
1) As I stated before, the biggest problem is that people's minds have changed from D2 (nice item, let me create a build around it!) to D3 (nice item, probably worth 2b!). Removing the AH was only one part; if they players were to come up with a community-driven AH replacement, it would just be about the same (not a given, but worst case scenario). Forcing everyone to self-found will definitely change people's thinking. The question is not if you like it or I like it - I guess we all agree that it's an overreaction. But for the game and your characters it might actually be for the better. Still, let's see if this change makes it into live.
2) There will be six times more legendary drops in RoS than in current D3 (source: Gamescom). I seriously think that approaching the upcoming changes with the mindset and experiences from AH-poisoned D3 vanilla POV is not the right approach. I also believe that Blizzard might tweak the numbers in the future: They might either further increase drop rates such that after ~1500 hours you have seen almost every legendary and removing the anger about not being able to trade; or they might remove BoA once people's mindsets have changed and re-adapted back into a more D2-like mode and the bad impact of the AH is forgotten.
3) Look at the bright side: Many people said they wouldn't enchant their best items because they don't want them to be soulbound. Now you can soulbound all your legendaries and sets, doesn't matter!
4) Remember D2, where crafted items (runewords) and rares were oftentimes superior to legendaries (uniques)? Maybe it's the same in RoS: You want a couple of game-changing legendaries for the skill changes (e.g., a Serpent's Sparker for an extra hydra), but otherwise you're wearing rare items with far superior stats - and these items might even be traded among your friends. Legendaries might just be something like "secondary runes" that change the way skills work, but are not the items important to reach a certain DPS/EHP breakpoint.
5) I personally am kind of okay with it as long as there is this 2 hour rule (and for me, even 10m would be fine). Sure, I won't be able to lend and entire gearset to a friend, but it's already limited right now because of BoA crafted items, marquise gems, and the paragon level change ("d'oh, you're missing 200 vit"). Annoying - yes; gamebreaking - no. It will discourage me from single player D3, but I haven't played D3 single player in months anyways.
6) My biggest concern with loot 2.0 was that certain specs+item combinations would become the FotM build, and everyone would try to grab these items because it's the most efficient build combination. Rather than trying out some new builds with the items you just found, many people would resort back to following a guide (of which there will be many come RoS, no doubt about it), try to get a hold of this one game-changing legendary and be done with "build exploration". With the increased drop rates and public armory, there won't be many secrets and soon some items will be tagged as "useless", some as "useful", and some as "OP". With no trading and no drop lists you can't get a specific item but you have to work with what you get. It requires some thinking on your own, some exploration, but maybe... it's even better in the end? Who knows.
This is an overreaction from Blizzard, absolutely. Many people hate this change, and I understand everyone, but I wouldn't go so far to say that this would make me not buy RoS. If it's really as bad as many people paint the picture here, Blizzard will do something about it (or just kill BoA restriction in beta already). Let's see how loot 2.0 turns out eventually.
Having played the console version for a few weeks now I have to say, I am all for the soulbound ideas. Trading becomes a moot issue when you find everything you need and then some. Heck, I have nothing that anybody needs because they too are finding everything they need! When everybody's needs are met by self found gaming, then trading becomes a thing of the past.
The idea is that Mempo is not the end all be all of everything if they implement itemization correctly. If they make the scope of legendaries so great and so vast that every legendary item is valuable and useful, you won't mourn that you haven't found a mempo just yet, you will have many other legendary set helms that are just as good and useful.
I have a lot of sympathy for this move and your posts in this regard, itirnitii, but it's not possible to have those "build-changing" legendaries AND a backup plan for them in case you don't find them.
So I'm with the others, especially because of this:
It's the most ridiculous overreaction to the "AH situation" that they could have come up with.
If I go four years and never find a Mempo I sure as hell want the OPTION to be able to acquire one. In a game based on RNG you *must* have a check against bad luck.
I would leave out "ridiculous", but I too consider it an overreaction. I have personal experience with this exact situation (Griffin's Eye in D2) and I don't want anyone to lose that much time of their life for such rng garbage. That's not healthy.
I think, we should try and find a solution to restrict the trading of legendaries somehow. Like only allowing them to be traded for another legendary, though that would not work. How should the game know, that a crit Mempo is worth more than a cold res Mempo? People could just stockpile crap legs as placeholders.
I definitely want the possibility to aquire item X to try out build X. That's been an important fun aspect of D2. Trying out crazy builds within the hour. Not relying on rng to ever find X.
So many exciting things in RoS that have me really looking forward to playing D3 again, and then this? Fuck.
What you said is paramount to the success of D3 going forward. I keep in touch with those D2 friends of mine whom left D3 long ago due to the known issues, via a private website we use to discuss gaming and sports.
I kept them updated about all the changes, posted vids and had them saying "WOW".
.....and then I posted the bit about Blizzard murdering trades. It was embarrassing. They laughed their asses off and straight said "FUCK THAT". So to your post above, that sentiment is carrying far and wide.
Having played the console version for a few weeks now I have to say, I am all for the soulbound ideas. Trading becomes a moot issue when you find everything you need and then some. Heck, I have nothing that anybody needs because they too are finding everything they need! When everybody's needs are met by self found gaming, then trading becomes a thing of the past.
Which brings concern about how good this new itemization truly is. A good, dynamic and balanced itemization table will beg for active, healthy trading practices.
The way I see things going, people are going to ignore Rare (Yellow) drops altogether after a very short while.
Well, this is a huge bomb. I understand that they want to keep legendaries exclusive, expecially if they are game changing but they should be careful with the drop rates.
I don't want to do a run and get more than 10 legendaries just because i can't trade them otherwise i won't even look at Rares (Isn't this the situation on consoles?).
If drop rates are too low, then the farming will be frustrating, even more than Vanilla d3, because there are no means to trade.
I'm not against Legendaries being souldbound, but this is an overreaction to what happened in Vanilla D3, they are scared that after a month, everyone will be bored again because they either bought their sets from third party sites (and i would say, fuck them, they decided to ruin their gaming experience with their credit cards) or they got a whole set from a friend that plays a lot more.
What makes me a bit sad is that i won't be able to give a friend a good legendary i found for him while he was offline, that's what made me happy playing a game like this, of course alongside with finding good gear for me.
If i should be egoistical and think only about my gameplay, i don't care about Legendaries being Soulbound; if i don't need one, it will be crafting material in hope that crafting will be a lot better; but for the greater good of the game, i think trading should be avaiable and Legendaries not bound to your account. In this situation traders will trade and self founders will self found.
Let's wait for a beta/ptr and give more feedback about the matter when we have the whole picture. Things can change during development with good feedback.
I think you guys don't see all the good in this...
1.) No bots
2.) No third party sites
3.) Sub prime drops will now appear good as players are now on an even playing field. No more players such as Athene that get fed and make everyone else think their gear sucks. No more trade scams/tycoons.
4.) PvP can finally find a center of balance. Just like esports, everyone has an even playing field. No ability to use real money.. no ability to use social connections to stack up.
5.) FINDING items is actually the end game like it was meant to be....
This. And I agree with Itirnitii. Playing should be rewarding, not trading and excessive use of the AH. Good items can still be traded, perfect items cannot be traded. Now we can reward ourselves by playing the game. See you ingame while farming.
^ This makes sense but rares and legendaries/sets aren't necessarily "Good" or "Perfect". You MIGHT find a "Perfect" rare and a "Good" legendary but by the looks of it you won't be able to trade that legendary even though its still "Good".
We should definitely be able to trade items to our friends, this is taking it too far. Having the option to give a drop to a member of your group that may improve his/hers character is a rewarding part of the multiplayer experience and should not be taken away from the players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the small death that brings total obliteration."
I have to say, people in this thread are getting WAY to crazy about a subject we have very little info and details about.
Wait till Beta is out and we have some numbers and info. Then you can go batshit if you want.
Could be too late.
If the noise in the forums gets loud about this subject, they can always clarify their position via a blue post.
Or they could change it, if we shout loud enough! But really, we don't have details on how that actually works, or their reasoning or if that is a final implemented system.
EleSaturate, It seems you can trade to party members, although you only have a limited time, and they must be in your party when it drops. A bit disappointing however that if I find something in solo play I couldn't put it aside for a friend.
It would be awesome if we could "mark" and item when it drops for a specific friend, or something like that. Not sure how that would work in a Diablo environment though, seems a bit too complex.
About giving items to friends. Friends who are not that high lvl to get such equipment by themselves.
I know, most people like to do that, me included. But thinking about it got me to this question:
How are these friends any different (or: better) than players who just use their wallet to get those items? Someone didn't kill Illidan? He didn't get a Warglaive, period. Why would we want to change that for friends but at the same time boo at those, who trade for such? Also, doesn't that spoil the fun for those friends? What's to enjoy about a 1.2k dps lvl46 EF on your very first playthrough?
This question leads to the dilemma of defining eligibility for high lvl items. Who deserves to have them and who doesn't? Allowing only the people in, who participated in the kill of the monster in question is not the worst definition, though it's the most restrictive
I have to say, people in this thread are getting WAY to crazy about a subject we have very little info and details about.
Wait till Beta is out and we have some numbers and info. Then you can go batshit if you want.
No, this thread is a big example as to why you don't say a controversial thing in an interview without being prepared to back it up with a lot of information.
The reactions here are quite appropos and should have been very much anticipated. Unlike the AH/RMAH removal, which players can still play the game without, when you completely remove trading you have severely altered the game for many, many players.
Why can't I trade with a friend that's offline?
Why can't I trade with a clanmate that's not in my group?
Why can't I trade with a poster on DFans that's not in my clan or on my friends list?
Why can't I trade with a person I meet in a future game that I become friends with?
Why can't I trade with my friend from work whom I've known for years but didn't know he played D3 until this past week?
All these things contribute to the social aspects of the game much moreso than just killing monsters with people. You can kill monsters without ever talking - I've done public games where that's exactly what happens. Most people cannot trade items without communicating.
Like I said... I didn't necessarily agree with removing the AHs, but it was a LOGICAL and REASONABLE change. I cannot see the logic in this. There are far too many negatives just from a social perspective to warrant such a drastic change. Frankly I'd rather them get radical with GAMEPLAY elements. Shock me with going outside-of-the-box in that manner and stop trying to socially-engineer the game!
About giving items to friends. Friends who are not that high lvl to get such equipment by themselves.
I know, most people like to do that, me included. But thinking about it got me to this question:
How are these friends any different (or: better) than players who just use their wallet to get those items? Someone didn't kill Illidan? He didn't get a Warglaive, period. Why would we want to change that for friends but at the same time boo at those, who trade for such? Also, doesn't that spoil the fun for those friends? What's to enjoy about a 1.2k dps lvl46 EF on your very first playthrough?
I have to ask a bigger question than that...
Twinking exists in many games. Who cares? I'm 100% with maka on this. There are some things that have to be player-enforced. If twinking isn't fun for you then please, just don't do it. The fact that you think twinking ruins the game isn't a very good reason to remove trading from the game, though. This is exactly why I say Blizzard has to stop trying to socially-engineer the game. These "problems" that people keep bringing up are better solved by restraint and self-imposed restrictions than by lobbying Blizzard to play nanny.
One very worrisome thing to me here is that Blizzard is essentially saying clearly, the BiS items will ALWAYS be Legs/Sets. Rares are being declared as a clear second best. Which means, for players that play often, after less than a year, we won't even bother to pick up rares anymore. Why bother?
I've always said this and I'll say it again; Rares should be able to compete with Legendaries, minus a given special effect/affix
I totally agree. But I think this is a lost cause by now. Blizzard apparently can't do something as "complex" as that.
The best we can hope for, seem,s to be, that they manage to make legendaries interesting and very diverse. That will still be a huge upgrade from how itemization is now.
About giving items to friends. Friends who are not that high lvl to get such equipment by themselves.
I know, most people like to do that, me included. But thinking about it got me to this question:
How are these friends any different (or: better) than players who just use their wallet to get those items? Someone didn't kill Illidan? He didn't get a Warglaive, period. Why would we want to change that for friends but at the same time boo at those, who trade for such? Also, doesn't that spoil the fun for those friends? What's to enjoy about a 1.2k dps lvl46 EF on your very first playthrough?
I have to ask a bigger question than that...
Twinking exists in many games. Who cares? I'm 100% with maka on this. There are some things that have to be player-enforced. If twinking isn't fun for you then please, just don't do it. The fact that you think twinking ruins the game isn't a very good reason to remove trading from the game, though. This is exactly why I say Blizzard has to stop trying to socially-engineer the game. These "problems" that people keep bringing up are better solved by restraing, and self-imposed restrictions than by lobbying Blizzard to play nanny.
Don't judge so fast I like twinking, I did it in every game so far, but that's different on your 5th char than on someone's first. I agree that a restriction on that is not necessary. But you didn't answer, why your friend should get such items but not some foreigner who buys it off another foreigner.
By the way, all those missing features you listed about giving items to someone you know: That would be rather easy: Just flag items to be only tradeable to someone in your clan/(chat-)group (at the time of the drop). Would solve all your issues, I guess.
Would also lead to a "d2jsp"-group.. "You want to buy our stuff? Need to be in our (chat-)group at the time of the drop"
By the way, all those missing features you listed about giving items to someone you know: That would be rather easy: Just flag items to be only tradeable to someone in your clan/(chat-)group (at the time of the drop). Would solve all your issues, I guess.
It would and I'd be much more open to "friends list and clans" trading as a starting point than "the 0, 1, 2, or 3 other people in your group for the next two hours" trading.
After removing the AH/RMAH I just don't understand why they moved to the absolutely most-restrictive stance on this subject that they could come up with. Like Ruksak said, this is just swinging between extremes and that alone should throw up red flags. It's as logical as getting sick from some bad clams at a restaurant in Thailand and deciding that you will never eat any seafood in any restaurant anywhere in the world ever again. You might think you're protecting your digestive system, but you're just being a reactionary nitwit.
But, even if we have a "bind to friends list and clan" system, all that accomplishes is giving us a reason to get into max-size clans and then add 100 more acquaintences to our friends list so we have max trading possibilities. People in smaller clans, people who have fewer "friends" get left in the wash. There's a huge difference between having 20 people to trade with and having 200 people to trade with.
So, by the time we've allowed all friends and clanmates into the trading fray, we may as well just open it back up to anyone and use trading as a way to MEET PEOPLE as opposed to a way to force people into clans and "friendships" with anyone and everyone just to open up trading avenues. I mean, honestly, there's not a whole lot of difference between trading with 200ish people and everyone on battle.net. The main difference is: will you use the forums and trade chat, or will you just use your friends list and your clan chat? For me, even 100 "friends" is more than "small-scale" trading.
It is never the players problem. It is Blizzards.
It is their job as designers, to create a good game, and very often save people from themselves. Which includes babysitting them sometimes.
Clan-only trading might be a decent middle ground for trading vs BoA.
But it would require fairly small size cap on clans Like 25-50 players at most.
It would require weird rules to prevent people from just jumping to a new clan to trade. Like keeping track of who was in a clan the exact moment each item dropped. Could be fairly confusing.
Friend list trading seems redundant, if clan-trading existed.
Sorry to point out - but they didn't say that they were removing TRADING from the game. They said that top tier legendary and set items would automatically be BoA.
What is a top tier legendary? We don't know.
Spend some time and actually critically think about what that would mean. You can still trade 2/3 of the legendary and set items in the game at will, but the best of the best is reserved for just YOU as a reward for PLAYING the game - would that be so bad?
Part of their reasoning for this is that they stated they do not want another Stone of Jordan currency situation. And eventually that's what I fear it would become: "I'm sorry, I can't take anything less than a 5% crit Mempo - that's the going rate for X."
You want them to tell you what they are working on. Fine - the did. But whoa, whoa, you want them to be carefully prepared on what they tell you, with supporting information and critical thinking to back it up. Don't just drop a bombshell on us without explaining why it works, why our fears are not real, show us supporting evidence, etc, etc, etc.
But geez - why won't the TELL US anything - why do we have to wait!
Oh also; they said these decision might change before launch. So there's that.
Help them out and actually spend some time thinking about their idea as if it was real and see what advantages it might have to the game before you pass judgement.
it would require weird rules to prevent people from just jumping to a new clan to trade. Like keeping track of who was in a clan the exact moment each item dropped. Could be fairly confusing.
Clan trading is just a horrible idea. Honestly, the way they have it set up now is probably best (Trading among those who were present in-game when the legendary fell) if they leave soulbound legendaries in game. I don't disagree with them when they say they want people to play the game to have the best items, but I agree that possibility of *never* getting that particular item is incredibly frustrating.
We're not playing diablo-tycoon after all; selling the very best items for max-gold was pretty insane.
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1) As I stated before, the biggest problem is that people's minds have changed from D2 (nice item, let me create a build around it!) to D3 (nice item, probably worth 2b!). Removing the AH was only one part; if they players were to come up with a community-driven AH replacement, it would just be about the same (not a given, but worst case scenario). Forcing everyone to self-found will definitely change people's thinking. The question is not if you like it or I like it - I guess we all agree that it's an overreaction. But for the game and your characters it might actually be for the better. Still, let's see if this change makes it into live.
2) There will be six times more legendary drops in RoS than in current D3 (source: Gamescom). I seriously think that approaching the upcoming changes with the mindset and experiences from AH-poisoned D3 vanilla POV is not the right approach. I also believe that Blizzard might tweak the numbers in the future: They might either further increase drop rates such that after ~1500 hours you have seen almost every legendary and removing the anger about not being able to trade; or they might remove BoA once people's mindsets have changed and re-adapted back into a more D2-like mode and the bad impact of the AH is forgotten.
3) Look at the bright side: Many people said they wouldn't enchant their best items because they don't want them to be soulbound. Now you can soulbound all your legendaries and sets, doesn't matter!
4) Remember D2, where crafted items (runewords) and rares were oftentimes superior to legendaries (uniques)? Maybe it's the same in RoS: You want a couple of game-changing legendaries for the skill changes (e.g., a Serpent's Sparker for an extra hydra), but otherwise you're wearing rare items with far superior stats - and these items might even be traded among your friends. Legendaries might just be something like "secondary runes" that change the way skills work, but are not the items important to reach a certain DPS/EHP breakpoint.
5) I personally am kind of okay with it as long as there is this 2 hour rule (and for me, even 10m would be fine). Sure, I won't be able to lend and entire gearset to a friend, but it's already limited right now because of BoA crafted items, marquise gems, and the paragon level change ("d'oh, you're missing 200 vit"). Annoying - yes; gamebreaking - no. It will discourage me from single player D3, but I haven't played D3 single player in months anyways.
6) My biggest concern with loot 2.0 was that certain specs+item combinations would become the FotM build, and everyone would try to grab these items because it's the most efficient build combination. Rather than trying out some new builds with the items you just found, many people would resort back to following a guide (of which there will be many come RoS, no doubt about it), try to get a hold of this one game-changing legendary and be done with "build exploration". With the increased drop rates and public armory, there won't be many secrets and soon some items will be tagged as "useless", some as "useful", and some as "OP". With no trading and no drop lists you can't get a specific item but you have to work with what you get. It requires some thinking on your own, some exploration, but maybe... it's even better in the end? Who knows.
This is an overreaction from Blizzard, absolutely. Many people hate this change, and I understand everyone, but I wouldn't go so far to say that this would make me not buy RoS. If it's really as bad as many people paint the picture here, Blizzard will do something about it (or just kill BoA restriction in beta already). Let's see how loot 2.0 turns out eventually.
I have a lot of sympathy for this move and your posts in this regard, itirnitii, but it's not possible to have those "build-changing" legendaries AND a backup plan for them in case you don't find them.
So I'm with the others, especially because of this:
I would leave out "ridiculous", but I too consider it an overreaction. I have personal experience with this exact situation (Griffin's Eye in D2) and I don't want anyone to lose that much time of their life for such rng garbage. That's not healthy.
I think, we should try and find a solution to restrict the trading of legendaries somehow. Like only allowing them to be traded for another legendary, though that would not work. How should the game know, that a crit Mempo is worth more than a cold res Mempo? People could just stockpile crap legs as placeholders.
I definitely want the possibility to aquire item X to try out build X. That's been an important fun aspect of D2. Trying out crazy builds within the hour. Not relying on rng to ever find X.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
What you said is paramount to the success of D3 going forward. I keep in touch with those D2 friends of mine whom left D3 long ago due to the known issues, via a private website we use to discuss gaming and sports.
I kept them updated about all the changes, posted vids and had them saying "WOW".
.....and then I posted the bit about Blizzard murdering trades. It was embarrassing. They laughed their asses off and straight said "FUCK THAT". So to your post above, that sentiment is carrying far and wide.
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Which brings concern about how good this new itemization truly is. A good, dynamic and balanced itemization table will beg for active, healthy trading practices.
The way I see things going, people are going to ignore Rare (Yellow) drops altogether after a very short while.
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I don't want to do a run and get more than 10 legendaries just because i can't trade them otherwise i won't even look at Rares (Isn't this the situation on consoles?).
If drop rates are too low, then the farming will be frustrating, even more than Vanilla d3, because there are no means to trade.
I'm not against Legendaries being souldbound, but this is an overreaction to what happened in Vanilla D3, they are scared that after a month, everyone will be bored again because they either bought their sets from third party sites (and i would say, fuck them, they decided to ruin their gaming experience with their credit cards) or they got a whole set from a friend that plays a lot more.
What makes me a bit sad is that i won't be able to give a friend a good legendary i found for him while he was offline, that's what made me happy playing a game like this, of course alongside with finding good gear for me.
If i should be egoistical and think only about my gameplay, i don't care about Legendaries being Soulbound; if i don't need one, it will be crafting material in hope that crafting will be a lot better; but for the greater good of the game, i think trading should be avaiable and Legendaries not bound to your account. In this situation traders will trade and self founders will self found.
Let's wait for a beta/ptr and give more feedback about the matter when we have the whole picture. Things can change during development with good feedback.
Wait till Beta is out and we have some numbers and info. Then you can go batshit if you want.
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Member of the Dfans clan.
BNet Tag: Evolution85#1878
^ This makes sense but rares and legendaries/sets aren't necessarily "Good" or "Perfect". You MIGHT find a "Perfect" rare and a "Good" legendary but by the looks of it you won't be able to trade that legendary even though its still "Good".
Either way...
It would be awesome if we could "mark" and item when it drops for a specific friend, or something like that. Not sure how that would work in a Diablo environment though, seems a bit too complex.
I know, most people like to do that, me included. But thinking about it got me to this question:
How are these friends any different (or: better) than players who just use their wallet to get those items? Someone didn't kill Illidan? He didn't get a Warglaive, period. Why would we want to change that for friends but at the same time boo at those, who trade for such? Also, doesn't that spoil the fun for those friends? What's to enjoy about a 1.2k dps lvl46 EF on your very first playthrough?
This question leads to the dilemma of defining eligibility for high lvl items. Who deserves to have them and who doesn't? Allowing only the people in, who participated in the kill of the monster in question is not the worst definition, though it's the most restrictive
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
No, this thread is a big example as to why you don't say a controversial thing in an interview without being prepared to back it up with a lot of information.
The reactions here are quite appropos and should have been very much anticipated. Unlike the AH/RMAH removal, which players can still play the game without, when you completely remove trading you have severely altered the game for many, many players.
Why can't I trade with a friend that's offline?
Why can't I trade with a clanmate that's not in my group?
Why can't I trade with a poster on DFans that's not in my clan or on my friends list?
Why can't I trade with a person I meet in a future game that I become friends with?
Why can't I trade with my friend from work whom I've known for years but didn't know he played D3 until this past week?
All these things contribute to the social aspects of the game much moreso than just killing monsters with people. You can kill monsters without ever talking - I've done public games where that's exactly what happens. Most people cannot trade items without communicating.
Like I said... I didn't necessarily agree with removing the AHs, but it was a LOGICAL and REASONABLE change. I cannot see the logic in this. There are far too many negatives just from a social perspective to warrant such a drastic change. Frankly I'd rather them get radical with GAMEPLAY elements. Shock me with going outside-of-the-box in that manner and stop trying to socially-engineer the game!
I have to ask a bigger question than that...
Twinking exists in many games. Who cares? I'm 100% with maka on this. There are some things that have to be player-enforced. If twinking isn't fun for you then please, just don't do it. The fact that you think twinking ruins the game isn't a very good reason to remove trading from the game, though. This is exactly why I say Blizzard has to stop trying to socially-engineer the game. These "problems" that people keep bringing up are better solved by restraint and self-imposed restrictions than by lobbying Blizzard to play nanny.
The best we can hope for, seem,s to be, that they manage to make legendaries interesting and very diverse. That will still be a huge upgrade from how itemization is now.
Don't judge so fast I like twinking, I did it in every game so far, but that's different on your 5th char than on someone's first. I agree that a restriction on that is not necessary. But you didn't answer, why your friend should get such items but not some foreigner who buys it off another foreigner.
By the way, all those missing features you listed about giving items to someone you know: That would be rather easy: Just flag items to be only tradeable to someone in your clan/(chat-)group (at the time of the drop). Would solve all your issues, I guess.
Would also lead to a "d2jsp"-group.. "You want to buy our stuff? Need to be in our (chat-)group at the time of the drop"
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
For me it shouldn't be limited in either case.
It would and I'd be much more open to "friends list and clans" trading as a starting point than "the 0, 1, 2, or 3 other people in your group for the next two hours" trading.
After removing the AH/RMAH I just don't understand why they moved to the absolutely most-restrictive stance on this subject that they could come up with. Like Ruksak said, this is just swinging between extremes and that alone should throw up red flags. It's as logical as getting sick from some bad clams at a restaurant in Thailand and deciding that you will never eat any seafood in any restaurant anywhere in the world ever again. You might think you're protecting your digestive system, but you're just being a reactionary nitwit.
But, even if we have a "bind to friends list and clan" system, all that accomplishes is giving us a reason to get into max-size clans and then add 100 more acquaintences to our friends list so we have max trading possibilities. People in smaller clans, people who have fewer "friends" get left in the wash. There's a huge difference between having 20 people to trade with and having 200 people to trade with.
So, by the time we've allowed all friends and clanmates into the trading fray, we may as well just open it back up to anyone and use trading as a way to MEET PEOPLE as opposed to a way to force people into clans and "friendships" with anyone and everyone just to open up trading avenues. I mean, honestly, there's not a whole lot of difference between trading with 200ish people and everyone on battle.net. The main difference is: will you use the forums and trade chat, or will you just use your friends list and your clan chat? For me, even 100 "friends" is more than "small-scale" trading.
It is their job as designers, to create a good game, and very often save people from themselves. Which includes babysitting them sometimes.
Clan-only trading might be a decent middle ground for trading vs BoA.
But it would require fairly small size cap on clans Like 25-50 players at most.
It would require weird rules to prevent people from just jumping to a new clan to trade. Like keeping track of who was in a clan the exact moment each item dropped. Could be fairly confusing.
Friend list trading seems redundant, if clan-trading existed.
What is a top tier legendary? We don't know.
Spend some time and actually critically think about what that would mean. You can still trade 2/3 of the legendary and set items in the game at will, but the best of the best is reserved for just YOU as a reward for PLAYING the game - would that be so bad?
Part of their reasoning for this is that they stated they do not want another Stone of Jordan currency situation. And eventually that's what I fear it would become: "I'm sorry, I can't take anything less than a 5% crit Mempo - that's the going rate for X."
You want them to tell you what they are working on. Fine - the did. But whoa, whoa, you want them to be carefully prepared on what they tell you, with supporting information and critical thinking to back it up. Don't just drop a bombshell on us without explaining why it works, why our fears are not real, show us supporting evidence, etc, etc, etc.
But geez - why won't the TELL US anything - why do we have to wait!
Oh also; they said these decision might change before launch. So there's that.
Help them out and actually spend some time thinking about their idea as if it was real and see what advantages it might have to the game before you pass judgement.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
Clan trading is just a horrible idea. Honestly, the way they have it set up now is probably best (Trading among those who were present in-game when the legendary fell) if they leave soulbound legendaries in game. I don't disagree with them when they say they want people to play the game to have the best items, but I agree that possibility of *never* getting that particular item is incredibly frustrating.
We're not playing diablo-tycoon after all; selling the very best items for max-gold was pretty insane.