So I've taken the time to explain the logic behind the original design of DIII and it's inclusion of the AH and what the removal of that means.
In this post I address why BoA does more harm than good, doesn't solve ANY of the problems it's attempting to fix, and what it ultimately means for the future of Diablo.
This is all merely logic, statistics, and probability.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10972667249?page=1#1
Go there and support it, or hate it -- but read the whole thread first. Make an attempt to understand all the posts before you reply. Try to leave personal bias aside until the thread is read, before you reply.
P.S. Request it as sticky.
I've been playing the PTR since it came out, and I haven't missed trading once. Actually getting decent upgrades on my already pretty nicely geared from live DH feels really good, and it feels even better when you get a legendary you're looking for to drop. IE; I JUST found Kridershot on my DH tonight. It completely changed up my build and I'm having a blast.
The best part? I really wanted to try it out two weeks ago when PTR came out, but I couldn't trade for it obviously, because of BoA. When it dropped, the sense of accomplishment, of what I had earned myself and myself only by actually playing the game and farming, was astounding. Not only do I not miss trading legendaries, I'm glad it's gone. This game might as well have spawned as a phoenix from the ashes for me, in just playing the PTR.
When it dropped, the sense of accomplishment, of what I had earned myself and myself only by actually playing the game and farming, was astounding.
Really?
I have not felt any sense of "accomplishment" over any legendary I've found on the PTR. Mainly because everyone else has already found them, usually multiple times over. Like Zero said... when everyone is winning the lottery, it kinda makes winning the lottery less special. In fact, I'm finding smart drops (coupled with BoA) to be more frustrating than I ever thought they would be. I RARELY find non-int gear which means my scoundrel has little chance of getting upgrades. If I want to craft a non-int item I have to STOP PLAYING and switch characters.
70%+ of my items have int on them. Less than 10% have dex/str. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to make it such that it didn't matter what character we were farming on. Smart drops completely fucked that concept from here to hell and back. GENIUS!
I feel like Blizzard has turned D3 into an always-online single player game, and I don't like it. It's just not as fun as it should be. RoS has the potential to be a lot more fun, but it's falling far short because Blizzard decided that 100% self-found is the only "right" way to play the game. Mark my words, if they keep going with this the longevity of the game is going to suffer. There's no way I'm going to keep grinding for items in this system. It's actually WORSE than the AH + shitty drop rates.
EDIT Don't get me wrong, I'll buy RoS and get my $40 worth. But my expectations have gone down significantly after playing the PTR. I realized that Blizzard isn't looking to make a game where the item hunt is engaging. They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
I can not quote what Shaggy said. Smart drop on class items is fine, i don't want to see STR/INT on Quivers, or even worse, Witch Doctor's skill bonus on a Manticore; but Blizzard went just overboard with Smart Loot that's not remotely funny. I admit i started to see a bit more of STR/Vit stuff on my level 50 Demon Hunter but most of the loot i get is Dex, Vit or Increase skill for the character i'm playing right now and the amount of Cloaks instead of regular chests is insane.
What Blizzard has to remember is that the joy of an ARPG is to find loot for other classes too, working around a cool item you've found for your alt and make a build around it. What are the chances to find a legendary wand when i'm playing my Demon Hunter, which is the better geared character i have, made exactly for farming purposes? Probably too low.
My best experience in hardcore was finding a Str/Vit Cindercoat while playing a Demon Hunter (well, maybe not my best, i was kinda disappointed because i wanted it to be Dex but w/e) and soon after i leveled a Barbarian to 60 just to try it and it was fun. Surely i could "trade" it for a dex one, but i wanted to play self found and so i will in RoS but that's not how everyone wants to play.
Smart drop should be tuned to be a lot lees dominant, we already have better ranges for affixes and less chaotic since now we have primary and secondary categories and the quality of what we find is already much much much MUCH better than the crap we had to deal on D3V (hi 50 dex on an ilvl 63 armor). To reduce the Smart Drop chance they could increase the quantity of items we find a bit to have more chances of a good item, 2-3 drops from an Elite without everything being a decent item for your class can be fine, expecially to keep the gear progression steady while leveling up (the best thing i experienced on the PTR).
When we will have access to the Mystic, the problem will be a lot more noticable. Most items will always have your primary stats so you will just have to replace one and BAM: almost perfect item for you. How long will this last? Not much i'd say. The thrill of the hunt is in trying to find that elusive item but what we have now is spoonfeeding. As it's already said, everyone is a winner.
I'm torn about this matter, i'm pretty happy about what they are adding: Bounties, Rifts, Paragon 2.0 are all good stuff but they are butchering what the item hunt is. In D3V we had people shopping to get insta upgrades and get bored, in RoS we risk people getting insta upgrades by playing the game and get bored.... I really hope tuning is in the work about this matter
Disclaimer: i'm probably overexaggerating because i only played the PTR a bit, both on my lvl 60 and a new character, but the loot i received always had the same pattern, too much Dex Demon Hunter gear, too few, almost no existent off gear...
Seifa - as somebody pointed out to me sometime ago, now I will point the same thing out to you: SmartDrops don't affect the existence of STR/INT Quivers. In order to make such items disappear Blizzard only modified the possible affixes for the items, so we won't be seeing any +INT Mighty Weapons, regardless of SmartDrops. SmartDrops only prioritizes your class-specific stats among the list of possible stats.
Currently on the PTR there are 2 itemization problems: - Small drop rates of legendaries (Blizzard admitted it's too low, though). - Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
I'll defiantly agree with this, the legendary drop rate has felt pretty low, and smart drops should be less than a 1/3 of anything that drops.
They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
lol wtf
A simple: "I disagree with your opinion," would suffice.
- Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
I agree completely. It seems like its about a 5:1 ratio of smart drops to random. It will be very difficult to find gear for other characters with the way it is right now. I feel like 30-40% would be good.
I've also noticed that crafting is the same way. I was trying to craft some shoulders for my monk after I had done a run on my barb, about 2/3 of the crafts had barbarian skill bonuses on them, even though I was crafting DEX shoulders.
Currently on the PTR there are 2 itemization problems: - Small drop rates of legendaries (Blizzard admitted it's too low, though). - Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
Both of these would contribute to a more enjoyable "item hunt" for me. Aside from exploiting guaranteed boss legendaries, the drop rate is way too low (disclaimer: Master, level 60). If I can't trade legendaries and there are 200+ of them out there, one per run on average just isn't close to enough. I have yet to find a single legendary that my WD (or Wiz) would use. It's disheartening, even considering that I'm not putting tons of effort into the beta (I'm more experimenting with potential builds) because none of it is permanent.
For me the inability to find gear for other toons, though, cuts into my ability to enjoy the game. I *AM* interested in finding gear for my barb/crusader/DH/monk while playing my WD/Wiz. My WD/Wiz are my best-geared farming toons. I don't want to have to go onto another toon, ratchet the difficulty down (therefore making it less-effective farming) just to get loot for that toon. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to free us up from the "MUST FARM ON X TOON" situation yet smart drops are so damned prevalent that they force you to farm on the toon that you want gear for rather than whatever toon you feel like. It's backasswards. And smart drops have completely fucked up crafting. The 1.0.7 system was better than what we have now, quite truthfully. If you want to craft something and you think "well I would have to leave this game and switch toons to do that" then something is simply wrong.
Like I said, RoS is great. I love clans. I love the skill fixes and rebalancing. I love the new legendary items (even though I don't find them!). But smart drops are completely overwhelming. I'd also estimate at least 70% of my items found on my WD/Wiz are int and less than 10% are str or dex. That simply violates something that MANY of us find very fun - finding gear for other toons.
People hated going through story mode 4 times on every toon. Why should every toon basically go through the same gear progression (because twinking is basically nonexistent now) on every toon? If they get itemization right there really shouldn't be a need for smart drops to be more than 1 out of every 5 or 10 items. The fact that the rate seems so high right now baffles me.
They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
lol wtf
A simple: "I disagree with your opinion," would suffice.
Sorry bud. I'm just frustrated with the short-sighted "I want all my drops to feel special" mentality that brought us to this point. When I play RoS beta I realize I'm playing a glorified online single-player game where smart drops are seriously screwing up gameplay that many of us enjoyed in D3 and in previous titles and other games in the genre. I mean BoA is bad enough, but the fact that I don't even find items that I can give to my other toons.... WTF?!??!?!?!
I mean I hate BoA, but even worse than that is feeling like the "to account" part of it is meaningless since I rarely find things that matter for my other characters. I will, eventually, come to terms with BoA, even though I do truly believe it will cut short the total "fun" I get from the game. I'm not going to let that stop me from buying the game. But these smart drops are just too much. When I finish a run I shouldn't have a bag full of int items and nothing else. They have to stop treating this game as if it's 100% self-found, 100% single player. It's online, we have co-op games, we all have a bevy of toons on which we enjoy playing. The design has to reflect and embrace that so that we can all have something enjoyable.
*sigh*
EDIT It's just frustrating that, first, I can't trade with my friends. Now, I've come to realize that smart drops are so dominant that I can't even "trade" with my other toons. I'm so firmly against this degree of social-engineering that I lack words to express it properly, and that's probably why I come across as a foaming-at-the-mouth asshole on the subject. I've used the word "frustrated" several times in this post, and truthfully the frustration is boiling over at this point. They HAVE to be able to provide good itemization and interesting items without going down this road.
- Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
I agree completely. It seems like its about a 5:1 ratio of smart drops to random. It will be very difficult to find gear for other characters with the way it is right now. I feel like 30-40% would be good.
I've also noticed that crafting is the same way. I was trying to craft some shoulders for my monk after I had done a run on my barb, about 2/3 of the crafts had barbarian skill bonuses on them, even though I was crafting DEX shoulders.
You have to switch to your barb then if you want to craft for him as it also "smart crafts". Which is fine because in crafting you can always just switch to the said character.
But I do agree that smart drops are over tuned. I find them about 85% of the time. Somewhere around 40% would be better.
Seifa - as somebody pointed out to me sometime ago, now I will point the same thing out to you: SmartDrops don't affect the existence of STR/INT Quivers. In order to make such items disappear Blizzard only modified the possible affixes for the items, so we won't be seeing any +INT Mighty Weapons, regardless of SmartDrops. SmartDrops only prioritizes your class-specific stats among the list of possible stats.
Currently on the PTR there are 2 itemization problems: - Small drop rates of legendaries (Blizzard admitted it's too low, though). - Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
Yeah, i think i kinda mixed Smart Drop and Class Item rolls and i'm glad they fixed that part. I hated finding random stats on cloaks and quivers.
If someone has better english and can write a better feedback than me (cough, shaggy), please, post on the official forum.
So essentially all you want to do is play one character to get loot for all characters you want to play.
No, as Pietrak said, I don't want to "play one character" and "get loot for all characters."
What I want to do is play ANY character, and have a legitimate shot at getting loot for ANY character. As it stands now, if I want dex gear (including for my followers) I basically have to play monk/DH. I don't want each character to have to go through the gear progression individually. Like I said, Paragon 2.0 was supposed to fix the fact that Paragon 1.0 basically locked us into a single character if we wanted items. But smart drops remove the freedom to play whichever character we want because smart drops are so dominant that you very rarely find items that are of the other primary stats. It's an inside-out system that pushes us back to a system where the character we're playing matters.
We should ALL be free to farm with whichever toon we like. Period. There should not be "if you want int gear, get on a Wiz/WD" or "if you want str gear, get on a barb/crusader" or "if you want dex gear, get on a DH/monk." That's really stupid and it's definitely going to cut into the longevity and enjoyment of the game for many people.
When they first proposed smart drops I thought, max, it'd be around 20% of the time. As it stands now it looks like we're dealing with well over 50%. That is a major problem.
Considering the ramifications the system will have on end game, smart item drop rates shouldn't go above 10%, and that's being generous. You'll still have a nice solid chance to get an item suited for you without that system, and finding items for your other characters has always been a big part of this genre of games. The lower they keep the chance of a smart item dropping the better for this game in the long run.
Its still early to say that Blizzard will go full instant gratification, console mode with RoS, but its most surely something to be considered. Whatever happens, in a few months you'll finally be sure if they want this game to be a deeper ARPG or just a casual farm fest.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the small death that brings total obliteration."
There's 2 things I don't want in Diablo, finding items only for my class. Yes I have other classes I want to play without having to switch to them and start with completely crappy items cause I have to find it self found. And second of all I don't want to farm 10 years for the specific item I want. Many hours on PTR, and only 3 legendary items so far. That´s like 3 out of 1000 you can find, and finding the right one might take a few tries. And on live where you farm legendary items easily, a few per hour you still have trouble finding the specific legendary items, like mempo or echoing fury for example. I think they tried to improve the game drastically but went way over the line. But I hope ladders will fix this non sense.
So essentially all you want to do is play one character to get loot for all characters you want to play.
No, as Pietrak said, I don't want to "play one character" and "get loot for all characters."
What I want to do is play ANY character, and have a legitimate shot at getting loot for ANY character. As it stands now, if I want dex gear (including for my followers) I basically have to play monk/DH. I don't want each character to have to go through the gear progression individually. Like I said, Paragon 2.0 was supposed to fix the fact that Paragon 1.0 basically locked us into a single character if we wanted items. But smart drops remove the freedom to play whichever character we want because smart drops are so dominant that you very rarely find items that are of the other primary stats. It's an inside-out system that pushes us back to a system where the character we're playing matters.
We should ALL be free to farm with whichever toon we like. Period. There should not be "if you want int gear, get on a Wiz/WD" or "if you want str gear, get on a barb/crusader" or "if you want dex gear, get on a DH/monk." That's really stupid and it's definitely going to cut into the longevity and enjoyment of the game for many people.
When they first proposed smart drops I thought, max, it'd be around 20% of the time. As it stands now it looks like we're dealing with well over 50%. That is a major problem.
Agreed, smart drops need to be maybe 25% of the time max, preferably down to 20% or so.
I wonder if we should start a thread on the Bnet forums about this?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I've been playing the PTR since it came out, and I haven't missed trading once. Actually getting decent upgrades on my already pretty nicely geared from live DH feels really good, and it feels even better when you get a legendary you're looking for to drop. IE; I JUST found Kridershot on my DH tonight. It completely changed up my build and I'm having a blast.
The best part? I really wanted to try it out two weeks ago when PTR came out, but I couldn't trade for it obviously, because of BoA. When it dropped, the sense of accomplishment, of what I had earned myself and myself only by actually playing the game and farming, was astounding. Not only do I not miss trading legendaries, I'm glad it's gone. This game might as well have spawned as a phoenix from the ashes for me, in just playing the PTR.
Really?
I have not felt any sense of "accomplishment" over any legendary I've found on the PTR. Mainly because everyone else has already found them, usually multiple times over. Like Zero said... when everyone is winning the lottery, it kinda makes winning the lottery less special. In fact, I'm finding smart drops (coupled with BoA) to be more frustrating than I ever thought they would be. I RARELY find non-int gear which means my scoundrel has little chance of getting upgrades. If I want to craft a non-int item I have to STOP PLAYING and switch characters.
70%+ of my items have int on them. Less than 10% have dex/str. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to make it such that it didn't matter what character we were farming on. Smart drops completely fucked that concept from here to hell and back. GENIUS!
I feel like Blizzard has turned D3 into an always-online single player game, and I don't like it. It's just not as fun as it should be. RoS has the potential to be a lot more fun, but it's falling far short because Blizzard decided that 100% self-found is the only "right" way to play the game. Mark my words, if they keep going with this the longevity of the game is going to suffer. There's no way I'm going to keep grinding for items in this system. It's actually WORSE than the AH + shitty drop rates.
EDIT
Don't get me wrong, I'll buy RoS and get my $40 worth. But my expectations have gone down significantly after playing the PTR. I realized that Blizzard isn't looking to make a game where the item hunt is engaging. They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
lol wtf
A simple: "I disagree with your opinion," would suffice.
It's just frustrating that, first, I can't trade with my friends. Now, I've come to realize that smart drops are so dominant that I can't even "trade" with my other toons. I'm so firmly against this degree of social-engineering that I lack words to express it properly, and that's probably why I come across as a foaming-at-the-mouth asshole on the subject. I've used the word "frustrated" several times in this post, and truthfully the frustration is boiling over at this point. They HAVE to be able to provide good itemization and interesting items without going down this road.
No, as Pietrak said, I don't want to "play one character" and "get loot for all characters."
What I want to do is play ANY character, and have a legitimate shot at getting loot for ANY character. As it stands now, if I want dex gear (including for my followers) I basically have to play monk/DH. I don't want each character to have to go through the gear progression individually. Like I said, Paragon 2.0 was supposed to fix the fact that Paragon 1.0 basically locked us into a single character if we wanted items. But smart drops remove the freedom to play whichever character we want because smart drops are so dominant that you very rarely find items that are of the other primary stats. It's an inside-out system that pushes us back to a system where the character we're playing matters.
We should ALL be free to farm with whichever toon we like. Period. There should not be "if you want int gear, get on a Wiz/WD" or "if you want str gear, get on a barb/crusader" or "if you want dex gear, get on a DH/monk." That's really stupid and it's definitely going to cut into the longevity and enjoyment of the game for many people.
When they first proposed smart drops I thought, max, it'd be around 20% of the time. As it stands now it looks like we're dealing with well over 50%. That is a major problem.
Considering the ramifications the system will have on end game, smart item drop rates shouldn't go above 10%, and that's being generous. You'll still have a nice solid chance to get an item suited for you without that system, and finding items for your other characters has always been a big part of this genre of games. The lower they keep the chance of a smart item dropping the better for this game in the long run.
Its still early to say that Blizzard will go full instant gratification, console mode with RoS, but its most surely something to be considered. Whatever happens, in a few months you'll finally be sure if they want this game to be a deeper ARPG or just a casual farm fest.
There's 2 things I don't want in Diablo, finding items only for my class. Yes I have other classes I want to play without having to switch to them and start with completely crappy items cause I have to find it self found. And second of all I don't want to farm 10 years for the specific item I want. Many hours on PTR, and only 3 legendary items so far. That´s like 3 out of 1000 you can find, and finding the right one might take a few tries. And on live where you farm legendary items easily, a few per hour you still have trouble finding the specific legendary items, like mempo or echoing fury for example. I think they tried to improve the game drastically but went way over the line. But I hope ladders will fix this non sense.