DiabloFans

@sifuedition

Very nicely put, mate. I don't feel like I could add anything to that post. But I would very much like to read through some of your more creative thoughts on this subject.

I bought my main weapon for 25k just the other day, laughed so hard when I stumbled upon it, almost couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing. That item was worth a couple of million gold at least and getting it for an amount of gold equivalent to what I would farm from one serious pack of mobs is kind of underwhelming, when I think about it. Because I would most probably have to farm dozens of hours to see something similar drop for myself. That tends to lead to thoughts of grinding being too much of a waste of time. And that kind of thing doesn't leave your mind easily.
Yes, it was the "right place at the right time" moment, and for that moment I was thrilled, but it also made me feel kind of bad after some time, when I looked at how much I've been trying to find something like that before I stumbled upon it at the AH and got it for a measly amount of gold. I guess it will never be as exciting for me as identifying a great item by myself. But that is just a personal preference of mine, I guess.
Hope you get my point.

And hey, I'm all open for ideas. Never said mine was perfect or definite. If you present a better solution, I'd be extremely excited to read it through and think about the way it would work best in-game. But you must admit that it's so much harder to farm your gear than buy it for gold. Almost ridiculously harder. Things need to balance out. Nothing wrong with monetizing your items, but it should not be the main driving force behind Diablo. Or we will have to agree to disagree on this one. xD

Quote from shaggy

-snip-

Ah, finally one post from you that I've actually felt was not completely written in some sort of blind rage towards me. I can even understand some of your points now, and acknowledge them. Thanks for that.
You still seem to think that I'm a pessimist though, but I think that If I were, I would not be suggesting ways to improve the overall good experience of Diablo 3, I would be whining about how much the game sucks or something in those lines. The glass is very much half-full on this side of the fence, my friend. I just want it to get filled sooner than later.
Also, it seems you still haven't understood that in my idea only a very small portion of found items would be BOP, and that it would probably not interfere much with people who love to play the auction house, and who feel satisfied by amassing a huge amount of gold by smart ways of buying/selling items.
If your main is geared fully with the GAH, and you found that satisfying, and your alts are geared with farmed items, and you found that enjoyable too, I just can't see how a BOP item or two from time to time would make your experience any less fun, especially when a large group of players feels the farming is not nearly rewarding enough in it's current state.
Right now the gold you can make on the AH is the only thing that feels at least somewhat satisfying, but improving the loot so it can also feel more natural, is in my opinion a very reasonable concern at this point. Diablo is, after all, all about loot grind, not gold grind.
I believe that at some point in the future Blizzard will address this issue, in a way that may be completely different than this idea. By some of their latest comments, it seems that they realized how the AH overshadows the farming too much. That's when the idea of BOP came into play, because it's a clever solution that would not break the economy, like a simple drop rate increase of all items would. It would be difficult to pull off, yes, but doable. If they can come up with something better and less interfering with the other aspects of the game, I'm all for that.


Zero pretty much summed up my thoughts, and made them more understandable. Thanks, man. No need for me to go on any further in explaining them now I guess. English is not my main language, so I apologize if some of the sentences I've written have confused you.


Peace.

Quote from shaggy

No, I don't think that is anywhere close to the realm of accuracy - at all.

You can't have a game where all items are tradeable and be so ignorant and out-of-touch with reality to think "hey, let's just make everything drop all the time, these people are too stupid to actually trade items!"

You seem to want a nonexistant economy where all items are BoP (or at least BoA) so that the drop rates can be jacked through the roof to satisfy your personal need to see a "good item" every X hours - whatever that arbitrary value may be. You literally want to take a game which may not be perfect, but is far from broken, unplayable, or otherwise ruined by the AH, and blow it up into something that suits your personal desires.

While feedback is always appreciated, you have to see what you are doing. You're not giving feedback. You are pissing and moaning about a conspiracy theory about how the game was designed to force you to use the AH. Nothing you're saying is productive, nothing you are saying has any ability to be discussed because the only thing you're willing to accept as a solution is buffed droprates.

A Diablo game where everything is BoP so that they can jack the droprates up so that a few people who are apeshit about not being able to find everything for themselves is not going to work because that's entirely disengenuous to the franchise.

I've found that karma is a bitch. It's no wonder that someone with such a negative attitude about the game doesn't get loot. If you'd just chill out, play the game, enjoy it for what it is (instead of lamenting why it's not 100% what pleases you), you might actually find that the game isn't as bad as you think it is.

As a parting philosophical thought... The glass is both half empty and half full at the same time. It is not the fault of the glass if you choose to only see one or the other, that is the fault of the onlooker for refusing to acknowledge anything that doesn't adhere to their own predetermined opinions.

Woah, I don't like to say something like this to anyone posting around here, but what a load of nicely wrapped crap. And you're saying that I have a negative attitude... Where exactly have I talked about these conspiracies, hating the game, or wanting all of the items in game to be BOA? Why are you making up such stuff?

I've only spoken a few facts and gave sincere opinions, while presenting an idea of BOA items with lower drop rate then regular rares, but having the lowest range on which the affixes can roll be higher then on regular rare items. Nothing more. Never said it was the perfect or the only possible solution. The items would never be purely for your class, and they could still not be much of use to you, but the chance of them being right for you would be slightly higher. The economy would always stay strong, and farming would be more fun for everyone. That is nowhere near 'pissing and moaning', it is closer to feedback than anything you contributed here.


Also, I've quite enjoyed Diablo 3, and have defended it since release, both on these and official Blizzard's forums. I've expressed my love towards the effort Blizzard is putting into the patches that came and are coming soon. I find the gameplay to be amazing, but the game itself to be very linear and having a flawed loot distribution. And I'll stand by those statements any day. If you try to farm all of the pieces of any of the sets in game by yourself, let me know how that went.
Because the auction house DOES in fact affect the drop rates, and I'll let Bashiok himself end this debate.


"The auction house obviously provides an incredible service to allow for very easy trades between characters, and essentially blows out the wide range of items you could have available to you at any one time. So, in fact, the AH has to be a factor in how we drop items. On one hand you have a huge benefit because you can buy and sell items very easily, as opposed to having to post up WTS threads in the old USEast trading forums, but on the other end it does impact the item pool economy with the inherent ease at which you can trade items. If the AH existed but wasn't a factor at all into how items dropped/rolled, the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks."

You're the one not wanting to acknowledge the truth, not me.

Karma doesn't exist (obvious to anyone who cares to think twice about the idea, while looking at their or other people's lives), especially in a programmed game, only RNG does. My attitude towards Diablo 3 has no effect on what kind of loot I get, it's all in the math that went into creating the system.

And a 'few people' is actually http://www.mmo-champ...e-auction-house quite the majority of players, even if the sample here is a small one. No one I personally know who plays the game has farmed their gear. Maybe a piece or two here and there, but the AH is always the primary source of gear, because great upgrades can be attained extremely cheaply, instantly, while farming takes an extreme amount of time for a game of this genre.


Now do some philosophical thinking about who the onlooker here is.

Quote from laonar

I think along the same lines you do. I have never found a set item, ever. I have yet to see a legendary since the new patch. My monk runs with 200%mf unbuffed. The legendary, set, legendary plans, gem plans drop rates are simply horrible. However my opinion. I had a friend come back recently, no paragon lvls no mf, killed one elite pack and got a 1200dps 599 int legendary.. Luck I understand, but I have almost 4000 more elite pack kills then him and nothing to show for it.

Well, yeah, that is the main issue. Luck is not fair at all. xD

But let's say the system stays the same. We still have these drop rates and everything. With one small exception: Blizzard introduces a bind on account type of items for rares and to a smaller extent maybe even the legendaries. The chances to get one would still be as low as finding a usable rare or legendary item now (maybe a bit higher from the bosses, with the nephalem valor buff), but once they drop, the stats and affixes these items roll are not nearly as random, and are mostly very useful to a class. You cannot sell or trade them to other players, you can only move them between your own characters or salvage/vendor them.
You now have an extra incentive to farm and actually feel like you might from time to time find an upgrade or two for yourself, and not for someone else.
I understand that bound items are not in the spirit of Diablo, but they could very much improve the fun of the grind if done properly, and to me they represent a good idea to balance out the usage of the AH by the players.

Quote from shaggy

Really?

Really?

I can't take anyone seriously who is trying to make the argument that the game is purposefully and willfully broken by its creators for the "sustainability of the AH."

You know how they create sustainability of the AH? They give you a good product. You enjoy the product and use the AH. The idea that they've somehow submarined their own game to make the AH the focal point is so goddamned ridiculous that I'm shocked you can't see how inside-out your logic is.

You're actually suggesting that Blizzard is purposefully trying to reduce its clientelle in order to get better profits from a system that relies on lots of people listing items. Can you not see how asinine that is?

So you're telling me that this loot system was not made to make the AH more viable and popular? That they did not lower the drop chances of set items and legendaries to nearly zero, made affixes almost completely random, made bosses mean nothing, with no regards to the AH? Really?
I understand that the auction is now an integral part of the game, but it simply plays too much of a part. It is not rewarding to grind gold just to buy good items for your character, and that is what is happening now pretty much all of the time. Diablo is about farming items, and feeling the rush when you finally get a great one from time to time. Or at least it used to be about it. That is satisfying, and to me, personally, this system is not nearly as much.
There are some people out there playing without the AH, yes, and hardcore was always much more fun because of the weak auction house, but the vast majority of the player base is just buying all of the items from the end of normal mode to the end game itself.
I never said Blizzard was trying to hurt the game on purpose or whatever, but it is painfully obvious they had AH in mind, and very much so, when they were working on the loot and the drop rates. And that the time you have to spend playing in order to get a good drop for your character is just too high for an ARPG game, because of the ultra randomness of everything.

Quote from Zero(pS)

I kinda understand their feeling, I trully do. Not in the sense that I want godly items. But I kinda wanted to be able to find my own "late game" set, or my own Legendary. And D2 had that, you knew where to go, you knew the average number of runs needed to get it. D3 doesn't have that, it feels like you're not chasing anything. It feels like we're just wandering around sometimes.

Exactly. The end game grind does not feel like a Diablo farm should, it is almost not rewarding at all, and it is purely based on the sustainability of the AH.
As long as I am not able to at least find a few low level set items while leveling characters (and in 300 hours I still haven't seen one on any difficulty on any of my characters) I will not take seriously anyone claiming the system works fine. When it is actually broken, and nowhere near the spirit of the Diablo series. And this comes from the guy who has been defending the game since day one. Things need to be fixed, so the game could survive. And loot should be number one priority on the list. Because that's what this game is all about.

The first change I would like to see in-game would be some sort of account bound items, that would become bound to you the moment you equip them on one of your characters. I understand that such changes would not be very Diabloish, but the whole system as it is now begs for loot that cannot be sold and recycled on the AH.