That's another thing to consider too. If Blizzard was focused on catering to the individuals that said "what other people do outside my game doesn't affect me" then they wouldn't need to remove the Auction House. Yes, the AH does influences drop rates in the current game and that does affect those players who mostly keep to themselves, but why not just instead excise that influence and leave the AH standing? They could just stop making the drop rates take the Auction House into account and keep the AH. The fact that they found it necessary to remove the AH completely shows that they do care about the way people are exchanging items as a community and how that affects the way finding legendaries from monsters feels for the average person who takes advantage of all the systems and mechanics in the game that Blizzard endorses.
I'm not saying a middle ground can't be taken that allows trading. I'm just saying this shows to some extent where their priorities lie and how that influences the decisions they make. To me, it shows they care about what the community is doing as a collective. Not to mention the fact that having to balance drops around the AH in the first place shows they care about what the community is doing at large concerning items; but that was a decision made very long ago as well.
I also think they want to avoid a feeling of cognitive dissonance amongst the stances they take. If they allow a system to be in a game, they want to make sure the game is balanced around that system just by the very nature that it exists. To have it exist and then say, "well, it is there, but you can just avoid it for a better experience" has a very duplicitous nature that has to at least be considered. I'm not using this as an argument for or against trading, because obviously whether trading is allowed or not being a better experience is subjective, but just some food for thought. It's all about what priority Blizzard wants to put on a pedestal, and I think either way people are going to get burned.
So really it boils down to what Blizzard's order of priorities are as far as what they choose to implement and what boundaries they choose to set. I think their course of action with the AH removal shows that they want finding loot from monsters to be the best way to get loot for the community at large, and anything that attempts to compromise that on a global scale is a secondary priority. They might know that some players keep to themselves mostly and can have a more individual experience, but that's clearly not the player they want to balance the game around. Otherwise removing the auction house entirely wouldn't be necessary at all, they'd just have to make sure it doesn't influence those who choose not to use it.
They could just have all options available and that would be suitable for the entire playerbase: self-founder, mostly self-founder but some trading with friends only, traders, and auction house users. Drop tables are balanced around self-found play and anyone who chooses to use any other options to obtain loot can do so at their own impulse and discretion based on their own idea of fun. If Diablo was a sandbox game this is probably what it would look like. But I don't think Blizzard wants this type of operation. They clearly care about what influence each and every one of the systems within the game creates. From Blizzards perspective, the fact that it exists means that they endorse anyone who uses it which means they have to acknowledge how players who use the system are influenced by it, not the players who choose to avoid it. I feel like that's the just the way Blizzard analyzes these things. It's their way of drawing a line in the sand. We have seen this time and time again with pretty much every patch that restricts and expands what players can and can't do. So, really it is no surprise for me to see them do the same with trading.
Calling back to an example I made earlier, if there was an NPC that gave infinite gold they would acknowledge how that NPC affected players that used it, not players that chose self-control and avoided it, when selecting a point of balance. Is that methodology right or wrong? Debatable I suppose. My only argument here is that I believe this is just Blizzard's modus operandi for making these types of decisions.
Whether that is good or bad for the game overall, we all have our own opinions. But let's keep in mind we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle either.
I do want to make a note that I really enjoy reading everyone's opinions on this subject as well.
The problem with the AH is it was TOO READILY available. With trading you are severly limited in that I can only join a game with 3 other people. I'm not looking at ~40 pages of the same item over and over. Think about it. First you have to find a leg of worth to trade. So I want Frostburns but can only find Taskers... I now have to have found a Taskers, then somehow managed to get into a game with someone who has been lucky enough to find a Frostburn AND want to trade for a taskers. Chat helps speed this up, but most people don't use general chats. The other alternative would be going to sites like d2jsp, but the problem with that is not everyone is willing to put their cash into a 3rd party site to get a cool BiS item for them, and not many are even willing to take the extra time to go out of their way and even peruse a site such as d2jsp. I'm one of em. Literally never even been to d2JSP. Like NEVER. I Have used the Ah however and that's cause it was like the only way to gear well. If some of the proposed changes happen it'll be a bit easier to gear by yourself, but I think they're going a bit overboard in the other direction.
It doesn't matter. A shortcut is a shortcut. Being less of a shortcut doesn't absolve it from being a shortcut. Removing the AH and only allowing trading on a mass scale just makes the undesirable destination further away, but it doesn't change that destination. There is no item I can acquire from the AH that I can't also acquire with trading. It's slower trading because it is less streamlined, but in essence it's the same conceptually. In the end, you're still not hunting the item yourself which is supposed to be the focal design crux in a monster slaying loot hunting game. We want a game that will be satisfying for years to come, but we're not willing to analyze how trading shortens that experience?
It is evident to me now that Blizzard's main priority is how satisfying the loot hunt is from slaying monsters, how finding those items feels when you acquire them yourself, and how this plays a role in the scope of the community at large. By placing that priority as their primary goal anything that diminishes this seems secondary to them now.
Adding clans is not cognitive dissonance because they want people to play together. That doesn't demand the sharing of items on a larger scale to avoid a conflict in design philosophy. Sharing on a small scale however...
That's another thing to consider too. If Blizzard was focused on catering to the individuals that said "what other people do outside my game doesn't affect me" then they wouldn't need to remove the Auction House. Yes, the AH does influences drop rates in the current game and that does affect those players who mostly keep to themselves, but why not just instead excise that influence and leave the AH standing? They could just stop making the drop rates take the Auction House into account and keep the AH. The fact that they found it necessary to remove the AH completely shows that they do care about the way people are exchanging items as a community and how that affects the way finding legendaries from monsters feels for the average person who takes advantage of all the systems and mechanics in the game that Blizzard endorses.
I'm not saying a middle ground can't be taken that allows trading. I'm just saying this shows to some extent where their priorities lie and how that influences the decisions they make. To me, it shows they care about what the community is doing as a collective. Not to mention the fact that having to balance drops around the AH in the first place shows they care about what the community is doing at large concerning items; but that was a decision made very long ago as well.
I also think they want to avoid a feeling of cognitive dissonance amongst the stances they take. If they allow a system to be in a game, they want to make sure the game is balanced around that system just by the very nature that it exists. To have it exist and then say, "well, it is there, but you can just avoid it for a better experience" has a very duplicitous nature that has to at least be considered. I'm not using this as an argument for or against trading, because obviously whether trading is allowed or not being a better experience is subjective, but just some food for thought. It's all about what priority Blizzard wants to put on a pedestal, and I think either way people are going to get burned.
So really it boils down to what Blizzard's order of priorities are as far as what they choose to implement and what boundaries they choose to set. I think their course of action with the AH removal shows that they want finding loot from monsters to be the best way to get loot for the community at large, and anything that attempts to compromise that on a global scale is a secondary priority. They might know that some players keep to themselves mostly and can have a more individual experience, but that's clearly not the player they want to balance the game around. Otherwise removing the auction house entirely wouldn't be necessary at all, they'd just have to make sure it doesn't influence those who choose not to use it.
They could just have all options available and that would be suitable for the entire playerbase: self-founder, mostly self-founder but some trading with friends only, traders, and auction house users. Drop tables are balanced around self-found play and anyone who chooses to use any other options to obtain loot can do so at their own impulse and discretion based on their own idea of fun. If Diablo was a sandbox game this is probably what it would look like. But I don't think Blizzard wants this type of operation. They clearly care about what influence each and every one of the systems within the game creates. From Blizzards perspective, the fact that it exists means that they endorse anyone who uses it which means they have to acknowledge how players who use the system are influenced by it, not the players who choose to avoid it. I feel like that's the just the way Blizzard analyzes these things. It's their way of drawing a line in the sand. We have seen this time and time again with pretty much every patch that restricts and expands what players can and can't do. So, really it is no surprise for me to see them do the same with trading.
Calling back to an example I made earlier, if there was an NPC that gave infinite gold they would acknowledge how that NPC affected players that used it, not players that chose self-control and avoided it, when selecting a point of balance. Is that methodology right or wrong? Debatable I suppose. My only argument here is that I believe this is just Blizzard's modus operandi for making these types of decisions.
Whether that is good or bad for the game overall, we all have our own opinions. But let's keep in mind we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle either.
I do want to make a note that I really enjoy reading everyone's opinions on this subject as well.
It's all about finding items and having a tailored experience that is based around what you DO find. Not focusing on what you don't. There will be so many equally viable builds stemming from hundreds of different legendaries that even if you don't find every specific one that you want, you will still have fun personally finding the ones that you do and constantly transitioning how you play and what skills you choose based on what you find as you progress; and the experience of doing so will make utilizing those legendaries that much greater because you didn't just trade for them on a whim or mimic what someone else was doing. That's my hope for all of this anyways.
Once again, the premise is that /really/ powerful legendaries are going to be extremely rare, says Blizzard. It would be like getting 6 items equivalent to Gladiator's Gauntlets just so that you get to see that orange drop once in a while. You don't get Mempos every game, do you? The difference is that they want to make even low-end legendaries kind of interesting because they can support some kind of obscure builds even if their stats are not so good.
I don't get how you don't understand that EXTREMELY RARE and NO TRADING don't mix. All that does is create a massive "luck gap" and frustration for people on the wrong side of that chasm.
So instead of AH barons... we have people who got insanely lucky with an "extremely rare" legendary that actually matched their class/spec? How in the world does that sound better? At least the AH stuff was in our control - if you wanted to make a lot of money you could. Relegating power purely to RNG is basically the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Now, Blizzard may have systems that help players "beat" RNG, but they never should have dropped this bomb without giving us information on the other things that keep it in context.
I feel like your train of thought is kind of stuck on the fact that there will only be maybe 1 or 2 items per slot that will be any good for your character. I think the idea is that each class will have 10-15 legendaries per slot that will be viable. The way the game is now if you didn't find a mempo you'd basically be screwed on that slot, but the aim is that hopefully that is not how it will be. After loot 2.0 if you don't find a mempo there are 10 other helms you could find that you would be just as excited about and after playing casually for a week or so at max level you may not find all of them, or the specific one you want, but you will find at least a couple.
The feel of the game would be that everyone's item journey would be different and your experienced would be personally tailored around what you find and what order you find the items. Instead of saying "I need item A on my helm, item B on my chest, item C on my boot otherwise my character will never be good" you will find a healthy amount of different legendaries that are all equally good across all your items slots. By the time you've played for a few months on that character, the hope is you will then find many of the items you desired, but maybe not every specific one, but you will still treasure the ones you did find more because there was a risk that you never would have found them that makes the reward that much sweeter. If you don't get one specific item, it won't be the end all be all that forever shames your character. As you progress and find different legendaries you work with what you find to create a unique character that found items in a way no one else did creating a unique experience that was tailored just for you.
To me this is way better than just reading a thread on a forum where player X used these 13 items, then going to a trade channel to copy his build item for item. Then you've killed the need and experience of actually hunting for those items. Then all you are doing is hunting for higher stat versions of the same items you already traded for, which is pretty bland.
I agree with the trading in clan sentimentality. As long as the item is time stamped and someone can't just join your clan to trade with them. I just don't want a huge free market.
Yeah, I wasn't saying anything about the validity of those four stances. Just, that they could be made and they are not mutually exclusive positions to take. I don't want legendaries overly abundant either, because that too diminishes that feeling of finding and owning them that I am talking about. It should be increased from what it is now, but not too extreme. I want to be hunting these things down for years to come.
What I am saying is this... someone can argue for any of these four points:
- Pro soulbound legendaries, Pro legendaries dropping like crazy
- Pro soulbound legendaries, Anti legendaries dropping like crazy
- Anti soulbound legendaries, Pro legendaries dropping like crazy
- Anti soulbound legendaries, Anti legendaries dropping like crazy
They can all be an outcome of what happens. Just because I want legendaries to be soulbound does not mean I like what they are doing with making legendaries drop too much. I can want one to stay the way it is heading and desire for the other to change. So, why is that being used as a counter to my stance when I in fact agree with you on that point?
Well of course I disagree with legendaries raining upon us in droves making them inherently meaningless. But that has nothing to do with my stance about soulbound legendaries. Those are two different concepts that are not mutually exclusive and require two separate arguments.
I've played many single player games. I've played almost every Mario and Zelda game to date and I have fun accomplishing things in those games just for the sake of it. I don't need a community in those games and I don't need validation for my accomplishments. I just play to play. But, that's not how I view Diablo. It has a community. My friends log in and play with me. I care about that community and the boundaries that Blizzard sets for that community and for the scope of that to encompass a multiplayer experience that is for the most part a mutually shared experience with my friends and everyone else that I might run into. I care about how other people are playing so that when I share how neat it is that I found an item with my friend, he will know that I didn't just spend $50 to buy it. Sure, I could tell him I didn't, but somehow it doesn't hold that same emphasis. It's not to hold it over him or try to elevate myself. It's not that I need him to lavish me with praise and adulation. It's just neat. When the game enforces this concept, I can then share this experience with anyone that I run into on my travels! The fact that I couldn't just trade for it in a mere 10 minutes instills a sense of worth into the experience that is unattainable otherwise. By fate conspiring in my favor by dropping this item makes it worth more to me than owning 100 others just like it that I had to trade for. I would rather never own that same legendary item than trade for 100 of them. Having the game enforce this is the only way to make these legendaries truly feel legendary. It's not about ranks, it's not about ratings, it's about that feeling. That feeling you get when you know you found something special and the game, your friends, and the community can celebrate that victory with you without all of the background noise of pay to win, trading shortcuts to victory, and that palpable sense of entitlement that players express as though they are owed whatever item they want the fastest they can get their hands on it.
It matters and it's not a sin for that to matter for me. If you want to argue that trading is good for its own sake in the context of the game, go on ahead. I will listen. But don't invalidate my feelings or insinuate they are flawed or unhealthy because you yourself don't understand them. I have not paid you in kind.
The "use self-control" line of thought is tired. What boundaries Blizzard chooses to enforce in the scope of the multiplayer experience matters to many. It may not matter to certain individuals but it matters to a lot of people in the community what stance Blizzard takes. It matters to many what experience they are going to have in relation to their friends and in relation to the entire community. You can self-impose your own standards, and even if you have the self-control to enforce them on yourself, it can have a psychological toll on your experience if you know all your friends and the community at large are playing a completely different game on a completely different level. For many people that subconscious nagging ruins the experience. It may not be that way for some, but it is that way for many.
If you take this line of thought further you could just remove all boundaries. Blizzard could just put a FAQ up at the beginning saying that it is a sandbox game and you can impose whatever limits you want to optimize your fun. Add an NPC that creates infinite gold, create an NPC that dupes items for you, increase legendary drop rate to whatever you want it to be. I mean what you choose to do doesn't effect anyone else right? It's all about your fun. If those NPCs ruin your fun show some self-control man!
But there in lies the problem. What many consider fun is based upon what is happening in the game at large within the community. To dismiss that just because your personal fun isn't being infringed upon is just as selfish in a sense.
You can keep pushing this "if trading is not fun, then don't trade" rhetoric all day long, but if I am not trading and my friend I play alongside is and he is killing monsters three times faster then me, that affects me. My personal fun has been compromised because I can't ignore that. Him killing faster effects my experience gain and my drops since monsters die quicker to the actions he is partaking in outside my gameplay. The boundaries imposed upon him being inequitable to mine outside of our game together has infringed upon my ability to share a common experience with him in the context of the game at large. For many, that is the fun of the game, the ability to share a common experience with the community imposed by the boundaries of the game itself on everyone mutually.
Many people care about the structure of the game as it is defined and enforced by Blizzard and want to play a game where everyone in the community is held to the same standard of play. For them, therein lies their personal fun. It enforces a sense of camaraderie that we are all playing the same game with the same limitations. What those limitations are defined at matters immensely.
I am not using this argument to make a case for whether trading should or shouldn't be allowed. If you want to be able to trade and want to make a case for that in the context of the game, fine. I am all for that. But, please, talk about it in the context of finding loot and feeling a sense of reward in doing so. How do these choices affect everyone and their ability to share a common experience? But don't use that "self-control" argument as if it had any relevance. Boundaries set by Blizzard matters. What people around you are doing in a multiplayer environment matters. It may not matter to you, but if it matters to even just a minority it is still relevant and not dismissible.
Risk vs. reward my friends. Risk vs. reward. The higher the risk, the sweeter the reward. We have to shed this sense of entitlement that we are owed every item in the game. In order to enjoy the sweetest taste of victory you have to run the risk that you could also taste the bitterest defeat. One cannot exist without the other! Some treasures are meant to be elusive and unfound. Let's not spoil it for ourselves by having someone else find them for us. Recognize this, acknowledge this, accept this, and then go out and savor every moment of the hunt!!
One opportunity that could also be utilized is maybe to have every legendary be craftable. Say, every legendary can be taken to the blacksmith and turned into some level 70 mat. Collect 1000 mats and you can make a legendary of your choice. That could help undermine the problem of bad luck factor.
Not sure how fond I am of it, but could be something to discuss.
There is no dupe method. Only customer service scams. You can't make millions of items using that scam, maybe 8 or 10.
It's still a hypothetical regardless. It is easy to transition the argument to other ways the global market indirectly affect every person that plays with almost any other player. You may choose to play D3 "your way" but what is going on around you still takes a toll on your experience, because what others are doing influences you when you play with them.
So if the market is overflooded with tradable and easily acquired legendaries when you play with them you are affected by that when they kill stuff quicker than they otherwise would be. You gain faster experience and more items as a result.
It doesn't matter. A shortcut is a shortcut. Being less of a shortcut doesn't absolve it from being a shortcut. Removing the AH and only allowing trading on a mass scale just makes the undesirable destination further away, but it doesn't change that destination. There is no item I can acquire from the AH that I can't also acquire with trading. It's slower trading because it is less streamlined, but in essence it's the same conceptually. In the end, you're still not hunting the item yourself which is supposed to be the focal design crux in a monster slaying loot hunting game. We want a game that will be satisfying for years to come, but we're not willing to analyze how trading shortens that experience?
It is evident to me now that Blizzard's main priority is how satisfying the loot hunt is from slaying monsters, how finding those items feels when you acquire them yourself, and how this plays a role in the scope of the community at large. By placing that priority as their primary goal anything that diminishes this seems secondary to them now.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
I'm not saying a middle ground can't be taken that allows trading. I'm just saying this shows to some extent where their priorities lie and how that influences the decisions they make. To me, it shows they care about what the community is doing as a collective. Not to mention the fact that having to balance drops around the AH in the first place shows they care about what the community is doing at large concerning items; but that was a decision made very long ago as well.
I also think they want to avoid a feeling of cognitive dissonance amongst the stances they take. If they allow a system to be in a game, they want to make sure the game is balanced around that system just by the very nature that it exists. To have it exist and then say, "well, it is there, but you can just avoid it for a better experience" has a very duplicitous nature that has to at least be considered. I'm not using this as an argument for or against trading, because obviously whether trading is allowed or not being a better experience is subjective, but just some food for thought. It's all about what priority Blizzard wants to put on a pedestal, and I think either way people are going to get burned.
So really it boils down to what Blizzard's order of priorities are as far as what they choose to implement and what boundaries they choose to set. I think their course of action with the AH removal shows that they want finding loot from monsters to be the best way to get loot for the community at large, and anything that attempts to compromise that on a global scale is a secondary priority. They might know that some players keep to themselves mostly and can have a more individual experience, but that's clearly not the player they want to balance the game around. Otherwise removing the auction house entirely wouldn't be necessary at all, they'd just have to make sure it doesn't influence those who choose not to use it.
They could just have all options available and that would be suitable for the entire playerbase: self-founder, mostly self-founder but some trading with friends only, traders, and auction house users. Drop tables are balanced around self-found play and anyone who chooses to use any other options to obtain loot can do so at their own impulse and discretion based on their own idea of fun. If Diablo was a sandbox game this is probably what it would look like. But I don't think Blizzard wants this type of operation. They clearly care about what influence each and every one of the systems within the game creates. From Blizzards perspective, the fact that it exists means that they endorse anyone who uses it which means they have to acknowledge how players who use the system are influenced by it, not the players who choose to avoid it. I feel like that's the just the way Blizzard analyzes these things. It's their way of drawing a line in the sand. We have seen this time and time again with pretty much every patch that restricts and expands what players can and can't do. So, really it is no surprise for me to see them do the same with trading.
Calling back to an example I made earlier, if there was an NPC that gave infinite gold they would acknowledge how that NPC affected players that used it, not players that chose self-control and avoided it, when selecting a point of balance. Is that methodology right or wrong? Debatable I suppose. My only argument here is that I believe this is just Blizzard's modus operandi for making these types of decisions.
Whether that is good or bad for the game overall, we all have our own opinions. But let's keep in mind we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle either.
I do want to make a note that I really enjoy reading everyone's opinions on this subject as well.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
I feel like your train of thought is kind of stuck on the fact that there will only be maybe 1 or 2 items per slot that will be any good for your character. I think the idea is that each class will have 10-15 legendaries per slot that will be viable. The way the game is now if you didn't find a mempo you'd basically be screwed on that slot, but the aim is that hopefully that is not how it will be. After loot 2.0 if you don't find a mempo there are 10 other helms you could find that you would be just as excited about and after playing casually for a week or so at max level you may not find all of them, or the specific one you want, but you will find at least a couple.
The feel of the game would be that everyone's item journey would be different and your experienced would be personally tailored around what you find and what order you find the items. Instead of saying "I need item A on my helm, item B on my chest, item C on my boot otherwise my character will never be good" you will find a healthy amount of different legendaries that are all equally good across all your items slots. By the time you've played for a few months on that character, the hope is you will then find many of the items you desired, but maybe not every specific one, but you will still treasure the ones you did find more because there was a risk that you never would have found them that makes the reward that much sweeter. If you don't get one specific item, it won't be the end all be all that forever shames your character. As you progress and find different legendaries you work with what you find to create a unique character that found items in a way no one else did creating a unique experience that was tailored just for you.
To me this is way better than just reading a thread on a forum where player X used these 13 items, then going to a trade channel to copy his build item for item. Then you've killed the need and experience of actually hunting for those items. Then all you are doing is hunting for higher stat versions of the same items you already traded for, which is pretty bland.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
- Pro soulbound legendaries, Pro legendaries dropping like crazy
- Pro soulbound legendaries, Anti legendaries dropping like crazy
- Anti soulbound legendaries, Pro legendaries dropping like crazy
- Anti soulbound legendaries, Anti legendaries dropping like crazy
They can all be an outcome of what happens. Just because I want legendaries to be soulbound does not mean I like what they are doing with making legendaries drop too much. I can want one to stay the way it is heading and desire for the other to change. So, why is that being used as a counter to my stance when I in fact agree with you on that point?
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
It matters and it's not a sin for that to matter for me. If you want to argue that trading is good for its own sake in the context of the game, go on ahead. I will listen. But don't invalidate my feelings or insinuate they are flawed or unhealthy because you yourself don't understand them. I have not paid you in kind.
So, wrap your head around that.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
If you take this line of thought further you could just remove all boundaries. Blizzard could just put a FAQ up at the beginning saying that it is a sandbox game and you can impose whatever limits you want to optimize your fun. Add an NPC that creates infinite gold, create an NPC that dupes items for you, increase legendary drop rate to whatever you want it to be. I mean what you choose to do doesn't effect anyone else right? It's all about your fun. If those NPCs ruin your fun show some self-control man!
But there in lies the problem. What many consider fun is based upon what is happening in the game at large within the community. To dismiss that just because your personal fun isn't being infringed upon is just as selfish in a sense.
You can keep pushing this "if trading is not fun, then don't trade" rhetoric all day long, but if I am not trading and my friend I play alongside is and he is killing monsters three times faster then me, that affects me. My personal fun has been compromised because I can't ignore that. Him killing faster effects my experience gain and my drops since monsters die quicker to the actions he is partaking in outside my gameplay. The boundaries imposed upon him being inequitable to mine outside of our game together has infringed upon my ability to share a common experience with him in the context of the game at large. For many, that is the fun of the game, the ability to share a common experience with the community imposed by the boundaries of the game itself on everyone mutually.
Many people care about the structure of the game as it is defined and enforced by Blizzard and want to play a game where everyone in the community is held to the same standard of play. For them, therein lies their personal fun. It enforces a sense of camaraderie that we are all playing the same game with the same limitations. What those limitations are defined at matters immensely.
I am not using this argument to make a case for whether trading should or shouldn't be allowed. If you want to be able to trade and want to make a case for that in the context of the game, fine. I am all for that. But, please, talk about it in the context of finding loot and feeling a sense of reward in doing so. How do these choices affect everyone and their ability to share a common experience? But don't use that "self-control" argument as if it had any relevance. Boundaries set by Blizzard matters. What people around you are doing in a multiplayer environment matters. It may not matter to you, but if it matters to even just a minority it is still relevant and not dismissible.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
Not sure how fond I am of it, but could be something to discuss.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
It's still a hypothetical regardless. It is easy to transition the argument to other ways the global market indirectly affect every person that plays with almost any other player. You may choose to play D3 "your way" but what is going on around you still takes a toll on your experience, because what others are doing influences you when you play with them.
So if the market is overflooded with tradable and easily acquired legendaries when you play with them you are affected by that when they kill stuff quicker than they otherwise would be. You gain faster experience and more items as a result.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s