I assumed you were trolling when you brought this up before. All I can make of a serious reply to this is the following:
1. I have self-geared all my characters but one and I don't play the character I actually spent gold in the AH on (my barb) anymore. The idea one is forced to utilize the AH is baseless in the extreme. It was not true before 1.0.4, and it certainly isn't true now.
2. Finding a skill combination that works for -nightmare- is less than difficult. Basically everything works assuming you are up to the appropriate level for the zone/difficulty you are in.
3. Post-patch there are few major departure from Diablo 2 gameplay at all in Diablo 3. The systemic changes to skills and the AH were quality of life fixes which allow you to spend -less- time trying a new build or trading for some other item you want, if you choose to do so. The small differences in gameplay don't really manifest until inferno mode and, once again, I think the patch has gone a long way to rendering this stair-step less than dramatic.
4. Demon hunters kite. You don't seem to like this approach, so play another class. Witch doctors have pets that can tank for you. Barbarians can simply wade in and take the punishment. Monks have a variety of skills to prevent themselves from taking damage while in melee range. I suggest one of those three.
College is overrated. You will hear this one and only one time from me, a career professor and here are the situations and reasons why:
1. Degree Mills: The bachelor is currently worth fairly close to nothing. Work experience is more highly prized and post-graduate education is assumed or greatly desired anywhere that degree training is relevant.
2. Contracted Economy: The work-force grows and the number of employers has shrunk. Vegas made a very appropriate assumption in suggesting that this was a good time to start a business (although certainly no guarantee of success).
3. Public Knowledge: Almost all the information our species has, collectively, is online somewhere. Given a strong enough desire to learn about something, you can readily self-teach more than ever.
Having said all that, it is untenable that -most- [potential] students should choose this path. It would lead to a reversal of situations where degrees are over-valued, employers too numerous, and information closely guarded. I think we may indeed be trending this way with the most recent generation understanding the failures of post-secondary institutions.
I also think that a well-rounded education does make better persons, but given the option of recommending someone to attend a rather expensive four year institution or telling them to find out about their topics of interest at khanacademy.org (or some such) is a no-brainer. It is more imrpotant than ever to truly grasp what one wants out of their education before making an investment into it.
Yeah, the kamakazi monsters in act3 were absolutely painful. They 1-shot dogs and nearly did the same to my garg, instantly leaving me open to be next. I ate a few deaths trying to maintain pace in act3 and ended up bringing the pace down a bit and making sure to lob a few firebombs into any unknown doorways, chokepoints, etc.
I think summoner is the poor man's progression build at this point. I went with a fully defensive (ZH, JF, FL passives) build and managed to slowly whittle my way through act3 with my shamefully under-geared WD. Granted it's horrifically slow by comparison to farming act1, but I'm reasonably certain that, tanky as they are, the pets will be able to hold up all the way to diablo.
I don't necessarily think it's the "poor man's progression build." I think it's more along the line of finally affording the WD the control that we were clearly supposed to have. We can basically take one defensive ability, prop it up with some passives if necessary, take 2-3 offensive abilities (I consider Gargantuan offensive due to the damage output), and a few utility abilities.
This is quite a deviation from previous WD build which would go very heavy on defensive/utility abilities (and passives) and very light on our offensive ability selection. Specifically the Zombie Dogs open up so many options for us and, therefore, become a lynchpin in many post-1.0.4 builds. They also severely scale up the value of armor/resistances for us which is huge.
I didn't mean to imply the summons in general were [only good] for the poor WDs like me. I was suggesting the full dog/garg buffed builds are very comfortable in terrible gear, much more so than other builds I tried.
I think summoner is the poor man's progression build at this point. I went with a fully defensive (ZH, JF, FL passives) build and managed to slowly whittle my way through act3 with my shamefully under-geared WD. Granted it's horrifically slow by comparison to farming act1, but I'm reasonably certain that, tanky as they are, the pets will be able to hold up all the way to diablo.
The only elites which give much trouble are the teleporters (vortex, jailer, etc. can all be more or less dealt with by spirit walk timing) who can nail me before pets get back into position. Most packs are simply tanked indefinitely as I rain toads down on them for an embarrassingly slow death.
I must say; however, I don't find the fetish skills of much use compared to the dogs/garg. Spirit walk is of course mandatory, as is some kind of primary, leaving the two loose slots for some kind of mana spender (I waffle between bears and grasp) and soul harvest. Having the longer cooldown fetish spells and passives in a build really detracts too much from dog/garg survival (in my gear) and leaves you with very little in return.
With that out of the way, i'm at plvl 7 and made the first 4 levels in 300% mf equipment (i'm now down to 100%) with no uniques or sets to boast myself. However, being that my wd is terribly geared mostly from my drops, i'm pleased with my progress. I have actually come across a few upgrades in just the last two days and my run up the paragon levels is fairly smooth if not entirely fast paced at this point. Hopefully by the time i'm in the plvl 20-40 range i'll have a few shiny items to talk about.
Stick to discussing the thread's subject. I'm watching you guys, any more derailing/off-topicness will result in some heads rolling and the topic being locked (I honestly think it has run its course already, but maybe people wanna waste more of their time beating on the dead horse).
Is it off-topic to agree that this thread should be locked?
If so I would like to personally volunteer my head for execution.
My 15 Mil Monk (able to finish the game), my 8 Mil WD (able to start Act 3 for now), my 12 Mil Barbarian (able to do Act 3), and my 8 Mil DH (able to farm Act 2, with 180 base MF) all disagree that things are overpriced
I've probably sunk in less than 8mil total across all five of my characters and post-patch they can all at least comfortably farm act2. My barb (worth about 5mil) cleared act3 pre-patch (chock it up to the class if you want, but i didn't use tornado build) and my WD is now clearing act3 with little problem on basically nothing but items I found. I bought a helm for her last night because I wanted something to socket a ruby in. That ran her total up to around 10k gold, lol.
Inferno is quite doable now with almost no gold investment.
Just an idea but I think it's time to put a stop to outrageous pricing on the gold AH. It's just out of hand. I've seen new legendary items up for 2 Billion gold. First of all, that won't sell because nobody that plays the game in a legit fashion could afford it. Second of all, the person that can afford it most likely doesn't need it. EPEEN is no excuse.
It pains me to point out something so obvious, but disallowing people to set their own price essentially nullifies the AH as a system for exchange. If you cap the gold amount people are allowed to ask for, trade channels again reign supreme and the price will not change for the better due to the fact that the amount of goods which can be easily exchanged is much smaller by that method.
The average player may go to the auction house after saving up gold and buy a new weapon for 10-15 Million because it increases DPS by 2000 or add a good amount of LoH but listing a weapon for 100 Million + just because it has a socket and 40% crit dmg is ridiculous. The gap between good items and great items is way too large.
And you are soon to see it plummet by the forces of supply and demand. Currently, there are a TON of legendary items hitting the AH and many of them are almost impossible to get "worthless," rolls on in relationship to their stats. People buying them for hundreds of millions today are getting first dibs, sure, but rest assured that in a few weeks those items are going to be worth a fraction of that simply because most players will already have that item or an equivalent. The same could not be said pre-patch with the incredible scarcity and uncertainty of high-roll rares; however, this patch has changed much about the commonality of "good," items.
I propose that we should come together and start listing items at lower prices as a whole to bring the market down. I personally have already cleared Inferno on my Monk and leveled all 5 classes to 60 so I'm not in any rush to buy many upgrades but I know that there are a lot of people out there that need upgrades to clear inferno.
Feel free to do so, but realize that you are not actually driving down costs down a meaningful amount by this method. Unless you have a large enough sack of coin to re-list (and I hope you're feeling charitable because this is basically giving gold away) a large quantity of a given item, the price will trend back to equilibrium.
Also since I list my items at much lower prices, they sell super fast and I make a good deal of gold anyway. I know that if more people lower their prices to a reasonable level I will make less gold per item that I sell but in turn the items I buy will be less expensive so I won't need as much gold. I also know that Gems aren't going to come down since they are expensive to make but every other item should.
You are, of course, correct in estimating that competetive pricing works wonders for sales; however, that is simply because (as I stated above) the price of all these goods are trending down faster than unrealistic sellers are setting obnoxiously high price listings. If you undercut by less than 10% today with most items, the odds of making a sale are slim. I would certainly advise anyone who wishes to make gold that they use a 20% rule of thumb unless they are quite sure their item is of a rarity which could becalm the overall market force.
All prices in the AH are relative to similar quality items in the AH but what people don't realize is that if an item were priced way too high, it will remain in the AH unsold. Then when someone finds an item and searches the AH for an item of similar quality and says "HOLY $#!T That one is selling for 100M, I'm going to be rich!", what they don't realize is that it is still in the AH for a reason. At this point yo now have multiple items of similar quality in the AH in this range which causes people to think that everything of this quality is worth this much.
This scenario presumes that said item is actually rare enough to only have two present on the AH. For the vast majority of cases this is untrue. In those cases; however, and if those items are highly sought after, it is quite sensible that they command the highest price someone is willing to pay. In the case of most items, there will simply be two astronomically high listings followed by a rather dramatic stair-step down until sales begin to take place. Remember that AH slots are not unlimited and every minute one allows an item to sit at a high price there is a chance that one of millions of other players will find the same item (or quite similar) and undercut. The incentive is certainly not (in most cases) to list too high, but rather to list just low enough to entice a buyer.
Now in the next game they find something with similar stats just lower values of it. They end up thinking, "If my Godly one is selling for 100M then this one must sell for at least 50M..." This makes lesser quality items get listed for much more. Since people used the Ferrari as an example, we can use that here if this were a real life situation.
As item quality drops, rarity decreases, and competition increases. There is no merit in this comparison because if you are basing your listing on an item with far greater stats, you're making a poor judgment call. So what if you list your cracked sash for 50m? Others may follow suit if they like, but ultimately the buyers will not take the bait until the price is closer to what they are willing to pay.
The 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia goes for $229,825 starting MSRP. It has a Verified 0-60 time of 3.3 sec
The 2012 Nissan GT-R Primium goes for $89,950 starting MSRP and has a Verified 0-60 time of 2.8 sec.
Brand recognition doesn't translate very well into the game; not the best example you could have come up with.
The Nissan has a better 0-60 time and better gas mileage if that's what your into. It also has much higher torque rating at a lower RPM. All in all it outperforms the Ferrari. Now in a real life economy they don't price it to match or price it higher than the Ferrari even though it performs better.
In the real world there is a prestige associated with ownership of a ferarri which does not come with more generic brands. This does not exist in the game. Unique items are far too common to command that kind of mark-up. The only items in the game which would even broach this level of recognition elevation are literal "perfect," rolls which have the absolute highest possible stats in the most ideal affixes. I would certainly assume that, should some of those items come along, you could expect to pay billions of gold just to gain a few stat points, assuming you were upgrading from an all-but-perfect item already.
The problem is, the crux of your argument does not hedge on the limited number of absolutely perfect items, but the cost of "good," items of a middling variety, presumably good enough to farm act3/4 comfortably. As I stated from the get-go, these items are absolutely booming in supply now. They are not the ferarri from your example, but rather a model T ford. Pre-patch the "good," items (using act3 as a benchmark) were like the pre-assembly-line automobiles: hard to acquire, relatively rare, and sufficiently expensive to keep most players from buying. Post-patch they are now the mass-produced machines we nearly all take for granted today: not very hard to come by and the continuous competition (with even fewer consumers relative to producers than in the real world) all the while there to keep the price trending down.
TL;DR: The suggestion to effectively disable the AH is short-sighted and the suggestion to attempt a market manipulation (in reverse) is similarly ill-conceived. I wish you the best of luck if you choose to take this on yourself, please feel free to sell your discounted goods around the 9-10pm eastern standard time period. I would be more than happy to render my bidding hand to your generous cause.
Running ZH and JF I was able to watch my dogs (narrowly) survive a few of those things tonight; dervishes and charging beasts being the most memorable, although i'm not sure they all manage to miss biting the dust.
I totally agree they didn't aim for people like me, the massive outpouring of displeasure shows just how many of Diablo's base they've angered. It's no secret the WoW developers of Blizzard Irvine basically kicked Blizzard North to the curb, injected their own new direction will into the game pissing on many of the Diablo fan base.
I take it you haven't played since the patch?
The game is more like Diablo 2 than ever, the good parts of Diablo 2 at least. Nothing about the game reminds me of WoW (which I never liked). And the team at Blizzard has pretty much bent over backwards to re-shape the game to this point in what? A couple months?
I just don't think that critique makes much sense now without some measure of example and useful anecdote to back it up.
While I share many of your frustration phoul, moderating isn't an easy job and it more often thankless. I think we should be giving Dae and everyone else on the staff the benefit of the doubt here. My communication with the mods has been entirely positive and I don't think anyone's suggestions were dismissed out of hand.
They got the feedback we needed them to get out of this thread and I hope that it has helped. Turning it over to private messages at this point would be the right thing to do.
3
1. I have self-geared all my characters but one and I don't play the character I actually spent gold in the AH on (my barb) anymore. The idea one is forced to utilize the AH is baseless in the extreme. It was not true before 1.0.4, and it certainly isn't true now.
2. Finding a skill combination that works for -nightmare- is less than difficult. Basically everything works assuming you are up to the appropriate level for the zone/difficulty you are in.
3. Post-patch there are few major departure from Diablo 2 gameplay at all in Diablo 3. The systemic changes to skills and the AH were quality of life fixes which allow you to spend -less- time trying a new build or trading for some other item you want, if you choose to do so. The small differences in gameplay don't really manifest until inferno mode and, once again, I think the patch has gone a long way to rendering this stair-step less than dramatic.
4. Demon hunters kite. You don't seem to like this approach, so play another class. Witch doctors have pets that can tank for you. Barbarians can simply wade in and take the punishment. Monks have a variety of skills to prevent themselves from taking damage while in melee range. I suggest one of those three.
0
1. Degree Mills: The bachelor is currently worth fairly close to nothing. Work experience is more highly prized and post-graduate education is assumed or greatly desired anywhere that degree training is relevant.
2. Contracted Economy: The work-force grows and the number of employers has shrunk. Vegas made a very appropriate assumption in suggesting that this was a good time to start a business (although certainly no guarantee of success).
3. Public Knowledge: Almost all the information our species has, collectively, is online somewhere. Given a strong enough desire to learn about something, you can readily self-teach more than ever.
Having said all that, it is untenable that -most- [potential] students should choose this path. It would lead to a reversal of situations where degrees are over-valued, employers too numerous, and information closely guarded. I think we may indeed be trending this way with the most recent generation understanding the failures of post-secondary institutions.
I also think that a well-rounded education does make better persons, but given the option of recommending someone to attend a rather expensive four year institution or telling them to find out about their topics of interest at khanacademy.org (or some such) is a no-brainer. It is more imrpotant than ever to truly grasp what one wants out of their education before making an investment into it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
My advice would be more generalized: to find an interest and then try to shoe-horn it into a career.
0
0
I didn't mean to imply the summons in general were [only good] for the poor WDs like me. I was suggesting the full dog/garg buffed builds are very comfortable in terrible gear, much more so than other builds I tried.
0
The only elites which give much trouble are the teleporters (vortex, jailer, etc. can all be more or less dealt with by spirit walk timing) who can nail me before pets get back into position. Most packs are simply tanked indefinitely as I rain toads down on them for an embarrassingly slow death.
I must say; however, I don't find the fetish skills of much use compared to the dogs/garg. Spirit walk is of course mandatory, as is some kind of primary, leaving the two loose slots for some kind of mana spender (I waffle between bears and grasp) and soul harvest. Having the longer cooldown fetish spells and passives in a build really detracts too much from dog/garg survival (in my gear) and leaves you with very little in return.
0
0
With that out of the way, i'm at plvl 7 and made the first 4 levels in 300% mf equipment (i'm now down to 100%) with no uniques or sets to boast myself. However, being that my wd is terribly geared mostly from my drops, i'm pleased with my progress. I have actually come across a few upgrades in just the last two days and my run up the paragon levels is fairly smooth if not entirely fast paced at this point. Hopefully by the time i'm in the plvl 20-40 range i'll have a few shiny items to talk about.
0
Is it off-topic to agree that this thread should be locked?
If so I would like to personally volunteer my head for execution.
0
I've probably sunk in less than 8mil total across all five of my characters and post-patch they can all at least comfortably farm act2. My barb (worth about 5mil) cleared act3 pre-patch (chock it up to the class if you want, but i didn't use tornado build) and my WD is now clearing act3 with little problem on basically nothing but items I found. I bought a helm for her last night because I wanted something to socket a ruby in. That ran her total up to around 10k gold, lol.
Inferno is quite doable now with almost no gold investment.
1
It pains me to point out something so obvious, but disallowing people to set their own price essentially nullifies the AH as a system for exchange. If you cap the gold amount people are allowed to ask for, trade channels again reign supreme and the price will not change for the better due to the fact that the amount of goods which can be easily exchanged is much smaller by that method.
And you are soon to see it plummet by the forces of supply and demand. Currently, there are a TON of legendary items hitting the AH and many of them are almost impossible to get "worthless," rolls on in relationship to their stats. People buying them for hundreds of millions today are getting first dibs, sure, but rest assured that in a few weeks those items are going to be worth a fraction of that simply because most players will already have that item or an equivalent. The same could not be said pre-patch with the incredible scarcity and uncertainty of high-roll rares; however, this patch has changed much about the commonality of "good," items.
Feel free to do so, but realize that you are not actually driving down costs down a meaningful amount by this method. Unless you have a large enough sack of coin to re-list (and I hope you're feeling charitable because this is basically giving gold away) a large quantity of a given item, the price will trend back to equilibrium.
You are, of course, correct in estimating that competetive pricing works wonders for sales; however, that is simply because (as I stated above) the price of all these goods are trending down faster than unrealistic sellers are setting obnoxiously high price listings. If you undercut by less than 10% today with most items, the odds of making a sale are slim. I would certainly advise anyone who wishes to make gold that they use a 20% rule of thumb unless they are quite sure their item is of a rarity which could becalm the overall market force.
This scenario presumes that said item is actually rare enough to only have two present on the AH. For the vast majority of cases this is untrue. In those cases; however, and if those items are highly sought after, it is quite sensible that they command the highest price someone is willing to pay. In the case of most items, there will simply be two astronomically high listings followed by a rather dramatic stair-step down until sales begin to take place. Remember that AH slots are not unlimited and every minute one allows an item to sit at a high price there is a chance that one of millions of other players will find the same item (or quite similar) and undercut. The incentive is certainly not (in most cases) to list too high, but rather to list just low enough to entice a buyer.
As item quality drops, rarity decreases, and competition increases. There is no merit in this comparison because if you are basing your listing on an item with far greater stats, you're making a poor judgment call. So what if you list your cracked sash for 50m? Others may follow suit if they like, but ultimately the buyers will not take the bait until the price is closer to what they are willing to pay.
Brand recognition doesn't translate very well into the game; not the best example you could have come up with.
In the real world there is a prestige associated with ownership of a ferarri which does not come with more generic brands. This does not exist in the game. Unique items are far too common to command that kind of mark-up. The only items in the game which would even broach this level of recognition elevation are literal "perfect," rolls which have the absolute highest possible stats in the most ideal affixes. I would certainly assume that, should some of those items come along, you could expect to pay billions of gold just to gain a few stat points, assuming you were upgrading from an all-but-perfect item already.
The problem is, the crux of your argument does not hedge on the limited number of absolutely perfect items, but the cost of "good," items of a middling variety, presumably good enough to farm act3/4 comfortably. As I stated from the get-go, these items are absolutely booming in supply now. They are not the ferarri from your example, but rather a model T ford. Pre-patch the "good," items (using act3 as a benchmark) were like the pre-assembly-line automobiles: hard to acquire, relatively rare, and sufficiently expensive to keep most players from buying. Post-patch they are now the mass-produced machines we nearly all take for granted today: not very hard to come by and the continuous competition (with even fewer consumers relative to producers than in the real world) all the while there to keep the price trending down.
TL;DR: The suggestion to effectively disable the AH is short-sighted and the suggestion to attempt a market manipulation (in reverse) is similarly ill-conceived. I wish you the best of luck if you choose to take this on yourself, please feel free to sell your discounted goods around the 9-10pm eastern standard time period. I would be more than happy to render my bidding hand to your generous cause.
0
Feel free to send me a few.
0
0
RELIGION RELIGION RELIGION RELIGION RELIGION RELIGION
Nope, he's not here.
2
I take it you haven't played since the patch?
The game is more like Diablo 2 than ever, the good parts of Diablo 2 at least. Nothing about the game reminds me of WoW (which I never liked). And the team at Blizzard has pretty much bent over backwards to re-shape the game to this point in what? A couple months?
I just don't think that critique makes much sense now without some measure of example and useful anecdote to back it up.
0
They got the feedback we needed them to get out of this thread and I hope that it has helped. Turning it over to private messages at this point would be the right thing to do.