DiabloFans

The difference here between having the rarity-specific stats and legendary stats is that they are not exclusive on an item to item basis (i.e. only one pair of gloves does something). They are on a rarity exclusive basis: all items in that rarity can roll that stat.

Also, legendaries (ideally) are build changers most of the time. Or at least they change the way the game plays (i.e. puzzle ring, gloves of worship). Here, the stats wouldn't be build changing, just interesting stats that affect the way you play, but not nearly as drastically as legendary items make you do.

Moreover, the blue item that converts gold into experience was just a loose suggestion for illustration purposes. My thought-process was more along the lines of I will use blue items not to grow my character's raw power, but the rate at which they level, collect crafting mats, etc. Almost like a temporary thing you switch out for a specific task (i.e. oh man I really need more white crafting mats, better put on a blue item for higher mats drop rate).

In addition, having the blue items roll higher main stats also kind of makes up for the lack of other stats.

All in all (I'm not in the beta so I don't know exactly), after watching a lot of streams and videos, legendaries are the only items people seem to bother to pick up. I think making everything useful as its first form or at least closing the gap in usefulness could make for a more entertaining game.

Maybe, like you said Jaetch, there should be more things you can do with blues/yellows. Not to necessarily make the items themselves useful, but make their dropping a good thing that shouldn't be ignored. Maybe potion crafting with items?

Potion Crafting

1. Buy vials from an NPC in town with blood shards.
2. Have the mystic reduce any items into their magical liquid form (a crafting mat) for a kind of high gold+blood shard price
3. The items stats will affect the liquid's properties.
4. Fill the vial with the liquid.
5. Buying a bigger vial increases the number of liquids it can hold, increasing the number of properties drinking the potion can give you.
6. Smaller vials have longer-lasting effects, bigger vials have more powerful effects (given that they can have more properties, not as a base)
7. Crafted potions are consumable, one time use
1. Small Vial: 120 seconds, max 1 liquid
2. Medium Vial: 90 seconds, max 2 liquids
3. Large Vial: 60 seconds, max 3 liquids
4. Huge Vial, 30 seconds, max 4 liquids
8. Picture Time:

Making Blues and Yellows Useful Beyond Crafting Mats

Yellows

1. Roll an extra primary stat: % Armor - increases the base armor value of the item
2. Have rare-specific stats as secondaries. For example:
1. 2.0% of your Maximum Life Healed when you Block
2. Gain 3.0% of your Maximum Primary Resource when you Dodge
3. Gain 15% Movement Speed for 5 seconds when you take more than 20% of your Maximum Life as Damage in one hit
4. Etc. (add suggestions in the comments :))
3. Picture Time:

From this (current yellows):

To this:


Blues

1. Roll significantly higher values on main stats (vitality, strength, dexterity, intelligence)
2. Have magic-specific stats as secondaries. For example:
1. Gain 5% Bonus Experience for 1 second After Kill
2. Demons drop 6% more loot
3. Etc. (suggestions in the comments plz :))
3. Picture Time

From this (current blues)

To this:

Quote from Bleu42

Can't get rid of legendaries you don't want. Correct, even if you found a complete perfect rolled item that you don't want to use, the only thing to do is salvage and sell for the same price as a badly rolled legendary.

Maybe they could make a quick equation giving the legendary a higher price if the rolls are higher to the max.
For example:

• A poorly rolled Andariel's Visage can be sold to the vendor for 6k gold (about), and salvaged for 1 orange mat, 2 yellow mats, 4 blue mats, 8 white mats.
• A well rolled Andariel's Visage can be sold to the vendor for 11k gold (about), and salvaged for 2 orange mats, 4 yellow mats, 6 blue mats, 10 white mats.

Quote from maka

^^Eastern Sun is awesome. So much stuff to do and collect...

I played a little d2, but not a lot. Could someone explain the cool stuff you could do in eastern sun mod?

Quote from Doorsfan

I do really like the ideas suggested by OP and the incentive/idea behind it.

Because one thing that is echoing off the walls more and more, is that people are saying that there is a lack of actual happening with the items.

The idea of D3 seems to be - afaik - get items. That's all. What then?

They should look into making some aspects competetive. Because having power without measuring it to something dynamic (another player?!) is pretty darn pointless. Unless that which you fight against also scales dynamically or is tuned so that it stays difficult. Which in the case of D3, is not true at all.

One of the major issues im seeing - is that other games or just mods to D2 already did a better job with just sheer concepts compared to what RoS has delivered so far. Because the very premis of D3 RoS in it self is flawed. Having a "item hunt" - when that item hunt leads to nothing, is pointless.

What mods and games are you referring to specifically? I would like to know since I'm a game designer myself

Quote from Efrye

No, predefined rule-sets are set into stone and final. That's not custom anymore. They just should have solved the problems from D3V without adding new restrictions.

Do you think an arcade style pvp would be cool? Basically it would be like blizzcon 2010 pvp but you didn't play with your character, just from a choice of like 10 precreated characters?

Quote from Efrye

Quote from miles_dryden

Quote from Efrye

Quote from dousie

That's an interesting statement. So what was the endgame in D2 that they could try to reimplement into D3 (with their own twist obviously)?

Players made their own end-game.

So basically, there was no end-game, other than your own made-up imagination-land endgame. And D3 is different how?

That you can't do whatever you want. Especially in RoS.

Ok I'm still trying to understand the difference between D2's end-game and D3ROS' endgame.
D2 had pvp like D3's brawling, except you looted the corpses and it was anywhere, not just the arena. That would be freaking epic.
D2 had boss runs, D3ROS has rifts and bounties. That seems a bit better than before, but would be even better if they made act bosses equally 'efficient'.
D2 had trading, D3ROS has none.
What was the end-game where you set up rules for yourself? Like what were the rules? Would it be possible to make a game mode where you set up your own rules from a list of different ones, and you could play in that ruleset with your clan. Maybe each clan simply has a permanent ruleset only changeable by vote.

Quote from Cuteass

Allow trading.
Make gold BoA.
trading now works item for item like in D2.
you can trade your friends and bots wont exist if gold, gems and crafting mats are BoA.
everyones happy.

That's a pretty quick solution, while perhaps flawed, I think it solves many issues.
The only thing I could see as flawed in this is the botters having to farm items, which I'm guessing is A LOT harder than botting for gold. Maybe this is a good solution

Quote from Efrye

You are getting things wrong. Diablo end-game is NOT farming items. That's what the Diablo 3 devs told their players what end-game was. But in Diablo 2, farming items is not the end-game.

That's an interesting statement. So what was the endgame in D2 that they could try to reimplement into D3 (with their own twist obviously)?

Quote from Dimebog

I still have to see a compelling argument that trading has anything to do with boosting the longevity of the game. On the contrary, even.

1) It makes farming items even after you have all the ones you want interesting because you can trade them to other players for currency, crafting mats, or even better versions of your current gear.
2) It creates a social environment between players (if there is interaction between them through the trading) because you have to communicate, negotiate, and meet new players or players you've already met before.

Could you please elaborate on your opinion as to why trading is bad?

Quote from Fitsu

The issue with Free economy is you get the same issue you have right now, to many players = insanely low drop chances = get nothing from actually playing.

If nothing was bound, and the drop chances were high enough thatd ud get something from just a few hours of playing you could pretty much get every item u wanted in 1 day by trading of anything you got that you didn't want... So it's either have free economy but have to spend 2 weeks+ farming to get 1 decent item or have no trading but actually get drops at a decent rate.

I agree with everything else.

This is exactly why trading should be limited to our clan, or your friends list when the item is dropped, or one trade per item. I think something needs to be done because trading is a part of the endgame, it is what will help D3ROS' longevity.

Edit: Maybe using horadric caches for trading could be cool. For example: Here I'll exchange this Azurewrath for 8 h caches. Could pay off, might not.

Quote from TheSeanis

I like the enthusiasm and I like a lot of where the ideas are going. That being said, like others have mentioned, atleast in a typical forum-induced heavily negative and unproductive manner, that they could be reworked into something a little more realistic clearer. I think trading is important to a lot of us, I know its extremely important to me, and I would like to see a way to trade some of the really cool stuff we find. Without trading, it just feels like I'm playing some kind of static RPG off-line on my Playstation or something. When making these suggestions it's extremely important to keep in mind the ways it can be exploited, as others have mentioned. While it may be a fantastic method if everyone were honest and forthright, the ways you described simply leave a lot of room to be manipulated, and thats exactly what we need to avoid going into RoS.

It would be cool to see a trade limit on items. Maybe it can only exchange hands but three times before it's account bound.

I totally agree that an item can only be traded once or twice or maybe three times and then it goes account bound. I think that could solve a lot of issues. Not all of them, just a lot of them.

Quote from fooubar

There is just a lack of an end game concept, it should be like this:

Now I have that missing piece of the gear I always wanted, the true game can begin now, which I will enjoy for months to come (it doesn't matter how I got it, bought it from hard earned money I deserved from doing a great job, grinded days for it playing the game, or made a trade for an equal item).
This is how it should look like and not how the above example looks like.

That's a great concept, but I haven't seen any good suggestions on how to execute it. It's sort of like a unicorn in that it can't really exist (so far since at least I haven't seen anything on how to execute this). Do you have anything specific in mind?

Quote from Bleu42

Have you guys actually thought this through? Here's an example.

3rd party site buys 101 accounts. 99 of them are sub botters and are friends with each other putting their list to 98. They all then friend one special bot, and all 100 accounts are linked at 99 /100 friends. That special bot now friends the alpha account, who is now at 1/100 friends. If the website wants to link every batch of farming accounts, then every alpha account will be at 3/100 friends, and there can be as many alpha accounts as the site can buy. You're friends with one of the thousands, you have access to the entire bot economy.

Edit; reworded for clarity.

Well then maybe an item can only be traded once, making it useful to that first person, but then removing it from the economy. I believe that would solve a lot of the issues everyone is talking about.

Quote from fooubar

It is so funny that a lot of people don't realize this and look for some scape goat, why this game has no end game purpose. It's not the bots or the economy it is the lack of an end game and the concept this game is based on, there is just nothing to play for, the only thing players play for in this game is for farming more efficiently, by the looks of it nothing will change with the release of RoS, the same all over again.

The best of it, if you want a challenge you can still restrict yourself to play self found, no one is stopping you from doing that, it has again absolutely nothing to do with bots.

I'm not sure that everyone's main goal in Diablo is to close the gap. In my opinion, finding cool items myself is the goal. I want to say that I did that. Not that some code did that and then I paid the botter for it. If items are too readily available through botting, the purpose of farming endgame becomes pointless, since trading with a botter/botting is easier. It's the same problem that happened with the AH, items being too easy to acquire.