DiabloFans

Quote from shaggy

Quote from daisychopper

That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).

Well I think that answers the question then.

The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.

It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.

The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.

All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.

There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.

They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.

I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)

i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.

in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.

basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).

so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...

Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.

They are two completely different games with very little crossover, my interest in the console version as an individual who will probably never play it is VERY limited and entirely academic because it will never have any real effects on what i am going to call the REAL Diablo 3 which is the PC version...

As an illustration of why this is an issue: just looking at the DiabloFans news-page as it currently stands im forced to admit that it has lost overall value to me as a result of the diversified interest in the console version. I see the word 'console' and immediately tune out or go somewhere else because it does not affect me.

just a rant but i'm sure im not the only one who feels this way. Diablo3 has been convoluted by the console version.

It has the ability to enhance the pc version also but right now the whole situation seems convoluted while we're awaiting any substantial pc news or updates.

EDIT: also 100th post woot!

Quote from overneathe

But what demands are we talking about?

if you allow that the Wow player-base has to an extent driven change then its not really necessary to specify. but one i would point to which has already been implemented was the huge call for more endgame content, endless dungeons etc....where if they had stuck to the core of diablo 1 and diablo 2 an endless dungeon or more endgame would have been irrelevant because the random maps constantly generated new content.

the argument is of course that they traded random maps for more beautiful landscapes....which really is just a failure to acknowledge the success of diablo 1 and 2s random maps for generating new content. A beautiful landscape is still going to be boring after the 50th viewing or the 1000th veiwing or even more when it comes to runs. personally i admired the landscape artwork for the first one or two runs through. but after that who really cares....you normalise and naturalise to it and it becomes boring that's the way humans are.

im not in an ARPG to contemplate landscapes anyway..beautiful landscapes are for games like god of war etc that you play through once and then never touch again

Quote from overneathe

Quote from maka

Quote from Zero(pS)

It's quite clear though, by the sheer amount of people unhappy with RNG and wanting these "artificial" end-game systems, how many of the so called "diablo fans" nowadays are instead "WoW fans" jumping on the fan bandwagon from day one, pretending to have played D2 (the sheer amount of wrong things said about D2 on the forums hurts my brains). That's the WoWification I was referring to.

Uhm...I was talking about the playerbase. And the playerbase drives changes.

Well you can't really discard a population the size of WoW players.

You could, it would just not be good business practice. But if you were ideally trying to create a real successor as diablo as diablo can get then you could and would happily discard the desires and demands of the WOW playerbase.

Quote from Bagstone

Quote from Sagathiest

The 'expert' has already covered what you mention under play-style.. the point is that there should be an advantage to choosing a particular play style but there is not one because everyone is equally balanced and thus able to perform equally in all situations, there is no unique advantage in loot terms to playing a barbarian vs a wizard because wizard and barbarian can farm equally well in all areas.

Hm, still don't get it. So please correct me if I understood you wrong, but what I read from this is: there should be classes that are less efficient in farming and classes that have clear advantages over the others. Is that what you're saying? So if I like to play a wizard just because of play style, I'm getting my ass kicked because just by design this is supposed to be the challenging class and it's tough to farm efficiently with it? Sounds odd... besides, as soon as there's even a slight hint of a class having an advantage over others, everyone rolls that class (see the recent rise of thousands of new barbs). I'm sorry if I'm derailing this topic here, in this case just ignore my question - just trying to understand what's going on here.

Im not talking in absolute terms. at the moment everyone is equally capable of farming all areas just as efficiently when you hold gear constant.

So if we take a barb and a wizard each who have 40000 Dps and decent defensive gear then there is very little to differentiate them, they will both be equally capable of farming equally well in all areas. What i would argue is that there should be certain advantages gained from choosing a wizard or a barbarian. Barbarians should be able to farm better in some areas than wizards and vice versa atm this is not the case. Once you take gear out of the equation and the mode by which damage is dealt, eg ranged vs me-lee there is no difference in which class you play.

So i'm not necessarily saying that some characters should be less powerful in quantity terms but i am saying that in certain areas certain classes should be able to perform better.

otherwise there is no comparative advantage and classes will only specialise in builds that maximise damage because the only problem to be solved is how to deal the maximum amount of damage. which is uninteresting.

For example in D2 a 2 tree sorceress had a competitive advantage over a 1 tree sorceress because they could farm more areas. Even though a 1 damage type sorceress had and competitive advantage in max damage.

Hope that clarifies.

One very clear aspect of the problem is that it does not matter what KIND of damage you are dealing all that matters is HOW MUCH. which creates a very clear centralisation of build towards maximum damage dealers.----not the whole issue but understanding that leads to a whole bunch of insights about team play and the economy of playing different classes.

Bring back damage type immunities anyone?....hmmm

Quote from maka

There's no intention of being "purposely vague", as you put. The question itself is inherently vague itself, because the very definition of "fun" is 'vague' and 'individual'.
The bottom line is that I'm not having fun playing this game; not because the actual gameplay of killing demons is not fun (it mostly is, with kinks to iron out, ofc), but because I don't feel the reward is rewarding enough (i.e., I'm unhappy with the quality of loot dropped by monsters I kill). And I believe that the decision to design loot as it is designed is inextricably linked to the existence of an Auction House (the RMAH only serves to reinforce that belief).
I don't want to 'force everyone to play the way I play', as I've read; I just want to be able to have fun playing in a style that, let's be honest, is not unorthodox at all. In D2, the mass-traders were a minority; there were so many people that didn't even play on bnet, much, just in SP or LANs, but still played consistently. Now all of a sudden not wanting to buy my gear with gold is seen as some weird obsession, and I should 'L2P'.
No thanks.

Quote from shaggy

Quote from maka

In D2, the mass-traders were a minority;

Being as this is central to your argument I assume you can cite this as a fact, and not some random statement that anyone can make on the internet.

I think one of the main points made was that, there used to be a single player mode wherein trading was not even possible so you had to find all your gear yourself, forgoing the internet connectivity issues. For those players the balancing of drops with regard to the auction house, has reduced their return to time invested thus the game is much less rewarding for them because being self sufficient is now much less satisfying and to achieve the same results they must invest more time.

If we assume to begin that Diablo 2 had the return to time invested equilibrium/sweet spot between trade and farming. Then we take into account the fact that D3 has the AH which is a more efficient means of trade than in D2. This entails that farming in D3 must have a higher return to time invested than in D2 to counteract the efficiency of the auction house and achieve equilibrium.

Now personally I think that at the moment that return to time invested is higher on the auction house before you even reach inferno and that this is undesirable and unsatisfying for alot of people including me.

But i will now go try 1.05 and the farming returns have been increased! so lets see how it goes Plvl 14 here i come!

Quote from shaggy

Quote from GalZohar

Forcing us to trade instead of using the AH would make Diablo 3 at least 10 times worse than it currently is, because instead of spending 1/2 our time on the AH to be optimal, we'd need to spend a lot more than 1/2 our time trading to achieve something.

If you wanted to be optimal in D2 you didn't fart around trying to find every last piece of gear for yourself. That's obviously the least-optimal way to play a game where the obvious inference is that damn near everything is tradeable. Yet time and time again, people cry about the AH saying they're "forced" to use it. Yet somehow people believe that in D3 they should be able to be "optimal" and also not have to use the AH at the same time. That is precisely what the saying "having your cake and eating it too" refers to.

i liked your post but...

Its not as if this is about being strictly optimal or not optimal . In D2 you could progress quite far before the point where trading became necessary to be optimal hit. It was basically a case of decreasing returns to time invested. The more time you invested in farming the more difficult it became to find items which would be useful on your character. In Diablo 3 so far the point where you had to start trading to be optimal hit much earlier. Specifically farming became inefficient relative to trading much faster. Thus the auction house felt 'necessary' because, It was more efficient than trading in D2 and the returns to time invested in farming were too low. So complaints about the AH are more about players wanting to be MORE optimal without the AH not Absolutely optimal without the AH.

Increasing drop-rates will increase the efficiency of Farming and thus make players more optimal without using the auction house. However clearly to be Absolutely optimal use of the AH will still be required.

So while i think your right that if you take demands about wanting to be optimal without the AH to the extreme they seem ridiculous you need to consider the spectrum of optimisation not just the extremes.

I also liked the idea of the AH because it was a means for facilitating trade. But that is not what it has become. it is a necessity rather than simply an interface which can be used for trading. The less reliant I Have to be on the auction house the happier.

In short that is my primary issue.

The fact that the auction house feels OBLIGATORY because progressing without it is ridiculously grindy.- (Trading was not obligatory in D2 i found plenty of Shako's, and other really good uniques)

secondly i dont like that the AH is really impersonal ( multiplayer games already suck, now there is no reason to meet people for trading either) The efficiency of the auction house is a massive disincentive to oldschool trade

thirdly as someone else has suggested The AH covers up some of the glaring issues in itemisation.

IF there were no AH in this game(thats not what i want) I think Blizzard and everyone else would be forced to acknowledge that current itemisation hinders build diversity, Increases character specialisation while making playing other classes unappealing and centralises progression(complete gear reliance)

The problems are not that the game is too hard or too easy

but while we are on that note. If you use the auction house the game is too easy, if you dont use the auction house the game is too hard.---- if that is the problem then its not one that is resolvable by increasing or decreasing drop rates.

If you increase drops then then the game becomes easier for those using the auction house.---but its already too easy if you do.

If you increase the drops then the game easier for those not using the auction house---and they are happy.

The biggest problem is UNIFORMITY of legendary drop rates

Probability of Awesome legendary=0.00001

Probability of crappy legendary=0.00001

eg. A Skorn should not have the same drop rate as Frostburns.

The issues people have with lack of legendary drops are valid. The item system is diablo 3 does not compare to its predecessor in how addictive and enjoyable it was. You cannot just discount the complaints of a large % of the player Base because those who have MAXED mf and efficiency are happy with the drops they are getting. The journey to maximum efficiency should also be enjoyable.

There are several problems each of which is related.

1.There are not enough legendaries and sets.

2.There is no gradation of legendaries. All legendaries should be good, but their needs to be lower end legendaries and sets which are more common which help you to progress to the elite legendaries.

3. There are few low level legendaries and sets. and even if there were they would not drop in inferno, Low level gear is important for progression----it gives an incentive to try out other characters. I want to see good gear in inferno but i don't mind if i pick up gear which is awesome for a low level character.

4. There are two types of people playing now. Those who use the AH and those who dont.

Those who dont use the AH want a legitimate way to progress without using it. ATM this is quite difficult. Finding gear with MF on it and good stats is very difficult. But u need very High MF to get a good chance of legendary and set drops.

The Bottom line is this; Diablo 2s Itemisation was far better than D3. The Devs should have copied the essential components and tryed to improve on them. They didn't they changed MF and Didnt make nearly as many sets legendaries or as well as grading the legendaries into classes of accessibility on the basis of how godly they are. The chance of a legendary should vary depending on what legendary we are talking about. And some legendaries the lower end one should be available to almost EVERYONE who plays. No matter what difficulty they are playing.

If you clock normal difficulty and never see any kind of legendary item!! even a low level one! then there is something seriously wrong with itemisation!

FTR ive played over 130 hours im para Level 8 and have not seen a single legendary drop since ive been in inferno. Right now im trying to farm for MF gear but in about 10 act 1 runs ive only found MF gear which would require me to sacrifice quite abit of DPS.

Yes i could use the auction house to do this but i would prefer not too....--its just not satisfying.

Quote from ruksak

Only 1 special property. Same 'ol linear stat lines. Boosted numbers creating the illusion of power.

Agreed. It'd be nice to see another special property or two. I would like to see rares with more interesting affixes too. Not "Legendary" affixes, but still affixes that can be part of a build.

I would also really like to see negative affixes on many Legendaries. At the moment it seems, the more legendaries you can equip the better. There should be trade offs to their power, and reasons to equip rares even if you have a legendary for the same slot.

Example thoughts:

• Increases your Fire damage by 50%. Reduces your non-Fire Elemental Damage by 50%.
• Increase Attack Speed by 30%. Reduce your Maximum Health by 10%.
• 1h Weapon: Increases your Physical Damage with all attacks by 15%. Can only be equipped with a Shield.
• Chest Piece: For each gem type socketed in this item, gain 100 Resist All. Each gem type in this item has no effect in your other gear slots.

Quote from maka

What a shame that both the weapon and Inner Sanctuary are utter crap.....
Not to mention 2-handers in general.

The new Inner Sanctuary is actually quite nice maybe even OP with high attack speed

http://i.imgur.com/L2t7uKO.png

Quote from Dimebog

Do you really want options?

Yes, options are good. That's why we have softcore and hardcore, and people who like PvP and people who like ladders. Taking options away is never a good solution. When they removed the AH they didn't remove OPTIONS, they just removed a streamlined manner of trading.

When they did the monster density changes it gave people more options where to farm - at least now if you farm places that aren't Weeping Hollow and Fields of Misery you're not left in the dust like you used to be if you weren't doing Alkaizer runs.

When they added the 1.0.7 crafting recipes (and when people talk about crafting in general) it's to give players options - you didn't find something you wanted, well if you amass this many salvage items you can try again for something more specific.

When they added adventure mode, bounties, nephalem rifts - it was all about adding OPTIONS as to how to spend your in-game time so that things don't get boring.

When they buffed legendaries/sets the first time it was to attempt to give us more OPTIONS for gear. The second attempt is the same.

The entire skill system in D3 is designed around having options - it was obviously designed to allow us to try whatever crazy shit we wanted.

Transmog is about options as it pertains to visual appearances.

Enchanting is about allowing you to customize non-perfect gear to give you better options for gearing.

Everything about D3, the old shit Jay dreamed up, the new shit Josh is dreaming up..... it all seems to be about giving the player control over their experience which is why this "bind to game" stuff, and the people who say "trading ruins the value of my items" really baffles me.

Quote from Dimebog

You want options? If Blizzard made a separate mode for people who enjoy trading and $$$ transfers over good gameplay, you would be forced to play with a minority of the community. Yes, that's because people who are pro-BoA are the majority. I wouldn't mind though. The problem is - if they enabled trading in a separate game mode, they would have to decimate the drop rates (from what the current plan is) and that would probably make that game mode feel much less rewarding in comparison.

No, really, who cares if some people who trade "too much" finish out the game faster? The whole game should, and hopefully will, be based on making self-found enjoyable. The more enjoyable self-found is the less people will actually trade because they'll be having a great experience already - most self-found players already feel this way about the AH. The people who do trade will hit that wall and burn out and go away. The rest of us will trade here and there between our friends, possibly to get that last item we need to make our new build work, but nothing that would "ruin" the game.

We cannot have a game where design is dictated by the fear of people "abusing" trading or D2JSP or anything like that. We MUST demand a game that appeals to everyone because that's the foundation of D3. Diablo has been the "blue chip stock" of the ARPG landscape for almost 20 years now. When that's your position in the market you can't suddenly pull a 180 and start tying for niche appeal. You have to man up and live with the downsides of making a major game... and part of that is that 3rd party sites creep up because your game is popular.

People have been selling WoW gold for almost the whole duration of the game... and you know what? The game hasn't crumbled because of it. If anything, MoP drove lots of people away because, before any patches, Blizzard adopted a rather anti-alt stance which severely hurt the game. Why? Some people enjoyed playing alts when they weren't raiding on their mains. Other people claimed that alts were "too easy" to gear up and it should be harder. Blizzard agreed with the alt-haters, went down that road, and suddenly lost ~2 million subscribers. This should be a big lesson to the D3 developers - trying to socially-engineer WoW didn't work, and doing the same for D3 is going to cause more harm than good.

And that's the mistake Blizzard would be making. It's possible to cut back on "mass trading" and appease both groups without going this route.

Quote from Zeyk23

Yes, Blizzard is a business, and they make money by creating good games. Congratulations, you cracked the code. A less cynical person might call BoA Legendaries a "make the game as good as possible" decision.

His point, since you were too busy being a smartass to actually let it sink into your skull, was that making everything BoA may very well come at a price. That price is drop rates so greatly increased (since you can't trade anymore) that the game doesn't have any longevity to it. This is a REAL concern whether or not you tap dance around it.

Let's just say, for example, that around 90 out of 100 (with 100 being absolutely BiS gear in every slot) the rate at which you acquire items gets slow. Let's also say that Blizzard tunes drop rates with the intention that you hit 90 after 8-12 months. Now you have the majority of players at 90/100 within a year who are basically in the SAME situation they are now - most items are not useful and the ones that are useful are few and far between.

Without further details, that is a recipe for attrition due to severe boredom. Us Diablo FANS don't want a game that has a predetermined shelf-life. One thing we learned from D2 is that the players make the game what it is and that having the freedom to do so is what gives the game such a long lifespan. D2 had loads of problems, but it lasted because, in a way, it was almost a sandbox. There weren't lots of rules. The game wasn't catering to self-found or traders, nor was it trying to exclude one or the other. The social engineering that you're advocating was NON-EXISTENT in D2 and that's what made it work.

Blizzard made a product and said "here, play this!" And they made a product that, because it didn't force people to play in any one manner, was amazingly successful. What they've done with D3, especially in this light, is a complete contradiction to the one thing that truly made D2 a great game: freedom to do as you wished.

Oddly enough, it's only Diablo "fans" who think that finding your own loot 100% of the time is the only "legit" way to play. Nowhere on PoE or TL2 forums would you see people whining that "trading ruins the collective experience" or anything along those lines. And I've begun to wonder why Diablo "fans" are so biggoted and narrow-minded in that regard. Day after day I see posts here which amount to "if you don't play my way then you're a cheater" and I don't get how this is a phenomenon that is almost exclusive to Diablo.

There was no "right" way to play D2. Why some of you believe that there should be a "right" way to play D3 is beyond me. Meglomania?

Quote from Bleu42

But if we can actually play self found, have a good chance at getting the gear we want, are still able to trade every item type up to rare, and crafting mats and gold to use to upgrade our items, then I think putting BoA on legendaries actually won't effect me.

Honestly, how does trading effect you if you are having a fun self-found experience? If you and I never meet in-game, but maka and I trade an item..... how in the world does that diminish your enjoyment of the game? Do you loose sleep at night knowing that maka and I are 1% ahead of you in a non-competitive game? Do your legendaries lose 1 from each stat?

My point is this: clans offer sub-communities. If you surround yourself with, and only play with, other like-minded people.... then what's it matter what people who aren't involved in your little world are doing?

At the end of the day the only question that matters is "Did I have fun?" And, truthfully, I have a hard time believing anyone who says that people who trade items ruin their fun. It sounds a lot to me like you can't enjoy your Christmas presents because your neighbor's father is a rich doctor and bought him nicer presents... and if that's the case, it's sad. Life is far too short to ruin it for yourself by letting jealousy take over like that.

Quote from Solmyr77

What you describe would still have to be done manually. My idea of the autocast would cast it whenever and only when these two conditions are met: a)it's not active already, b)you have enough fury. In your scenarios you either want more or less triggers, which would have to be performed manually, so there is no skill-issue in that regard.

What happens if a)it's not active already, b)you have enough fury but I want to keep hold of that fury for another 5 seconds and cast earthquake then instead?

You're all busy designing a system that would only work for the top 1% of players and break the game for many others.

Quote from Indimix

Stop acting like a fan and use your brain for a moment, shall we.

Really? You want to drag this discussion in that direction?

Quote from Indimix

If they force us to put points in predetermined places, it's because if not, we would put all points in DPS.

The problem lies in the fact that there is an obvious choice, if DPS is more important than anything else, then that is what needs to be addressed.

Same goes for trifecta items.

But how, exactly, do you 'address' the issue that D3's difficultly scales high enough for DPS to remain a relevant concern for so long without resorting to insane crap like making Vit a DPS stat, or making CrC carry a -armor penality?

Blizzard's doing the right thing (and indeed a similar thing to what they did with WoW talents), because they know that otherwise people will just go to a website that tells them "For your current build, you should max stat x, then stat y, then stat z.". Plenty of 'theoretical' freedom, but it consists of a multitude of 'bad' choices and one 'good' choice. By making us pick one stat from each category, I'm sure the DPS and mainstat picks will be mathed out well in advance, but the other two categories will have actual freedom. I prefer that to the illusion of freedom any day.

It's not true, the fact that several ARPG out there behave like that, doesn't mean there is no other choice.

For example, I play the game Heroes of Newerth quite often, and there is a hero that with a skill does damage based on his max HP. So, he uses his HP to deal damage. And he also can buy DPS items if he wants.

As you can see, it can be managed in a way that the offensive tab is a no brainer.

An example more related to D3, let say Thorns became viable, but it would require to get tanky, well, then all of a sudden (if it's worth it) defensive stats it's a must for a Thorn's build.

Upon reading about the RMAH/GAH removal, I am shocked. Shocked that Blizzard would admit they made a mistake, and shocked that they would fix it. That takes a huge amount of chutzpah, and I give them a ton of respect for it.

I've heard a lot of people argue that "barter trade is really painful" and therefore it is a mistake to remove the AH's. I beg to differ.

To put it simply, trade needs to be painful or else itemization will suck. It doesn't matter what they do with Loot 2.0, the AH removal is actually the most important part. And here's why:

-----
*** THE MATH ***
The simple mathematical fact is that AH's dramatically skew itemization. Let's assume there are 2 versions of the game with identical itemization: self-found and AH:

*Self-Found*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. However, 80% of the time, it's designed for a different class or spec. So I equip one "awesome" item after 100 hours of gameplay. Once I have one slot occupied by an "awesome" item, the next one that drops has a 1/12 chance of being a sidegrade. After two slots, each item has a 2/12 chance of being a sidegrade, etc.

Mathematically speaking, it will take me an average of 3,723 hours to find an "awesome" item in every slot.

*GAH*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. 80% of the time it's designed for a different class or spec, so I sell it on the AH and get 85% of the Gold required to purchase an equally awesome item. Better yet, I know exactly which item slot needs the upgrade. Even if I have terrible luck and never find a usable item in my life, on average I only need to play for 23.5 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item.

Mathematically speaking, it will take me 306 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item in every slot.

Using the GAH decreases the time needed to gear out your character by a factor of 12! Remember that this is a paper napkin estimate, completely ignoring the increase in kill speed and MF/GF for the GAH user.

If itemization was tuned to be "reasonable" for self-found characters, an AH user would have every item BiS after 2 weeks and could never get another upgrade again. In order to prevent this, Blizzard has to intentionally tune itemization to be extremely slow. (ie 3700+ hours to get all-BiS, the real number is probably even higher)

This is the reason why itemization is so bad on PC.

***
There are other reasons why the AH is so bad for itemization. One reason is that the AH is equally efficient regardless of your gear/wealth level. A player with 500k to his name can buy a whole bunch of 50k items just as easily as a player with 2B can buy a bunch of 200M items. This causes three harmful effects:

1. There is no gear level at which AH'ing is not optimal (by an order of magnitude or more). D3 players are AH dependent from "cradle to grave".
2. There is no change in optimal behavior from "poor" to "rich", therefore no sense of progression for the player.
3. Since it is easy to turn items into gold, players sell all their items and don't just drop them on the ground. Think about how often you saw people give away stuff for free in D2, and compare to how often it happens in D3.

This is completely different from a barter economy. Bartering requires time and effort, and is highly inefficient - this is exactly why it is good for the game:

1. Bartering takes a large time investment. At a poor gear level, you will get more items playing the game rather than hanging out in trade chat. Only high-value items are worth the time and effort required to barter them.
2. Therefore, the optimal behavior changes dramatically when going from a "poor" account (never barter) to a "rich" account (frequent barter). This gives a sense of progression.
3. Bartering requires a huge amount of game knowledge. Therefore, the "real money player" does not have an insurmountable advantage over "in game players", unlike with GAH/RMAH.
4. Bartering is a huge pain in the ass and a lot of players would rather play the game self-found. This is a good thing if you believe that videogames should be about gameplay.
5. The players who don't barter because it's too much hassle give away their items for free. This feels really good for the newbies in their games and generally helps the sense of "friendliness" and "community".

So anyone who thinks that Blizzard will introduce another "efficient" method of trading, I beg to differ. They may put in trade channels and game names, but they will remain inefficient, spammy, and painful - just like D2. It's not a problem, it's intentional.

Trade needs to be painful. It's the best way to improve the game.