DiabloFans

First, Josh decided to remove the AH, then asks for feedback on trading.
But of course, it makes a lot of sense!!!

Quote from Bagstone

Gems can't be enchanted.

Oh, I read it as, "can't reroll affixes on an item if it already has a socket".
I need more coffee!

Quote from nadenitza

Problem is everything revolved around the AH - trading and gameplay. You play for selling shit on the AH, to flip, snipe and farm gold so you can gear your char.

And in the same way, D2 revolved around trading channels. Was it better? I don't think so.
And again, the difference between D2 and D3 is not the trading methods, but the sheer undertuning of D2 because it was meant to be playable offline.

Also, the other major economy difference between D2 and D3 is the absence of a way of getting items out of the market, either through character death (for SC) or ladder (for D2). THAT is a fundamental problem.

Quote from nadenitza

Only a lunatic would go self found in that environment couse it's not meant for it due to the bad itemization witch takes the AH into account.

And a lot of people played entirely self-found in D2? Especially all those with high-end runewords? Everyone traded (and duped, and hacked).
And again, it is much more possible to play self-found in D2 because of its tuning.

Quote from nadenitza

Time spent in game means almost nothing especially till you get to inferno. It means nothing afterwards too if you don't get extremely lucky with a semi-good items... that you realize you need to sell on the AH to get gold to get gear... from the AH. Am blunt here but it's basically just that.

I understand your point, but that means AH needs additional fixes to prevent flipping and sniping. Removing it completely is basically recognizing that you're incompetent in game economy balancing (which Josh apparently is).

Quote from nadenitza

I don't follow the news and dunno if they have a different method to facilitate trading, if you take a decision of such magnitude you have a back up plan. Maybe they have something planned?

In this case, their communication was handled extremely poorly and someone should be hanged for that to make an example.

Quote from nadenitza

On the point of third party sites - well people should know better but who am i to judge? If they wanna use em let em use em, if they got their info stolen who's to blame? No one but themselfs.

Because people act totally rationally. Right.

Quote from nadenitza

Even with the AH, tp sites still run rampart and blizz does not seem waging legal war against em.

Of course they're not waging legal wars against them, since they're doing the same thing. However, if you remove the AH, they'll probably have to change the EULA accordingly and forbid selling game items and gold (although gold will be much less useful with such a model) for real money. And THEN they'll have to wage legal wars, exactly like they do with WOW gold selling sites.

Quote from nadenitza

BoA has no place in a diablo game. It simply destroys any form of trading. It's a lazy solution for a game like wow where your loot is handled in a plate.

So, BOA destroys trading but bartering and 3rd party sites don't? I don't follow your logic.

Quote from falcompsx

there is no cow level. never has been, never will be. nope. none. :-P

There. Must. Always. Be. A Cow king!

Quote from Shad3slayer

It's true that 1.07 was quite a few patches + LoD. The difference is LoD was ALREADY OUT a year and a half after D2 release. Back when Blizzard was a way smaller company with much more limited resources and personnel.

D2 was much simpler to develop. Game development costs increased exponentially in the last years. The "guest monsters" in A5 alone must have saved a lot of costs on sprites. Also, the RMAH somewhat restraints the possibility of doing whatever ones likes, as there is money behind.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Now we got some half assed first aid fix atttempts (ubers - recycled maps with recycled enemies giving a useless reward, whoopdedoo),

Right, because Tristram for D2 ubers wasn't recycled.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Duped stuff in D2. Exactly, who cares?

Errr... everyone because dupes totally messed up with the economy. You found a Windforce? Gratz, except that those bots are selling them by dozens! Heck, D2 economy was referred by some people as "jokeonomy". Not too hard to figure out why.

Quote from Shad3slayer

If I MF, find stuff, trade it for what I want, I don't care if it's duped or not.

Sure, and when I buy stuff IRL, I don't care if it was stolen? Is it supposed to be funny?

Quote from Shad3slayer

Also about sitting in channel. 1) it was fun as you spoke to someone all the time, bartered, talked via /f m (I still can't believe this is not in Diablo 3) 2) you could always offer a good deal and trade instantly if you cba "wasting time looking for a good deal". When I wanted my first Tal Armor in any ladder, I'd MF for a couple days, find a few Arach's/ Shakos/ Occys/ runes and stuff and offer more than the worth of Tal armor, I'd get it instantly, then I'd continue MFing and getting better and better stuff...

Listening to you, it's like uniques rained all over the place. Well, they didn't. I played for 4 years (even made it to the hardcore ladder and stuff) and I can literally count the number Occys/Arachs/Shakos on the fingers of one hand. Highest rune I saw was an Ist.
I won't even mention the fact that chatting in /f m while playing was plain dangerous for me.

Quote from Shad3slayer

you know, constant upgrades, constant buying and selling. Just the opposite of Diablo 3 where you buy good stuff for a couple of million that you pick from the ground (as you rarely get anything sellable) and then you can't get anymore upgrades unless you buy gold.

I don't buy gold, yet I'm progressing quite fine. Sure, I won't be farming MP10 with my gear, but I'm doing MP7 and I'm pretty happy with that. It's just that - again - D2 was tuned much lower. Why? Because it is a single player game, basically. Which is supposed to be playable offline, with no trade. So of course, once you get access to some decent gear, you just mow stuff down. In 1.09 and before, it went all they way up to solo-8.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Ladder. Yes, good point. Ladder is a big part of what makes D2 so long lasting. Though I'm happy we don't have it in D3 due to the extremely boring lvling process I already mentioned in one of my previous posts (and I note no one disagreed on that :P).

How is D2 leveling different from D3 one? They're both boring after a couple of times. Actually, D2 was worse because if you got your main skills at lvl 24 or 30, you had to resort on boring and painful leveling. Same deal if you're a no-energy class (which for HC, was all classes). If anything, D3 leveling is more fun (with the exception of closed areas for final bosses - which IS a gigantic pain in the booty, I'll agree).

Quote from Shad3slayer

What would you get by MFing? Tons of stuff. I'd go as far as to say you get SOMETHING sellable EACH or very nearly each run. You can get Runes (Pul+)

Hmmm, why didn't I get those tons of stuff, I wonder?

Quote from Shad3slayer

I know respec was released with 1.11. Still, I think it wasnt a neccessary addition to Diablo 2. Its system actually stimulated making alts

"Making alts" makes a huge time sink, which runs contrary to today's gamer's profile. Today's average gamer won't do that, he will rather leave and play another game whose editor is not as clueless.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Pala - Hammerdin (you are correct about it being the most common at least), Zealot, Holy Fire Chipadin

Holy fire is 1.09, it was all but eliminated in 1.10. Zealot was marginal, especially in HC.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Assassin - Shadow, Trapsin, Phoenix Strike

PS got the axe in 1.10, shadow as well. The HUGE majority of assassins in 1.10 ran either DS/LS or a hybrid with Dragon Talon.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Amazon - Light Javazon, Poison Javazon, Bowazon, Spearazon (though much less common)

The huge majority ran the cookie-cutter Lightning or the Burrito Cannon with MS.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Necro - Summoner. Bone Spear. Bone Spirit. Poison. All about equally played.

How can you list Bone Spear and Bone Spirit separately, as the synergize each other in 1.10.
Necro is either Summon or Bone. Some motivated guys run poison nova but not much.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Druid - Elemental/ Werewolf/ Werebear.

Elemental was crap in 1.09, and half of the tree is still useless in 1.10. WW/WB are cool, that's for sure. But hey, I thought the class had 3 trees?

If anything, patch 1.10 gutted the build diversity much more than D3. Which is expected - builds requiring 60 or 80 points into a skill + synergies can only be extreme. But somehow, people did not complain about it. Also, again, you can have diverse builds in Diablo 3. Especially on very low MPs, because that's how complicated D2 was once you got some gear. So sure, you can have just about any skill and it will work. It's just that the higher the obstacle is, the less builds remain. And in D2, once the patch 1.10 buffed the mobs and synergies were introduced, the build diversity plummeted dramatically as well.

Quote from Shad3slayer

D2 had so many useful legendaries/ sets.

And a lot of crap legendaries and sets. Let's take the bows: who used anything else than WF or Burrito? Maybe some WWS here and there too. Everything else (especially low levels)? Utter garbage.
Same thing for e.g. crossbows. Oh yeah, and it totally makes sense that you use a lvl 42 xbow at level 90+. And yeah, instead of CC/Crit dmg/AS, we had +X to all skills and resists. Big difference.

Quote from Shad3slayer

FYI I played Diablo 2 since 1.07 and still do to this day. Just so we know where we stand. From some of your points it seems to me that you didn't play Diablo 2 online AT ALL

Yeah except 1.07 is already Diablo 2 classic + LOD + 6 patches. You just don't know how crappy it was prior to that (like, let's say, in 1.04 where there was this wonderful bow bug that took months to get fixed).

Quote from Shad3slayer

Diablo 2 had THE best economy system of any online game - a Barter based system with values only serving as basic guidelines. Prices of any item are well known (if you spend any time trading) in High Runes/ Ists/ SoJs, but you can still get good deals either way (buy low, sell high, just like D3 flipping) but it actually involves human contact and isn't just Open AH -> enter stats -> Click Buyout.

Yeah, except most of that stuff was duped. But hey who cares.
Also, the big problem with bartering is that it forces you to spend hours in trade channels instead of - you know - actually playing the game.

Quote from Shad3slayer

This is a good thing however as it lead to D2 economy obviously being far better and more stable than D3 one, even with the game being 13 years older.

The main reason D2 had a more stable economy was the ladder. End of story. D3 doesn't have a ladder (which is both good and bad, though I'm happy I don't have to go through the pain of leveling every 6 months). Since no items are taken out of the system, yeah it is slightly less stable. Hopefully, BOA-ing items with the mystic will correct that.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Also you could just magic find and play in any part of Hell and nearly guaranteed get stuff to sell every now and then.

And what would I get? That's right, uniques that for most part are not worth a damn. Like woohoo, I get my 1256th steelclash, my 785th maul and the 95th WWS. Woohoo. Oh wait, those aren't worth a damn.

Quote from Shad3slayer

There's a reason why 100% of rich D3 players are either Flippers or Dual Visa wielders. (This was all before d2jsp took over and D2 had an actual economy in-game - I can see how someone wouldn't like d2jsp, though it has its merits)

Yeah, an no one never ever bought stuff online in D2? Like ever? But of course, all those enigmas were 100% legit and not store-bought at all. /sarcasm

Quote from Shad3slayer

Let's get the obvious right out of the way: D2 has a respec system (again obvious you haven't played it in a long time/ ever).

Yeah, and it only took patch 1.11 to add it. Whoop-dee-doo. Check the calendar and look when it was released.

Quote from Shad3slayer

Diablo 3 skills are unbalanced. Every class has 1-2 viable builds and everything else is used than less than 1% of the population.

And it was the same thing in D2. Most pallies ran hammerdins, most sorcs ran with FO/FB (with an occasional lighning) and so on.
Maybe the game had slightly more diversity, but you wanna know why? Because it was undertuned as heck. If you got some half decent (duped) gear, the chance of getting killed was closed to zero. Like, if Inferno had only MP0 (at its current level), you would have a bajillion of builds as well. Luckily, you have 11 sub-levels.

Quote from WorldMaggot

To those who say that the different resource system they've implemented in Diablo 3 is better - can you all elaborate instead of just saying that you think it's better?

It lead to messy leveling for classes not investing into energy, potion chugging with a crapload of trips to town, and overreliance on Insight merc for a some specs (e.g. trapsin). And once you got those, mana effectively became irrelevant. So it was only two situations - either mana was a mess or a complete non-issue.

It's actually a very pretty result. If you compute the total amount exp with two characters and the corresponding account-wide paragon level, you get a nice circular pattern
(and dammit, I don't have Excel 2007 on this computer for nicer colors <_< )



(number on both axes are the plvl of each toon)

Not surprisingly, the result of adding two Plvls is less than the sum of the Plvls (which was kinda the point I guess).

Next step is to calculate the hours necessary to reach it, depending on the plvl of each toon

Did they serve Horadric burgers?

Quote from Mini641

Some of the itemization on Console is horribly balanced. A good example is the pride of Casius (spelling) why the hell would blizzard make a belt with Main stat, Vit, CD, Attack speed and CC along with a strong defensive stat like melee reduction? This makes that belt the only one ill ever need on my barb...

And whats the deal with the 1h weapons? Why am i getting 1200-1400+ dps 1hers but i cant find a decent 1400+ 2h that equals them in stats? Trying to play as a two handed character is broken on console.

Also why add in smart drops that damn near roll perfect and then for crafting only have the item roll a main stat with everything else random? this makes crafting pure sh*t! Also not rerolling those legendary recipes to max level was a complete fail on blizzards part... who the hell needs a level 45 legendary or set recipe? and why do the actual level 60 recipes only roll PC DPs values 800-1k?

I also don't understand why every Set and legendary item has to be so boosted that Rares are worthless in the game? Why kill off rare gear? once you are in full lego and set items you can basically stop looting rares which takes away a lot of the fun of discovery for people.

I get that you are having fun OP but the console version has a ton of issues and im getting tired of casuals coming to these forums and getting super excited about nice leveling gear... At endgame the console version is almost as broken as D3 on PC...

My level 60 para 25+ barb is sitting in inferno Master 5 (mp10) with 400k unbuffed Dps, 700 buffed all res and 110k health, 9% LS, 1600 LoH, 650CD and 65% CC. With under 100 hours played yet my stat composition is a complete mess but what incentive do i have to fix it? im facerolling the entire game. I actually fell asleep last night playing master V act 1...

You know when you throw out "casuals" as an insult it makes it really easy for people to ignore everything you say.

I would definitely give an award to the community managers who have had to put up with the torrents of sewage that are the official D3 forums. That, or nominate them for sainthood.

I have played Diablo 3 since the start, 1300hrs later. I have used the real money auction house as that is how Diablo was designed around an auction house both gold and real money. Both to profit blizzard and to reduce the people using third party sites for getting gear and gold. So how do people feel about spending real money and now having the auction house removed.


I know my self I feel sour, as now there is no opportunity to get something back over the next few years, it is now gone!!!!. I know some people would have spent thousands on this game and they must be really annoyed. Would any one have spent there real money if they knew they would close the real money auction house. NO you would not!!! You may buy some gold to purchase materials for crafting. So blizzard, makes the money, and the people that have spent the money, well there is no compensation, you just have to grin and bare it.


I think that the auction houses can exits in Diablo, for the people that want to use it.

Like make it only available after reaching one character to paragon 100. That way everyone starts self found for a very long time. And give self found bonuses to people, like extra magic find and movement speed, a permanent puzzle ring affect or even some cool looking wings or something to give people the incentive to stay self found. But be able to sell any unwanted gear for a real money profit or for gold to gear an auction house character.


Once you have top end gear is there really a point to having it? There is only so much farming you can do until you get tired of that, and when you do pick up another good item like one you already have, your just going to brimstone it, instead of sell it on the auction house.


I welcome the changes to the game and it will be sooooo much better to play from a self found point of view, like it should have been in the first place. And it takes balls to take the auction house out but at the same time it really burns the people that have put allot of time, effort and now money into a game.
I do hope there can be a solution and people can come up with some good ideas, there is allot of talent at blizzard and i hope they can come up with something creative.

I just don't understand this post. The game is supposed to be painful? No, it needs to be fun and enjoyable. Trading is an optional feature in the game, just like the AH was. Now instead of everyone being close to the same level, only the people willing to take the risk of buying gold and items from third parties are going to have the upper hand in the game, just as before with using the RMAH. Except now it's all behind doors and not supported by Blizzard, so maybe that's what everyone wanted, but I think it's ignorant.

So how are we really solving here? People are still going to complain, unless they come up with an amazing and PAINLESS trading system that doesn't make you turn into a Blizzard CM and scour through a wall of text just to find something legit.

I can't believe that hardcore ladder no-AH is actually going to become a reality...

RIP in peace, my social and professional life.