You cannot compare WoW and Diablo to each other, for one thing. The entire point of Diablo is to kill monsters and trade the loot you get. The point of WoW is... I've played WoW for a while and I honestly don't know what the point is.
In any case, the AH functions differently as well. In WoW you have a vested interest in a proper economy. Diablo does not have this.
In fact, the existence of a built-in AH allowed every item you got become possibly profitable. Since you could sell items for gold, you may be able to save up eventually to get good gear for your chosen character. No more doing endless runs in the vain hope that what you want will drop.
Besides, getting rid of the AH won't do anything to influence this. You'll just see a rise of the 3rd party trading sites you had back in D2. Those who are unaware of the trading sites will just be left hanging, just like in D2.
Getting rid of the AH basically just made it harder for people to trade, especially since the chat windows in this game sucks balls.
I could care less about the AH going away, but making legendaries non-tradable is a TERRIBLE move. I want to be able to pass on some gear to my wife so she and I can play together without her either dying all the time or me playing in ezmode. trading is what made DII what it is.
There's a LOT of bad implementation in DIII that stems wholly from Blizzard's desire to force players to play in blizzard approved fun mode.
The very top level endgame builds partially follow the structure that you just described, though it's still nice being able to occasionally find something useful (the AH vastly increases supply because it vastly increases participation in a trader-style endgame, and so the designers on D3 had to take it into account when setting drop rates, which ended up vastly reducing your odds of finding something good, by necessity). The vast majority of the game - essentially, 1-60 Normal/Nightmare/Hell/Act 1 Inferno (using the old difficulties) - this is simply not true.
Getting cool items is the fundamental feedback loop that keeps people playing after they've been through the story once. The Auction House had two effects: First, there was always an easy way to get great upgrades, and second, to keep the AH from being flooded and totally destroying the economy, the amount of cool loot that could be dropped for any one player had to be severely limited. This meant that you rarely got cool upgrades in your own play and often had to go run through pages of spreadsheet data to get the cool upgrades you wanted. That structure is absolutely fatal to a core gameplay loop of kill monster - get gear - kill more monsters - get more gear.
And you're correct that you can't quite compare WoW and Diablo (though, the point is to trade the loot you get? What are you talking about? The point is to get cool loot, and trading is a means to that end) - in WoW, upgrades during the level up and early endgame experience aren't all that big of a driver, with quest completion, exploration, fast level ups and story mattering much more. In Diablo, you'll replay the same content several times just to get to level cap, and your level ups end up mattering much less; gear is a much more important driver. The potential damage an AH can wreak on Diablo vs WoW isn't comparable; it's much worse in Diablo.
The very top level endgame builds partially follow the structure that you just described, though it's still nice being able to occasionally find something useful (the AH vastly increases supply because it vastly increases participation in a trader-style endgame, and so the designers on D3 had to take it into account when setting drop rates, which ended up vastly reducing your odds of finding something good, by necessity). The vast majority of the game - essentially, 1-60 Normal/Nightmare/Hell/Act 1 Inferno (using the old difficulties) - this is simply not true.
1) It's the number of people who play the game (D3 has significantly more players than D2 ever had) that determines how the AH performs.
2) Blizzard could, and did, rely on the fact that loot stats are randomly generated. Thus, there is still coveted items that are significantly better than the same items. This reduces supply.
3) The majority of the game is end-game.
Getting cool items is the fundamental feedback loop that keeps people playing after they've been through the story once. The Auction House had two effects: First, there was always an easy way to get great upgrades, and second, to keep the AH from being flooded and totally destroying the economy, the amount of cool loot that could be dropped for any one player had to be severely limited. This meant that you rarely got cool upgrades in your own play and often had to go run through pages of spreadsheet data to get the cool upgrades you wanted. That structure is absolutely fatal to a core gameplay loop of kill monster - get gear - kill more monsters - get more gear.
-The entire point of Diablo is to do endless runs in the hopes that you get good gear and trade good gear that you don't need for good gear that you do need. Good gear was never meant to drop from every 100th monster you killed.
-You rarely got good gear in D2 as well. People didn't complain.
-Thus, said feedback loop works only if people have a different expectation. If they expect to be drowning in good gear, then their expectation differs significantly from what Diablo intended in the first place.
And bLatch reminds me what I hate the most- The fact that you cannot trade legendaries and set items.
I still don't get the point. The AH could at least be circumvented.
Besides, getting rid of the AH won't do anything to influence this. You'll just see a rise of the 3rd party trading sites you had back in D2. Those who are unaware of the trading sites will just be left hanging, just like in D2.
Since the build defining gear won't be tradeable, I highly doubt you'll see these. I mean, thats the whole reason they are doing the crap that is BoA.
Interesting, you seem to have a VERY different idea of what makes for good ARPG play than me. You're basically deeply invested in a Trader end game - the fun part of the end game is swapping resources with other players.
For a player like you, yes, Loot 2.0 is probably a death knell for the game. They basically set out to move from a Trader-style endgame to - well, that remains to be seen, I think. Grinding endless runs of the same content isn't super compelling.
Adventure mode ought to have had a very lightweight story generator capable of putting together terrain pieces and monster populations in novel combinations, but as it stands, my biggest worry here is that after a few dozen hours there'll be nothing to keep me coming back. Not that the trader endgame was ever going to keep me coming back, of course; they correctly identified that they had alienated a huge portion of their playerbase.
Interesting, you seem to have a VERY different idea of what makes for good ARPG play than me. You're basically deeply invested in a Trader end game - the fun part of the end game is swapping resources with other players.
For a player like you, yes, Loot 2.0 is probably a death knell for the game. They basically set out to move from a Trader-style endgame to - well, that remains to be seen, I think. Grinding endless runs of the same content isn't super compelling.
No, i'm not deeply interested in a trader end game- I'm interested in having what made D2 fun- Repetitive runs hoping for good loot, and being able to trade good loot that is not good for you to other people who has good loot that is good for you.
Me and my buddies who used to play D2 had frequently talked about the fact that we have no idea why we're playing this game, just that the hope of finding good loot is addictive.
We played with the expectation that good loot is incredibly rare. That's why the AH and its supposed overabundance of gear was irrelevant to me. I'm constantly looking to better my character, and the AH made it much easier to find better gear. No more hoping that someone online has the gear that I want, and is willing to have a reasonable trade.
The current D3 player population seems to not think so.
The way D3 is heading, it's basically shoe-holing you into playing a single player game. Heck, it already is that. I've YET to find a reason to group with anyone, and I was at paragon level 60 by the time I stopped playing.
Based on your earlier posts, I assume that you've yet to read end-game, and haven't played D2 before. Having played D2 before and played end-game in D3 for quite a while, it's clear that the expectations of what the game is differs significantly between you and me.
And Blizzard has chosen to listen to your expectations. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it just seems to be completely against what the Diablo franchise is about.
I played literally thousands of hours of Diablo 2 and hit level 99 on multiple characters - and I had a level 60 character in Act 4 on Inferno difficulty within 6 weeks of the game releasing in Diablo 3. Just, since, you know, you raised the question of my credibility on these games.
I played literally thousands of hours of Diablo 2 and hit level 99 on multiple characters - and I had a level 60 character in Act 4 on Inferno difficulty within 6 weeks of the game releasing in Diablo 3. Just, since, you know, you raised the question of my credibility on these games.
I've been snowed in for the past few days. Played this for a few hours each day. Its pretty fun. The game feels better... with a few flaws.
yea, that was a pretty damn big patch. Seemed like a complete re-install on my part.
I am diggin the new arrangement of what an item has on it. I have yet to get any item from random farming with my Wizard that has another class prefix on it.
I've been snowed in for the past few days. Played this for a few hours each day. Its pretty fun. The game feels better... with a few flaws.
yea, that was a pretty damn big patch. Seemed like a complete re-install on my part.
I am diggin the new arrangement of what an item has on it. I have yet to get any item from random farming with my Wizard that has another class prefix on it.
I decided to patch and give the game a little spin last night. I am pleasantly surprised with the difficulty change, stuff I was plowing thought before actually makes me stop and fight and the rares/champ mobs require a little more strategy on my part. The loot system though, wow. Getting stuff I can a) actually use and b) are real upgrades is awesome. On a side note I got two Legendary weapons (a dagger and a sword) in less than an hour. While cool, I hope that is not typical of the new loot system since getting a Legendary (or set) item should mean something imo.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I decided to patch and give the game a little spin last night. I am pleasantly surprised with the difficulty change, stuff I was plowing thought before actually makes me stop and fight and the rares/champ mobs require a little more strategy on my part. The loot system though, wow. Getting stuff I can a) actually use and b) are real upgrades is awesome. On a side note I got two Legendary weapons (a dagger and a sword) in less than an hour. While cool, I hope that is not typical of the new loot system since getting a Legendary (or set) item should mean something imo.
Running a Barb up 1-60, I think I got 12 or 13 total Legendaries, if that helps.
I've found the Legendary pacing to be pretty good - I get something cool every so often, often enough that they're a real, meaningful part of the game, not so often that they don't stand out. They're also cool and different fairly often - I have an amulet that makes me totally immune to arcane damage and heal off it, I found some low level shoulders that let me town portal much faster and gives me a shield while doing so (bubble hearth!), etc.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm finding a lot more Rares. Hardly any common white trash. Heh.
Anyone else notice this with Rares? Oh, and they're already identified on my end.
Weird bug too. .. I have over 1,000 demonic essence after the patch. O.o
That's not a bug. ALL Pages and Tomes converted to Demonic Essence.
Trash Drops are actually needed for Crafting. You need to salvage them to get material to craft. The level 70 Crafted legendary items need a level 70 white item of what your making too.
The game has majorly changed. The skill changes have drastically taken bad builds and made them workable. Plus the Clan/Community system is really interesting. Me and the Wife are starting to look for people that want to play majorly.
You cannot compare WoW and Diablo to each other, for one thing. The entire point of Diablo is to kill monsters and trade the loot you get. The point of WoW is... I've played WoW for a while and I honestly don't know what the point is.
In any case, the AH functions differently as well. In WoW you have a vested interest in a proper economy. Diablo does not have this.
In fact, the existence of a built-in AH allowed every item you got become possibly profitable. Since you could sell items for gold, you may be able to save up eventually to get good gear for your chosen character. No more doing endless runs in the vain hope that what you want will drop.
Besides, getting rid of the AH won't do anything to influence this. You'll just see a rise of the 3rd party trading sites you had back in D2. Those who are unaware of the trading sites will just be left hanging, just like in D2.
Getting rid of the AH basically just made it harder for people to trade, especially since the chat windows in this game sucks balls.
There's a LOT of bad implementation in DIII that stems wholly from Blizzard's desire to force players to play in blizzard approved fun mode.
Getting cool items is the fundamental feedback loop that keeps people playing after they've been through the story once. The Auction House had two effects: First, there was always an easy way to get great upgrades, and second, to keep the AH from being flooded and totally destroying the economy, the amount of cool loot that could be dropped for any one player had to be severely limited. This meant that you rarely got cool upgrades in your own play and often had to go run through pages of spreadsheet data to get the cool upgrades you wanted. That structure is absolutely fatal to a core gameplay loop of kill monster - get gear - kill more monsters - get more gear.
And you're correct that you can't quite compare WoW and Diablo (though, the point is to trade the loot you get? What are you talking about? The point is to get cool loot, and trading is a means to that end) - in WoW, upgrades during the level up and early endgame experience aren't all that big of a driver, with quest completion, exploration, fast level ups and story mattering much more. In Diablo, you'll replay the same content several times just to get to level cap, and your level ups end up mattering much less; gear is a much more important driver. The potential damage an AH can wreak on Diablo vs WoW isn't comparable; it's much worse in Diablo.
1) It's the number of people who play the game (D3 has significantly more players than D2 ever had) that determines how the AH performs.
2) Blizzard could, and did, rely on the fact that loot stats are randomly generated. Thus, there is still coveted items that are significantly better than the same items. This reduces supply.
3) The majority of the game is end-game.
-The entire point of Diablo is to do endless runs in the hopes that you get good gear and trade good gear that you don't need for good gear that you do need. Good gear was never meant to drop from every 100th monster you killed.
-You rarely got good gear in D2 as well. People didn't complain.
-Thus, said feedback loop works only if people have a different expectation. If they expect to be drowning in good gear, then their expectation differs significantly from what Diablo intended in the first place.
And bLatch reminds me what I hate the most- The fact that you cannot trade legendaries and set items.
I still don't get the point. The AH could at least be circumvented.
Since the build defining gear won't be tradeable, I highly doubt you'll see these. I mean, thats the whole reason they are doing the crap that is BoA.
For a player like you, yes, Loot 2.0 is probably a death knell for the game. They basically set out to move from a Trader-style endgame to - well, that remains to be seen, I think. Grinding endless runs of the same content isn't super compelling.
Adventure mode ought to have had a very lightweight story generator capable of putting together terrain pieces and monster populations in novel combinations, but as it stands, my biggest worry here is that after a few dozen hours there'll be nothing to keep me coming back. Not that the trader endgame was ever going to keep me coming back, of course; they correctly identified that they had alienated a huge portion of their playerbase.
No, i'm not deeply interested in a trader end game- I'm interested in having what made D2 fun- Repetitive runs hoping for good loot, and being able to trade good loot that is not good for you to other people who has good loot that is good for you.
Me and my buddies who used to play D2 had frequently talked about the fact that we have no idea why we're playing this game, just that the hope of finding good loot is addictive.
We played with the expectation that good loot is incredibly rare. That's why the AH and its supposed overabundance of gear was irrelevant to me. I'm constantly looking to better my character, and the AH made it much easier to find better gear. No more hoping that someone online has the gear that I want, and is willing to have a reasonable trade.
The current D3 player population seems to not think so.
The way D3 is heading, it's basically shoe-holing you into playing a single player game. Heck, it already is that. I've YET to find a reason to group with anyone, and I was at paragon level 60 by the time I stopped playing.
Based on your earlier posts, I assume that you've yet to read end-game, and haven't played D2 before. Having played D2 before and played end-game in D3 for quite a while, it's clear that the expectations of what the game is differs significantly between you and me.
And Blizzard has chosen to listen to your expectations. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it just seems to be completely against what the Diablo franchise is about.
Fair enough.
yea, that was a pretty damn big patch. Seemed like a complete re-install on my part.
I am diggin the new arrangement of what an item has on it. I have yet to get any item from random farming with my Wizard that has another class prefix on it.
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Running a Barb up 1-60, I think I got 12 or 13 total Legendaries, if that helps.
I've found the Legendary pacing to be pretty good - I get something cool every so often, often enough that they're a real, meaningful part of the game, not so often that they don't stand out. They're also cool and different fairly often - I have an amulet that makes me totally immune to arcane damage and heal off it, I found some low level shoulders that let me town portal much faster and gives me a shield while doing so (bubble hearth!), etc.
Anyone else notice this with Rares? Oh, and they're already identified on my end.
Weird bug too. .. I have over 1,000 demonic essence after the patch. O.o
That's not a bug. ALL Pages and Tomes converted to Demonic Essence.
Trash Drops are actually needed for Crafting. You need to salvage them to get material to craft. The level 70 Crafted legendary items need a level 70 white item of what your making too.
The game has majorly changed. The skill changes have drastically taken bad builds and made them workable. Plus the Clan/Community system is really interesting. Me and the Wife are starting to look for people that want to play majorly.
360k buffed Wiz
Still tweaking the build since the patch. Have no clue what optimal builds there are for a former Archon
I want to try a Temporal Flux build but my Chantodo's adds 14% dmg to Shock Pulse (and 93% crit dmg)