BoE items and HC

[MoUsE_WiZ]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/bashiok-on-boe-items/

Hrm. I wonder how this would interact with looting. Unless items became unbound on death this change in the item system will make a much larger impact on the HC economy than it will on SC's... we already burn our items, do we really need to do it faster? My opinion is that so long as the change effects everyone I play with equally I'm not being handicapped by it so if it gives the game a longer life cycle before I get bored then awesome, but I'm aware my opinion isn't shared by everyone else so what do you all think? That's from a PvM perspective anyways. From a PvP (that doesn't involve immortality) perspective... it would make the cost of entry higher, and it would take a toll on the concept of loot dueling. I don't particularly care for either of those consequences, aside from making it more of a grind for me to participate in it also means fewer opponents. Blah.

Of course on the flip side, if Blizzard made a change in BoE for HC that made them unbind on player death (remember the existence of looting has been an HC specific alteration in the game for years so a change to the looting system that doesn't effect SC isn't as blasphemous as it might sound) then we'd be able to circumvent the inability to trade our bound items by suiciding characters. The impact of this would depend heavily on character life cycle... if it ended up like D2's maybe suiciding a high level to trade its gear would be worth it. If the life cycle is significantly longer then suicide for the sake of trade might not be a big deal. Who knows.

At this point (as with everything else) I think there's too much up in the air for me to have any firm opinion on the issue, but it is one of those design decisions where I hope Blizzard is actively considering HC while designing it rather than just tacking HC on after it's all set.

[aj2000]

I probably won't be able to tell if I liked it or not until I actually played and see how it pans out in the actual market economy. With that said my gut feeling would be yes go for it, even though I agree that it's abit redundant for Hardcore as it already has a build-in item destruction. Keeping the "simplicity is golden" rule, I'd say either BoE non-lootable fullstop, or no binding for HC period.

Though I'd probably need more info such as whether looting mechanics stays largely the same and so on so forth before I can really speculate.

[World Eater]

Long time away from these forums.....

I wouldn't mind either of
1. Items unbind on death, as mentioned, or even
2. After dying (and looting), you get an option to immediately create a new character on the same account, and "transfer" the bindings to that. (Haven't thought about if it could be any char, or one of the same class/name).

In fact the more I think about 2 the better I like it - by preventing items from crossing between accounts it maintains the whole point of binding, but still allowing you to rebuild a character who died.

Either way I'd be very very surprised if Blizz went the route of not allowing BoE items to be looted.

[Matora]

I didn't really play that much D2 on the realms, more of a SP person myself, how was the economy in HC different to SC? Would BoE have that much of an impact?

[KingOfKings]

first of all, v interesting post mouse!

second of all, lets remember that boe is lvl 85+ items only. so this is something "high end" players need to consider if the case is boe for 85+ AND unbind on death.it would certainly open up "abuse" i would, for the sake of a godlike item - with the only option of suicide-unbind of an item I had THEY wanted, and what they had was too good to let pass - i would 100% suicide to get it from trade.

so this changes the whole "plug and play" system blizzard are creating. why would they encourage a system like this? because i know a huge base of players who would happily do this to rebuild a class again for the end game. so are blizzard expecting players to do this radical turn? are players ready to accept players WOULD do this radical turn?

i dont think there is much item loss amongst the high end range of hc players, (lod doesnt rly matter since winning the lottery is more likely than dying) but other than a dc-rip with no loot is harsh enough - as are those infamous "quickl xfer games" that collapse :)

i think that BOE permanently, that rest with the character is pretty new-age and radical as blizz are doing with the whole "new d3" concept. ALOT of what they have done has shocked or suprised gamers in one way or another, but we welcome it, since it IS a new game.

i think a system of unbind-rip is open to some abuse... i would strongly consider suicide-ripping to get an ultimate trade for a 9x char easy... but then again, if they allow unbind-rip - is the lvling system that harsh to make players REALLY rethink this move?

i tihnk the idea of an item carrying names of its dead owners sounds awesome :) how many ppl would die to make an awesome named item? haha perhaps ;) but that said, its all about the grind vs lvl vs difficulty vs time. if it rly takes THAT long to get to 85, its not something ppl will take lightly at all. if the item dies with the character, then thats one item sink that is understandable. however, there is only so many times that a player can sustain that loss of godlike items... - which is perhaps why they are making it more skill based also (upping skills cap from items/q? etc) to lessen the whole bind-rip issue.

also, the problem of e-selling would be another issue. it really INCREASE the price of much sough after uniques (if there are to be 85+ uniques) and rares, then it makes this a MUCH profitable business as gold selling.

@matora: dying in hardcore, without item loot was harsh on the players but also the economy if the loot was lost. thus it bumped up certain item value insanely.

[KingOfKings]

Long time away from these forums.....

I wouldn't mind either of
1. Items unbind on death, as mentioned, or even
2. After dying (and looting), you get an option to immediately create a new character on the same account, and "transfer" the bindings to that. (Haven't thought about if it could be any char, or one of the same class/name).

In fact the more I think about 2 the better I like it - by preventing items from crossing between accounts it maintains the whole point of binding, but still allowing you to rebuild a character who died.

Either way I'd be very very surprised if Blizz went the route of not allowing BoE items to be looted.

lets assume u drill the hell out of a WD class... and decide "screw this, i'll try a barb" -and u had a decent str/dex res belt or green or unique that u wanted on the barb? thats a little harsh, even if there is a wide range of calss only gear.

i think youre right, blizz may well just point blank say no unbind-rip at all. tho that said, i wudnt be suprised for them to say unbind-rip will happen, since alot of things are pointing to a more carebeary d3.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I didn't really play that much D2 on the realms, more of a SP person myself, how was the economy in HC different to SC? Would BoE have that much of an impact?
The HC economy is different for a few reasons:
1) Much smaller player pool means it takes much longer for our economy to turn to a laughable state because less items are being put in.
2) Since people die, our already smaller player pool has an even smaller number of active MFers.
3) Since people die, although our player pool is smaller, the demand for items is proportionately larger as one player can potentially go through multiple Shakos for example playing what would be the same character if it was on SC.
4) Since people don't like to die people are willing to pay more for items that prevent them from doing so.

[aj2000]

i dont think there is much item loss amongst the high end range of hc players, (lod doesnt rly matter since winning the lottery is more likely than dying) but other than a dc-rip with no loot is harsh enough - as are those infamous "quickl xfer games" that collapse :)

also, the problem of e-selling would be another issue. it really INCREASE the price of much sough after uniques (if there are to be 85+ uniques) and rares, then it makes this a MUCH profitable business as gold selling.


Some good points there.

I would say that for D2, the massive duping (and later botting) sprees have skewed our sense of balance out of proportion. I think the hardcore factor itself would do a good job of flushing out items and keeping the overall item count at an acceptable equilibrium range if the dupe and bots can be largely prevented.

For example, I could imagine that perhaps only 10% of players would have shako / SS in a clean environment. I think the population of the skilled player is skewed by the abundance of duped runewords and top items also, take those out and the cut for "skillful" becomes stricter, players that could consistently survive hell would probably be cut down by half, and the speed they mf would slow somewhat too.

E-selling wouldn't be a problem usually, unless it is paired with botting and duping I think, I wonder whether the BoE vs non-BoE issue by itself would materially impact the botting frequency, though it remains to be seen how much more godly BoE equip is compared to non-BoE equip and their drop rate. I hope that blizz can largely keep the duping and botting at bay. I'll meanwhile indulge in my secret dream that the new "extended battle before a rest" style change will make botting more difficult later on, though I'm never one to underestimate the adaptability of botters and dupers.

I wonder how the BoE item power level will turn out, say if a lvl 84 Non-BoE item is close in power to a BoE equip, I could well imagine that the lvl 84 being much more sought after for the flexibility... Now if D3 could come out already we could all cease our idle speculation and see how it turns out :crazyeyes:

It also remains to be seen how D3's drop rate, phat lewt rarity, difficulty compares to D2, and I dare say that aside from large scale beta testing, No one would be able to tell the final balance will turn out.

[Typoko]

Hi!

I wonder how the BoE item power level will turn out, say if a lvl 84 Non-BoE item is close in power to a BoE equip, I could well imagine that the lvl 84 being much more sought after for the flexibility... Now if D3 could come out already we could all cease our idle speculation and see how it turns out :crazyeyes:

This and also we aren't sure that every item over 85 level will be boe. These non-boe items might not go out from the rotation fast but they will be really prizey as you can eaven sell it away if you don't need it anymore and use it with more than 1 character.