Diablo is about items and gathering them, getting better ones that you have, collect a full set etc.
With the current droprates and bad rolls I am forced to resort to goldfarming which I refuse to do so I keep trying to get items but since I so far (>250 hours on 5 classes who are all in inferno) only found (for instance) 8 legendaries of wich 7 are worthless and have yet to find the first set-item, I suspect I will get tired of playing very soon. Hopefully an expansion will come as soon as this fall otherwise the game is shelved.
And what's with the "Plan" drops? I only found 3 different plans so far, 2 of which in ridiculous amounts (7 Exalted Sovereign Mail, 5 Exalted Sovereign Helm)
As far as the RMAH goes: Before launch I thougt it was cool how if you were unlucky to find gear and you could not win on GAH people would have the option to actually buy what they needed to keep enjoying the game or play the game the way they enjoy. I myself am more into finding stuff than anything else but the option was nice for a lot of people I thought. I expected prices to range from $0.10 to , maybe for a really cool and good item even as high as $10 (who would want to pay that much anyway, but I could see that happening I guess..) Then the RMAH went live.. I looked, I laughed, I left and never looked back. IMO it's only a matter of time (2 months max) that RMAH is straightened out pricewise and with that the game gold-economy. If for some reason it's not it's going to be the end of the game I guess.. Even at this point I have friends that have been hardcore D2 LOD players from the start and occasionally played it again in the past decade that have already abandoned D3 and that can't be good or intended can it?
Items ! There is nothing fun in farming gold, but one needs to do it because it is next to impossible to find something to wear that will actually allow progression thru inferno. I myself have found only 1 good amulet (that i currently wear), everything else is bought from the GAH. During the past week I have not even found something to sell in the GAH for over 50k.
Anyways the point is - item hunting = fun, gold farming = boring. Playing a game should be fun, thus d3 should be based around items and item hunting.
Looks like a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that the Auction Houses are not really a good thing for the game.
If they're really that concerned about shady trading sites doing real money transfers, then nuke the problem by making items Bind-on-Pickup, a technique that was designed *exactly* to solve this problem and encourage people to play the actual games in question.
It's like Blizzard forgot their own lessons learned.
Personally I don't have a real problem with the AH (except maybe the RMAH) apart from it being flawed in respect to UI, search options, export options, sort options and filters. I think it's great that if you happen to find only DH-stuff and you play a Wizzard you can trade through an AH. It's ppl's greed that makes items this expensive and goldfarming necessary but that will pass over time I am sure.
You mentioned Bind on Pickup? I think that would be close to impossible not to mention unfair given you being the only one the item dropped for. When in a group one should at least have the option to drop it again (unidentified) for a class that could benefit from such a drop? What's the point in having an optionally nice fistweapon drop for a Demon Hunter that binds on pickup only to be salvaged or sold to shop? If any binding I vote for Bind on ID.
Come to think of it.. Wouldn't it be too cool to have an item state who actually found it in the game? Nice for legitimate players to get credit/recognition and a way to spot those farming bots? I am sure they would stand out on the AH?
BOP would rune the game even more, the same could and would be said about BOP. Diablo is a Trading game when everything is said in done. I know for me anways, I enjoyed trying to deal with people, the excitement of working out a good trade was always a rush. The unique and set items paved way for good gear to level with, many time I would wear the Sigon set through normal and part of nightmare, slowly replacing it with other unique or set items. I had a reason to have mule and hold on to stuff for new characters, or even friends to use.
Now in D3 the items are boring, You need you main stat and vit to both be high, and other key stats to make you character viable. No one might be wearing the same gear name wise, but everyone is wearing similar gear, some have better stats than others. Builds are not as mass as they promised, at least viable builds to clear inferno with. The system they have in place could of been so much better than what it is, and how the weapons damage effects all spells is sad. Why should my weapon damage effect my arcane orb, this should be scaled with the intellect, and arcane damage % increase mods - the same goes for all caster class' spells.
I also wanted to add before synergies, I felt like I was able to make more diverse builds with the D2 skill tree, and +1 skill mods on items (sometime +2 or + to certain skills.)
Here's how I would envision bind-on-pickup working in D3.
First, make gold and gems still be tradable, essentially items that aren't special but provide a little bit of the "social" aspect of trading.
As far as items that drop in the game world: they're bound to your entire account, so you have the option of using them on your current character, handing them off to a different character, or dusting them for crafting. OR, you can trade them to anybody who was in the game with you when it dropped. So, playing with other people essentially gives your party the option of quadrupling your useful drops. That could be a big boost to the social aspect.
Now, to counter the fact that players might have trouble finding good items for a particular slot, they should add a bunch of "pretty good" legendary or set crafting plans, with mostly fixed stats that make them nice "hit level 60 recently" items if you don't find any good stuff in the meantime. They can still have the hugely expensive legendaries that take serious farming, and still have the random patterns with the small chance of a big payout, to reward players who are playing for awhile without a pay-off.
The goal of this system is not only to remove the AH, but also to remove the ability of farmers to go in there and play the game for you, which we're seeing A LOT of right now and which I'm sure has Blizzard laughing all the way to the bank.
It's like, you already have to go into debt up your eyeballs to live life these days. Do my video games need to nickel and dime me too? :P
I can see where you are coming from with the BOA items, but as much as I think it is a valid point, This would still kill the trading aspect which diabo was and should still be today. Blizzard scxrewed up, fans are mad, but they would be less aggravated if Blizzard would confess they took a gamble with certain changes and that they are not working the way they thought it would. Then take the next step and alter/tweek/replace feature for something that works.
It's entirely possible that I see Diablo differently than most people. I always enjoyed the isometric action and the loot hunting way more than I enjoyed the trading, which in my experience was painful and filled with shady idiots.
I think these days, any game that incorporates trading as an option sends out the bat signal to the farmers and nearly immediately makes the game worse. It's bizarre that people will pay real money to get ahead, and even kind of bizarre that people enjoy the exchange rate metagame so much.
Say what you will about WoW, I personally never enjoyed the combat in that game, but I always felt like I was earning my own items and progressing my own character. It had a real sense of ownership that I was not just hoping for but EXPECTING in D3. I'm hugely disappointed that I may have to go back to boring traditional MMO combat for a game experience that feels like my skill makes a difference.
I really miss trading items for items between players. Grinding for items used to be fun in the previous games, but that's lacking in this game because the itemization just isn't very interesting. At least in previous games you'd get a little excited if you found a set or legendary. Now that legendary and set items are so poor, it doesn't even matter if you find them -- if you can even find them at all.
I will say, I was never a fan of SoJs being used as currency, but in previous installments you'd have a better chance of finding a specialized item you could trade for something more valuable and barter your way to better gear. That doesn't exist in Diablo 3. You have 2 options -- grinding endlessly for gold, hoping you get a .001% godly drop you can sell for millions, or use the RMAH which is a complete rip off. It just seems hopeless for a person like me who's invested 150+ hours in my DH, with 40 of those hours being nothing but inferno MF runs and I haven't found ANYTHING outside of some gem plans and one pair of shoulders I was able to sell for 500k... What's the fun in that?
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