Support NeoGAF

[Opiate]

Tiered taxation system? Maybe tax the purchaser too?

I'm not sure if any of this solves the problem if and when bots multiply. Unless they are kept to a minimum (bots in small numbers have very little impact on a millions-of-people economy), you'll get massive wealth inequality, and the only viable solution for the have-nots will be to bot as well.

But yes, if bots are kept under control, there are lots of viable solutions. Doubling repair costs would be a good start, for example. Maybe making items bind on equip or to account. Make a new crafter like the BS/Jewelcrafter to sink more gold in to. Any or all of these would help, and aren't especially complex to implement.

 

[Anoregon]

Love the description on it lol!!

For real. "Withstand the fires of hell" with 27 fire resist. GG.

 

[Wickwire]

So normal -> nightmare -> hell -> inferno?

yes

 

[Number45]

Just got an update for the launcher (EU).

 

[scy]

But yes, if bots are kept under control, there are lots of viable solutions. Doubling repair costs would be a good start, for example. Maybe making items bind on equip or to account.

Better gold sinks as well. Improve Radiant Stars to give a better incentive to spend the ~15M gold to get to one. Let Blacksmithing use Gems (or even good items in general, perhaps?) to try and improve crafting. We need to be spending more and more gold and destroying more and more items, really.

Edit: But ... this probably won't matter so long as the community doesn't start adjusting prices to compensate as well. Not sure how that'll correct itself, really.

 

[aliencowz7]

Fixing currency inflation is actually pretty simple in a couple of different ways, hell the community of D2 fixed inflation multiple times over the span of the game with currency going from gold to sojs to high runes.

You can also implement ladder so that current characters get moved to non ladder and every 3 months or so the new ladder characters get moved to non ladder and people start over. Casual players don't lose anything and can continue playing in whatever way they want and hardcore people have a constantly fresh economy and race to progress

Blizzard can also implement a alternate currency that works in kind of the same way as SoJ's or High runes where you get some kind of point currency for every story boss you kill with full stacks of nephalem valor which can be exchanged for X amount of gold or a special service or something of the nature.

I mean these are just some ideas that aren't expanded on, off the top of my head so I am sure if blizzard deems it a problem they can come up with plenty of ways to address the issue at hand.

It all comes down to how willing blizzard is to fix these problems and how fast they can act to address them.

 

[scy]

It all comes down to how willing blizzard is to fix these problems and how fast they can act to address them.

gg, Diablo 3 had a good run guys.

 

[Torraz]

It's not the reason you are drawn to the series. I already like D3 better than D2 at its core, personally, although of course inflation and bad future patches could change that.

Trading/AH has been a driving force behind Diablo for a very long time. Diablo 2 was absolutely sustained by trading -- it just wasn't codified in to an official AH. D2JSP had 5000-10000 simultaneous users on the Diablo 2 trading forums as recently as last year, 10 years after DII's release. It drew more traffic than GAF does.

Again, this is not some weird niche. I just don't understand why D2JSP isn't discussed at length in these posts -- as if D2JSP wasn't a driving force behind Diablo II's longevity. It was a vital force to the game, and is a de facto, out of game AH.

At least for me, D2JSP was never a factor. I think I visited the site around 5 times in all of those years I played D2.

Nevertheless, even without trading I "completed" D2 with solo-farmed stuff, at least up to and including ubers (if there was anything else added). Now, in D3, I can't even progress farther than 10% in act 1 solo with items I myself find. I only got a single handout once, after all my chars had expired, an enigma armor.

Furthermore, every MF run I did in D2 gave me some uniques/set items. In D3, in probably around 120 hours or so, I found exactly one single legendary. These rares just seem like a RNG on top of RNG. Sure, you can gaurantee 2-3 to drop with 5/5 NV, but at least uniques, like legendaries, have some guaranteed stats so you're not getting complete dud items all the time. My last few butcher runs (which I cant complete solo) I only got lvl 54-58 rares...

So, at least in my personal experience reward loop vs. frustration loop is a very accurate depiction of D2 vs D3. I nearly got a ranged class up to 60 now, so perhaps it will be more fun with that, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Wool]

How does Life on Hit work with DH attacks that fire a lot of arrows? If I were to use rain of vengeance with the dark cloud rune (the one where it rains guided arrows for 12 seconds) would that give me life on hit for every arrow that hit an enemy? How about with multishot? It seems like if you went with a shadow power build and got a lot of life on hit you could tank pretty well with either of those.

 

[aliencowz7]

gg, Diablo 3 had a good run guys.

At this point I think its fine that they are seeing how stuff is playing out, patching crazy amounts of stuff so soon after launching and letting the community figure out how the playerbase is going to play is a good thing.

I think we can start getting worried if there isn't any major patches in the next month or two but before then its just a waiting game.

 

[cpp_is_king]

Where is the non Underbridge Act III farming chest that people are referring to?

 

[luxarific]

Wow. Someone changed my Bnet password 3 hours ago, I had to use account recovery to get back in, but everything is perfectly intact? I'm confused .

If you don't have an authenticator, get one now.

 

[scy]

Furthermore, every MF run I did in D2 gave me some uniques/set items. In D3, in probably around 120 hours or so, I found exactly one single legendary. These rares just seem like a RNG on top of RNG. Sure, you can gaurantee 2-3 to drop with 5/5 NV, but at least uniques, like legendaries, have some guaranteed stats so you're not getting complete dud items all the time. My last few butcher runs (which I cant complete solo) I only got lvl 54-58 rares...

This is totally not my experience with Diablo 2 MF runs in the slightest.

How does Life on Hit work with DH attacks that fire a lot of arrows? If I were to use rain of vengeance with the dark cloud rune (the one where it rains guided arrows for 12 seconds) would that give me life on hit for every arrow that hit an enemy? How about with multishot? It seems like if you went with a shadow power build and got a lot of life on hit you could tank pretty well with either of those.

Opiate, you might have someone else to use your build!

As far as I know for multi-target attacks, the game splits your Life on Hit across the hits so it averages back out to a regular attack. I'm not entirely certain on how all attacks are treated, though. Hell, that might just be Life Steal% that functions that way.

At this point I think its fine that they are seeing how stuff is playing out, patching crazy amounts of stuff so soon after launching and letting the community figure out how the playerbase is going to play is a good thing.

I think we can start getting worried if there isn't any major patches in the next month or two but before then its just a waiting game.

We need to let the dust settle, really. Right now, "ideal builds" have changed about three or four times since launch for Inferno and that's ignoring nerfs. Life on Hit was a relatively unknown stat prior to maybe last week. Attack Speed/Movement Speed wasn't overvalued until recently either.

Fixing Legendaries (and the actual bugged items) is something we need to see soon, however.

 

[Opiate]

At least for me, D2JSP was never a factor. I think I visited the site around 5 times in all of those years I played D2.

Nevertheless, even without trading I "completed" D2 with solo-farmed stuff, at least up to and including ubers (if there was anything else added). Now, in D3, I can't even progress farther than 10% in act 1 solo with items I myself find. I only got a single handout once, after all my chars had expired, an enigma armor.

Furthermore, every MF run I did in D2 gave me some uniques/set items. In D3, in probably around 120 hours or so, I found exactly one single legendary. These rares just seem like a RNG on top of RNG. Sure, you can gaurantee 2-3 to drop with 5/5 NV, but at least uniques, like legendaries, have some guaranteed stats so you're not getting complete dud items all the time. My last few butcher runs (which I cant complete solo) I only got lvl 54-58 rares...

So, at least in my personal experience reward loop vs. frustration loop is a very accurate depiction of D2 vs D3. I nearly got a ranged class up to 60 now, so perhaps it will be more fun with that, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is fine, I just think it is you who is the minority, not me. D2JSP and other trading sites were so overwhelmingly popular that it's difficult to imagine otherwise.

I don't think there's any quantitative way to calculate this, so I'd settle if we just agreed that trading/AHing items was not some obscure niche in Diablo 2 that no one enjoyed. If you didn't enjoy it personally, that's fine.

 

[Macmanus]

Again, this is not some weird niche. I just don't understand why D2JSP isn't discussed at length in these posts -- as if D2JSP wasn't a driving force behind Diablo II's longevity. It was a vital force to the game, and is a de facto, out of game AH.

D2JSP was no where near as significant as you think it was.

This is fine, I just think it is you who is the minority, not me.

Dead wrong.

 

[arimanius]

What I did is just set my max buyout to 30k in the search. I didn't even bother with anything over than that for my level (33).

Thanks. I had a /facepalm moment when I read the responses and discovered the max buyout filter.

 

[aliencowz7]

At least for me, D2JSP was never a factor. I think I visited the site around 5 times in all of those years I played D2.

Nevertheless, even without trading I "completed" D2 with solo-farmed stuff, at least up to and including ubers (if there was anything else added). Now, in D3, I can't even progress farther than 10% in act 1 solo with items I myself find. I only got a single handout once, after all my chars had expired, an enigma armor.

Furthermore, every MF run I did in D2 gave me some uniques/set items. In D3, in probably around 120 hours or so, I found exactly one single legendary. These rares just seem like a RNG on top of RNG. Sure, you can gaurantee 2-3 to drop with 5/5 NV, but at least uniques, like legendaries, have some guaranteed stats so you're not getting complete dud items all the time. My last few butcher runs (which I cant complete solo) I only got lvl 54-58 rares...

So, at least in my personal experience reward loop vs. frustration loop is a very accurate depiction of D2 vs D3. I nearly got a ranged class up to 60 now, so perhaps it will be more fun with that, but I'm not holding my breath.

When the "lifespan" of a game like this comes up I have a hard time of thinking of the people playing solo or never trading at all really being the ones that are the vast amount of contributors to the people playing every day 10 years after release of d2.

The people that come to mind keeping the game "alive" beyond popping it in here and there when you think of it are the traders, the people that spend hours on d2jsp bartering and making trades. People that can get a character rushed / fully geared and ready to play in like 3 hours.

I think if you told the majority of the people that are solo players or non traders to sit there and play every day for years on end after the game had been out for years, they wouldn't be down. It is a bit unfair to compare d3's lifespan to d2's lifespan without counting the AH and stuff like d2jsp and the item buying sites as there respective driving forces to keep the game alive down the line.

 

[TheYanger]

Better gold sinks as well. Improve Radiant Stars to give a better incentive to spend the ~15M gold to get to one. Let Blacksmithing use Gems (or even good items in general, perhaps?) to try and improve crafting. We need to be spending more and more gold and destroying more and more items, really.

Edit: But ... this probably won't matter so long as the community doesn't start adjusting prices to compensate as well. Not sure how that'll correct itself, really.

Gold sinks mentioned in this thread don't work though. They're all more punishing to a new player than to an established AH baron. Doubling repairs? doesn't hurt people who can buy gear to not die. Smithing? beginners trap, unless they completely revamp crafting (the jeweler is in better shape since the gems can ONLY be jewelcrafted), smithing absolutely cannot in the long run ever be profitable, once a pattern is profitable and enough people have it, that pattern will cease to be profitable. The AH ensures this. Once it's not profitable, it's not something anyone will throw gold at. For example, the Helm of Command, right now if you know that pattern it's a license to print money, because even the worst roll you can get will sell at a profit. Once more people have it? no way. Same goes for any other pattern, if it's profitable to craft everyone will craft it and crash the market.

Fixing currency inflation is actually pretty simple in a couple of different ways, hell the community of D2 fixed inflation multiple times over the span of the game with currency going from gold to sojs to high runes.

That's not fixing inflation...that's moving to a higher currency because the older one is irrelevant. IE: Moving from pennies to dollars to 100 dollar bills as your standard of currency.

This is fine, I just think it is you who is the minority, not me. D2JSP and other trading sites were so overwhelmingly popular that it's difficult to imagine otherwise.

I don't think there's any quantitative way to calculate this, so I'd settle if we just agreed that trading/AHing items was not some obscure niche in Diablo 2 that no one enjoyed. If you didn't enjoy it personally, that's fine.

Compared to the population of D2, the trading communities were small time. You could manage in D2 just fine without touching any of them.

 

[Opiate]

D2JSP was no where near as significant as you think it was.

Yes it was; I've already provided a quantitative example, but you're also welcome to look at it's webtraffic over the last five years. The site drew ridiculous hits, rivaling some of the biggest gaming sites in the world. If you personally ignored it, again, that's fine, but it was real and it was a very significant site. This is without discussing other trading sites, most of which were individually small, especially compared to D2JSP, but might be relevant in aggregate. Diablo incgamers, D2TradingForums, etc.

Dead wrong

No, I'm quite confident about this and have already provided quantitative evidence -- and if you need more, just look at their site traffic over the last year as further proof. Again, it's fine if you personally were not involved in D2 trading.

Compared to the population of D2, the trading communities were small time. You could manage in D2 just fine without touching any of them.

You definitely could manage D2 without touching them, but they were definitely not small time, as already evidenced. Again, I think people are conflating "I personally did not go to them" with "They were not popular or important."

We need to let the dust settle, really. Right now, "ideal builds" have changed about three or four times since launch for Inferno and that's ignoring nerfs. Life on Hit was a relatively unknown stat prior to maybe last week. Attack Speed/Movement Speed wasn't overvalued until recently either.

Fixing Legendaries (and the actual bugged items) is something we need to see soon, however.

This all seems reasonable to me. The only other thing that should be squashed as rapidly as possible are bots -- if they can.

 

[scy]

Actually, out of curiosity, what kind of MF% are we talking about when complaining about drops in Diablo 3? 100%? 200%? 300%? I remember doing ~500% MF runs for D2 and that wasn't even the most MF you could run. I've seen ~40% MF items so far in D3 so breaking 500% or so before NV is possible.

Though, I may be more curious at ~500%+ Gold Find runs. Hm...

 

[BigJonsson]

Watch Blizzard release seasonal PVP gear like in WoW

 

[V_Arnold]

Actually, out of curiosity, what kind of MF% are we talking about when complaining about drops in Diablo 3? 100%? 200%? 300%? I remember doing ~500% MF runs for D2 and that wasn't even the most MF you could run. I've seen ~40% MF items so far in D3 so breaking 500% or so before NV is possible.

Though, I may be more curious at ~500%+ Gold Find runs. Hm...

D3 never went that crazy with +MF on items. And we do not have stackable MF charms here either.

 

[TheYanger]

You definitely could manage D2 without touching them, but they were definitely not small time, as already evidenced. Again, I think people are conflating "I personally did not go to them" with "They were not popular or important."

Evidenced how? Do you really think more than maybe 5% of all D2 players EVER visited these sites? How small do you really think the game was? The numbers you're pulling out are absolutely miniscule compared to the size of the community.

Actually, out of curiosity, what kind of MF% are we talking about when complaining about drops in Diablo 3? 100%? 200%? 300%? I remember doing ~500% MF runs for D2 and that wasn't even the most MF you could run. I've seen ~40% MF items so far in D3 so breaking 500% or so before NV is possible.

Though, I may be more curious at ~500%+ Gold Find runs. Hm...

Different games are different. The MAX you can get in D3 is less than a third of what you could get in D2.

 

[aliencowz7]

Gold sinks mentioned in this thread don't work though. They're all more punishing to a new player than to an established AH baron. Doubling repairs? doesn't hurt people who can buy gear to not die. Smithing? beginners trap, unless they completely revamp crafting (the jeweler is in better shape since the gems can ONLY be jewelcrafted), smithing absolutely cannot in the long run ever be profitable, once a pattern is profitable and enough people have it, that pattern will cease to be profitable. The AH ensures this. Once it's not profitable, it's not something anyone will throw gold at. For example, the Helm of Command, right now if you know that pattern it's a license to print money, because even the worst roll you can get will sell at a profit. Once more people have it? no way. Same goes for any other pattern, if it's profitable to craft everyone will craft it and crash the market.



That's not fixing inflation...that's moving to a higher currency because the older one is irrelevant. IE: Moving from pennies to dollars to 100 dollar bills as your standard of currency.



Compared to the population of D2, the trading communities were small time. You could manage in D2 just fine without touching any of them.

Its nothing like moving from pennies to dollars to 100 dollar bills. You are thinking of it as if sojs or highrunes would have some gold value which is untrue. They become there own different currency to spend on other items. Inflation can't apply to something that is completely new.

Lets say that gold inflation gets so bad that its unviable and the community moves to high gems to trade for items. Gold gets completely dropped for anything aside from repairing like it did in d2 and items take on a new price in high gems. A string of ears may be 5 high gems and a great roll on a storm shield might go for 15 high gems but there is no gold value applied here.

Sure inflation could end up kicking in again, but it certainly fixes the GOLD inflation issues.

 

[scy]

Gold sinks mentioned in this thread don't work though. They're all more punishing to a new player than to an established AH baron. Doubling repairs? doesn't hurt people who can buy gear to not die. Smithing? beginners trap, unless they completely revamp crafting (the jeweler is in better shape since the gems can ONLY be jewelcrafted), smithing absolutely cannot in the long run ever be profitable, once a pattern is profitable and enough people have it, that pattern will cease to be profitable. The AH ensures this. Once it's not profitable, it's not something anyone will throw gold at. For example, the Helm of Command, right now if you know that pattern it's a license to print money, because even the worst roll you can get will sell at a profit. Once more people have it? no way. Same goes for any other pattern, if it's profitable to craft everyone will craft it and crash the market.

Gambling is gambling, I suppose. But, you're right, more and more crafting just gets more items on the market which drives the price back down. Whether or not the price drops _below_ crafting costs is another matter entirely, however.

Also why we kind of need BoE to just be removing items so there needs to be some crafting to at least keep up the item supply. But it still won't fix the solution forever. That's why I'm suggesting making the Gems more important to cause people to sink gold into them. Find other ways to sink money by the player to try and drive down total gold in the wild. I'm not sure if that will work alone, however, as prices need to adjust to match the loss of gold in the economy.

We may just need ladder resets once a lot of other small changes occur and let the economy rebuild itself over and over rather than trying and fix something already at critical mass.

 

[Opiate]

Evidenced how?

I provided concurrent users on D2JSP (which, again, drew more traffic than GAF does). These are recent figures by the way; not five years ago, when D2 was in its "prime."

Do you really think more than maybe 5% of all D2 players EVER visited these sites?

I don't think much more than 5% of total D2 players were still playing it significantly after 6 months, let alone visiting trading forums. The game sustained for a long time -- it sold well over 10 Million copies -- but certainly no more than 500k-1000k were long time consistent players for years on end.

How small do you really think the game was? The numbers you're pulling out are absolutely miniscule compared to the size of the community.

No, it really isn't. I'm not sure you understand how concurrent statistics work. GAF may only have 5k members on at any given time, but more than 100k people have signed up for the site.

 

[Shouta]

Man, AH prices are so bad right now. Everything is just so overpriced. I can't even get essences because Commodities are down too, blegh. Stupid Blizzard.

 

[scy]

Different games are different. The MAX you can get in D3 is less than a third of what you could get in D2.

I realize that. That's why I'm just wondering what people have, not really as any "D2 X% MF did Y" kind of comparison. The effective max for Diablo 3 MF seems to be closer to 700% after NV so I'm just wondering what people are running compared to that.

A string of ears may be 5 high gems and a great roll on a storm shield might go for 15 high gems but there is no gold value applied here.

Well, those gems do have a gold cost still.

 

[arts&crafts]

GAF I found bulkathos ring with these stats

9min damage
77 str
+120 life on hit
+4 % life
crit damage 25%
52 life per second


is it worth anything? The ah is hard to tell because they all have different stats

 

[TheYanger]

Its nothing like moving from pennies to dollars to 100 dollar bills. You are thinking of it as if sojs or highrunes would have some gold value which is untrue. They become there own different currency to spend on other items. Inflation can't apply to something that is completely new.

Lets say that gold inflation gets so bad that its unviable and the community moves to high gems to trade for items. Gold gets completely dropped for anything aside from repairing like it did in d2 and items take on a new price in high gems. A string of ears may be 5 high gems and a great roll on a storm shield might go for 15 high gems but there is no gold value applied here.

Sure inflation could end up kicking in again, but it certainly fixes the GOLD inflation issues.

That's simply not true though, it doesn't fix the issue. It means inflation has risen so much that your old currency is literally value-less. That's not transcending the problem, that's an example of just how bad the problem is. It is EXACTLY like the Zimbabwe example given earlier. Inflation took over so much that gold had no value (I would argue gold never had a value in D2 since it was never useful), then SoJs got duped and all over the place, they became the new currency out of necessity because we were in a barter system, then inflation kept occuring and THEY became too ludicrously inflated, so you have to then move to runes. this isn't some sort of 'fixing' system, this is symptomatic of the system being absolutely broken. The same thing is happening to D3 before our very eyes, but due to the AH we're forced to remain with gold. I can easily see it becoming barter-based very quickly if this keeps up, nobody will want to liquify their assets for fear of inflation reducing their net worth overnight.

Anyone that isn't remaining incredibly solid in terms of what they have on them is already in for a rude awakening the way things have gone.

 

[MisterAnderson]

If they add BoE, I will probably stop playing the game.

 

[aliencowz7]

Man, AH prices are so bad right now. Everything is just so overpriced. I can't even get essences because Commodities are down too, blegh. Stupid Blizzard.

For whatever its worth, I can't see it getting any better till something changes. Stuff on sites like D2JSP are already selling for vast amounts more then they are on the AH and once people catch on its only going to get worse on the AH.

Legendaries people were selling for a couple hundred K on the AH I see people actually buying on D2JSP on a normal basis for millions.

 

[NaturalHigh]

At this point I think its fine that they are seeing how stuff is playing out, patching crazy amounts of stuff so soon after launching and letting the community figure out how the playerbase is going to play is a good thing.

I think we can start getting worried if there isn't any major patches in the next month or two but before then its just a waiting game.

Honestly, I'd like them to patch up all the main issues. Figure out how to balance loot and all that. Then start up ladder seasons and reset everyone. I'm sure this would piss a lot of people off. But I think in a game like this (especially when it comes time to PvP), you will need ladder and non-ladder. At least that is my opinion.

 

[scy]

Legendaries people were selling for a couple hundred K on the AH I see people actually buying on D2JSP on a normal basis for millions.

...

...

Hm.

 

[LordCanti]

Man, AH prices are so bad right now. Everything is just so overpriced. I can't even get essences because Commodities are down too, blegh. Stupid Blizzard.

Tell me about it. An extra million gold will buy you like 100 more DPS on a crossbow right now at the 1000-1100 range. It's insane.

 

[TheYanger]

I provided concurrent users on D2JSP (which, again, drew more traffic than GAF does). These are recent figures by the way; not five years ago, when D2 was in its "prime."

I don't think much more than 5% of total D2 players were still playing it significantly after 6 months, let alone visiting trading forums. The game sustained for a long time -- it sold well over 10 Million copies -- but certainly no more than 500k-1000k were long time consistent players for years on end.

No, it really isn't. I'm not sure you understand how concurrent statistics work. GAF may only have 5k members on at any given time, but more than 100k people have signed up for the site.

I realize you gave recent numbers, but those are sort of irrelevant, is it any surprise that TEN YEARS after a game comes out more of the players left are of the enthusiast crowd? I would argue your average Everquest player is much more informed than the average player 10 years ago as well. Even using your own numbers, let's look at your 500-1m players number, if you think 100k all time users on d2jsp is a significant number of that you're high. That's a NOTABLE number sure, but it's certainly still a niche in the big picture. To use these numbers as an argument that the AH/economy is fun for a majority of Diablo players is ludicrous. The game isn't intended to be an economic simulator, it happened in D2 out of necessity at first, and it sustained over the years as an enthusiast population.

 

[J0dy77]

Hm. If you go block, Helm of Command (...Helm) and Justice Lantern (Ring) are nice for their +Block; String of Ears (Belt) is nice for general damage mitigation.

There's some set bonuses that are nice. Inna's, the Monk set, has some good slots but the Pants currently have non-working +Attack Speed on them. A lot of the Legendary and Set Rings/Amulets are pretty good too.

Legendary weapons are pretty much always shit though

That's what I was thinking. Go for some nice rings and amulet and build around that. I actually got the Inna's pants as a drop and promptly sold them due to the broken IAS. Without it they're pretty bad.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[aliencowz7]

That's simply not true though, it doesn't fix the issue. It means inflation has risen so much that your old currency is literally value-less. That's not transcending the problem, that's an example of just how bad the problem is. It is EXACTLY like the Zimbabwe example given earlier. Inflation took over so much that gold had no value (I would argue gold never had a value in D2 since it was never useful), then SoJs got duped and all over the place, they became the new currency out of necessity because we were in a barter system, then inflation kept occuring and THEY became too ludicrously inflated, so you have to then move to runes. this isn't some sort of 'fixing' system, this is symptomatic of the system being absolutely broken. The same thing is happening to D3 before our very eyes, but due to the AH we're forced to remain with gold. I can easily see it becoming barter-based very quickly if this keeps up, nobody will want to liquify their assets for fear of inflation reducing their net worth overnight.

Anyone that isn't remaining incredibly solid in terms of what they have on them is already in for a rude awakening the way things have gone.

Thats kind of what I was getting at in a way, I may have not communicated it well. I think the game will eventually go to a barter system over the gold system due to inflation which then becomes new stuff becoming the currency as stuff becomes inflated which in itself kind of fixes the problem well enough. If we constantly get new currencies then that works just fine to keep the economy afloat.

Honestly, I'd like them to patch up all the main issues. Figure out how to balance loot and all that. Then start up ladder seasons and reset everyone. I'm sure this would piss a lot of people off. But I think in a game like this (especially when it comes time to PvP), you will need ladder and non-ladder. At least that is my opinion.

I think some form of ladders are inevitable really. At least if they intend to have the game run for a long lifespan. I can't really think of any downside to implementing a ladder system as long as you can withstand the initial bitching of people that don't like change.

 

[inky]

If they add BoE, I will probably stop playing the game.

If they do it will probably be a last resort kind of measure but I agree, even if necessary it is a completely anti-fun mechanic. Meh, I don't know what to even do. I am having fun, but seems limited to how much bullshit I can get away from. I also enjoy the AH game, but the current interface makes it such a bore to even bother with it. I am suspecting another week before I'm done with the game until there are some significant changes. One man can only be disappointed so many times during these many hours of playtime. At least I have GW 2 to look forward to during the weekend.

 

[Opiate]

That's simply not true though, it doesn't fix the issue. It means inflation has risen so much that your old currency is literally value-less. That's not transcending the problem, that's an example of just how bad the problem is. It is EXACTLY like the Zimbabwe example given earlier. Inflation took over so much that gold had no value (I would argue gold never had a value in D2 since it was never useful), then SoJs got duped and all over the place, they became the new currency out of necessity because we were in a barter system, then inflation kept occuring and THEY became too ludicrously inflated, so you have to then move to runes. this isn't some sort of 'fixing' system, this is symptomatic of the system being absolutely broken. The same thing is happening to D3 before our very eyes, but due to the AH we're forced to remain with gold. I can easily see it becoming barter-based very quickly if this keeps up, nobody will want to liquify their assets for fear of inflation reducing their net worth overnight.

Anyone that isn't remaining incredibly solid in terms of what they have on them is already in for a rude awakening the way things have gone.

A primary driver of SoJ inflation was duplication, however, which isn't thus far a concern.

In Diablo 2, Inflation occured both because of botting and because of duping; in Diablo 3, we have botting and (thus far) no duping. Regardless, I agree with you -- I don't think eliminating duplication is enough. You have to eliminate duping and also minimize botting simultaneously or inflation will still occur. All the gold sinks in the world will not solve that problem if bots can manufacture gold at an overwhelming pace in large numbers.

 

[Trojita]

Started playing a Witch Doctor. I wasn't expecting to like him so much, it is just so different compared to the other classes.

Had to look up an African name for him. Found a name I like that the Kru people of Liberia use.

 

[scy]

I realize you gave recent numbers, but those are sort of irrelevant, is it any surprise that TEN YEARS after a game comes out more of the players left are of the enthusiast crowd? I would argue your average Everquest player is much more informed than the average player 10 years ago as well. Even using your own numbers, let's look at your 500-1m players number, if you think 100k all time users on d2jsp is a significant number of that you're high. That's a NOTABLE number sure, but it's certainly still a niche in the big picture. To use these numbers as an argument that the AH/economy is fun for a majority of Diablo players is ludicrous. The game isn't intended to be an economic simulator, it happened in D2 out of necessity at first, and it sustained over the years as an enthusiast population.

Honestly, I'd have been surprised if Diablo 2 in the later years had more than 200k people playing.

But, hell, I didn't even know D2JSP was as big as it is until recently so man, I may be way the fuck off.

 

[Shouta]

For whatever its worth, I can't see it getting any better till something changes. Stuff on sites like D2JSP are already selling for vast amounts more then they are on the AH and once people catch on its only going to get worse on the AH.

Legendaries people were selling for a couple hundred K on the AH I see people actually buying on D2JSP on a normal basis for millions.

Yeah, without some proper changes, I don't think it'll get better. I can't get an upgrade from my 1100 DPS Fist weapon for 7.5 mil right now because of the prices. Any other gear upgrades for my Monk cost several million a pop right now as well, it's disgusting.

On the brightside, I got up to 1805 DEX while keeping 500 Resist and 37k HP. Just 195 more to break the 2k Barrier like I wanted.

Also, might just be me but Wizard gear sells the fastest. All my good crafted Wiz pieces have sold almost instantly and for sick cash.

 

[Mairu]

Man, AH prices are so bad right now. Everything is just so overpriced. I can't even get essences because Commodities are down too, blegh. Stupid Blizzard.

I agree. But apparently we're supposed to enjoy spending hours constantly refreshing the auction house in hopes that we find someone less informed who put something up for a massively reduced price that we'll have less than a second to hit the purchase button for. Maybe it's just me that doesn't enjoy spending time like that on the auction house ;|

 

[TheYanger]

A primary driver of SoJ inflation was duplication, however, which isn't thus far a concern.

In Diablo 2, Inflation occured both because of botting and because of duping; in Diablo 3, we have botting and (thus far) no duping. I don't think this is enough, however. You have to eliminate duping and also minimize botting simultaneously or inflation will still occur. All the gold sinks in the world will not solve that problem.

Agreed completely. And we're going to be stuck with a gold standard regardless because of the AH using it, or the AH becomes completely removed from the game and we move to barter, I find that unlikely of course. It's really distressing to see the game in this state. Basically, you're better off NEVER remaining liquid, and if you need an item you sell something quickly and try to buy your desired item before your gold loses value. It sounds ludicrous but it's SCARY how fast the inflation is happening right now. I've seen prices on items DOUBLE over the course of 48 hours.

 

[TommyT]

Opiate - a few things:

How's your DH doing?

What other sites are like D2JSP and are they even worth it (edit: compared to going to D2JSP)?

Lastly - when's our next bingo !?

Man, AH prices are so bad right now. Everything is just so overpriced. I can't even get essences because Commodities are down too, blegh. Stupid Blizzard.

Yup... Apparently money is easily made at incredible rates (found this out after ~30 minutes of researching).

 

[rCIZZLE]

D2JSP was no where near as significant as you think it was.

Topics: 56,119,597
Posts: 268,274,025

That's the trading forums for d2jsp... think about those numbers for a second.

 

[aliencowz7]

Yeah, without some proper changes, I don't think it'll get better. I can't get an upgrade from my 1100 DPS Fist weapon for 7.5 mil right now because of the prices. Any other gear upgrades for my Monk cost several million a pop right now as well, it's disgusting.

On the brightside, I got up to 1805 DEX while keeping 500 Resist and 37k HP. Just 195 more to break the 2k Barrier like I wanted.

Also, might just be me but Wizard gear sells the fastest. All my good crafted Wiz pieces have sold almost instantly and for sick cash.

Monk is the worse to buy gear for, Not only do you need a single resist , all resist and vitality on the majority of your gear but now it seems you need as much life on hit as possible as well and anything else is worthless.

On top of that since all monks get pidgeonholed into some form of defensive build all the properly itemized gear gets price skewed and you cant reliably farm the same content as wiz and DH do nor do it as effectively to make money

You can tell my main is a monk.

 

[steadfast]

GAF I found bulkathos ring with these stats

9min damage
77 str
+120 life on hit
+4 % life
crit damage 25%
52 life per second


is it worth anything? The ah is hard to tell because they all have different stats

Yeah, that's a great ring. Armor with life on hit is great.

 

[scy]

Yeah, without some proper changes, I don't think it'll get better. I can't get an upgrade from my 1100 DPS Fist weapon for 7.5 mil right now because of the prices. Any other gear upgrades for my Monk cost several million a pop right now as well, it's disgusting.

On the brightside, I got up to 1805 DEX while keeping 500 Resist and 37k HP. Just 195 more to break the 2k Barrier like I wanted.

Also, might just be me but Wizard gear sells the fastest. All my good crafted Wiz pieces have sold almost instantly and for sick cash.

By the time I farm enough gold to afford the stuff I want for my Monk I won't be able to afford them any more due to the prices going back up. I've kind of given up hope of improving my Wizard outside of drops as it's just not worth it when I farm relatively well as is.

You try out Evade tank with LoH/LpSS? Doing it on the low-end of things in Act 1/Act 2 has been fine for my Monk but it's also Act 1 and Act 2. Kind of looking forward to it at ~1000+ LoH and ~100+ LpSS and 70%+ Dodge. Should be interesting. Hell, Backlash looks promising at 70%+ Dodge!