I speculate that the Auction House greatly reduced this game's difficulty settings.

[mercutiouk]

How do ya'll have enough money to buy stuff off the AH? I'm 55, with BS/JC maxed out as far as hell mode will go, and have like 50k max. Stuff on the AH is like 500k.

Or you could actually, you know, use the tool rather than just clicking the search button and expecting it to give awesome results.

Theres:

type of item
rarity of item
level range of item
stat 1 with a minimum amount
stat 2 with a minimum amount
stat 3 with a minimum amount
max buyout

All available to filter a bit.
Beyond that you can then click the columns to put stuff in buyout order small to big.
It also by default will filter by stuff your current character can use or you can use the dropdown to select a different character or a class.

It takes about 15 seconds and an IQ bigger than the average shoe size to remove the pointless 500k auctions and get stuff that's actually worth buying for a reasonable price.

[Deleted]

instead of buying from the AH we should just run past hard mobs and loots chests alot to update our gear.. yes thats much better

If loot wasnt totally random then it would be fine, but in order to get the gear you want you have to either trade, buy or craft over and over again.. nothing wrong with buying from the AH.

[Deleted]

The limitation of 10 items on the AH per account lowers the general price level of items to improve the flow of the market. And the fact that you're able to reuse items means that there will always be a huge supply of good items which again will lower the price level.
So now you have tons of cheap useful items on auction house which in most cases are better itemized and higher level than your own boss drops and the items you can craft yourself. Yes, the game becomes tons easier if you sell your rares on the ah, vendor blue items and buy good itemized rares every 6-7 level.

[Ballistic]

The AH neutralized the purpose of the blacksmith, which was a huge disappointment considering how expensive and grindy they made it and how excited I was about it. Also, you can get square gems for 2-4k gold? And it costs how many pages of jewelcrafting and 10s of thousands of gold to level up the guy? To upgrade gems from their basic form costs so much, too, what's the point of even messing with it, seriously.

I've been buying gear on the AH and realized that one of my favorite parts of the game was finding new items that were upgrades. It will be hard to avoid buying weapons, probably easier to avoid buying armor, but it would be plain stupid not to buy gems. Soon the higher tiers will go down and down and down in price.

The AH kind of ruined the whole loot parade feeling of the game. Grinding through the first difficulty level on a new class with twinked out rares with +30 stat gems isn't stimulating or interesting - every single thing that drops is useless to you.

Obviously the answer is "don't buy things on the AH." Some people don't have that kind of control, there are a lot of min/maxers and power levelers etc. who wouldn't be caught dead not buying the best possible gear for their character every couple of levels. They ruin the experience for themselves most likely without realizing it.

Any item with good stats on AH can be claimed via farming or blacksmithing thus your statement is invalid sir.

[Orodoth]

honestly, I've never been a foaming at the mouth, rabid Diablo fan. However, seeing as how promise to pay gave it to me for free, of course I'm going to try it. That being said, I'm not the best player. I was honestly hitting snags on Demon Hunter, playing normal mode. I finally gave in and paid a quick visit to the AH, after dying to the Belial fight about 10 times. While I didn't kill Belial solo, I did notice a huge difference in how much I was knocking a dent in him (a 52 monk IRL friend of mine jumped into my game and pretty much said "So, where are you at in the story line so far"... Yeah, I was carried. But the fact remains, now in act 3, the wave after wave of demons coming my way die almost instantly with AH purchased goods that are my level, instead of 6-8 levels behind; due to the RNG gods hating me on loot drops.

[OrcsRLame]

Any item with good stats on AH can be claimed via farming or blacksmithing thus your statement is invalid sir.

His statement isn't invalid. I wasn't using the AH at first. Around act 3 on normal I was crafting the best one hander I could make on that difficulty. About 4.5k gold cost plus lots of mats per craft. I was hoping to get one with just decent stats for a Barbarian. A little strength, a little vitality, and maybe some elemental damage. Hell, I'd have been happy with strength and elemental damage. 3 Crafts later and the best I got was some minor holy damage and vitality on the weapon.

Then it hit me to go look at the AH. For the price of 10k gold I picked up a weapon that was higher dps than my crafted with a socket, strength, life per hit, vitality and cold damage. Haven't used the BS since. I still keep him up to date because I feel it'll be important on Inferno. The AH is really quite OP though. You can often find amazing gear that is better than anything you could get without extreme luck for a fraction of the price of crafting.

I agree with the OP entirely. AH nerfed the shit out of this game. At least the lower difficulties. I've also found I'm rolling in gold selling blues to the vendor and selling rares on the AH.

[Mur.]

Games these days are what you make them and how you decide play them. Ive been playing through with 2-3 friends, no Ah usage, but is has been one of the most special gaming experiences for a long long time. Playing through with friends is a nice middlegorund, you can share out loot, but only on a very small scale

I would say the simplest solution is to increase required lvl across the board. I think the Ah is a good way to connect players, the problem is low level characters equipping gear that is simply too good for the content. The answer is simple.

[Deleted]

The whole loot and AH system is ill thought out for the most part. I agree, it ruins the levelling experience.

[Deleted]

Kind of a weird statement because I don't particularly grind XP. I do play in a very thorough manner, enjoying exploring all the areas from corner to corner, gathering all the journal files, etc. I was 29, I think, when finished normal. Not sure if that was so abnormal. At least to me, seemed like just the right spot. But regardless if I'm above my level or not, it's kinda wacky that I'm considered overgeared when decked in blues required for 2-4 below me. To me, that's kinda normal. If you're in gear significantly below that, like 8+ levels, it seems you're undergeared, which is the type of gear I generally find.

I finished normal at 30 I think. Yet I found lots of gear with say req lv 32 in act 1 nightmare, beginning. Never had this issue.
Haven't bought a single piece from ah btw

[Maelstrom51]

I agree that the AH makes the game easier, but I have fun on the auction house.
I've made over 3 million gold buying low and selling high so far. Also got some of the best gear in the process.

[Deleted]

Don't really think it is a bad thing for the majoritity of the player base. Up to personal choice whether to buy or not, I for one had to buy in order to defeat diablo on hell since the spawned add in the shadow realm just one shotted me each time with a health pool of 14k. Just had no luck with drops whatsoever for rings and necks, just getting the empty ones with only one socket to put in. If you find this abusing the system for easy progress it is your opinion, I personally disagree unless they added something alike reforging in this game. Game is not biased around the first rush, there is still hardcore to defeat and whatnot, goodluck getting a freeroll from gear there if you think it is such a huge deal. Items on the AH are earned by people progressing aswell.

[Elial]

His statement isn't invalid. I wasn't using the AH at first. Around act 3 on normal I was crafting the best one hander I could make on that difficulty. About 4.5k gold cost plus lots of mats per craft. I was hoping to get one with just decent stats for a Barbarian. A little strength, a little vitality, and maybe some elemental damage. Hell, I'd have been happy with strength and elemental damage. 3 Crafts later and the best I got was some minor holy damage and vitality on the weapon.

Then it hit me to go look at the AH. For the price of 10k gold I picked up a weapon that was higher dps than my crafted with a socket, strength, life per hit, vitality and cold damage. Haven't used the BS since. I still keep him up to date because I feel it'll be important on Inferno. The AH is really quite OP though. You can often find amazing gear that is better than anything you could get without extreme luck for a fraction of the price of crafting.

I agree with the OP entirely. AH nerfed the shit out of this game. At least the lower difficulties. I've also found I'm rolling in gold selling blues to the vendor and selling rares on the AH.

I kind of feel the same way, I don't really craft stuff either, since especially now it costs about 10k just to try to craft it. However I have quite a few friends who will whisper me and go "Oh hey, I found this really cool item, I play wizard so I don't really need it" and then they proceed to give me loot I probably would've bought on the AH, so essentially the end result is the same XD Just the Auction house is having friends like that, but at a price ^^

[Tokas]

i must agree, i buy new weapons in ah from time to time, and it's just... incredible how much better i become just by spending 5 minutes @ ah.
but that's normal and nightmare, i suppose hell and inferno will still rape me with whatever gear