The Gold Problem

[quadratimkreis]

The problem with Blizzard's approach to the gold problem is that it punishes legitimate players. Sure, the new repair costs don't cause problems for people who buy gold from third parties, and they can afford it...but those of us who don't are left at a distinct disadvantage.

[Lathais]

Items on the Auction house are always going to be overpriced because people will assume that maybe one day, they'll sell a weapon for 500million. Go to your class forums or the trading forums on the battle.net/d3 website and there are quite often people selling gear there for much more reasonable prices. In the Wizard forum there are 1000 dps 1handers with good stats that go for 5-6 million which is a good price.

(note that the class forums aren't actually meant for trading, but a lot of it happens there anyway)

I don't want to go to forums to trade with people, I don't want to fall victim the trade window scam where they remove the items between the time you put the gold up and you click accept. Happened to friends of mine, and Blizz will do nothing about it. Their answer is to use the AH. If that is the answer, they need to fix the AH economy. Simple as that.

---------- Post added 2012-06-26 at 10:58 AM ----------

For those that have said they wished there was no AH at all, well, I for one like the concept of it, the implementation is horrid though. It really moves all the trading in-game instead of on forums and having to spam chats. It's a really neat idea. I think the problem was that the beta test was entirely too small. Only letting us play a small portion of the game and them not having enough internal tester, and those internal testers apparently only playing the way the game is supposed to be played, left a lot of problems that people and bots found after release. Farming resplendent chest spawns, farming ashes for gold, barrel farming...a larger beta test, or actually thinking about these things, would have prevented a lot of these things that got exploited by botters from even making it into the game. Seeing as they did make it into the game, a lot of gold was made very quickly and that inflated the economy.

The fact that crafting was useless compared to the AH also didn't help. Crafting was supposed to be a gold sink, and it wasn't. Instead of sinking gold into crafting, people avoided it entirely, pumping more gold into the economy. What the game needs at this point to stabilize it is more gold sinks. The repair costs is going to help, but it is too little too late. They need to remove mass amounts of gold from the economy, in a way that will hurt your farmers/bots/AH snipers more than your average player. They have to be very careful how they do it though. One idea I just had is make pots better. Make them work the way they did in D2 where they give you a nice Hot, but only make them available from vendors and make them pricey. Or make it so the only way to make HoT pots is through a new crafter, combining regular pots, and make the crafting expensive. Something that people would almost have to use that would cost a lot to create another gold sink.

I guess something else entirely that would possibly work is to add a lot of gold. Make it easier for people to make as much gold the bots. Make items that you vendor sell for more, 10-20x the current amount. Vendoring items is crap right now, and sadly, it's one of the best ways to make gold. If we could all make more gold selling blues and rares to vendors, playing the game the way it was intended, then maybe we could all make gold and live in the inflated economy.

[aeir]

I don't want to go to forums to trade with people, I don't want to fall victim the trade window scam where they remove the items between the time you put the gold up and you click accept. Happened to friends of mine, and Blizz will do nothing about it. Their answer is to use the AH. If that is the answer, they need to fix the AH economy. Simple as that.

Maybe if he used his eyes, he wouldn't have been scammed? Or at least made him press first?

Anyway, most items that are horribly overpriced and the 100mil-500mil etc. are never bought. You can mostly get FINE gear for less gold if you know how to arrange what kind of items you need. Bought a set for my barb for less than a million, then a set for my DH for the gear I got to grind on my barb+AH again less than a mil. DH is act 4, barb I use for act1-2-3 farm.

It's not has bad as people think.

[Shinzai]

The problem with Blizzard's approach to the gold problem is that it punishes legitimate players. Sure, the new repair costs don't cause problems for people who buy gold from third parties, and they can afford it...but those of us who don't are left at a distinct disadvantage.

Unless you're performing constant corpse runs and going afk in the middle of fights, there's no way you can't make enough gold to repair your gear easily. An hour play on Hell act3-4 or Inferno act1-2 is easily 100k gold made. After repairs.

[Lathais]

Maybe if he used his eyes, he wouldn't have been scammed? Or at least made him press first?

Anyway, most items that are horribly overpriced and the 100mil-500mil etc. are never bought. You can mostly get FINE gear for less gold if you know how to arrange what kind of items you need. Bought a set for my barb for less than a million, then a set for my DH for the gear I got to grind on my barb+AH again less than a mil. DH is act 4, barb I use for act1-2-3 farm.

It's not has bad as people think.

No, there is a program out there that removes the items and re-clicks accept faster than you can see. It's a scam, it's a third party program, it's something you cannot easily avoid happening to you. He did check the items, they were there, they were what he wanted. He put the gold in, clicked accept, lost the gold, got no items. This has happened to a couple people I know and I have seen a few forum posts about it as well.

Also, I too have decent items, the problem becomes when you want to upgrade those decent items.

[Kujako]

Dont worry. Soon you will be able to spend real money to buy fake money to buy virtual items. PROBLEM SOLVED!

[IIamaKing]

He has some flaws. I really dont think there are people out there running 50 copies of the game and botting, and the only reason items on the ah are going for over 100mill are because people are just listing them high and no one buys it.

Yeh you can choose to not believe that but that, in addition to hacked accounts, is where gold selling sites get their gold. A for your other point, out side of actualy selling an item for 100 mil there is no way to know.

As for the OP I agree. Unless Blizz acts it will only get worse as more gold floods the market. But IMO I believe Blizz could give 2 shits I believe they want you to buy gold with money from the RMAH. There is plenty of design choices they have made they seem to force people to the AH and with prices obscenely high to the RMAH.

[Lethey Alexandros]

Gold purge. It sounds harsh but really its gunna be the only way to control the market since there will forever be bot armys out there farming like crazy. Blizz should just periodicaly take account above X ammount of gold and take anything above X amount away.

I know this idea will get flack and people will disagree with it but unless blizzard takes some sort of drastic action towards controling the diablo 3 economey you are gunna end up with another Lineage2. Its a pretty game and it fun but cant do shit on it cause the economey is controled by botters and the ingame currency has no value.

[Funt Case]

If all the people actually farming gold to buy items actually farmed items instead, hardly anyone would be complaining

[Lathais]

Gold purge. It sounds harsh but really its gunna be the only way to control the market since there will forever be bot armys out there farming like crazy. Blizz should just periodicaly take account above X ammount of gold and take anything above X amount away.

I know this idea will get flack and people will disagree with it but unless blizzard takes some sort of drastic action towards controling the diablo 3 economey you are gunna end up with another Lineage2. Its a pretty game and it fun but cant do shit on it cause the economey is controled by botters and the ingame currency has no value.

Seeing as gold has a cash value there is no way they could do this without serious legal ramifications. It's a good idea, just impossible to implement. Therefore they need to put some other types of gold sinks in the game that people have to use to get the same effect.

---------- Post added 2012-06-26 at 11:36 AM ----------

If all the people actually farming gold to buy items actually farmed items instead, hardly anyone would be complaining

I do farm items, weeks and weeks of farming items and only getting 1-2 decent items that now don't even sell on AH for vendor prices.

[Vongimi]

He has some flaws. I really dont think there are people out there running 50 copies of the game and botting, and the only reason items on the ah are going for over 100mill are because people are just listing them high and no one buys it.

But there are... Im 100% serious, there are, and its even more than 50 in some cases. Gold sellers are making BANK off this game.

[Lathais]

He has some flaws. I really dont think there are people out there running 50 copies of the game and botting, and the only reason items on the ah are going for over 100mill are because people are just listing them high and no one buys it.

Maybe there are not people doing it, but there sure as hell are companies doing it. The gold selling companies, or individuals that sell directly to the gold sellers. You bet your ass there are.

[Cairhiin]

We just need a new ladder to counter the damage bots and bugs have done, preferably within a month or so.

No, you don't lose your current progress or gears, just imagine it being a brand new ranked realm for 'world firsts' until another new ladder appears like the old D2 model.

I would really be in favour of this. It worked great in Diablo 2 and I don't understand why they didn't continue with that in Diablo 3. Ladder resets were exciting. Starting over from scratch made the game feel new.

[digger66]

I would really be in favour of this. It worked great in Diablo 2 and I don't understand why they didn't continue with that in Diablo 3. Ladder resets were exciting. Starting over from scratch made the game feel new.

I did not play diablo 2 can you explain what exactly is a ladder reset?

[Ordrek]

This was a very foreseeable "problem" (not a problem for everyone, especially Blizz with RMAH). My solution is like a previous poster in the thread: I ignore the AH and pretend this is a single player game, or only play with friends doing the same. It makes the increasing difficulty levels extremely difficult/challenging, but I'm only competing against myself.

Sure, I'm not playing the game "as intended," but it fits my casual play style. I stopped pursuing the top end of gear grind games back in my EQ days and I've enjoyed these kinds of games far more ever since (EX: I only play twinks in WoW). Gear grind games remind me of this PSA.

[probert]

WoW implemented "Bind on Pickup" as a mechanic, to combat the inflation and item problems of Diablo 2.

But to make RMAH work, they needed to elimninate BoP as a mechanic. And guess what happens?


I've been tracking an item as a generic example of inflation. 1 handed dps weapon -- doesn't matter what stats it has -- 1k dps. Just a basic, 1k dps item as a stat stick, this isn't even the good stuff. Something you'd want to do late act 1/early act 2 inferno with.

June 6th - 1.5m gold for 1k dps buyout
June 13th - 3m gold for 1k dps buyout
June 16th - 2.2m gold for 1k dps buyout (RMAH launch)
June 20th - 3.9m gold for 1k dps buyout. RMAH is $27.
June 25 -- 4.8m gold for 1k dps buyout. RMAH is $17.5 USD.
June 26 -- 5m gold for 1k one hand dps buyout. RMAH is $15 USD.

So RMAH prices are coming down, but gold auction house prices continue to climb. Blizzard always claimed RMAH would relieve pressure on the gold AH, but that has not happened.

This is for a *basic* item, mostly trash blues one handers.

Inflation is a huge problem with this game. In a few months time, you will only be able to grind for gear as a new character to inferno, and never catch up to buying gear on the AH unless you will the RNG lottery.

[Kathandira]

I Been thinking what the OP's friend suggested. Cap the buyouts on items at 1mil. Thinking of longevity, what will happen when PvP comes out? There will be a legitimate reason to have BiS gear. When the reason is so important, the prices are only going to get higher. Think 500mil is bad? how bout 100bil? You want that sword or crossbow or what have you that has the highest possible value or the best possible stat line up? You are going to pay out the wazoo for it.

Atm, it's not so bad since it is just PvE and you can get by on sub BiS gear and still farm the crap out of all of inferno, but when PvP is released it is going to be a whole different ball game.

[Coar]

Ladder resets please thanks

[Cairhiin]

I did not play diablo 2 can you explain what exactly is a ladder reset?

Basically you played the game in seasons. You would level up characters on a ladder and when the ladder ended those characters would retire to the normal realm (normal battle.net closed realm) and a new ladder would start. You could continue playing your characters on battle.net or start totally over with a new character during a new ladder season. Every half year or so the entire economy would be wiped, and you'd start totally clean with a new untwinked character. The ladder would also track the highest 100 (think it was 100 not sure anymore though or could be 200) players of each class.

[Kujako]

So RMAH prices are coming down, but gold auction house prices continue to climb. Blizzard always claimed RMAH would relieve pressure on the gold AH, but that has not happened.

Because it was a logical fallacy to expect a real dollar value on an item would do anything other then negatively effect the virtual value. I suspect Blizzard knew this and was being dishonest when they claimed the above. Before the RMAH gold had no intrinsic value, now it does. Put it another way, based on your chart of prices 5 million gold is worth 15$ USD on the current market. So even if you have no interest in spending real money, you could buy the weapon for 5 million gold and resell it for 15$. Given that there is an unlimited source for gold, inflation will continue. I expect it to reach around 1$ per million gold before things start to level out.