The Gold Problem

[digger66]

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.

So I would end up with a lvl 60 toon that i would have to gear out again? That doesn't seem like it would work without stats on our toons, or am I misunderstanding?

I am still not quite grasping the concept.

[melodramocracy]

There is no 'good' solution aside from doing some sort of gold reset that lowers how much everyone has. But then you'll end up with the same expense ratios that you have now.

Forcing sellers to actually spend gold to post an item would lower prices theoretically (ie, you owe a % of whatever you set your now mandatory buyout at if it doesn't sell), but players will simply stop using the AH, or switch to the money one.

[rizzel]

same thing happen in d2, gold worked funny

[Cairhiin]

So I would end up with a lvl 60 toon that i would have to gear out again? That doesn't seem like it would work without stats on our toons, or am I misunderstanding?

I am still not quite grasping the concept.

It doesn't really work in Diablo 3 because there's a level cap. In Diablo 2 the level cap was 99 and that was insanely hard to reach. So every new ladder people would race to be the first 99. Totally from scratch as everything gets reset.

But you don't have to partake in the ladder seasons. You still can just normally play your character outside the realm. And when a ladder ends, all characters get retired to the normal realm.

Another reason why it worked in Diablo 2 is because respeccing was impossible till 1.13. So you basically levelled a new character with an entirely new build. And even after 1.13 respeccing wasn't easy. You had three respecs as quest rewards, and you could respec with special tokens that dropped from Andariel, Mephisto, Diablo and Baal (Hell difficulty). You needed all 4, and they didn't drop every kill. With free respecs in Diablo 3 the concept of re-levelling your character doesn't make much sense as your character is a lot more permanent than in Diablo 2

[Lathais]

How about adding in a "farm mode" where all bosses are up all mobs are up everything is there but no quests, however, it costs you gold to start in this mode. There would have to be some way to make it a lot more lucrative then regular though, or maybe force that mode on people after they have cleared a difficulty. I dunno, silly idea, probably no good but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Deleted]

For someone like blizzard, from a gamers perspective the AH system is a complete shambles as far as I'm concerned. I only use it as I'm virtually forced to.

[Lezarin]

I do think the diablo 2 idea was a good one frustrating then but handy.They put a cap on your gold you,d carry anything over the cap wouldnt be picked up .but you could also store it in your stash but only a set amount which went up by level etc but still well under the silly numbers been posted on the ah at present.

A similier system might be advantagous here aka can only carry say 50k gold on your character and maybe store 500k in your stash etc (random numbers so dont kill me).

It is a silly some of the prices on the ah and for the optimal itemisation you will pay for it personnally i,ve grown rather bored of diablo due too this fact i,d rather farm in wow as its more forthcoming with the grind as in you grind rep for something you want be it gear enchants recipes or mounts etc so there is something valid in this ,where at present in diablo the loot drop can be best described as sticking your hand into a tornado and hoping it comes back with something worthwhile if at all.

[hulkgor]

As many people already said, i'm also one of the players that hates the AH, but use it as i'm forced to hunt upgrades to progress through the game, even farming inferno act 1 2-3 h a day(im mid way through act 2 inf), i get 0 upgrades (hell, 0 items with acceptable stats) besides the occasional fluke with a 'decent' item to sell.

So i'm forced to sell massive amounts of crap (if they drop), to try and purchase that minor upgrade an progress a bit further, whilst having bots hunting the ah for the best items, giving no chance for the regular players on the best deals.

It's pathetic, sad and revolting. I love the gameplay, but the items, the AH, the lack of randomization on the maps (except dungeons\caves) and a lot other features are just awful.

The only thing that might save the game and its economy are regular ladder resets (every 6 months?) and a big overhaul on the item generator and AH usage.

Oh well.

added :

The char\stash gold limits are also good ideas, aswell as the gold cap value on items on the ah... those could keep this under control. But that's not what blizzard wants, they want the gold economy borked.. why? cos people will purchase gold on the rmah... genius.

[Cairhiin]

I do think the diablo 2 idea was a good one frustrating then but handy.They put a cap on your gold you,d carry anything over the cap wouldnt be picked up .but you could also store it in your stash but only a set amount which went up by level etc but still well under the silly numbers been posted on the ah at present.

The problem with that is that gold is useless in such a system as you can't have a currency that's limited. It's the main reason why people traded in SoJs and Perfect gems because gold wasn't worth anything (also because it was too easy too get so items costed insane amounts of gold - so much gold that your character could not even carry hence gold became useless as a currency).

[Gorlak]

I'm happy I haven't bought this game. Seems like there are so many problems. Knowing myself, I'd get frustrated really fast. Sure, I could just have fun just playing the acts, but it would definitely not be wroth $60.

[Daveon]

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.

Inflation is only a problem right now because there are tons of people entering Inferno looking to buy items. As more people are in Inferno, more items will hit the AH, and the price will come down. These things take time.

[Prokne]

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.

Raising the amount of gold you can get in ways that bots arent using would probably be a good way to level the playing field. From what I understand bots normally run lower level difficulties with GF gear and just pick up gold, they dont kill elites and dont really pick up items. If lvl55-60 rares were worth 50k vendor price, some one who gets 20+ in a 5NV run would make over 1 mill gold. The bots would then have to either bot more or reprogram to play the game correctly which would be more complicated.

It wouldnt solve the inflation problem(which would have happened anyway just slower) but it would at least give normal players a fair way to get gold to buy items w/o buying gold.

[DisposableHero]

Each account botting is making 200K-300K gold per hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 6 million accounts, assume botters control ~1% of the accounts, so 60,000 accounts. So that equates to 15 Trillion gold per hour, 360 Trillion gold per day. So every day blizzard must find a way to dissipate 360 trillion gold to prevent inflation. Divide that out among 6 million accounts and it means forcing each player to expend 60 million gold per day on crafting, repairs, etc.

There is no mathematical way for Blizzard to sink anywhere near enough gold from the economy to prevent crazy out of control inflation, the difference between gold in and gold out is probably 10-12 orders of magnitude.

[BLCalliente]

For the love of god if you don't understand even the most basic principles of economics, please don't muck up the conversation.

There might actually be a good idea in here somewhere if you can sift through all the "make it easier to get more gold so we can afford to buy items" posts.

[Lathais]

Raising the amount of gold you can get in ways that bots arent using would probably be a good way to level the playing field. From what I understand bots normally run lower level difficulties with GF gear and just pick up gold, they dont kill elites and dont really pick up items. If lvl55-60 rares were worth 50k vendor price, some one who gets 20+ in a 5NV run would make over 1 mill gold. The bots would then have to either bot more or reprogram to play the game correctly which would be more complicated.

It wouldnt solve the inflation problem(which would have happened anyway just slower) but it would at least give normal players a fair way to get gold to buy items w/o buying gold.

The more I think about it the more I like this idea. I definitely like your addition of it being only certain level items, like 55+, or maybe even 59+, that sell for more. Only items that drop in Inferno would be the best way, but that would be hard to do since a lot of what you get in Inferno also drops in Hell.

I totally agree, it would not solve inflation, but would give us a way to deal with it at least. It may just cause more inflation though, as bots learn to farm these item and sell them.

---------- Post added 2012-06-26 at 12:57 PM ----------

For the love of god if you don't understand even the most basic principles of economics, please don't muck up the conversation.

There might actually be a good idea in here somewhere if you can sift through all the "make it easier to get more gold so we can afford to buy items" posts.

The problem is, the most basic principals of economics only sort of apply in a virtual setting where there are bots doing what no normal human can. It may work in theory, but then the botters find a way around it.

[BLCalliente]

The problem is, the most basic principals of economics only sort of apply in a virtual setting where there are bots doing what no normal human can. It may work in theory, but then the botters find a way around it.

That's not true at all. Bots are increasing the supply of gold. In the real world, The Fed (true, The Fed is no human) is able to increase the supply of money.

As the supply of gold increases, its purchasing power decreases. If there is twice as much gold today as there was yesterday, items will cost twice as much.

[Riptide]

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.

The problem is people may not buy that item, but when YOU find an item that's almost as good or better what do you do? You don't know it's value so you look to the AH see something comparable and undercut the guy with something similar while making it cost more than something worse. You do realize the effect this has right?

I saw a pair of bracers I wanted and would have bought for 65mil/100mil I almost borrowed the gold I needed to bid on them (this was pre rmah when things seemed more tame) Later that day a couple similar bracers went up but they weren't as good. They were listed from 35mil to 80mil. The next day the guys 65/100 mil bracers expired and he relisted them for 65m/90m. They sold shortly after. Granted they were 188 dex,87 vit(almost perfect rolls), 74 all resist, 36 physical resist, 6% crit and LOLHEALTHGLOBES But you honestly won't get better than that for a while, it could have only improved the current rolls and rolled + dmg reduction instead of healthglobes. I'm sure now he could relist those for 150mil and get it.

Anyway the point of that is overnight the above average bracers, we'll call them good, went up from 8-10mil to 40mil and they are selling at that price. This has happened to everything and the prices have remained high. All because 1 guy with a true godly item lists it for a retarded price.

[thedingleberry]

Heavy reliance on the AH to get gear to progress is what drove me away from playing any more Diablo 3. I think the rest of the game is great, but I don't want to have to rely on buying AH items or farming bosses for months to get one perfect drop I need for one slot. At least give the bosses loot tables so it is not total RNG. 100% random stats RNG gets old REALLY FAST.

[Riptide]

Heavy reliance on the AH to get gear to progress is what drove me away from playing any more Diablo 3. I think the rest of the game is great, but I don't want to have to rely on buying AH items or farming bosses for months to get one perfect drop I need for one slot. At least give the bosses loot tables so it is not total RNG. 100% random stats RNG gets old REALLY FAST.

GIMME MY ITAMZ NOW SO I CAN FEEL FULFILLED AND QUIT BECAUSE I HAVE EVERYTHING. See WoW...

[melodramocracy]

For the love of god if you don't understand even the most basic principles of economics, please don't muck up the conversation.

There might actually be a good idea in here somewhere if you can sift through all the "make it easier to get more gold so we can afford to buy items" posts.

Basic economic principles don't really apply in a system where money is essentially limitless.