So i dont get why Diablo 3 "failed"

[Pendulous]

I wonder if the over reliance on the AH in D3 is the reason PoE isnt going to have one? I mean if I was designing a new ARPG and saw how badly D3 was ruined by the AH and how you never get drops from the game and your only gear comes from the AH I wouldnt put anything resembling one close to my game.

Stop looking at the auction house as the problem, when the problem became how the rest of the game was balanced around it. If it were used the way it should have been, there would be nothing wrong with it. And there isn't anythign wrong with it, it's just a different means to finding gear. Case in point....

Honestly I have no idea what was the purpose of AH in D3 ... there were some D2 players who to get the best gear traded with other players and then Blizz made a logical rocket jump that everyone will be happier if they bought their gear on ah instead of having it drop in the game. Personally I don't like it.

The point is the same thing LFG was for in WoW. To stop people from having to sit in chat for hours and hours, instead of actually playing the game. The auction house did not ruin the game. All it is is an alternative to trading. That's it.

[Redblade]

Stop looking at the auction house as the problem, when the problem became how the rest of the game was balanced around it. If it were used the way it should have been, there would be nothing wrong with it. And there isn't anythign wrong with it, it's just a different means to finding gear. Case in point....

The problem with it is accessibility, people will take the path of least resistance, AH is such a path.

The point is the same thing LFG was for in WoW. To stop people from having to sit in chat for hours and hours, instead of actually playing the game. The auction house did not ruin the game. All it is is an alternative to trading. That's it.

Same as the LFG the AH became mandatory to use due to it's accessibility and players desire to travel the path of least resistance, personally I'd say LFG had more negative effects overall than positive, same as the AH for D3. Using the chat and forums to trade works to in PoE just fine, there are tools to search forum post for specific items as well. The difference is that it takes some effort, an effort you can weight against playing the game with the possibility to find your own item instead.

[Tomana]

The problem with it is accessibility, people will take the path of least resistance, AH is such a path.

So what? Is there still other possibilities? Yes. I know people who completed inferno with no AH.

Using the chat and forums to trade works to in PoE just fine, there are tools to search forum post for specific items as well. The difference is that it takes some effort, an effort you can weight against playing the game with the possibility to find your own item instead.

It is not called effort, it is called wasted time. Killing bosses (or mobs, or whatever) is effort. Yes, AH is not a neutral choice, but it's better than trading in channels or forums, D2-style.

[Melt]

I still dont understand why they didnt use a loot system similar to what PoE has going. No items are trash. You can take whites and make them BiS via crafting. Hell even crappy rares can be vendored for useful currency used to craft with. I still cant understand how a multi billion dollar company cant do what a company using funds from players to develop the game can. I just dont see how a reward system based not on how much time spent in game but pure luck is good. Until they added the new crafting recipes I never looted a single upgrade and I have played since launch. In PoE I have two level 70+ characters and have never bought a single upgrade from another player. Everything I wear was either looted or crafted. Or am I wrong in thinking loot is supposed to come from playing the game rather than the AH?

This doesnt make sense. Either an item is better or it is not. PoE feels so rewarding to players because they dont compare their loot to the BiS things that would be posted in the AH. Another reason is that you keep leveling, but rather soon you will hit the EXACT same brick wall that you hit in D3 and it'll take 1 month per upgrade.

[Pendulous]

Same as the LFG the AH became mandatory to use due to it's accessibility and players desire to travel the path of least resistance, personally I'd say LFG had more negative effects overall than positive, same as the AH for D3. Using the chat and forums to trade works to in PoE just fine, there are tools to search forum post for specific items as well. The difference is that it takes some effort, an effort you can weight against playing the game with the possibility to find your own item instead.

There you go. There's the problem. Anytime anyone says "forum" anything in regards to trading in a video game, I just roll my eyes. The whole point is to get your items in the game. Not some forum, and definitely not some third-party site. Yes, I know. There are things that need to be fixed to stop this from happening. Things like raising the auction limit (since some high-end items for for over 2 billion gold). But when you get third party stuff involved that feel necessary, you've already designed something poorly. It's not about the effort, it's about the unnecessity of it. I don't want to sit for hours in chat or in games with stupid names like "brg cc/dex Mempo" for hours and get people laughing at me. Trading was far too ambiguous and did not allow for actual gameplay. Seriously. I spent days in Diablo 2 just sitting in empty (minus bots) games waiting on items I wanted. Fuck that again. I won't do it. Again, the whole point of the auction house is so you will actually play the game (inb4 AH flippers).

[Progressiv]

Look... as an old barb from d2 where i had to work so fucking hard to get the perfect barb (had 37x 32020 permd) and everything perf for BvA, BvB and BvC (sold my barb for 3000$ btw) D2 was pvp based game and i enjoyed it all the time just doing PvP and gearing up perfectly my toons. D3 is too...idk honestly pvp is total shit, gear is not rly viable to all classes, no runewords (ohh man...remember making your first gg runewords?) and theres alot more to say but im stoping right here cuz im getting sad to see how D3 is complete garbage

[Pendulous]

D2 was pvp based game

Um, no it wasn't....

[BenBos]

P

Stop looking at the auction house as the problem, when the problem became how the rest of the game was balanced around it. If it were used the way it should have been, there would be nothing wrong with it. And there isn't anythign wrong with it, it's just a different means to finding gear. Case in point....


The point is the same thing LFG was for in WoW. To stop people from having to sit in chat for hours and hours, instead of actually playing the game. The auction house did not ruin the game. All it is is an alternative to trading. That's it.

Another proof for what you said (for once I agreed) is that the hardcore AH functions almost perfectly.

If you play D3 hardcore you suddenly realise that the AH is a natural help of progression and the game becomes an extreme good/fun resource management system.

2 reasons for that:

1. The HC AH has gear/gold resets all the time as everyone dies at one point. Not all is lost but it is such a drain on resources the game becomes a wonderful balance between grinding, trading, crafting and advancing "over" previous deaths...

2. The HC AH GOLD economy is more "natural" since you can't buy gold as such in game. Of course there are still idiots wanting to buy HC gold from external sources, but that's obviously a minority. The result is that the HC evonomy is limited.

Nothing is more deadly than spending your last hard earned gold on that lvl 63 awesome sword and then die 3 days later with 200k gold left at the bank as your only reserve ... Putting you down on your other lvl 53 with a half filled inventory as a lone reminder of your previously superbly equiped paragon champ...

Awesome game mechanics and so yes, the AH can be handled within a great Diablo game.

The problem is that the Softcore AH doesn't have these resets.

But in HC Diablo 3 beats anything on the market these days. A pity people are afraid to begin playing it. The first 3 deaths are really the start of a very engaging experience, because you built on these deaths...

Also in HC, the gear chase game changes to a survival of the fittest game. That's a complete different goal !

I hope Blizzard recognizes this and a guy like Rob Pardo is sure to see this mechanic.

[Redblade]

So what? Is there still other possibilities? Yes. I know people who completed inferno with no AH.

From a game design perspective it is a problem when one path is so much more efficient that any other is an exercise in masochism.

It is not called effort, it is called wasted time. Killing bosses (or mobs, or whatever) is effort. Yes, AH is not a neutral choice, but it's better than trading in channels or forums, D2-style.

Call it what you want, it's still measured against actually playing the game, in D3 the most efficient way to gear your character is through AH, it's even so much more efficient that it makes the alternative seem impossible.

There you go. There's the problem. Anytime anyone says "forum" anything in regards to trading in a video game, I just roll my eyes. The whole point is to get your items in the game. Not some forum, and definitely not some third-party site.

You don't get it, in PoE you don't have to use the forums or the trade chat unless you must have that specific unique item right then and there. You can however go to the forum or trade chat and look for items of interest if you find it worth your time.

Yes, I know. There are things that need to be fixed to stop this from happening. Things like raising the auction limit (since some high-end items for for over 2 billion gold). But when you get third party stuff involved that feel necessary, you've already designed something poorly.

And people still use d2jsp, raising the AH limit won't change that either. The only third party site that is useful for trading in PoE is a site that searches the official trade forum for you, a smart search if you will. And I do know that people sell items for cash in PoE as well, it just something you can't get rid of as long as there are people wanting to pay real money for items.

At the end of the day you're better of playing the game in PoE than trying to gear your character through trading, unless you're looking for a specific item to complement your build or fix a resistance hole. The exception would be absolute gear perfection where trading always will win due to the very nature of perfection.

It's not about the effort, it's about the unnecessity of it. I don't want to sit for hours in chat or in games with stupid names like "brg cc/dex Mempo" for hours and get people laughing at me. Trading was far too ambiguous and did not allow for actual gameplay. Seriously. I spent days in Diablo 2 just sitting in empty (minus bots) games waiting on items I wanted. Fuck that again. I won't do it. Again, the whole point of the auction house is so you will actually play the game (inb4 AH flippers).

And you don't have to in PoE, as I said there is a site that help search the official trade forums, as such saves you any unnecessary time browsing manually. You can also have trade chat open while playing the game if you're looking for something specific. At the end of the day no one is forcing you to trade though, it's a choice you make as the game and it's itemization allows for you to gear up through playing the game.

In D3 after playing the game for 1000+ hours I'm using one item that is self found, and the only reason for that is that I didn't want to spend gold on a good item over waiting until I could afford a awesome item instead...the thought that I'd find an upgrade never really came to mind as the odds of it happening are so slim.

[Repefe]

The point is the same thing LFG was for in WoW. To stop people from having to sit in chat for hours and hours, instead of actually playing the game. The auction house did not ruin the game. All it is is an alternative to trading. That's it.

That's not the correct analogy is it ... finding/crafting gear is the fun part about hack&slash games. AH turns you finding fun stuff into you grinding crap to buy fun stuff because nothing that drops you can ever beat what you buy on ah. On the other hand looking for players in WoW was questionably form of having fun ... it was not all bad, but in the end it's more fun to play than to look for players.

Nothing is more deadly than spending your last hard earned gold on that lvl 63 awesome sword and then die 3 days later with 200k gold left at the bank as your only reserve ... Putting you down on your other lvl 53 with a half filled inventory as a lone reminder of your previously superbly equiped paragon champ...

Awesome game mechanics and so yes, the AH can be handled within a great Diablo game.

Yeah, this can be true, but the HC mode in D3 is quite underdeveloped feature. Or was, not sure how it changes in recent patched if at all. Again if you compare to PoE with ladders, death announcements, races, support of instant logout instead 10 second of finger, characters just dropping to normal instead of being inaccessible ... I mean how did Blizz support HC mode in D3. You get the permanent death, that's the no effort feature and then what ... in enviroment where you can desync you don't even get instant logout or instant port to camp.

So while default mode in PoE is HC, in D3 HC is feature absolute majority of players passes on.

[Elenion]

Diablo 3 was a commercial success.
Despite the fact its success had a lot to do with success and fame of Diablo 2, which they failed to keep up with its expectation.
For many people, they got the hours of entertainment worth of the money they spent, but it was not good enough to make them keep go back and play for more after while.

[Pendulous]

That's not the correct analogy is it ... finding/crafting gear is the fun part about hack&slash games. AH turns you finding fun stuff into you grinding crap to buy fun stuff because nothing that drops you can ever beat what you buy on ah. On the other hand looking for players in WoW was questionably form of having fun ... it was not all bad, but in the end it's more fun to play than to look for players.

It is a correct analogy. People just keep looking at the wrong thing. If itemization worked the way it did more in Diablo 2, then the auction house would function the way it ought to, eliminating the need to hang around chat rooms all day instead of playing the game. You know, what you do to farm items, playing the game. If finding gear is the fun part of these games (and it is, I'm definitely not disputing that), then what's the point in scouring third party forums and websites, and sitting around all day waiting for the right person with the right item to maybe trade?

[Repefe]

It is a correct analogy. People just keep looking at the wrong thing. If itemization worked the way it did more in Diablo 2, then the auction house would function the way it ought to, eliminating the need to hang around chat rooms all day instead of playing the game. You know, what you do to farm items, playing the game. If finding gear is the fun part of these games (and it is, I'm definitely not disputing that), then what's the point in scouring third party forums and websites, and sitting around all day waiting for the right person with the right item to maybe trade?

You mean it would be correct analogy if the itemization and crafting was proper ... but they are not. Also probably the main issue with AH in D3 is that the items do not get spent thus the inflation is beyond ridiculous. Even if the itemization was done right with insane inflation the items you could get yourself couldn't compete with the growing indestructable pool of items that AH acumulates.

[MoanaLisa]

By that fabulous logic, D2 was in open beta until at least patch 1.09. And SC was in open beta until BW 1.05 or something in that tune.

As a practical matter, any game that gets updated in the way that Blizzard updates their games is more or less in beta until they stop updating it. That's a blessing in one sense because improvement and paying attention to the game should be a good thing. That doesn't excuse the plain fact that lack of an actual thorough beta pre-launch was a catastrophe.

[Redblade]

eliminating the need to hang around chat rooms all day instead of playing the game.

You make it sound like it's some back room you have to sit around in doing nothing else, unless you're totally impaired when it comes to multitasking that you can't read while you play that's just not the case.

If finding gear is the fun part of these games (and it is, I'm definitely not disputing that), then what's the point in scouring third party forums and websites, and sitting around all day waiting for the right person with the right item to maybe trade?

You could ask the same about the AH, the difference is accessibility, the AH makes it easy enough that the player won't go "it's not worth the effort" and continue to play the game instead.

Even if the itemization was done right with insane inflation the items you could get yourself couldn't compete with the growing indestructable pool of items that AH acumulates.

This just adds to the problem, people will fill their AH slots at all times saturating the market.

In a game where trading takes some effort and maintenance the seller will evaluate the items much more to make sure the reward of selling it is worth the effort needed to sell it in the first place. On the other end the buyer needs to evaluate he's time spent looking for items versus just playing the game, this reducing demand on mediocre items again getting more items discarded.

[Purple]

It is a correct analogy. People just keep looking at the wrong thing. If itemization worked the way it did more in Diablo 2, then the auction house would function the way it ought to, eliminating the need to hang around chat rooms all day instead of playing the game. You know, what you do to farm items, playing the game. If finding gear is the fun part of these games (and it is, I'm definitely not disputing that), then what's the point in scouring third party forums and websites, and sitting around all day waiting for the right person with the right item to maybe trade?

I have to agree with this, for me that's what the AH should be.. but I definitely can't say that's what it is.