AH "really hurt the game" - Wilson

[traen]

What did they expect though? People wouldn't use the AH to offset utterly atrocious RNG? 30 lvls on my WD without a fucking upgrade .

And the RNG wasn't *fixed* to drop crap all the time.

There is no magical "RNG" in this game that is much different from any other rpg.

Random is fair and reliable. I've never seen any unlucky person in d3. I've never seen anyone exceptionally below average.

The difference between d2 and d3 is that in d2 it was ridiculously easy to hit the gearing "ceiling".
In d3 "ceiling" is high, it was designed so you never can hit it, so you always have room for improvement.

When you come to the game with unlimited gearing ceiling and after few month of playing you blame RNG that you did not hit it, it's beyond ridiculous. You are an average player and after playing your time you got average items that other people who played as much as you did got.

There are a lot of badly designed and unbalanced things in the game, but RNG certainly works as intended. Blame something else.

[Vespian]

There is no magical "RNG" in this game that is much different from any other rpg.

Random is fair and reliable. I've never seen any unlucky person in d3. I've never seen anyone exceptionally below average.

You have never seen an unlucky person in D3, because there are only lucky people in D3. Do you even understand what you just said yourself? No one gets lucky in D3. Because everything is shite. You can't get unlucky, when the games design is for people to be unlucky. You can only be extremely lucky. Which is the design philosophy. When 3.000.000 people play your game, you want to manage how many good items hit your auction house, otherwise there would only be inflation. And there you have it, not only the counter argument to your "unlucky" theory, but also the reason why D3 is the first of all RNG machines where the drops are actually rigged.

The difference between d2 and d3 is that in d2 it was ridiculously easy to hit the gearing "ceiling".
In d3 "ceiling" is high, it was designed so you never can hit it, so you always have room for improvement.

I'm not sure what to say. On one side my mind wants to agree with you, because with D3's stale and static class experience, you hardly want to keep rerolling characters. But while I form that thought in my head, it also cries out for reason. What the hell are we doing? So by allowing minimum and maximum stats to have such a huge gap that it's almost impossible to roll "the perfect" item, the game gains more life? Really? That is our defense?

When you come to the game with unlimited gearing ceiling and after few month of playing you blame RNG that you did not hit it, it's beyond ridiculous. You are an average player and after playing your time you got average items that other people who played as much as you did got.

There are a lot of badly designed and unbalanced things in the game, but RNG certainly works as intended. Blame something else.

Newsflash, but this is not about my mediocrity. This is about the reason for my lack of interest in the game, and many more people with me. My friends, that were all die-hard DII players, just like me, quit within the first month. They immediately acknowledged the problems and knew that "grind" had just been reinvented. If DII is a chinese farmer game, then DIII is chinese farmer heaven.

[glowpipe]

Ah isn the problem in d3. you could also trade items in d2. Its just easier in d3.

The problem is that there is like a total of 10 useful legendary items out of like 100.

For a 1 handed legendary its only echoing fury that can be good.
For a DH its only manticore.
And for a 2 hander. Its only skorn that is useable.

Hopefuly loot 2.0 will fix this issue and the game will be decent

[traen]

You have never seen an unlucky person in D3, because there are only lucky people in D3. Do you even understand what you just said yourself? No one gets lucky in D3. Because everything is shite. You can't get unlucky, when the games design is for people to be unlucky. You can only be extremely lucky. Which is the design philosophy. When 3.000.000 people play your game, you want to manage how many good items hit your auction house,

No one is managing anything. No one but players.

There are no unlucky people. It's the same as calling all 7 billion people in the world unlucky because they are not millionairs. It does not make any sense.

And now I'll tell you another secret. There are no "shit drops" in the game either. You can make every item that drops trifesta with 10x more stats than it has now, and it will change nothing. In 2 month you'll come here again whining that everything you farm is shit because you are unlucky.

I'm not sure what to say. On one side my mind wants to agree with you, because with D3's stale and static class experience, you hardly want to keep rerolling characters. But while I form that thought in my head, it also cries out for reason. What the hell are we doing? So by allowing minimum and maximum stats to have such a huge gap that it's almost impossible to roll "the perfect" item, the game gains more life? Really? That is our defense?

It's not "almost impossible", it's just impossible.
The chance to get a perfect rare item is significantly less than 1/(number of atoms in the universe).

But I don't see your point.
You can easily get about 70% perfect gear after 3 month of everyday farming and smart using AH.
Top geared players probably have 80% perfect gear.
40-50% perfect gear is pretty much free, any noob can have it for 50k a piece.

Let's say we shifted numbers a little bit.
Top geared players got 100%.
3-month farmers got 98-99% gear.
95-97% perfect gear is for free on AH.

Now answer me a simple question - why would players bother getting better gear if the difference between perfect gear and non-perfect gear will be just 2-5% perfection and it won't affect your gameplay pretty much at all?

Before writing an answer keep in mind that you can't change perfection percentage distribution (you can't shift it to 80-90-100, if you want 100 to be the highest number it has to be 95-98-100%), because the only thing that affects it is the number of players and amount of time they spend in the game.

[Vespian]

But I don't see your point. .

You can easily get about 70% perfect gear after 3 month of everyday farming and smart using AH.
.

BAM, my point.

(I'm keeping it short, because when someone starts to argue that a chance is no chance, it might simply be time to back out of a discussion, because nothing can be gained here)

Also, just an fyi, because I think you missed more than just the point, this is about overall average usefulness of gear that dropped throughout the game. Not end-game, not early game, at all stages of the game. So far (I started anew), I found two uniques and those are the only items I have actually been able to use. The other (rare) items weren't just bad, they were worse than bad.

In Diablo II, I would find rares that had a purpose beyond the vendor. That's what this is about. Not about the top5% distribution, but about selfsustainability (it's a word that means WITHOUT the AH).

[traen]

BAM, my point.

(I'm keeping it short, because when someone starts to argue that a chance is no chance, it might simply be time to back out of a discussion, because nothing can be gained here)

Also, just an fyi, because I think you missed more than just the point, this is about overall average usefulness of gear that dropped throughout the game. Not end-game, not early game, at all stages of the game. So far (I started anew), I found two uniques and those are the only items I have actually been able to use. The other (rare) items weren't just bad, they were worse than bad.

In Diablo II, I would find rares that had a purpose beyond the vendor. That's what this is about. Not about the top5% distribution, but about selfsustainability (it's a word that means WITHOUT the AH).

I'm still missing your point, sorry.

Bla-bla-bla, good old d2 times, bla-bla-bla, bad drop, bla-bla-bla unlucky.

How do you want to change d3 itemization exactly? In 1-2 short sentences.

[Deleted]

The number of active players is a bigger news then the AH not working.

1 million a day

3 million unique users a month (he refers the the time frame before he left so Jan 2013)

12 million copies sold (guessing it includes the WOW annual pass)



25% retention rate, for what was a cult game, 7 months into its existence (may 2012 - jan 2013)

I am really confused by this post, do you think that is a bad thing or a good thing.

I personally think that 3 million people log onto D3 a month is amazing.

D3 is NOT AN MMO, its a slash and hack game.

How many people do you think log in and play Torchlight 2 every month?

[Vespian]

I'm still missing your point, sorry.

Bla-bla-bla, good old d2 times, bla-bla-bla, bad drop, bla-bla-bla unlucky.

How do you want to change d3 itemization exactly? In 1-2 short sentences.

Just for you, I'm going to take a moment and go back to how this thread begun (since you derailed somewhere midway). The title says, approx: Wilson admits that the AH hurt the game.

This obviously is beating a dead horse, because everyone and his grandmother knows that the AH is the cause of how item distribution works, but how do I want to fix it.

First of all, if you *fix* the items and leave in the AH, there will be inflation beyond the scale of normal. It would rip apart any challenge in the game. So while the AH is still in the game (Wilson suggests there is talk going on about removing the AH), fixing the items is absolutely not a good idea.

But removing the AH and fixing the items would actually be a good idea.
-> People will be able to solo content without being forced into trading.
-> They could finally add that offline modus (let's face it, even I, who was a fan of the concept, now believe that it didn't help against bots and hacks, so the advantage, besides DRM is nill).
-> The game would return to its roots, being a loot-finder/farmer, instead of the current loot-buyer. There's a difference. A big, difference.

So let's hypothetically assume that the AH is gone. What would *fixing* the items entail?
- It would require to reduce the gap between min values and max values.
- It would require to reduce 'wasted' stats on items (example; Wizard-only gear shouldn't be able to roll STR & DEX on one and the same item. Blizzard could tune this to a maximum of 1 possible unwanted stat).

Now, I can see an argument coming that says; "But I can just trade my gear, so what will the absence of the AH do for the game?". The answer to that is simple. There's very few people that spam trade chat 24h a day. The only ones capable of doing so are bots and bots can be removed, as they were in DII (not going to argue that DII was hackless, but trust me, you did get banned, as did I, once).

So if you have 3.000.000 people playing 8 hours a day, that's 8 hours they have to choose to buy or sell items, or play the game and find items. This means that there's 16 hours in every day that they are not "in the market". Compared to 'now', with auctions up virtually 100% of the time and 24/7, while still being able to play, the amount of items offered up for trade will automatically drastically reduce.

This reduction is offset by the increase in overall average stats and usability of the items, reducing the need to constantly trade to improve, but still allowing trade to give you an edge where you need it. But you won't need to purchase entire sets of gear every 5 levels, because you literally couldn't replace anything with gear that you found.

Diablo II did this perfectly, so the question of how is actually rather simple to answer. The above summary can all be cut down into an even more sizeable answer; Diablo II did it.

[Repefe]

Well ... it's step in the right direction which they should have made 3 months after game release, not a year after. It was clear back then that D3 elevated arpg to goldahrpg. Still there is hope for an expansion maybe. Thing is they have to include shitty itemization in the ah problem. Look at PoE and come up with something more elaborate than str, vit, crit, resist gear. That shit is embarassing.

[twelvethirty]

If the games drops weren't balanced upon the auction house the game would be in a much better place. Hard to play the game when you need to acquire every upgrade from an auction house.

[traen]

But removing the AH and fixing the items would actually be a good idea.

You'll remove AH and thousands of black market websites will provide players with all they want.
Hundreds of trade forums will appear. People will still exchange items.
And if you won't use them you will always be way behind people who do.

-> People will be able to solo content without being forced into trading.

People can solo content without being forced into trading.
Try to make your own self-funded character and you'll be surprised how fun and challenging the game can be.

-> They could finally add that offline modus (let's face it, even I, who was a fan of the concept, now believe that it didn't help against bots and hacks, so the advantage, besides DRM is nill).

I don't mind having offline mode. And offline mode will be available for consoles in just 2 weeks.
But I don't see a way of this affecting the battle.net economy. Well, it will probably reduce a playerbase a little, but that's it.

-> The game would return to its roots, being a loot-finder/farmer, instead of the current loot-buyer. There's a difference. A big, difference.

If you don't want to trade with other players you can "return" the game to it's roots by stopping using AH immediately, you don't have to wait for something.

- It would require to reduce the gap between min values and max values.

What's the point exactly?
Why don't you want to have even theoretical ability to find an AWESOME item? The item that will buff your dps/survivability by 50%?
If you want to play "offline" without trading with other players, the bigger the gap the more upgrades will drop.

The biggest problem with d2 was that you was able to get most of the best gear in the game within 2 weeks of playing.
Whats the point of playing the game where you can't find upgrade because all the items already dropped for you? To increase your shako collection from 20 to 50 pieces?

- It would require to reduce 'wasted' stats on items (example; Wizard-only gear shouldn't be able to roll STR & DEX on one and the same item. Blizzard could tune this to a maximum of 1 possible unwanted stat)

.

This is purely cosmetic change, it won't affect anything.

Now, I can see an argument coming that says; "But I can just trade my gear, so what will the absence of the AH do for the game?". The answer to that is simple. There's very few people that spam trade chat 24h a day. The only ones capable of doing so are bots and bots can be removed, as they were in DII (not going to argue that DII was hackless, but trust me, you did get banned, as did I, once).

You can't return back in time.
The internet community is not as noobie as it used to be.
You won't have to spam in chat. Online auctions will be availbale, they just won't be run by blizzard.

You can't stop bots. Not when you are as lazy as blizzard.
Even atm 80% of the d2 players online are bots.
The amount of bots in d3 is probably pretty insane as well. There are multiple bots available and they work pretty well. I'm quite sure that at least half of the recent paragon lvl100 characters were leveled by bots. Google their forums. Tens of thousands of users use bots daily, and not too many of them is getting banned.

Current d3 economy is ruled by bots. I don't believe that there are people who are ready to farm d3 gold for 20 cents/hour and then sell it on rmah. It's too low even for chinese farmers. But still not low enough for bot farms.

So if you have 3.000.000 people playing 8 hours a day, that's 8 hours they have to choose to buy or sell items, or play the game and find items. This means that there's 16 hours in every day that they are not "in the market". Compared to 'now', with auctions up virtually 100% of the time and 24/7, while still being able to play, the amount of items offered up for trade will automatically drastically reduce.

But not the amount of time spend trading. It will be lengthy process with the same result.

And don't fool yourself that you'll find all your upgrades yourself. Trade forums will be much faster and efficient way of obtaining upgrades.

This reduction is offset by the increase in overall average stats and usability of the items, reducing the need to constantly trade to improve, but still allowing trade to give you an edge where you need it. But you won't need to purchase entire sets of gear every 5 levels, because you literally couldn't replace anything with gear that you found.

You'll have to trade to improve. Otherwise you'll spend weeks without upgrade.
You are not forced to purchase entire set of gear every 5 levels. You are not forced to use red gems to. You can, but it's your own choice.

The game is balanced around self-found gear during leveling. And you find upgrades all the time when you play a self-funded character.
Using AH and +100 weapon damage gems makes leveling broken. Just like d2 leveling gear sets made d2 levelling a total faceroll

And what I know for sure that it was always possible to buy sigon set in d2 and it will be possible to buy an entire levelling set in d3 using trading forums. Nothing will change.

Diablo II did this perfectly, so the question of how is actually rather simple to answer. The above summary can all be cut down into an even more sizeable answer; Diablo II did it.

I see diablo2 a little bit different. Ton's of useless "uniques" that you already had. "best items in the game" dropped 3 times per hour.
Close to zero chance of finding an upgrade because you already had all the items you needed, and even if not - an upgrade wouldn't increase your stats by a considerable amount.
The only way of keeping players interested was to wipe all the gear and characters two times a year.
D2 was pretty cool back then (and it's not like we had a choice), but now it's concepts are outdated.

[Speedlance]

I liked the ah because it made it possible for people who can't play 24/7 to get good gear as well. However it had a downside you could get the best gear and there was no reason to go out and farm anymore
All in all I don't think people will be satisfied regardless what they do, because people expect to have the same pleasures as they did in a previous game. This is the same problem as wow players have with LFG, LFD, they don't realize that a ton of people love it and it made finding groups for dungeons super easy instead of spending 2-3 hours wasting time in org to do a group and if 1 guy leaves everybody else follows, that was not my idea of fun.

[papaz]

Just implement self found mode or gtfo.

[Cairhiin]

Just implement self found mode or gtfo.

This right here would be an awesome change I wholeheartedly support.

[Exoblade]

Why the fuck did blizzard turn uniques into legedaries? I don't even....

[Repefe]

You'll remove AH and thousands of black market websites will provide players with all they want.
Hundreds of trade forums will appear. People will still exchange items.
And if you won't use them you will always be way behind people who do.

People can solo content without being forced into trading.
Try to make your own self-funded character and you'll be surprised how fun and challenging the game can be.

Difference with trading on forums is it requires some effort. The AH in D3 is the most lazy way possible to do trading; there is zero down side to AH trading in D3 and the whole economy of D3 is messed thanks to the combination of easy AH, non soul bound indestructable items and immense influx of gold.

And as for self-found characters and what not restricted way of playing. That style of gaming where you keep self nerfing yourself over and over till you reach acceptable state of game is bs ... developer should make the game right.

[zephid]

Of course it did.

[Repefe]

This right here would be an awesome change I wholeheartedly support.

Yep. But I do think the AH can stay ... it just shouldn't be the main source to get full set of your gear. Maybe it can be for some craftable materials, recipes ... stuff like that.

[Deleted]

My issue with the AH is that the tuned drops to accommodate. Maybe had they offered a offline mode with drops tuned without a AH then it would not have been a problem, but thats not what was offered.

Not playing D3 that was my understanding off the "issue" as well. That the game was designed so the Ah was used if you thought about getting some gear insted it being rewarded through playing the game itself.

[Vespian]

[snip]

Shrug, you're basically argueing because you desperately want to disagree, so I'm going to end this here.
- You defend your position based on falsified info (You literally can't finish the game with only items you find. It might be possible in SC, although it will take time, but it will be nearly impossible on HC. But than again, both our arguments lack proof of this.)
- I don't claim I do not want to trade. I said I want to find things that are useful to me. Trading is not an issue, the AH is. WILSON admits it is true. Wilson was Blizzard. Who are you?
- In one sentence you convict my choice and reason for removing the AH & change the items, by arguing that it would force you to trade, yet you claim that in its current state, you don't have to trade. This is the exact opposite of what is happening.

And besides that, you really are completely wrong about Diablo II. I even wonder if you actually played it. Top of the line gear was not *just* acquired by just playing. Some basic uniques could be easily farmed, but the rare and really good ones came at the expense of hundreds of hours farming Baal and more often than not the citdel around it. After 6 years, I had about 6 completed runewords, all found by me. There was no way to get those easily without trading.

So all in all, there's too many untruths and distortions of reality in your responses, so I'm backing off in this one, at least as far as it concerns replying to you. I'm not in this to put down the dog, but possibly improve its behaviour.

Not playing D3 that was my understanding off the "issue" as well. That the game was designed so the Ah was used if you thought about getting some gear insted it being rewarded through playing the game itself.

Yup, that is the issue.