Diablo 4 to have NO item Trading and will have Guarantied Class Focused Drops...

[PACOX]

I think no item trading is fine with the way most people play ARPGs/looters.

D2 is a relic and POEs system is baked into its F2P model.

I hate when games have has assed loot systems because devs can always rely on the community to correct not shipping a complete system.

People dont trade in D3 and its great.

[Edge-]

I think no item trading is fine with the way most people play ARPGs/looters.

D2 is a relic and POEs system is baked into its F2P model.

I hate when games have has assed loot systems because devs can always rely on the community to correct not shipping a complete system.

People dont trade in D3 and its great.

What if it's a good loot system and allows trading? Honestly I hate D3's loot system with a passion, even ignoring the whole "SETS OR GTFO" aspect that makes gear incredibly boring. I hate having most loot drop for my class only as it absolutely kills my ability to make alts quickly. Rather than having a strong character I can use to farm gear and passively build very strong sets for alts to put on once they get through the acts/campaign, you now need to go through the same gearing process again which...yeah, I've done that and I can skip that on alts please and thank you.

If I've got a damned strong character that can farm me some great gear for alts, I'm gonna want that great gear for alts so I can get straight to the fun with them.

But also, trading is rad and I miss being able to simply trade around drops with a small group of friends. There are tons of ways to make trading convenient while not making it the primary/only way to realistically gain power at a reasonable rate.

[Alcsaar]

[Citation Needed]

They announced this some time ago

[Biomega]

What if it's a good loot system and allows trading?

What if we had our cake and could eat it, too?

Hypotheticals don't solve anything if they can't actually be realized. There's no question D3's loot system has issues, but those issues go way beyond not being tradeable or class-specific drops.

I hate having most loot drop for my class only as it absolutely kills my ability to make alts quickly. Rather than having a strong character I can use to farm gear and passively build very strong sets for alts to put on once they get through the acts/campaign, you now need to go through the same gearing process again which...yeah, I've done that and I can skip that on alts please and thank you.

Just to take this an example - it's the perfect illustration for why it can be difficult to make a loot system everyone is equally happy with. You bring up "but now I can't gear my alts with my main!" and in a vacuum that does sound like a bummer, and something that could obviously be changed.

BUUUUUT!

You completely ignore the OTHER side of this - that you gear mains MORE QUICKLY because of that kind of loot system. Sure, it may suck you can't gear your alt with your main; but what about the people who are happy with that, because it means they don't keep dropping gear for alts they'll never make? Why is their experience worth less than yours? At least implicitly, since you don't even mention them. Especially since the "alt problem" can be addressed in other ways - the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem, for example, which effectively allows you to put any fresh alt into a clown suit of random off-class uniques and kickstart them into T10+ easily. Suddenly your problem is if not solved then at least attenuated, without screwing over people who don't run into that problem in the process.

Now, again - I'm by no means saying D3's loot is perfect or even particularly good. I'm just pointing out that it's not as easy as picking one specific scenario that applies to you, and complaining that the entire loot acquisition process isn't warped around that particular preference. It's not as easy as that.

Same goes for D2's loot, by the way. Sure it's a classic, and much beloved - but man, that loot/gear system has PROBLEMS.

But also, trading is rad and I miss being able to simply trade around drops with a small group of friends. There are tons of ways to make trading convenient while not making it the primary/only way to realistically gain power at a reasonable rate.

Okay, then list those ways and we can discuss them. Same as above applies: you can't just construct one specific scenario in which trading is OBVIOUSLY SO GOOD OMG GUYS, because the world doesn't consist solely of that kind of scenario. It's trivial to find niches in which trading works, but it's equally trivial to find broadly applicable situations in which it's toxic and destructive. You have to keep ALL of it in mind when designing a loot system.

[agentsi]

A bunch of leaked information was released from the friends and family Alpha. Can be found with a simple google search. But I wont post the information here.

I hope all of those in the friends and family alpha, who agreed to the NDA, get perma banned for sharing this information and can't buy D4. This "outrage" you're having, could be totally changed before the game is released. But instead, folks have to cry about it, make posts, spam forums, and generally make an ass of themselves because they're upset a video game company did something they didn't like during their alpha phase of testing.

The level of fucking entitlement some of you folks have is beyond fucking insane.

[Edge-]

What if we had our cake and could eat it, too?

Hypotheticals don't solve anything if they can't actually be realized. There's no question D3's loot system has issues, but those issues go way beyond not being tradeable or class-specific drops.

D3's loot problems are largely down to item and combat design itself - i.e. sets or GTFO. This makes gear comparitively boring as fuck as you're basically working towards one of a few specific types of builds and farming as close to "god-rolled" version as you can until you're fully decked out in ancient gear. There's basically nothing even worth trading in the game with how gear is designed.

Just to take this an example - it's the perfect illustration for why it can be difficult to make a loot system everyone is equally happy with. You bring up "but now I can't gear my alts with my main!" and in a vacuum that does sound like a bummer, and something that could obviously be changed.

BUUUUUT!

You completely ignore the OTHER side of this - that you gear mains MORE QUICKLY because of that kind of loot system. Sure, it may suck you can't gear your alt with your main; but what about the people who are happy with that, because it means they don't keep dropping gear for alts they'll never make? Why is their experience worth less than yours? At least implicitly, since you don't even mention them. Especially since the "alt problem" can be addressed in other ways - the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem, for example, which effectively allows you to put any fresh alt into a clown suit of random off-class uniques and kickstart them into T10+ easily. Suddenly your problem is if not solved then at least attenuated, without screwing over people who don't run into that problem in the process.

IMO there's a fairly easy solution: Toggles. Do you want "class-specific loot"? Toggle it on. You're geared up now and want to farm for alts? Toggle it off. It's hardly the most elegant of solutions, but it's a solution to the problem that serves both camps.

Same goes for D2's loot, by the way. Sure it's a classic, and much beloved - but man, that loot/gear system has PROBLEMS.

It's super basic! But that makes sense since it was designed you know, like 20+ years ago : P

But honestly it's still a fairly good overall loot system in terms of design. It allows for variety RNG without being unnecessarily punishing in the number of total mods available making most gear fairly worthless (problem PoE has) and while it could absolutely be improved, overall functions well with the design of the game and combat system.

Okay, then list those ways and we can discuss them. Same as above applies: you can't just construct one specific scenario in which trading is OBVIOUSLY SO GOOD OMG GUYS, because the world doesn't consist solely of that kind of scenario. It's trivial to find niches in which trading works, but it's equally trivial to find broadly applicable situations in which it's toxic and destructive. You have to keep ALL of it in mind when designing a loot system.

I mean, I don't have design docs at the ready. But there's absolutely systems that could support limited-trade. "Warbands/guilds" and the like could allow for internal trading to keep trading away from being a "profession" in the game with folks that just spend their whole day trading and making in-game "money" through currency/valuable gear. Centralized AH systems could allow players to exchange items easily with a universal currency (gold or whatever) but opens up huge issues as there's now a "global economy" to manage that requires work from the developers in tuning drops and managing the amount of gold in the economy more carefully. Limiting tradeable gear to mid/higher level gear while making much of the strongest gear available bind-on-pickup to ensure that all the best quality gear needs to be earned and can't be purchased/traded.

None are perfect and all have different benefits and downsides. My argument is that trading adds immense longterm value and helps build subcommunities with games. I'd argue trading is one of the big reasons D2 had such long legs, especially with outside sites like JSP forming as a result (even if that was basically all illegal RMT).

[Endus]

Just to take this an example - it's the perfect illustration for why it can be difficult to make a loot system everyone is equally happy with. You bring up "but now I can't gear my alts with my main!" and in a vacuum that does sound like a bummer, and something that could obviously be changed.

BUUUUUT!

You completely ignore the OTHER side of this - that you gear mains MORE QUICKLY because of that kind of loot system.

Yep, this is an issue that can't be "solved" with a single loot system. Either you're getting gear drops prioritized to your current character (D3 style) and most of what drops at least hypothetically could be useful to that character, or you're getting drops for everything/everyone and it can be a pain to get gear for your main, because RNG may lead to your alts being better-geared.

I tend to prefer the former, since there's generally at least a couple classes I don't particularly enjoy (In D3, it's monks and witch doctors, they're not bad I just don't enjoy them as much), so getting dedicated drops for classes I don't even want to play is not a good feeling.

Nor do I want trading to make up for this because I loathe trading. If you're including trading to get around the loot system's faults, you're talking about a shitty band-aid to cover up the loot system's failures. Either it's being used to get around poor loot drop rates, so people pay through the nose for gear that won't drop, in which case better drop rates is "better", or it's being used by a rich main to gear an alt and making gear as you level remain relevant just seems like a better option. Or the heirloom type stuff your main can create at level cap that scales with your alt as they level. If I had close friends I actively played with, like Edge- said, I might enjoy trading, but I'm not playing with them for trading, so the lack of it wouldn't kill my enjoyment, either.

Ideally, you'd never feel a need for trading to make up for shortfalls.

- - - Updated - - -

D3's loot problems are largely down to item and combat design itself - i.e. sets or GTFO. This makes gear comparitively boring as fuck as you're basically working towards one of a few specific types of builds and farming as close to "god-rolled" version as you can until you're fully decked out in ancient gear. There's basically nothing even worth trading in the game with how gear is designed.

I'm in full agreement that set design in D3 is argh. Sets should bring something unique, but it really shouldn't be "better" than ideal legendaries.

[quote]IMO there's a fairly easy solution: Toggles. Do you want "class-specific loot"? Toggle it on. You're geared up now and want to farm for alts? Toggle it off. It's hardly the most elegant of solutions, but it's a solution to the problem that serves both camps.

Toggles basically mean we're talking two loot systems, so take my prior comments with that in mind. I'm not against the idea in principle, but "two loot systems you can toggle between" still means a single loot system isn't perfect by itself for all players.

[Biomega]

But honestly it's still a fairly good overall loot system in terms of design. It allows for variety RNG without being unnecessarily punishing in the number of total mods available making most gear fairly worthless (problem PoE has) and while it could absolutely be improved, overall functions well with the design of the game and combat system.

This only shows you've never really thought about it in-depth. D2's system is MASSIVELY broken. 99.99% of (non-trash-drop) items are straight-up worthless. Even end-game worthy pieces that aren't top-tier rarity (like, say, Trang-Oul Gloves) are absolute vendor trash 1 week into the season. Nothing has value except for high runes, and a small handful of uniques - and of course god-tier rolls on magic/rare items. Take set items, for example. You know how many set items have actual value? By which I mean more than a casual few PAms or a Lem rune, which is just one step above vendor trash. The answer is TWO. Two set items. In the entire game. And for uniques, too, the pool of actual worthwhile drops is absolutely minuscule. Barring absolutely exceptional rolls, there's like 3 or 4 uniques that are even worth a high rune; all of which are TC87, meaning they're so rare you can easily go an entire season without ever finding one. And some of the god-tier magic/rare items are even rarer than that, to the point where even streamers that farm ungodly hours for an entire season will not find some of the regulars (like e.g. JMOD), let alone the top-tier rares that are akin to a lottery win. And that's not even talking about rune words, which have created a toxic meta all on their own. Items like Enigma, Grief, and Infinity devalue entire catalogs of strategies, and are so far above anything else in power they make non-rune drops look like a laughable waste. Even a low-level runeword like Spirit effectively kills every low to mid-level drop item in its slots, making every class's season start nigh-on identical because it's stupidly powerful and stupidly easy to get.

Anyway...

I mean, I don't have design docs at the ready.

But you are very confidently asserting that there are "tons of ways"?

But there's absolutely systems that could support limited-trade. "Warbands/guilds" and the like could allow for internal trading to keep trading away from being a "profession" in the game with folks that just spend their whole day trading and making in-game "money" through currency/valuable gear.

This was already discussed to death years ago in D3, and the result is: it doesn't work. All this does is incentivize degenerate gameplay where farmers sell guild slots to people so they can get fed gear. This is not something anyone wants or needs.

Centralized AH systems could allow players to exchange items easily with a universal currency (gold or whatever) but opens up huge issues as there's now a "global economy" to manage that requires work from the developers in tuning drops and managing the amount of gold in the economy more carefully.

The logistics of such a system are a minor problem. The actual issue is what you yourself already mentioned initially: the game becomes about currency farming and maximizing trade value, which means less time beheading demons and more time scouring AH deals at 5am to snipe some listing and flip it for more profit than you could ever realistically farm. Also, a centralized currency system MASSIVELY devalues drops simply by virtue of its existence, since the easier it is to exchange things the more supply and demand push the market towards the exceptional, ultra rare drops. Which means the regular drops normal people can find very quickly become very worthless, as there's just too much supply for anything that isn't insanely rare - which also means the average player will never find it, but has to buy it, FURTHER exacerbating the trade problem as they're incentivized more and more to worry about currency instead of item drops.

Limiting tradeable gear to mid/higher level gear while making much of the strongest gear available bind-on-pickup to ensure that all the best quality gear needs to be earned and can't be purchased/traded.

That's one option, and it was mentioned in the D4 context some time ago; I'm unsure where they currently are on trading. This seems like an "eh, whatever" solution, as it largely concerns items of little to no relevance, which also means they'll never be worth a lot and people can easily just skip the entire thing. Which means... why is it there, exactly? Why add a point of failure and frustration with scammers, and/or additional logistics for a system people will maybe use here and there while leveling up but never bother with again once they reach endgame. Seems like a waste of development resources.

My argument is that trading adds immense longterm value and helps build subcommunities with games.

You'd need to demonstrate it provides long-term value, first. All well and good to claim it - prove it. If you want to go with D2's longevity (which is largely a niche audience, by the way), prove it's the trading and not something else that's behind that. As for the "community argument"... anything can build "communities", that's something that happens almost on its own. You'd have to show that trading does this either better than anything else, or in ways that are different than others - and then, of course, also show that these "communities" ADD value rather than subtract it, as the one concrete example you've mentioned (JSP) has a highly controversial, if not downright toxic effect on the game. If anything, it's an argument AGAINST trading, not for it.

[Zyky]

I'm not a fan of the loot restriction either. Some of the design decisions scream "WoW...but isometric!"

The highly controlled game experience doesn't sound appealing at all. Let the loot flow! Trade up, pass to alts, sell it.

Not a fan of the game as service approach from D3, 4, immortal... Coming from playing a game like Grim Dawn, the D4 loot structure feels highly restricted... And for what reason?

Let's not forget how Overwatch"2" released, I'm sure they're gonna dump some kind of absurd monetization to allow gear trading to alts

[PACOX]

What if it's a good loot system and allows trading? Honestly I hate D3's loot system with a passion, even ignoring the whole "SETS OR GTFO" aspect that makes gear incredibly boring. I hate having most loot drop for my class only as it absolutely kills my ability to make alts quickly. Rather than having a strong character I can use to farm gear and passively build very strong sets for alts to put on once they get through the acts/campaign, you now need to go through the same gearing process again which...yeah, I've done that and I can skip that on alts please and thank you.

If I've got a damned strong character that can farm me some great gear for alts, I'm gonna want that great gear for alts so I can get straight to the fun with them.

But also, trading is rad and I miss being able to simply trade around drops with a small group of friends. There are tons of ways to make trading convenient while not making it the primary/only way to realistically gain power at a reasonable rate.

I think you're mixing up bad loot (perhaps) with a bad loot system. I get the complain about D3s sets. It is sets or GTFO but the process farming the sets and chasing good rolls isn't perfect but gameplay friendly. The barrier of entry for a build is low but the ceiling is high. You're not hurting yourself if you choose to be SSF versus POE you start bumping up against the ceiling fast if you want to SSF or not trying to spend a lot of time deal with the player economy - then there builds that only work if you dropping tons of orbs. No matter how much farm in a season you know you might not get the drops for your build without trading.


I think a designer can come up with a system where players can rely more on their efforts rather than the collective RNG of community to advance their character. I kind of thinking of Borderlands (because it's a very loot heavy game) where yeah there's trade and it's beneficial but relying solely on your own drops is more than a viable option to the point that trade is more about sharing than profit.

[tomten]

What if it's a good loot system and allows trading? Honestly I hate D3's loot system with a passion, even ignoring the whole "SETS OR GTFO" aspect that makes gear incredibly boring. I hate having most loot drop for my class only as it absolutely kills my ability to make alts quickly. Rather than having a strong character I can use to farm gear and passively build very strong sets for alts to put on once they get through the acts/campaign, you now need to go through the same gearing process again which...yeah, I've done that and I can skip that on alts please and thank you.

If I've got a damned strong character that can farm me some great gear for alts, I'm gonna want that great gear for alts so I can get straight to the fun with them.

But also, trading is rad and I miss being able to simply trade around drops with a small group of friends. There are tons of ways to make trading convenient while not making it the primary/only way to realistically gain power at a reasonable rate.

I was honestly sorta fine with the idea and really didn't get the whole fuss until I read this. Was thinking "how many times do I actually trade stuff with friends or random groups? Some but not game breaking, i'll survive..."
It's actually quite a huge thing from that perspective and now i'm bit salty about it all

[Aresk]

What if it's a good loot system and allows trading? Honestly I hate D3's loot system with a passion, even ignoring the whole "SETS OR GTFO" aspect that makes gear incredibly boring. I hate having most loot drop for my class only as it absolutely kills my ability to make alts quickly. Rather than having a strong character I can use to farm gear and passively build very strong sets for alts to put on once they get through the acts/campaign, you now need to go through the same gearing process again which...yeah, I've done that and I can skip that on alts please and thank you.

If I've got a damned strong character that can farm me some great gear for alts, I'm gonna want that great gear for alts so I can get straight to the fun with them.

But also, trading is rad and I miss being able to simply trade around drops with a small group of friends. There are tons of ways to make trading convenient while not making it the primary/only way to realistically gain power at a reasonable rate.

Diablo 3 has multiple avenues to gear up alts. Even ignoring the fact that you get drops from other classes, you can also craft gear and share resources across all characters on an account. Does it matter that the drop chance for a demon hunter set piece on a barbarian is really low if I can farm blood shards or use Kanai's Cube to upgrade rares? If Diablo 4 has similar systems in place, I don't foresee an issue. I personally find this a better solution than having only 20% of class-specific loot being relevant to my class, making gearing that strong character harder in the first place.

[cozzri]

This only shows you've never really thought about it in-depth. D2's system is MASSIVELY broken. 99.99% of (non-trash-drop) items are straight-up worthless. Even end-game worthy pieces that aren't top-tier rarity (like, say, Trang-Oul Gloves) are absolute vendor trash 1 week into the season. Nothing has value except for high runes, and a small handful of uniques - and of course god-tier rolls on magic/rare items. Take set items, for example. You know how many set items have actual value? By which I mean more than a casual few PAms or a Lem rune, which is just one step above vendor trash. The answer is TWO. Two set items. In the entire game. And for uniques, too, the pool of actual worthwhile drops is absolutely minuscule. Barring absolutely exceptional rolls, there's like 3 or 4 uniques that are even worth a high rune; all of which are TC87, meaning they're so rare you can easily go an entire season without ever finding one. And some of the god-tier magic/rare items are even rarer than that, to the point where even streamers that farm ungodly hours for an entire season will not find some of the regulars (like e.g. JMOD), let alone the top-tier rares that are akin to a lottery win. And that's not even talking about rune words, which have created a toxic meta all on their own. Items like Enigma, Grief, and Infinity devalue entire catalogs of strategies, and are so far above anything else in power they make non-rune drops look like a laughable waste. Even a low-level runeword like Spirit effectively kills every low to mid-level drop item in its slots, making every class's season start nigh-on identical because it's stupidly powerful and stupidly easy to get.

Anyway...


But you are very confidently asserting that there are "tons of ways"?


This was already discussed to death years ago in D3, and the result is: it doesn't work. All this does is incentivize degenerate gameplay where farmers sell guild slots to people so they can get fed gear. This is not something anyone wants or needs.


The logistics of such a system are a minor problem. The actual issue is what you yourself already mentioned initially: the game becomes about currency farming and maximizing trade value, which means less time beheading demons and more time scouring AH deals at 5am to snipe some listing and flip it for more profit than you could ever realistically farm. Also, a centralized currency system MASSIVELY devalues drops simply by virtue of its existence, since the easier it is to exchange things the more supply and demand push the market towards the exceptional, ultra rare drops. Which means the regular drops normal people can find very quickly become very worthless, as there's just too much supply for anything that isn't insanely rare - which also means the average player will never find it, but has to buy it, FURTHER exacerbating the trade problem as they're incentivized more and more to worry about currency instead of item drops.


That's one option, and it was mentioned in the D4 context some time ago; I'm unsure where they currently are on trading. This seems like an "eh, whatever" solution, as it largely concerns items of little to no relevance, which also means they'll never be worth a lot and people can easily just skip the entire thing. Which means... why is it there, exactly? Why add a point of failure and frustration with scammers, and/or additional logistics for a system people will maybe use here and there while leveling up but never bother with again once they reach endgame. Seems like a waste of development resources.


You'd need to demonstrate it provides long-term value, first. All well and good to claim it - prove it. If you want to go with D2's longevity (which is largely a niche audience, by the way), prove it's the trading and not something else that's behind that. As for the "community argument"... anything can build "communities", that's something that happens almost on its own. You'd have to show that trading does this either better than anything else, or in ways that are different than others - and then, of course, also show that these "communities" ADD value rather than subtract it, as the one concrete example you've mentioned (JSP) has a highly controversial, if not downright toxic effect on the game. If anything, it's an argument AGAINST trading, not for it.

I would prefer an offline mode to any proposed loot option. Use a tool to give myself the items to play and experiment with the builds I want. I don't want a games-as-service Diablo and all the epeen stretching that comes with the community. Give players the tools to play the game how they want to play it.... you will never be able to shoehorn players into enjoying a detested system.

[Fencers]

Honestly, I have come to hate trading in ARPGs. I usually play them single player or SSF if the former isn't available.

The only ARPG I enjoyed trading in was D2 on bnet. That was only because I had a gaming group too.

Otherwise, worthless feature to me. I played a lot of mods in D2 if I was without my gaming group. Every other ARPG with trading is the pits.

[Big Thanks]

Isnt efficient trading in a looter game a literal "Cursed design problem"?
According to this game developer...it is:

Video (minute 19):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE6...ab_channel=GDC

Image:

[Biomega]

Isnt efficient trading in a looter game a literal "Cursed design problem"?

It is. Some games get away with it specifically because of the 'efficient' part in that statement - their trading is complicated and cumbersome, and that's what keeps things in check somewhat. PoE and D2 are examples of that, but even there, trading still has a SIGNIFICANT impact.

People like to think back to D2 twenty years ago when they were 13-year old idiots, recalling "it wasn't ever a problem!" in their biased memories. Of course it was, even then. And it still is. Even among rare drops, almost NOTHING is worth anything in D2. Everything converges towards the same items. The only reason they are getting away with it in this day and age is that 1. the game is piss-easy and has nothing that actually demands high performance; 2. despite the nostalgia, it's pretty niche. In a competitively structured, modern-day game, that kind of trading would have DEVASTATING effects.

Trading doesn't need to exist, beyond strictly limited scenarios like e.g. sharing drops with your in-game party. It creates far more problems than it could ever solve, and seriously limits the appeal and potential of a game. It's a Pandora's box no one should open if they want their game to succeed, and not become utter degeneracy.

[RH92]

I think this video explains trading in D4 really well: