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Is the AH bad for the game?
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
So I've been putting some time into D3, mainly playing through normal and a bit of nightmare on different characters just because I like seeing all the different skills. The first time I played through the game, I didn't really use the AH that much and I had a lot of fun. Every item drop was potentially an upgrade and it kept me wanting to keep pushing on because you never knew if that next rare was going to be a great upgrade.
However when I played through my second and third times I decided to use the AH more, and boy did it make a difference. I was able to get ridiculously effective gear on the AH for basically peanuts. In fact, the gear is so ridiculously effective, that I literally one shot almost everything at like level 30 in act 4, which I actually had found kind of challenging before.
While this was fun for a while, I quickly realized that something was missing. I simply didn't care much about drops any more. I would basically almost ignore all blues and rares weren't even exciting. And really, why should I care about drops? I know that I can get better stuff more suited to my character on the AH for dirt cheap. Even if I miss a "good" drop, I could just compensate for it by spending a measly 6K (or less) on the AH and likely getting something better.
Anyway, I feel like one of the huge drivers behind Diablo games is the random loot system. Finding an awesome item should be one of the main drivers of the game, but the AH kind of takes that away, and I think that is to the detriment of the game.
Thoughts?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Comments
Yes..I agree
I spent all weekend playing and I haven't yet used the AH. I did look in there once just to see what was available. My thoughts are, that it is bad for the game. I feel like the current piss-poor drop rates are due to the AH and Blizz wanting us to use it. I just finished act 3 and not one single boss or elite mob has dropped anything that makes me think I want to farm this game like I did D2 for years. And all of the dropped set pieces being level 60?........That's just wrong.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
You aren't in the harder modes yet.
The AH kind of breaks Normal and Nightmare mode but in Hell & inferno its essential because Blizzards loot system is nothing but a lottery.
YOu need the AH or you would be stuck on Act 3 hell mode forever.
So no I dont think its bad for the game overall, I do however think the crafting is complete ass and it forces us to rely on the AH too much.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Short answer: Yes
Long answer; Yes, due to the fact that Bashiok has stated that the item drop rate is specifically manipulated to force people to go to the auction house. Stuff is far more rarer then in diablo 2 due to accomidate the use of the auction house, and overall things in return become a lot more difficult to actually find on your own. This is something I find unfortunate, and think this idea is what screwed the pooch so to say. Part of what made Diablo 2 so fun was at least having a reasonable possibility of finding items on your own where now they have pretty much said they are forcing people to participate in the AH system (Which is fine as the RMAH is an income for Blizzard). I however think they approached it in the wrong way. Hopefully they fix some of the issues with bosses essentially not mattering and it being all about the unique mobs as well as that is rather frustrating to see little value placed on bosses.
I haven't played it yet (playing Torchlight at the moment), but in general game play options are usually a good thing. No one has to use the AH, but it's there if peeps want to dabble with it. I could see how it might be helpful if someone was having trouble progressing, but for myself once I get a bit overpowered I start to lose interest. There's a fine line between still feelng a challenge and kicking ass to owning everything in a dungeon without much effort and becomeing bored.
If drops were better and the crafting system less random people wouldnt need the AH. Sadly those two aspects of Diablo 3 are broken just like they were in D2.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
It's a two-edged sword. It's nice when you really need something but it does take away from the fun of item-finding.
It's not even worth discussing the RMAH, it's the bane of MMOs today.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
This will come off rude and elitest but if you had issues with anythign in act1-4 in normal mode the first tim eu played then u more then likely are a very um average gamer? with that being said normal through hell are just there to tell u the story and prepare you slowly for when the game really starts which is inferno. Blizzard in my eyes has designed this game to be inferno centric and very group centric also. YES it is possible to farm some of the mobs and get to act 4 inferno via death trains or the purchase of very very very expensive gear but to truly say you have any act after 1 on farm u will need to be able to kill every mob by ur self without dying aka godly geared considering act 1 inferno to safely say you have it on farm u need at least 500+ resistance wihchi means u need +50 or higher resist on most your gear and u still have to take into considering ur main stat and vitality. Needless to say the topic of discussion was of course the AH do i feeel it ruins the game? no its a tool like anything else in the game that u can CHOOSE to use and its not going to come cheap later. I play a monk and currently use a 989 dps 1 handed yellow mace with ok stats. But idealy a monk should be using 2 fist weapons with some type of spirit regen and some nice stats on it. JUST 2 solid 900 dps yellow fist weapons will let alone any 1 hander alone that is yello waround 900+ will cost u a nice round 3mil+ assuming your getting good drops and selling them on ah this is a fairly easy achievement to dump 3mil+ if your lucky but in most cases ur looking at 5mil so you better A) put together a awesome gold find set and ride pugs for gold
sell EVERY BLUE AND YELLOW AND NEVER CRAFT or C) work that AH like its a second job if you even want to be able to say hi act 2) your not 1 shotting me im ready.
Again not even that will prepare you for being able to realistically say hey i got this game on farm NoN hardcore players are of course farming and or in act 4 via act jumping or body training. But in the end watch these people solo and there is no way they can lay claim to owning this game. Want to truly master diablo like they want people 2. Find your self a barb who knows how to balance a dps/tank set (because they can pump everyones resist high and pump there own armor and vit up nicely) a monk to compliment him with some auras to boost dodge or damage or anythign for that matter. and 2 very solid glass cannons via demon hunters or witch doctors who ravage but i assure u will see the ground without a solid barb or monk in less like i said there farming certain things.
needless to say i have rambled so once again long story short. DOES the AH make this game feel bad? my response is hell no. Super inflated for key items but if you play the game and want to realyl injoy the difficult of the content go hardcore baby step ur way through inferno find ur self a group of 4 and get to act 4 so u can claim ur fame if not do the same in regular and be impressive also.
I have to agree with you on that one.
Felt the exact same once I started using the AH.. For my latest alts and nightmare runs, I have decided to simply stop using it because, like you wrote, it feels as though it's going against the "goal" of these types of games.
The main "carrot" for playing these in my opinion, is the loot system. With the AH, most of it is removed and I found myself losing "the need" to play it after I did it once at normal. Going back to "old school" mode seems to have brought it back a bit, but I don't see myself play this as much as the previous incarnations..
Also after reading about drops: btw drops are not nearly as random as u think and its simple to figure out it takes into consideration very important key factors of group composition:
1. peoples currently magic find is added up between the 4 peopel in the current dungeon then divided equally to all ex. 1 player has 180 3 players have non divide that by 4 and that is the starting magic find for that run with out the MF buff.
2. Then it looks at the currently gear of the player the stats that are located on the player i run with 3 very well geared players who are focusing on main stat vit and resistance. WE have our glass cannon sorcs and demon hunters usually run a heavy magic find set with as much dps as they can pull n them a barb to tank with no mf and a monk( with some mf) u will start to find that u will find gear taht is very similiar to what your wearing with a variation in stats when it come sto yellow i assure u this is true and just try it when servers come up.thus tho random in some aspects via stats the drops can be narrowed down.
3. set pieces from what ive read and so far experiances dont drop off mobs of cours ei cant confirm this becase i have only gotten 3 set pieces so far BUT they have been from barrels and the side stuff taht most people pass up leading me to bilieve that set pieces drop off of the EXTRA stuff most people just hit if its there but dont go out of there way for. THIS IS AMAZING if confirmed because it forces you well at least gives u incentive to check everything!
those are really the main 3 points i want to point out to the "randomness" of drops in the world. Also good to know that if your running solo certain mf markers aka if u hit 150 x amount of drops are garentee'd off purple mobs test it out to find the values not given away everything its nice to figure things out on your own.
I have heard this about Hell and Inferno as well, that you basically have to use the AH to survive. But I think this is even worse.
It seems like in Normal or Nightmare, you still have the option of not using the AH and just using the stuff you find or craft. Which, as I said before, has its own charm...it gives you that "rush" when you find an awesome new item.
But in Hell and Inferno you HAVE to use the AH, and the game seems like it would become nothing more than a gold grind, or a real money sink when the RMAH comes out. I honestly just don't think this sounds like fun. Fun is always having that chance to find an awesome item...it's like you say, a lottery. You never know when you're going to get something great and it keeps you addicted.
But with the AH, it's more like...work. You are just steadily getting gold until you have enough to buy something. Yes, you may find an awesome item, but it is far more likely that you will just buy something from the AH.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Blizzard just posted about the issues. One of them being how useless the crafting system is. They say that they never intended people to use the AH 100%, that drops and crafting were supposed to be a large part of a players progression.
They plan on buffing the usefulness of items that you make with your crafters so hopefully that will fix how needed the AH is.
Lower the cost of crafting + make crafted items have a better chance to give good stats for your class = us not needing the AH as much.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I don't realy think this will be the solution we are looking for. If crafting becomes viable, then yes, people will buy less from the AH. But what effect will this have on the market? Supply of items will stay the same, but demand will drop due to better crafting. This will mean the prices of items on the AH will go even lower until people start buying them again.
I really think the problem is that there is a HUGE oversaturation of items. Add to this the fact that there are no BoE items and they never decay, meaning that anything you buy can always be resold and you wind up with a MASSIVE supply and dirt cheap prices. Maybe at really high levels its more reasonable, but for normal and nightmare, it seems like the market's cup of supply runneth over.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Oversaturation was supposed to be handled with crafting. Since you need to break items and combine gems to make better stuff. Sadly Crafting sucks so the AH is stacked.
Once they fix crafting most of the issues will be fixed.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Give a mode where you can't use ah, but there's better drop rate and bigger cache
Only wont happen as blizzard won't make as much money
No, the AH is no different than any AH in any game I have played for the last 20+ years. Why reinvent the wheel now? There is no need. This post in my opinion is wasted text.
Screw that im going to make a pure character.
Gear only on Drops and crafted items. I did that with all of Normal and most of Nightmare and had a much better time than i did AHing everything in Hell and Act 1& 2 inferno.
Just need to remember to stack that magic find gear lol.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Pretty much, during my Normal - InfernoActOne I have sucessfully farmed total 1 item
it was an amulet that replaced the old one prev. purchased from AH. Oh well.
SexuaLobster's Grease Portal
truthfully the issue doesnt lie with the ah people will always look for a way out when they hit a wall. I NEVER used the ah till i was inferno act 2 just because i wanted to see what the hype was about and because i really wanted the rare fist weapons. The user behind the game just crys far 2 hard on how difficult the game is. Look d3 inferno is as close to the real world as possible if you think about it. Nothing is handed to you and as u progress shit gets harder yes u can spend money on things to make things easier but in the end the only person who needs to get better and stop complaining is "you" the user. I hope that blizzard does live up to its usual, what i mean by this is casuals and cry babies cry and cry till blizzard spoon feeds them end game content till there next expansion comes out. Please please please just get better stop crying and deal. Random is good if your handed everything in a game u just move on maybe thats fun for the care bears but it ruins the experiance for the people who want the challenge. If you want just ask blizzard to make a mode where ur 60 maxed out and can 1 shot everything that would be so exciting u can just walk around thinking your extremely good.
a gold grind? honestly dont use the ah so it wont feel like that hard concept i know. gear grind? who would of thought that in a game you would have to grind to get your gear? welcoem to the mmo / dungeon crawler era? ITS ALWAYS been like this you have to work for your gear thats just the way it works. Crafting isnt where its suppose to be random and costly big risk? big risk big rewards if you dont like the risk dont use it holy crap or just jewel craft its fairly straight foward no chance and pays off. oh man just stop crying and play.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/artisan/blacksmith/recipe/cains-laurel
all the set pieces are not lvl 60 k thx.
Someone has to put those "high effective gear for peanuts" on the AH. If you do not farm, very soon, you will run out of money. The prices go up hugely at Hell/Inferno difficulty.
The AH certainly came about because so many players were selling items on ebay in D2.....Blizzard almsot assuredly wanted that piece of the pie.....Unfortunately though, BLizzard is giving hte appearance of being a money whore and at some point may start pissing off their customers and driving them away.
As my post said, all the dropped set pieces are. The one you linked is crafted. kthxbye
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
all set pieces and legendarys ALSO have books of them and can be crafted KTHX BYE
Yeah, I think it's bad. As someone stated earlier, it pretty much breaks Normal and Nightmare. The fact that you need it in Hell and Inferno means that success becomes a matter of your skill at playing the AH (and it is a skill) as much as your skill at playing the game.
I've said it before, but Blizzard might as well have included Jamella's Item editor as the current AH. Search for a piece with VIT and <YOUR_DAMAGE_STAT> and +DAM, set a maximum buyout and BLAM...pages of perfect gear, with stats you won't find randomly in a month of playtime. Remember how you used to have a couple of pieces of nice gear, a couple of dogs, and one or two NICE items? No one I play with is anything less than perfectly geared and gemmed.
Case in point I got hacked at level 32, doing about 800DPS. They took my gear and about 120K of gold. By the time support offered me a restore I turned it down, because I was level 37 doing 1360DPS (w 575 VIT and 60K gold). I simply played the AH hard, and was able to replace everything in a couple of days. Imagine re-gearing yourself from random drops.
I know people are expecting the prices to rise, but I don't see it...with so many buyers and sellers, and such good search capabilities, the D3 AH is probably one of the most efficient markets on the planet.