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01101010
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Reply #35 on: May 29, 2012, 08:53:37 AM

What tier are you buying at? In act I of hell square and radiant gems drop with good frequency. Almost any rare/champion pack or radiant chest offers a shot at one or two gems. If you just stockpile them rather than combine them up then there'd be plenty to drop on the AH for instant profit. I imagine by later acts of hell you are seeing the T9-10 gems dropping often enough to keep the market going.

Not having an outlet for gems is going to cause the price to crash in the long run; which may or may not be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.

Until Bliz decides to make some super gem that requires an ass load of lower tiered gems, some book/recipe (one time use), and a wizard.

The highest tier gem requires 531,441 chipped gems to make.   Or 243 Flawless Squares which are probably the highest level gem that drops.

So then they need to make that gem a one-time socket use (or destroyed if unsocketed) in order for gems to have any meaningful cost down the road. I am just thinking out loud, I like the dirt cheap prices right now. But really don't see gems being worth anything if they are so easily unsocketed. Hell, just make them lose a tier level on unsocket just to give them some importance.

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Xanthippe
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Reply #36 on: May 29, 2012, 09:03:03 AM

So then they need to make that gem a one-time socket use (or destroyed if unsocketed) in order for gems to have any meaningful cost down the road. I am just thinking out loud, I like the dirt cheap prices right now. But really don't see gems being worth anything if they are so easily unsocketed. Hell, just make them lose a tier level on unsocket just to give them some importance.


Have you checked the price of unsocketing a gem? It's more than you can buy gems for on the AH.
Ironwood
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Reply #37 on: May 29, 2012, 09:07:42 AM

The gem issue is the same as the whole AH issue.  Without any form of destruction or soulbind or no resell, you're going to use gear you buy and then sell it on when you've outlevelled it.

I think they've created a fucking monster, fixable only by a fundemental change.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Xanthippe
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Reply #38 on: May 29, 2012, 09:11:31 AM

Good gear will live forever, which means the market will be glutted and prices will fall after the initial sky high cost.

Crafting is a money sink.

Any expansion released, assuming new gear, will start the chase over again.

I'm not clear what the problem is though. How is this a problem?
Ironwood
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Reply #39 on: May 29, 2012, 09:13:32 AM

The AH has no death on it.

It will just grow. And grow.  And grow.

And, by the looks of it, be utterly fucking useless to find anything on.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Rokal
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Reply #40 on: May 29, 2012, 09:27:43 AM

Good gear will live forever, which means the market will be glutted and prices will fall after the initial sky high cost.

Crafting is a money sink.

Any expansion released, assuming new gear, will start the chase over again.

I'm not clear what the problem is though. How is this a problem?
Have you checked the price of unsocketing a gem? It's more than you can buy gems for on the AH.

You don't see the problem here? That the jeweler/blacksmith npcs and other gameplay methods of obtaining loot will become increasingly useless as an infinite number of better cheap items enter the AH?

The only time working towards items yourself outside of the AH will actually be a worthwhile will be Inferno. Coincidentally, blowing through 1-60 with over-leveled loot you bought in the AH for ~4k gold every few levels will reduce the difficulty of the leveling game, making the transition to Inferno even more jarring. There are plenty of reasons the AH, especially without soulbound items, is bad for the game.
Malakili
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Reply #41 on: May 29, 2012, 09:48:30 AM



The only time working towards items yourself outside of the AH will actually be a worthwhile will be Inferno.


On a timeline longer than the period we are in right now (immediately post release, maybe a few months long) Inferno is the only thing that is going to matter anyway. For the casual player who will never get to inferno, I don't see the problem with filling in gaps in your gear using the AH, it isn't like you require top end twinked gear to get through to Inferno anyway.  I got through Hell with relatively little AH use - mainly just keeping my weapon up to par. 

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Reply #42 on: May 29, 2012, 09:56:00 AM

I have all 5 classes in Nightmare now without using the AH.  I keep my crafting skills maxed and plan to do so ongoing.  I'm voluntarily playing the game rather than the AH.  I'll see how far that gets me, but so far I have no regrets.

Bouncing items/components/jewels between characters evenly has made leveling a non-issue.  I can produce my own "AH" in my shared chest without a need for other people's stuff.  I do use my crafting at times to fill in gaps in my gear, but that is rare.  Mostly I just burn through components at the odd chance I get a really nicely balanced item.

I haven't needed to "farm" yet either.  I do explore 90-100% of every map including side dungeons as I go thorugh the normal quest line though.  I guess you can call leveling alts "farming," but I get the added benefit of another character at equivalent levels.  I have not taken a character back through a quest yet.  Not once.

Changing anything about sharing items or upgrading jewels will ruin my game experience.  It will force me to use the AH at some point, which is just really not why I play this game.  I'm perfectly fine with the AH being useless.
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Reply #43 on: May 29, 2012, 10:10:02 AM

You don't see the problem here? That the jeweler/blacksmith npcs and other gameplay methods of obtaining loot will become increasingly useless as an infinite number of better cheap items enter the AH?

The only time working towards items yourself outside of the AH will actually be a worthwhile will be Inferno. Coincidentally, blowing through 1-60 with over-leveled loot you bought in the AH for ~4k gold every few levels will reduce the difficulty of the leveling game, making the transition to Inferno even more jarring. There are plenty of reasons the AH, especially without soulbound items, is bad for the game.

If I was going to play this game like a monthly subscription type of a game, then it would be a problem, but it's not an mmo.

Anyone starting out faces the same problems everyone else does (lack of gold). Now, allowing people to buy things using real money may be a problem. I'm interested in seeing how that will play out. I won't spend real money for a game, so it shouldn't affect me. Maybe it will, I don't know. Maybe they'll never implement the RMAH, I don't know.

Once my character has gold and can buy items to make leveling to 60 on another character, after having already been through it once, I will appreciate being able to blow through earlier levels a little easier (after having taken a WD to hell level already). Glut of high end items? So what. Enough of a glut to lower prices? Remains to be seen. I know there's enough cheap, non-top tier items to buy.

Maybe I don't see a problem because I see it as a single player game, not an mmo. It's something I can jump into with friends or strangers, and jump out of again. I don't plan on playing the AH. I'm having fun with my little piece of game that I have. How is my fun going to go down?

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Reply #44 on: May 29, 2012, 10:15:50 AM

The gem issue is the same as the whole AH issue.  Without any form of destruction or soulbind or no resell, you're going to use gear you buy and then sell it on when you've outlevelled it.

I think they've created a fucking monster, fixable only by a fundemental change.


I don't really see it as "fundamental" change. It just needs BoE items like the AH in WoW. Perhaps that is fundamental to some, but I remember when I first put on an item in D3, and saw I could then sell it later? That seemed wrong to me as a player. Frankly, why they tried to reinvent the wheel on this issue is ridiculous. The WoW AH model was there, battle-tested, and player approved. I very much imagine that by the time we see patch 1.1, we'll see the move towards BoE, the inability to unsocket without destroying the gem or the item, and the buff to gear that needs to take place.

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Reply #45 on: May 29, 2012, 10:20:51 AM

I wonder how much their DB admins make. There's no amount of hookers and blow you could pay me to take care of the AH.

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Reply #46 on: May 29, 2012, 10:26:50 AM

Pull it, dump the items back on the players, and retool all the new drops as BoE over a week period.

Then open for biz again.

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amiable
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Reply #47 on: May 29, 2012, 10:44:52 AM

The AH has no death on it.

It will just grow. And grow.  And grow.

And, by the looks of it, be utterly fucking useless to find anything on.

If you want to experience a functioning economy you really need to play HC.  Gems are outrageously expensive there (especially Amethysts).  Low level rares still sell for a goodly amount.  There is a total dearth of high end gear on the AH (no one has made it past A1 inferno). The best gear in the game continually cycles out as players die.

Example:  There are 10+ pages of the "string of ears" legendary in the SC auction house (one of the best legendaries and incredibly useful for any class, that and stormshield are considered end game items for many folks heading into later stage inferno).  There are zero up on the HC AH as of this morning.
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Reply #48 on: May 29, 2012, 10:48:20 AM

Screw gear binding. Just do periodic ladder resets like in D2 imo.

fake edit: yeah, or just do hardcore. Which would be my preferred method if I weren't holding onto a vain hope of making a couple bucks on the RMAH.
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Reply #49 on: May 29, 2012, 11:07:36 AM

There are probably more interesting solutions than BoE.  Sadly they'll probably just take the path of least resistance.   At least for now inflation is keeping the truly valuable items really expensive.
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Reply #50 on: May 29, 2012, 11:14:07 AM

There are probably more interesting solutions than BoE.  Sadly they'll probably just take the path of least resistance.   At least for now inflation is keeping the truly valuable items really expensive.

I really don't think their are more interesting solutions. The idea of an economy endlessly producing items with no actual usage or breakage is ridiculous.

The only solutions I see are:

1 - Having obsolesence/breakage stats on each item, except for legendaries. That way they break down over time and need replacing.
2 - Incentivize the deconstruction of items with bad stats by making crafting more interesting. For example, allow higher level crafters to make trophies that vendor for substantial gold from some of the mats as you go. Thereby establishing a salvage market.
3 - Create drops that allow stat conversions on items (ie - reforging in WoW).
4 - Bind on Equip itemization

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Reply #51 on: May 29, 2012, 12:07:08 PM

I wonder how much their DB admins make. There's no amount of hookers and blow you could pay me to take care of the AH.
I was thinking the same thing, and also wondering if their real DBA superstars are working on the new MMO team, because the AH has some serious design problems.

And a wacky as hell schema, why would you even allow anything but blues+ to be sold at all?
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Reply #52 on: May 29, 2012, 12:27:49 PM

They won't make gear bind on equip, that's pretty antithetical to the whole Diablo "thing". I'd venture to say that I'd just stop playing if they did, being able to pass gear out to alts/friends is core to the entire experience.

The main problem with this discussion is you're assuming the economy outside of HC even matters to Blizzard much. I suspect it doesn't.

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Azuredream
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Reply #53 on: May 29, 2012, 12:41:54 PM

They won't make gear bind on equip, that's pretty antithetical to the whole Diablo "thing". I'd venture to say that I'd just stop playing if they did, being able to pass gear out to alts/friends is core to the entire experience.

The main problem with this discussion is you're assuming the economy outside of HC even matters to Blizzard much. I suspect it doesn't.

I agree with this.

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Thrawn
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Reply #54 on: May 29, 2012, 12:45:40 PM

RMAH - Blizzard cares a LOT about the economy.

If the gold AH gets completely bloated with really cheap high end gear no one has any reason to use the RMAH.  The RMAH has potential to make a lot of money for Blizzard so they won't just ignore all of that.

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Reply #55 on: May 29, 2012, 12:47:37 PM

I don't think the potential is really all that high. I still think the RMAH is far more about killing the secondary sites (and all the hacking, griefing, and customer service complaints they indirectly generated) than making significant money for Blizzard.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
kildorn
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Reply #56 on: May 29, 2012, 12:51:09 PM

I suspect the RMAH is just an odd experiment at this point. It's likely less targeted at D3 and more seeing the reaction and seeding the idea for future MMO #3921.

I am amused at the people wanting BoE gear though. While I agree that the D3 economy is doomed to be fucked, I don't think anyone really cares about the D3 economy.
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Reply #57 on: May 29, 2012, 01:02:14 PM

Comparing the D3 economy to the D2 economy, I don't see how it's broken. It seems the same to me. There's a glut of best items but they're horribly expensive. There's a glut of almost best items, which are very cheap.

While I would prefer a more interesting economy/crafting part of the game, this one doesn't strike me as terribly broken because I wasn't expecting it to not be, I guess. I was expecting D2 only updated. D3 is that, it seems to me.

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Reply #58 on: May 29, 2012, 01:05:19 PM

D2 did not have an economy.

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Reply #59 on: May 29, 2012, 01:05:53 PM

Of course it did. Any time you played a public game, there would be some guy popping in selling shit.
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Reply #60 on: May 29, 2012, 01:10:05 PM

I know what you meant.

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Reply #61 on: May 29, 2012, 01:11:05 PM

D2 did have an economy, in fact it had a fairly huge one. It was just all on 3rd party websites.

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Reply #62 on: May 29, 2012, 01:19:16 PM

I too stopped using the auction house, playing the gold game can be fun but really I'd rather be playing the game game. It felt increasingly obligatory and onerous to have to pop on the auction house every time it seemed there may be something I could upgrade, not to mention the technical issues. I rolled a new HC character and stopped using the arms and armor vendors as well, now everything my character has is either found or crafted, am enjoying things much more this way - the crafting is useful and significant upgrades from drops are much more common.
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Reply #63 on: May 29, 2012, 01:19:32 PM

I don't think anyone really cares about the D3 economy.

I could care less about the economy myself.   What bugs me is they've admitted they nerfed drop rates to compensate for the AH.   Which means if I try to play without the AH it's going to be damn painful.
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Reply #64 on: May 29, 2012, 01:29:55 PM

D2 did have an economy, in fact it had a fairly huge one. It was just all on 3rd party websites.

Yep!  Even logging in to the chat area you would see people spamming stuff.

Diablo to me is great because of the over abundance of gear!  I want to use it, then sell or pass it on, or give it away!  I hate the bind on pick up or bind on equipment that MMOG's have taken, I liked how UO originally didn't have the problem of passing gear on, and wish Blizzard had the balls in WoW to do it too.

Plus I've tried to level and kill w/o the AH and it didn't work, my girlfriend is trying to kill Diablo now, and she is having problems, and she will probably have to get upgraded gear so she can finish him.  This sucks that you can't get appropriate level gear that lets you continue playing on your own.

And it sucks with no off line play!  Bastards!!!  Not all of USA has decent high speed internet.
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Reply #65 on: May 29, 2012, 01:33:09 PM

Well, sure, but to enter the system there's an initial cost.  And a recurring cost for every upgrade.


You do realize that all forms of gems drop right? Not just cracked.
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Reply #66 on: May 29, 2012, 01:35:26 PM

They won't make gear bind on equip, that's pretty antithetical to the whole Diablo "thing". I'd venture to say that I'd just stop playing if they did, being able to pass gear out to alts/friends is core to the entire experience.

The main problem with this discussion is you're assuming the economy outside of HC even matters to Blizzard much. I suspect it doesn't.

It doesn't yet. If it never takes off, they won't cry about it, but don't get it twisted on their objectives. They still very much consider transactions and usage on Battle.net to be a backbone of their future operations pyramid.

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Reply #67 on: May 29, 2012, 01:57:02 PM

There are probably more interesting solutions than BoE.  Sadly they'll probably just take the path of least resistance.   At least for now inflation is keeping the truly valuable items really expensive.

I really don't think their are more interesting solutions. The idea of an economy endlessly producing items with no actual usage or breakage is ridiculous.

The only solutions I see are:

1 - Having obsolesence/breakage stats on each item, except for legendaries. That way they break down over time and need replacing.
2 - Incentivize the deconstruction of items with bad stats by making crafting more interesting. For example, allow higher level crafters to make trophies that vendor for substantial gold from some of the mats as you go. Thereby establishing a salvage market.
3 - Create drops that allow stat conversions on items (ie - reforging in WoW).
4 - Bind on Equip itemization
ladder reset
FieryBalrog
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Reply #68 on: May 29, 2012, 01:59:51 PM

I don't think anyone really cares about the D3 economy.

I could care less about the economy myself.   What bugs me is they've admitted they nerfed drop rates to compensate for the AH.   Which means if I try to play without the AH it's going to be damn painful.
How many jah ith ber did you find yourself?

This is always going to be an issue, you are never going to have equivalence between a guy relying on his own drops and a guy relying on all the drops in all of North America.

In D2 I had trouble killing Duriel normal (more due to loading lag than anything else, but my gear sucked balls too) and I never found any sets/uniques in the one single player run I did. At least here normal is so faceroll that you don't need any gear from anywhere else to do it.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2012, 02:01:23 PM by FieryBalrog »
Ironwood
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Reply #69 on: May 29, 2012, 02:02:03 PM

Well, sure, but to enter the system there's an initial cost.  And a recurring cost for every upgrade.


You do realize that all forms of gems drop right? Not just cracked.


All forms ?  Every type of gems drop ?  Because that's not what I had read.  Hmmm.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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