I'd argue the opposite, the AH didn't offer me anything meaningful when I needed to gear up in the first version of inferno. I literally could not get past the elites in act2. Was that an AH problem, or difficulty tune problem, IDK but the fact is I wasn't crying foul over the AH.
Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls
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There's a reason its an obnoxious slog. Because even in its current form the drops are relatively abundant when spread across the million some odd people playing every single day! You really have no ground to stand on saying the auction house doesn't directly effect drop rates. In D2 if I found bow that was slightly worse than the Carrion Swarm I said fuck it and vendored it. In D3 if I found a less than perfect Skorn or whatever I would still drop it on the auction house to make a small amount of gold. Then whatever player that bought that less than perfect Skorn would have a weapon that is still better than 99% of the drops out there. Thus he feels blocked because guess what? Everyone weapon drop he finds is dog shit compared to his Skorn.
Seananigans
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Yes, the first version of Inferno was retardedly overtuned. That's not an AH issue though. The AH would STILL have been yourFIRSTsource of loot for you to be able to tackle act 2 eventually, had they not changed the tuning.
Well exactly, I looked for anything reasonable and it simply wasn't there. I just had to grind butcher a bunch to get what I needed. I ended up waiting for a patch bc I knew the difficulty was just stupid.
Seananigans
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You haven't been paying attention if you think I'm saying the AH didn't affect droprates. My point was, your argument last page (your prior post) was a bad one. Even if droprates were astronomically high and everyone got all the cool shit they wanted immediately, the AH wouldSTILL HAVE BETTER SHIT, MOTHERFUCKERS!. You were trying to tie the reasoning to something else, I'm simply saying a game-wide linked AH in a genre like thisfundamentally cannot work, regardless of actual drop-rates, end of argument.
The difficulty of Inferno is completely irrelevant to the discussion. The itemization was shit in the beginning, but yes even in that instance the auction house made the game easier. I got absolutely no excitement when a weapon dropped of any variety, and do you know why? Because I had already purchased one of the exploited blue weapons with over 1k damage. The same psychology applies over all. It's not about progression so much, but more about your mental state. If you already have gear that is 99% better than anything you will likely attain it doesn't matter what you're doing, you will get bored in a very short period of time. The carrot is gone so to speak.
Well if they put more stringent requirements like diablo2 had it may curb the issue of people getting pissed about jumping to mp10. Which again I think is a bogus complaint. If you're actually having fun why would you give a shit about anyone else? Wouldn't you want to have friend be able to jump in with you?
I think the main issue is the dungeons aren't randomly generated anymore, and it gets fuckin stale fast. It is really dependant on fresh content.
Ok we can write that up as a misunderstanding then. I was more trying to illustrate that the reason drops aren't plentiful, and were even less so right after release was due to balancing around the AH. I completely agree that the AH will always have better items regardless of drop rates, and people despite inhibiting their enjoyment when using it for instant gratification will inevitably buy everything they can thus taking away the carrot on a stick and making the game bland very quickly.
Lithose
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D2 was far closer to a proper Skinner's Box than D3. In fact, one of D3's fundamental design flaws was that is that's it's irregularity was too great to be conducive to opperant conditioning--so you were left with too little stimuli, or getting gold, which is consistent stimuli (And so doesn't work).
I think it comes down to uninspired design. If blizzard's only schtick is to mimic heroin addiction, its doomed to fail. They need fun elements to be added that make people want to group up and figure some new crazy elite shit out together.
I was going to give you a long response, but random dungeons mean dick. People want to feel that their time invested = progress. If someone uses the auction house to buy the best possible gear they can afford then there is very little progress outside of small amounts of gold accumulated and paragon levels. Thus they get bored and say fuck it. It's similar to WoW in a lot of ways. When current content runs out, and people are maxed out on gear, what do they do? They quit because the current carrot has been attained. When a new patch rolls out with a new carrot people generally resub and continue the cycle.
The above is also why I do no understand the need to placate people with easy respecs, and other crap like that. Sure they will whine when it's taken away, but ultimately it increases the amount of time the game can consume through trying out different builds of the same class.
Lithose
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The thing is, D2 wasn't about taking out a crazy elite--it was about figuring out the fastest way to constantly pull the lever. D2's "fun" was all efficiency based, it was a classic Skinner's Box. It rewarded you irregularly BUT just enough to drive you to attempt to get rewards more (In other words, enough to make you FEEL like each run was progress). What weknowis that human interest dwindles when rewards are either too consistent (Then it's like a job), or too infrequent (Then it's frustrating). There is a "sweet spot" between those two dips that a game like this really has to strike, or it becomes old--fast. And part of that is not designing based on difficulty (Like they tried with original inferno) but rather based on efficiency (like D2 is designed around.)
By that rational I'd have stopped playing when my buddy gave me his hand me down skorn. But I do still play because beating asses with it is actually really fun. And it usually is until Blizz comes in and nerfs my shit. Happens in wow and in diablo. They need to stop fucking with shit all the time.
Lithose is really hitting the nail on the head. In your example you simply have not reached the final stage. As you progress you will slowly start to question what you gain by playing and your interest will dwindle. Either that or you play so infrequently that you may never reach that point.
Well that may be coincidental, because I'm illustrating that the game is fun, but doesn't have enough to offer for continued play. Sure getting on for 5 minutes a month to wreck some mobs is one thing. But getting on nightly is another. There isn't enough meat on the bone.
Seananigans
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There is definitely some minor fun factor in just getting on and slaughtering shit, and that is solely the result of Blizzard's phenomenal engine-creation abilities (their only remaining strength, IMO). It's the same reason I'll sub to WoW once every year or two. Because it just feels fucking great to play, and it fits like a glove, super smooth, etc. It's also a large part of what made the first playthrough so fun.
There's little to no staying power though, which is what a game in this genre needs (WoW's old genre too). So the awesome feeling of killing stuff holds you for a day or two, maybe a week, and then you're like "what the fuck am I doing?" and you unsub/quit playing.
sidenote: I say WoW's old genre because it's no longer an MMORPG. On the way home from the gym today I coined the term Massive Lobby Game (MLG). I expect it to be used from now on to refer to WoW's new genre. Thanks.
That is almost exactly the point we are illustrating. Nobody is arguing that the game itself is poorly designed, clunky, or whatever. It is by far the best ARPG in terms of smoothness, graphics, and any other variable you want to toss in. The flaw is in the mechanics behind the scenes. The carrot that keeps you wanting to play more. In its current state even if drops were tuned accordingly people would circumvent said drops using the AH and remove the carrot instantly which is why Seananigans and myself agree that an auction house in a game like this "fundamentally cannot work".
I don't agree with your sentiment that the AH having better items, ruins the items I have. If anything, it provides a goal that I can attain to reach. Even if the AH didn't exist, there are still ways to see that people have better stuff than you.
New gear addiction isn't really a good mechanic though, right? Shouldn't the drive always be to slay something epic?
Is this your first ARPG? People did Mephisto and Baal for years. It wasn't about killing epic shit, it was about getting loot as efficiently as possible. The same thing applies to MMOs. The first couple times are about killing epic stuff, then it's all about farming and efficiency.