Okay. I totally trust you, Aurik.
Okay. I totally trust you, Aurik.
What's superior about the console version? (stayed in the dark about the game for a while now)
No AH now, dodge button incorporated, higher droprates for legendaries (people reporting 1-3 legendaries per chapter: I saw 0 legendaries between normal through hell on 4 separate charactes via PC), among others.
Splitcreen is always a welcome addition
In HC as a serious grinder I can see not believing drops were adjusted in order to inflate AH value, since there's no cash AH; you probably wouldn't ever realize just how incredibly wide the gap is between people that spend thousands and people that don't.
Let me ask you this:
Have you ever seen a nat's ring with crit + crit dmg + good third stat drop?
Because for a normal player even that is a drop you can't use... unless you're willing to give up the few hundred bucks you could get for it on AH.
I haven't played in a few months so I may be picking a bad example, but the entire time I played, I never saw a nat's ring drop period, let alone one with good stats; yet that ring is and as far as I know always will be (until the expansion, presumably) a crucial part of not just my build, but any build... on 2 different classes.
As a result of said drop rates and real money values, I get to rock one with all of 3% crit, some int and some vit. Oh and I could still sell it on rmah for like $30 when last I played.
I don't believe that bullshit not because of my in-game experience, but rather because I've talked personally with people who know and they say the same thing: it's just another unfounded conspiracy theory from the internet hate machine.
Just like the initial Inferno tuning, they didn't really have the means to tune the AH experience very well, so I think they just threw darts at drop rates (erring on the conservative side) and figured they could tune it live later.
It's too bad the masses typically don't 'get it', and instead go off in a frothing rage.
I love diablo 3, I did at launch, I do now, playing it over a year later, with a huge break in between. The auction house is absolutely crucial to playing this game, unfortunately, in its current state.
Recently a player posted he finally hit paragon level 100, only using self found loot, never touching the AH. It took him 1223 hours, and he has something like 2 radiant star gems, picking up every tome and gem that drops for him. His DPS is something like 150000 (monk). Is this the only example? Obviously not - however in my 100-200 hours back since mid august I've found roughly 2 items of value - neither of which I could use. The game is balanced around being able to trade, with the auction house being a primary method of obtaining a usable gearset. It's frustrating to play this game and go through countless numbers of rares and legendaries and come out with absolute shit, night after night after night. It boils down to the simple formula in how an item rolls. Doesn't have a socket, weapon damage% and a damage modifier? Might as well toss it out! 15/16 legendaries are absolute shit, and when you finally find one of value, even that is absolute shit. After seeing the console versions drop rates, crafting recipes and other minor tweaks, I'm very hopeful for the release of loot 2.0 and the auction house being abolished. Just the fact that all legendaries will be able to drop and be of use will stir up the item balance enough to give multiple item builds a shot at existing.
I'm not suggesting there were guys with tuning knobs calculating how many of x item should drop in order to maximize rmah profits on it.
I think you'd have to be crazy to doubt for a second that at least while Wilson was in charge, his plan to make the most long-term profit for blizzard involved making the box sales secondary.
It's evidenced as strongly in the mmo-esque early patch rates and giving it free to WoW players as in the dominance of the ah as progression.
Your friends and co-workers might not have looked at it as such, let alone been directly instructed to look at it as such, but I definitely think the top down decisions were made on that premise.
Look at it this way:
What is special about nat's ring? It doesn't have some big exp bonus that's irreplaceable. It doesn't randomly shoot fireballs, or open new builds, or alter a current build even. It can't roll crazy dex numbers or a perfect set of 6.
It just so happens to be the spot where you give up the least in order to obtain the nat's 2 piece. That's all there is to it. It's just a nice chunk of crit. No more, and certainly no less-- every dh and every monk wants it, and sometimes other classes, too.
It's the sniper's ring of Diablo. Stupid thing nobody wants to have to use, yet for those seeking to profit monetarily off video game items, it's a dream come true.
Unfortunately for Diablo it was even worse with the legitimacy of the auction house and the fact that every single spot for every single class had items that were just as plain but just as good, and just a click and $250 away to anyone that thinks nothing of blowing a few thousand bucks on a hobby.
But really, I don't mean to complain so much. None of those things were truly necessary to beat the game, or farm "efficiently." And I got the game for free, had a ton of fun playing it, and it paid for about a year of wow, an expansion pack, and some server transfers and shit.
I'll say it one last time: that's just revisionist conspiracy-theory thinking, and it's wrong.
You keep saying it's wrong, but have not a single shred of actual proof to back it up. Your anecdotes are no better than those of anyone else here. "People who know". Seriously? Either start posting pics of you with known Blizzard staff or sit back down. They are implementing "loot 2.0" to go along with the removal of the AH, but you still think that the AH didn't have at least some sort of small influence on how drops worked in D3 vanilla? Tell me another one.
"Conspiracy theory" is one thing. I don't agree that it's a "conspiracy theory" to assume that a business is looking for the most profit it can gain. If you think it's a "conspiracy theory" to think they would take that mentality too far, then ok. That would be a debate of opinion.
But "revisionist"?
What?
How?
Huh?
..All I can think of is:dodge button incorporated
a. that's an amazing statement given how often I'm "insulted" for google/wiki because people can't stand actual facts in their arguments
b. what proof do you want here? this is a discussion on our interpretation of their actions, with aurik claiming he's stating behind the scenes "facts" he can't actually discuss
Whoops. I mean Aurik, not Plow. Amazing what one wrong word does.
Sorry Plow. You're not Plowing up this thread, fosho'. Aurik just has his nose so far up Blizzard's taint that he's become delirious from the fumes. You're 100% in the right.
My mistake.
I see, no worries, I was a little confused.
Aurik is working on titan or some shit and can't say anything except that he did or is doing some work involving blizzard, I can give him a pass on things that are fair, but I agree, I don't think that's the case here heh.
I don't care if he's fucking the Blizzard CEO's wife in the ass every night. There's absolutely no way someone with some semblance sanity can say that piss-poor droprates on legendaries did not coincide with the fact that Wilson or whoever else responsible wanted to funnel as many people into the AH as possible for maximum profit. Blizzard is no less greedy than any company.
I have been a Diablo fan since D1 and Hellfire, and played the hell out of D2 long ago. I didn't pick up D3 because I didn't have a PC to run it. I've read a lot about the AH and RMAH stuff and drop rates. I picked up D3 for Xbox 360 when it was released, and got my wife to play some couch co-op with me. I can't speak for drops on PC, but we just beat the Skeleton King on easy the other night, and 3 legendaries dropped, one of which was Leoric's Crown.... I have to wonder, no AH = better drop rates at this point.
i thought they announced the console versions have loot 2.0 or at least like loot 1.8 and that guarantees at least 1 legendary per chapter?
I don't think the consoles' Loot 1.5 has guaranteed legendary drops, but the rates are improved such that it's a near inevitability.