Drop Rates RMT sites and D2

General Discussion
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What’s a typical player experience of D2, starting from the beginning?

As a new player, you drop $50 or so on your new game, pick a class and get going. Your first alt is trial and error, so you read up a bit about how to gear and allocate skills and over the course of a few casual weeks play, work your way through hell, feeling a big sense of achievement with the first kill of each act boss.

After that, if you’re still interested, you want to start MFing for better gear and equipment and get some pretty good celebrations with the first Skullders, the first Shako but the forums are talking about higher quality runewords and by this stage, if you’re lucky; maybe you have an Ist or a Vex but probably nothing much better. So you start trading.

At that point, you realise you have nothing much anyone is interested in buying and most of the things you found that gave you so much progress are basically worthless as trade items. The only currency you have is runes and you need those to make the items you dream of getting.

Lets also assume that like most players, you started on battlenet, because that was just the easiest thing to do when you downloaded the game.

You figure that you’ve got good value for the couple of hundred hours play you have had so far; but for the game to continue to be fun, your gear needs a leg up and having spent a couple of hundred hours so far, that leg up - the runes for an Enigma, a Grief or whatever it is - are not likely to come about any time soon.

But, for an investment which is a small fraction of the price of the game itself and in the expectation of more enjoyment for another couple of hundred hours gameplay - what is the next logical step?

Now blizzard themselves realised the answer to this in early D3, so it isn’t exactly contentious or against their principles. Just that their implentation was dreadful. In original D3, the drops were very much like D2 still is - great items were really rare. Legit human players were very unlikely to come across BiS items because obtaining any quantity of those BiS items required either a massive amount of luck or a massive amount of time invested. In other words, an open invitation to automate the gameplaying process with bots.

In my view, it would have been more honest to simply sell the BiS items from Blizzard directly to the player base, but doing that would have removed all pretence that D3 was anything more than a Pay to Win.

So I think it is pretty clear why RMT sites are successful and a logical consequence of the game in its current form.

Equally popular games like Skyrim retain massive player interest, a massive modding community and provide the best items in the game pretty much guaranteed. Which shows that the popularity and longevity of a game need not be linked to the scarcity of BiS items.

Another activity that provides random rewards for time invested is gambling. And gamblers who consistently lose their stake (which in the case of D2 - is only really time) bemoan their luck. Those who haven’t won the jackpot (BER runes, mostly) but have played for a while wonder when they are ever going to get lucky.

To me, the status quo is by design rather than chance.

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I was referring to the early release of D3, not D3 in it’s current form. But even in current form; BiS for a specific build might require an item, which is probably quite common but there is a great deal of variation in how an item can roll, just like D2.

In current form, in D3 you obtain a great deal of power simply by playing longer and obtaining paragon points, which is guaranteed. And the RMAH is ancient history because the current itemisation has eliminated both the need for RMAH/RMT trades and the opportunity to do so, because of item binding.

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If you can only have fun by having BiS everything… maybe this just isn’t the game for you. You want guarnteed BiS? Play d3. You want to actually get excited about a BiS item drop, play D2. But it’s not for everyone, and D2 doesn’t need to be for everyone. That’s the point.

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I play D3 when I like the season, and I’ve played D2 for the last 20 years, thanks since 1.09 onwards.

You really are just showing your ignorance on D3 items and gameplay. Most everyone on D3 is playing seasons, where most of the fun is in starting over. Very few games are created outside the ladder and those that are - are usually just between ladder resets.

A BiS item might have a very bad roll; but the set bonuses allow progress through GR’s and you build power over the season, then it’s back to the beginning.

D2R doesn’t even have a ladder yet. So everyone is playing (or not playing) the persistent game.

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The fun part of the game is the much more customizable characters so not just playing demon hunter as the meta, you can make paladin and go hammer or smite, or zeal, or Tesla, or auras. Every class has much more opportunities to provide a different play style. And yes it takes time to find the gear but even budget characters can do it all. A lot of fun comes from gearing up a character, it’s the hunt. You can buy the end game items and then be bored because there’s nothing to work towards

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Cutthroat - I think there are essentially two different points:

The playerbase that approaches things as you have described which includes almost everyone when they start out and the player base, usually composed of people who’ve put in a few hundred hours or more who want to get and use items they don’t see much realistic prospect of attaining.

It’s that second group of people who the D3 RMAH catered towards and who now buy botted items through third party microtransactions.

I believe the people complaining about RMTs are broadly in two groups as well. Those who put a lot of time in and resent others who haven’t - having the same gear. And those who think that you should be able to obtain the best gear by playing a reasonable amount of time (and reasonable is subjective). The first group of players here takes issue with the second for the same reasons as above.

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I’m glad you used the word “expectation.” Because I don’t think it winds up being true for most people. Even if it’s what they expect going into the transaction.

If a big part of your perception of D2 is farming for HRs and BiS items, then buying those items can lessen your incentive to play the game further. People just don’t realize it until after they do it.

It’s why Blizzard providing RMT for a game like D2 would be a bad idea, because it ruins a large aspect of their own game for most people. (Never mind any of the other good or bad arguments people might make against it.) It’s self-defeating and dysfunctional.

I’ve never played Skyrim, but based on what you said - if BiS items are that readily available, then they have a different philosophy for itemization. It’s going to be less exciting and interesting, and people will have to play for other reasons. Obviously D2 went to the other extreme, and it’s a huge aspect of the game. RMT affects the games in different ways.

Games where you can consistently grind your way to better items in a predictable way are fine and all too. That’s another flavor of endless grind. And obviously it isn’t D2. At least in D2 you can get lucky. Or rather, you have to get lucky, which is why it’s exciting when it happens.

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Spend first ladder as a nooby but hear about jsp

Stay a nooby or join jsp

Next time ladder resets repeat nooblike behavior or sell shakos occys tals armor and hrs for tens of thousands of fg which you then use to fund a pvp char on nonladder where the prices are cheap.

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Thanks for that point splattened.

I think people who buy every single item to make a perfect build probably get very disappointed, because if you are a PVE player, it won’t change your experience much.

As a Summoner Necro, I run Chaos Sanc & Baal most of the time. My enigma makes a very big improvement to my QoL in Chaos and very little improvement to Cows. Let’s just say - I found my own Ber rune in game and I’m not in the least bit unhappy about how the rest of my Enigma came to be.

There are a lot of possibilities I am looking to explore, like the full Tal’s set I collected and plan to equip my Meph sorc for.

I expect (but of course, I don’t know) that most people who use RMT do so to enhance what they have by getting something that feels out of reach, rather than dropping mega dollars to get the BiS for everything they do.

And I totally understand why anyone who wants an anni would use a forum to get it.

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I tend to desagree here
D3 vanilla was much worse than d2r is now
The amount of rng in that version was atrocious
Stats where all over the place with big ranges to roll within

I already said it here
D2r needs an AH of its own
An AH with no rmt option
With no buyout option, just bid
And no trade option outside that AH

With this tool we could say goodbye to ptw, bot farms and such

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Hi Hanz,

You say you disagree, but you are disagreeing from the same place I’m coming from.

In D3 original, it was more or less impossible to gear well without spending money. I put about $100 through RMAH and my character was semi-decent for a while as a consequence.

Using Skyrim as an example, if you play that game, you are going to get BiS gear after 100 hours of gameplay if you’re starting from scratch. I know you can do it a lot quicker if you know the shortcuts or are playing a do-over. So the itemization is really important but it isn’t a slot machine affair like D2 is.

When I play a game, I like to know that after a while, I’m playing at the top level my items can allow me to. I’m not an athlete. Clicking monsters until they’re dead while switching between 4-5 skills isn’t really an elite sport - even if some people can make it into a competition. I want to have fun and explore what the game can offer me.

Why offer me really fantastic runewords if there’s not much chance I can make them without investing huge amounts of hours??

I think it is healthy and rational to buy a game for $50 and equally healthy and rational to make the most of what it has to offer - if you’re spending 200+ hours on it - by doing the same again.

I really don’t think it’s healthy to spend a year on it to get to the same place, then bitterly complain because others have taken a shortcut.

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Never put any money in it but strugled big time when i started but once i learned to “play it” i became i think top 4 dh dps here in my country

My suggestion for runes was to give countess the hability to roll up to runes17 droptable, in other words being able to drop up to zod
This would spd up things but i bet people would die from boredom too
That said, i think that just rising the chance for runes to drop is bad but i can support the idea of increasing the odds to roll runes like pul+
I just dont wanna see Orange names all the time like in d3 right now

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Hi Hanz,

I think it comes down to the same thing, except RMT’s monestize it.

A lot of the attraction of D2 is that you can get lucky and when you do it feels great. The flipside of that is you can spend one or two hour most nights for a month, with a BER in your inventory waiting to get that JAH and… you’re still waiting.

It’s got nothing to do with your skill. It’s just random. But you’re there, pursuing the sunk cost fallacy and waiting because it’ll be brilliant when it happens.

That essentially gambling your time against a reward, regardless of whether Enigma will actually make your play better. But that whole experience is why RMT sites do okay. And why Blizzard wanted to monetise it through RMAH.

You might be a player but can you spot when you’re being played?

If you can, do you actually mind spending $50 - $100 for that? I don’t. I’ve used a lot of bandwidth. My time in the real waking working world is actually quite valuable and well rewarded.

But I really do understand both points of view.

And I expect Blizzard do too.

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I think it comes up to whats your game in d2
Killing demons? Loot Hunt? Player Hunt? All of these?
I know that going rmt is gonna kill the game for me bc all i care is the loot Hunt, thats why i only play alone and the only thing i ever traded was a ravenfrost i found for a pul, i still regreat it
I spend 90% of my play time on my offline chars bc the way d2r on bnet is now is just unpleasant for me and i can mod the game the way i find it best

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RMT is in every online game that has drops. It did not even start with D2. I sold a castle in UO Atlantic for 1000$ before D2 existed. Just saying. But without time spent and rarity there is no longevity and less dopamine. I mean you can beat the game in blues in Hell. That mini maxing is the the rest of the game. Thus why I have played D2 for years and D3 for a couple months. D2 has been going longer than Skyrim and has mods, the devs say they will allow mods in SP D2r. They cannot force them to mod though. But there are still folks played D2 online after over 20 years. Skyrim does not even have online and only held me for a year if that. Also I start over and delete characters when they are maxed. No sunk cost fallacy. I am in this to waste time and it is good at it. I just made a new sorc to practice for ladder last week and already farmed up 99% of the BIS minus the BIS charms, that I will probably never get. A dual dream zealer is next, just because I never made one yet. But to me going to far with making drops less rare will destroy what the game is at its core. A fun way to waste time.

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I find me to lower the drop rate for RMT.
It’s just like the politician who grafts for rights, isn’t it?

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Thats not true for start and like two months after start of season. And if you talk about current time, well if stuff doesnt have value, you can get it free or just very cheap.

I gave away all my stuff and started playing again last week. I got torch, some useful items and 2 skullder for free in public game.

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If you think that having drops that have the HR (high runes) along with other hard to find pieces of gear fall out of the sky like rain then forget it. That will hurt more than it will help. Chase items that take time to find is what keeps players playing. Without any good endgame other than farming for better gear will mean you will get all decked out in BiS gear really fast. Then you are done playing after you have played all of the builds that you want to play.