I seem to know a lot more about it than you and am actually willing to look at the problem from both sides instead dismissing everything that is dissenting to my own opinion. I don’t feel like retyping so will just copy/past my reasons why free trade is the better option:
The fact is that trade restrictions should never be used to combat rmt. It is only hurting player gameplay and doesn’t affect rmt. RMT will always find something to sell in a game and restricting trade only hurts legitimate players in the long run.
Con/Pro Comparison (From what I seen):
Effects on Gameply
Restricted Trade: . - You are now forced to play every single game feature in the game. You can’t simply play the game how you like. This may work for D3 because there is only like 2 things to do in the end game, but Diablo 4 is going to be much larger. If there are 5 - 6 end game things to do and you only like one of those things, you are more likely going to quit when the game forces you to grind 3 other things for a long time that you simply don’t enjoy.Free/Open Trade: You can play the game however you want. you only want to do keyed dungeons? That’s fine, you can trade for that world boss only drop. The important thing is you get to play the game the way you like and still make character progression. This is probably the most important thing for maintaining an active player base.
Effects on RMT
Restricted Trade: Makes third-party rmt sites get creative with how to sell things. Doesn’t eliminate rmt though. Allows blizzard to not have to actually put any resources into combating third-party rmt sites as this community has the belief that restricting trade solves all problems. RMT has no affect on player gameplay on what is largely a solo-player game (even in D4 which is going to be open world; there is nothing that has been released where rmt would ruin your gameplay somehow.)Open Trade: Easier for third-party sites but Activision Blizzard has to put real resources in combating RMT. They can’t hide behind restricted trade as an excuse to ignore the problem.
Note that there are real methods in combating RMT. It’s not like having free trade means that blizzard is defenseless. It all comes down to how they combat it. Diablo 2 is an example of them not combating it at all and shouldn’t be used as an example of what happens with RMT when there is free trade.
Effects on player excitement of loot
Restricted Trade: Only items you can use are valuable to you. Finding some of the best items in the game becomes pointless if you have no plans of using it. There is no excitement when finding items. Getting players excited to find good loot is arguably the most important thing for a Diablo game. Restricted trade kills thatOpen Trade: Every item you find has potential to be a rewarding experience. I feel like I don’t need to extend on this more, this is the main pro of trade. Everything having worth makes finding loot fun.
Drop rates
Restricted Trade: It’s easier to balance drop rates of items. Simple pro for blizzard. But only for blizzard. Why is it better for the player to make things easy for blizzard? You are giving up trade for blizzards benefit.Open Trade: Blizzard will have to put more thought into balance item drops so that the majority of people still follow the rate of progression that is expected.
All the pros of restricted trade seems to just benefit Blizzard at the detriment of the players. I don’t see why the player base is willing to give up the benefits of trade just so that blizzard can have an easier time of development. Maybe its your experience that restricted trade is the ONLY way to combat rmt?
This is a false assumption. You could use software that is similar to “Insider Threat Detection” software to find suspicious activity. Then have actual people review the cases detected and make a decision. Or set a small fund for buying items from rmt sites and tracking down all involved parties based on who trades with you. These will not remove rmt but they will reduce it by just as much if not more than simply restricting trade would. However, these cost resources that Activision doesn’t want to spend and we players are just letting them do it at the detriment of good gameplay.
And then another response for people who don’t want trade for better drop rates and don’t want to have to learn the economy:
Wanting better drop rates is probably the only reason that makes sense to me. All other reasons are more beneficial to blizzard at the expense of the player. However, I would like to note that you never have to learn the “virtual economy”. You simply have to find out the price of the items you want to buy and work towards that. The economy is always there for the people who enjoy that type of thing, but it most definitely is not a requirement. “Not a requirement” is one of the most beneficial things about trade. You are allowed to play the game how you want and not “required” to do any specific type of content.
In rebuttal to increased drop rates though, progression should/would be similar whether trade exists or not. What I mean by this is that you may find more legendaries when everything is binding, but when trade exists you should theoretically be able to buy the same equipment at the same point, or that should be goal of development. It should never be to make it something like Diablo 3. I believe the drop rate in D3 came out of necessity. All good gameplay was locked behind sets which required multiple pieces to be good and therefore needed to be very attainable. The big pro for trade though is that you get to choose how you want to build your character. You found ‘x’ legendary but you really wanted to play with ‘y’ legendary. With trade you can simply trade for the gameplay you actually want to play instead of just trying to mesh all the legendaries you find into some kind of makeshift build.
And finally just some other misc things that I believe provides some pros for open trade:
I would argue that trading makes the game more fun. Every item becomes interesting; not just items you find that are direct upgrades. I really hope and don’t expect loot 2.0 to be a thing in D4 which would mean people are setting themselves up for disappointment if they don’t want trade.
This italicized section was into response of someone saying that having to “adjust” to what you find and modify your build is a good experience to have. Not exactly on trade but it is relevant if there is 0 trade at all:This “adjusting to your situation” thing is not a good thing when it comes to creating your character. It gives no choice to the player. You are playing a cold wizard and all of a sudden you get a legendary with a fireball legendary affix and now you are forced to play fireball or suffer being weak instead. I can’t speak for everyone, but for the people I have spoken with, we enjoy going into the game, looking at the skills, and choosing a route for us to take. We like choosing our abilities and type of gameplay. It’s simply leaving the RP elements intact. With trade I can simply trade that legendary for one that suits me better.
There seems to be the misconception that trade makes “getting gear” easy. In trade you are able to gain wealth and buy specific items that would normally take you longer to get. But lets look at the reasons why it would take longer. The item could be a very common legendary, however it is competing with 100 other legendary item drops and it just isn’t realistic to expect it in a reasonable time. There are 2 fixes to this. You do what Diablo 3 did and make the drop rates crazy high where you find ‘x’ number of legendaries before finding the one you need. Or you allow trade. So that even if you just find 1 of the legendaries you are bound to be able to trade for the single one you want. One isn’t easier than the other. As for which is more satisfying. I personally feel like the trade one was. After all, how many legendaries did you go through in the non-trade scenario to get the one you needed. Sure you were excited about finally getting what you needed, but you became numb to legendaries in general in the process. While, with trade you can instantly get excited for any legendary as it carries a good opportunity for progression. If you feel like the one where you found a lot of legendaries but only 1 was useful was more rewarding then that is just differing opinions of rewarding gameplay and we can’t change those.
I really don’t understand why people believe the game turns into nothing but trading once its implemented. I assume this comes from the D3 AH experience which that was most definitely the case. However, I haven’t seen anyone wanting free trade to actually suggest having an AH.
So yeah. I find trying to restrict trade simply to reduce RMT lazy of the company and ludicrous for the community to support.
You don’t know that. The ONLY thing they have said is: “The very best items are boa”. Well by definition the very best is only mythics. So stop talking out your a**.