Yes, we already addressed this in the posts above. P2W was not the most proper term to use thus I changed the thread title to “PAY FOR POWER”, but regardless of the term the issue in OP is valid and troublesome for the competitive players.
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Then every online game ever created is pay2win. You can pay someone to rank you in a game like Starcraft, even.
Ergo, that definition of pay2win is useless
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LoL just like the OP is overblowing this issue you are overblowing the Path of Diablo case. You, again, didn’t provide any examples with links. I have found two forum posts, both on OwnedCore of people trying to sell in game stuff in Path of Diablo, and neither of those forums posts has a single reply.
Wrong again (see below for why) - and nice evade by trying to use an illusory example based on D3 vanilla AH. We are talking about Diablo 2. You know 0 things about trading in D4, because none of us do. They could implement all sorts of systems that allow full trading between players of every item in the game and still snuff out real money transactions - unless you stick with your silly position that like two people in a decade posting on a random website with 0 replies that they have something to sell or want to buy in game is proof of pay to win.
You did exactly 0 to refute the D2 HR example. Yes you can buy high runes for real $, but the point is that runes have a stable value in D2 despite botting when it comes to trading those runes for loot. It is not hard at all to generate wealth in Diablo 2 without botting or buying power, because you can just play the game and find runes, then cube them up or trade them directly.
Your complete lack of mention of cubing up runes when discusssing Jah drop rates is deceitful - its a core mechanic for generating wealth. You may get your Jah rune from drops or cubing.
You tried to argue that rune value is undermined in D2 because you can buy them for cheap $, but then don’t mention that their trade value in game for in game items has been stable for 20 years, despite a website that sells them for 50 cents. You did not mention this because it directly contradicts your point that bots reduced the vale of Jah.
You also don’t mention that the expense of all items in D2 is super low, not just ultra rare runes - its all relative and priced on rarity. So your 1/15k chance for a Jah rune is why it costs more than other very rare uniques. This is important again because in game trade value of items is unaffected because its all based on in game rarity, including $ cost of items. So, again, in a properly itemized game like diablo 2, the loot you find as a ‘legit’ player has lost no value, nor gained any value, because its value in game actually exactly replicates the cost in $, and its based on value in high runes, as it has been for 20 years.
Yes you can buy the best loot in Diablo 2 for a couple bucks. It’s also a 20 year old game. It’s amazing that it has such an active market, at all. Back in the day, the prices of these items was much higher because it was new. This is pretty simple to understand.
In summary, you’re fake news.
Oh. Oh my God. I just… I just can’t even imagine. The horror of it all. It’s almost like you’re making a case for how botting has a secondary benefit of enriching every other player in the game by making gear and items more readily available. Even if you were, I would disagree to an extent based on D2 and how every item has had a stable in game value for 20 years despite ridiculous amounts of botting and very active 3rd party vendors.
This is whole thing is so stupid. The trading economy is the only reason Diablo 2 is still played today to the level that it is, and yet you want to shut it down/nerf it to irrelevance because botters get better gear but then also you can get better gear, too, so it doesn’t matter but youre very upset. All of this on top of the fact that you have 0 understanding of the systems in Diablo 4 because they do not even exist yet.
/yawn
I’ve already provided a solution to this issue numerous times. The only way trading will ever effectively “lock out” websites that sell in game items and currency for $$$ is to use a trading post where traders are completely anonymous.
Player 1 post on the trading post he has a VEX rune to trade and is needing IST, MAL and UM. Players 2, 3, 4, 5 posts IST, MAL and UM however player 6 post IST, MAL and 2 UM’s.
Player 1 and 6 make the trade without ever knowing each other, both are happy.
Cannot sell items if you cannot pin point who you’re selling them to 
Restrict all trading to the trading post, no player to player or item dropping.
They could builid a website that allows you trade items out of the game and even a mobile app to use on your phone to trade items from your stash at the trading post so you can suspiciously trade gear while at work haha… Blizz can easily put in gold sink’s as a transaction fee to trade. Gold would become more useful.
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I’m not providing links because as far as I’m aware it’s against the forum rules to directly post to people selling things third party (especially when the same site also provides bots/hacks for other games) - even if it isn’t directly related to Diablo 3.
All I did was google “ownedcore path of diablo items” and it was literally the first link. Not to mention there’s multiple others that come up. Some quotes from the thread - “good guy fair prices” “Sweet deal on rune’s! Fast and efficient”
There’s even a “I would like to buy” followed by “Big vouch for this guy here” by the same guy, clearly indicating that he bought items.
I’d be very curious how you think a small team working on a mod for a near-20 year old game would prevent third party retailing. How have they claimed to do so? I doubt they have the manpower required to actively look into every trade that’s made (if they even have the ability to detect all of them in the first place) - Just look at any online game out there. If it has free trade, and it’s popular, there are third party sites for it. Because it’s near impossible to outright prevent, even for large teams with money to spend.
Okay, so your claim is “hr runes are still worth something!!!” - my point is, they are worth significantly less than they would be, if there weren’t so many bots running 24/7. Do you disagree with this?
Whether an item can still maintain some value is irrelevant, it has directly affected the gameplay for every other player by ruining the value of said item(s). You said so yourself right here -
It isn’t providing a benefit, it is directly negatively impacting the gameplay. It is removing aspects of gameplay that should exist. In a way similar to how powerleveling does (though powerleveling is it’s own topic) - If you play a game in which power leveling isn’t possible, then you have to experience the 1-x gameplay. You have to actually play the game as the developers intended, learning mechanics as you go, gaining items as you go, etc etc.
Whereas if power leveling is viable, then a lot of players will consider just skipping the basic action to get to the endgame. Do you see how this relates to the item version of the issue?
With items, there’s generally a rough linear progression to the items. You start with whites, you get a couple of blues, a couple of yellows, maybe one legendary… Slowly over time you get more legendaries, maybe a set piece or two, maybe eventually you finish the set… etc.
Whereas if items have free trade (especially if they are also botted) - then this progression is destroyed. People no longer go through the white stage, or even the blue stage. They get given a bunch of half-decent rares that people don’t particularly need, they have access to buy them for $1 if they want to, etc.
It’s why I brought up the D3 auction house mechanic - when D3 first came out, people struggled with everything. People could barely even kill a mob in Inferno without dying to it or taking 10 minutes to finish it off. If you saw a rare mob you were dead in seconds. Slowly over time, people started to gather items to the point where they could fight back. It was still risky and there was still a risk of death, but they could do it.
If you started a month after people had already been doing this, there was no struggle for you. You’d get max level, and buy a very high DPS weapon on the AH for a measly 10k gold. This allowed you to skip the part where you struggled as much, because even if you still died easily you could now kill at a decent speed, which meant you could safely grind for items at a much greater speed than you should have been able to at that point
If you can’t see this then I’m not sure what to say.
I didn’t mention cubing because it isn’t at all relevant to my point. My point is meant to show you that the items value is drastically changed because of the botting. Whether you can or can’t obtain runes by cubing them is near meaningless.
Let’s say diablo 2 has only 100 players. Of these 100 players, 50 of them would like a Jah for one reason or another. With only 100 people playing, and zero bots, this Jah is much more difficult to obtain or trade for. As you said yourself, magic find does not affect the drop rate of runes, which means that while you can do things to improve your odds of finding a SoJ but you can’t do anything to improve your odds of finding a Jah other than to farm the area(s) where it can drop.
If you want a Jah, you have to hope that 1 of these 100 other players either has one or finds one. Which means they have to be in the right area(s) for said item to drop, and they have to get lucky enough to find one. Let’s just say, for arguments sake, that within these 100 players they only get a single Jah every 24 hours. The number isn’t meant to be accurate it’s being used to make a point.
With only 1 Jah coming into the economy every day, and with it being an item that’s used in 10 different runewords (one of which being enigma), it’s going to be worth quite a bit. Especially towards the start of a season, when no one currently has an enigma. Let’s say it’s worth $5 of value.
Now, if you were instead playing on a server with 100 players, but 5 of them were botting 24/7… well now that has affected the value of items within the game. Instead of only 1 Jah coming into the economy every day, it’s now 2 Jahs coming into the economy every day. It’s hard to say exactly how much this would impact the value of the Jah, but it certainly wouldn’t still be worth $5, it would be some amount less than $5. Let’s say $4.50.
After a month of both of these scenarios running, the Jah rune is worth much less because a lot of people already have their enigma, but of course new players will enter the game and want their own enigma (or players will create alts and want one on there too) - With no bots, that Jah might only be worth $3 at this point in the season. But with bots, that Jah might only be worth $1.50.
To make it as simple as possible: The value of an item decreases the more that is available. Items are more available when they are botted 24/7. Therefore the value of said item decreases compared to if there were no botters.
The value of items has been stable for 20 years… but the price has decreased over the 20 years? You’re kinda contradicting yourself there, no idea what you were trying to say. Either the price is stable or the price has changed, you can’t have it both ways.
Whether the price is stable or has changed also doesn’t prove that it hasn’t been impacted by bots. If bots have been there since day 1, then the value of the item has already been affected.
In reality - the price of items changes throughout a season. At the start of a season, people are going to want certain items, they’re going to be trying to build up their MF so they can gain more items faster, etc. A lot of people are going to be playing Sorc because enigma isn’t really a possibility to obtain yet, so anything that greatly helps a sorc will be quite valuable, whereas in the future that value may drop
People aren’t going to be PvPing as much as they will eventually because they’re too busy doing other things and their characters items are a mess. So items that are used in LLD won’t be worth a whole lot straight away, though if you find one you could stash it for later.
2 months into a season… not as many people are leveling. Not as many people are getting those LLD items unless they’re specifically farming for them. More people are running hell Baal, hell cows, NM andy, etc. Items that are dropped in these places will go down in value as more and more of them come into the game. Supply vs Demand.
That’s why duping would drastically ruin the value of any item that can be duped. If someone dupes 1000 SoJs and starts selling them, instead of them being worth $10 (random inaccurate number), they’re going to drop. Fast. Maybe he can sell a few for $10, but then he’ll have to drop down to 8, then 5, then 3… etc.
If the amount of an item in the game didn’t affect the value - which you seem to be claiming - then this wouldn’t be the case.
Where in any of my posts have I said “I want trading removed!!!” or that I want it “nerfed to irrelevance”? Please, quote me a single time saying anything even remotely like that. I haven’t even really suggested for a change except that gold should probably be untradable IF gambling can reward some really good items
All I’m saying is that it’s a very tricky situation, and that Blizzard needs to think about these things. In an ideal (impossible) world, we would have all free trading, no one would bot, no one would dupe, no one would sell items for monetary value, and we’d all have a fair fun time with the game and all be able to compete on the leaderboards
But in reality, people will abuse every system they can to get an advantage. People will risk being banned to gain some money, whether that be botting, duping, selling items for money etc. The people at the top of the leaderboards aren’t likely to be your basic everyday player who plays solo and doesn’t use his credit card
The people at the top of the leaderboards are likely to either be people who abused some mechanic, people who purchased their items, or people such as streamers/youtubers who were given a majority of their items. Eventually this could equal out as the people who play the game fairly slowly catch up in gear, but for a while this is undoubtedly who will be at the top
Fair enough, didnt realize i had to scroll past a jillion ads to see replies. Still, a couple random people partaking in p2w is a far cry from pay to win sites like in classic bnet. Its not an organized, easy access, widespread thing like in D2, because… Botting is not a thing in path pf diablo. Every review and player i have interacted with on the mod has confirmed this. They are much more aggressive in detecting and stopping bots than Blizzard ever was in D2. I am sure people may have pulled it off for brief windows of time before being caught, but its just not a practice that exists. You have some forum people who set something up on a forum to make a few bucks. The extent of this happening in PoD is something thst would never effect anybody else.
No. I can basically quote your whole reply and just say “No”. That’s not what I am saying. You just don’t want to understand cuz youre too busy ‘being right’.
I am saying that a Jah rune today buys you as much in trade with another player in game as it did 20 yeara ago.
It literally blows my mind that you cant separate the concept of what the value of the item trades for in game from how much it sells outside the game for real cash.
The entire point is that the value of the item in the game is unchanged, particularly on the Ladder. The fact that the price in $ has decreased as the game has lost popularly is completely irrelevant to what a player can trade for in game with their own finds.
If 1 Jah rune bought you 100 units of loot in 2002, it will buy you 100 units of loot today. Do you even still play the game? Everything is still valued in respect to high runes, and those values have changed 0% in 20 years. Your argument that ‘if there are more jah runes they are less valuable’ is nonsense and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of D2 economy. “How much is x worth?” “0.75hr”. That is D2 economy and it is immutable. Some people might have more ‘hr’ to spend, but each hr has retained 100% of its value. Your argument that botting and 3pr has decreased the in game trading value of high runes is incorrect.
Eearly ladder people will be trading for and with lower quality items because that is what is available. As the ladder goes on, people will be trading with and for higher ticket items. It doesn’t mean the value of things is at all changed. It means people are dealing with smaller amounts of wealth. There might be more demand for something, and some people might offer more than others, but overall the in-game-item-for-item-prices (annoying that I have to delineate so much for you) are fairly stable. I generally overpay for items i want because I’m impatient and want it naow. Yes demand will shrink for particular items as the ladder goes on, but people still trade based on the hr value of items, or maybe pgems if its a low ticket item. All of this is always true, for every ladder, and even the bots and retail sites have to regenerate their stock like everyone else.
I mean, of course. I’m not advocating for bots and 3pr. It’s part of the reason I play PoD instead of live. No bots running baal runs or cows or whatever. Some odd forum posts don’t negate that. I’m just pointing out that D2 at least had itemization that still made it accessible for normies to get things going, which is why i said that bots/3pr don’t cast a shadow over its legacy. I’m also indicating that if itemization is done correctly for D4, with nothing else done right in terms of protecting the economy, it won’t cast a shadow over the whole game.
Things weren’t always valued in HRs, but sure.
If you can’t see that botting will in some way impact the economy then I really don’t know what to say to you, it’s literally impossible for there to be wide-spread botting and for it to not affect the economy.
When weren’t things valued in HR? The year D2 existed before LoD was introduced? In the six months after LoD came out? It’s been out for 20 years, those blips aren’t even worth mentioning.
Runes took over as core currency at most six months after LoD launched, and we both know it. People still trade pgems and SoJs, too, but thats not what people values things in primarily since 12/2001. LoD launched 6/2001. D2 launched 6/2000. It’s 2019, and you’re going on about prices in 2019 for BiS gear like its stilll 2001.
I never said that it won’t have an impact. What i am contending is the scale of that impact and how it affects players who do not bot or buy power. I don’t think it impacts them over much, and they have a clean and clear path to wealth in D2 that is unimpeded by bots/3pr (by your own statments they gain tangible benefits from bots in terms of wealth acquisition, even if you use a normative statement to say its ‘bad’). I like to play in PoD without them because I don’t like them spamming runs. I like to interact with actual people, and not have bots dropping into my games to leverage higher mf. I’m not overly concerned about how much wealth they have acquired compared to me. It doesn’t matter. When I find my jah rune i can trade it for 1 hr worth of loot. Your reply is a very large cop out. You allege normie players are harmed in D2 by botting by having access to devalued items. I demonstrated why they don’t You said their leveling experience is ruined by power leveling. Thats a choice and regular non bots can host power leveling sessions, too. Instead of substantiating your claims, you assert that i should take it on faith, despite the fact that your devalued item theory has no supporting evidence based on what’s actually the case in D2 Ladder and the stable value of items for like 18 years.
You compare bots to duping, like a sudden, massive influx of the most rare items out of thin air. Few problems with that. Bots have to acquire gear, too, and also have to fight RNG. Bots/3pr inventories are also reset on ladder reset. The gear on 3pr is paywalled, so its not just flooded into the market. Duped items are often treated irreverently by the duper and traded for items from other players that have less value than the duped item - not so with runes and other loot acquired from botting. The gear that is introduced still retains its value, unlike duping, because of the previous statements. Again, I refer you to the tradeability of high runes and how items are measured against HR value, and how those value ratios haven’t changed over the years.
Back to your competitive ladder bit - I don’t know why you expect normie people to be at the top pf the ladder. Dbrunski literally runs a stream called Human Bot Project where he runs thousands of runs like a bot. He ran Nihlathak 10,000 times in one of them. Is he a normie? People do this, and they would be the top of any ladder.
Lastly, you were asking about when you said you wanted trading to be removed or nerfed into oblivion.
I mean, basically right after you asked me when you ever said that, if you follow your choo-choo to its logical conclusion. This thread is about making sure the game doesn’t have a core currency that can be part of end game progression, players will want, and can freely trade because it is an avenue for exploitation by bots/3pr. You agree with OP and argue that if it can grant access to items that are “really good”, it shouldn’t be traded. “Really good” would have to mean items useful at end game, or it wouldn’t be “really good”. It would be junk or leveling gear. Also, lol at you asking me to “quote you ever saying that, except don’t count that time I actually said that”. More on that below.
If a core currency is in demand, say high runes for example, it is because they are a gateway to player power, primarily. If an item or currency is not part of a power progression system, it will likely have little to no demand, unless it’s some cosmetic or collectible type of item. If that thing is freely tradeable, say high runes for instance, then it can be exploited by bots/3pr unless counter measures are deployed, like bot detection software.
This thread is full of people arguing that gold trading is bad if its part of gambling because gambling grants access to end game gear. The proposal seems to be to only let players trade stuff that can’t be part of end game power. Legendaries, sets, mythics, currencies, etc would be off the table, or at least not max level versions of those things.
If you don’t want the end game stuff to be tradable, then you don’t want trading to be an end game aspect, and therefore you necessarily believe it should be either removed or nerfed into irrelevance. There really isn’t a middle ground.
But, let’s leave high level abstractions and logical conclusions out of this and just go directly to what you are really saying:
So… keep gambling, but nerf end game trade mechanics or remove it altogether because it might enable 3pr. Problem solved!
Once you realize that every item that effects player power is part of player progression and then connect it to your logic, you are making an argument for nerfing trading into irrelevance at best, removing it altogether at worst.
Gold gambling is added, can effect player power, and can be exploited by bots/3pr.
Literally You: “Make it untradeable, problem solved”
Logic extensions:
Legendaries are core player power and they can be exploited by bots/3pr.
You: “make them untradeable, problem solved”?
Mythics are core player power and they can be exploited by bots/3pr.
You: “make them untradeable, problem solved”?
Dungeon Keystones are a core player power mechanic and they can be exploited by bots/3pr.
You: “make them untradeable, problem solved”?
Item X is part of core player power progression and they can be exploited by bots/3pr.
You: “make them untradeable, problem solved”?
You see how you are, in fact and effect, advocating for removing trading/nerfing it into oblivion? If you can’t trade things that effect end game progression, then you don’t have trading, at least not in any sort of meaningful way that will actually be a part of the game.
Now, consider the ramifications of nerfing/removing trading, which is something you are demonstrably in support of. Blizzard had to buff drop rates to ridiculous levels - an inventory full of “legendaries” every rift! “Smart” Loot that is tailored to you and your class, a massive and controversial shift from previous games. A fractured player community where people who dont know each other rarely interact. All because, you guessed it, players couldn’t trade! Each of those things and probably more, have their own sets of ramifications, too. Yay, you and OP, advocating for another isolated and insulated player experience in this brave new open world full of other players!
See OP, I updated it with answer to this since it’s very popular misconception.
I don’t think we can design a game around what gold sellers and bots are doing. If they want to hurt the community, then screw them.
We can, but it has to have limitations. No trading (for no item/gold sellers) and limited hours of gameplay per account (for no botting).
I usually put in 100 hours in the first week of a season. I like to give away gear to people in my group, and I want to be able to share gear with clan / friends. I don’t want that to be taken away from me.
Like I said, I’m living my best life - if people bot or sell gold to hurt the community, screw them.
Then the game is not about slaying monsters, but about giving/sharing gear.
I’d also gave away gear to random players in D2, all my gear since I didn’t play NS, which was usually worth more than 100 ISTs. But only at the last day of the Season.
Maybe something like this could get done in Diablo 4: FREE UNLIMITED TRADING during last day of Season.
We play the game straight for the whole Season with no trading interference and the last day of Season becomes one big open market where all the folks could enjoy it the way they like:
- Giving away stuff
- Profiting/buying
- Scamming/trolling
Yes. Honestly, when you give random people gear in an A-RPG, you are essentially ruining their gameplay experience imo.
Yeah let’s remove trading because someone else (not you guys presumably) is OK with being handed gear… That’s a great idea…
If someone wants to give someone else stuff then that’s fine. If the game is good then people won’t have multiple sets of godly stuff during a Ladder anyway, and people who receive stuff will generally have upgrades unless they make “Diablo” 3 sequel where everything is fixed sets (Legendaries are effectively sets if all your slots are locked to a single piece, which is how D3 LoN/LoD works)
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The way I see it gambling just by pure lottery and not against other players is completely pointless. It should be some kind of wager. And it should be done with blood shards, which can be gotten from bosses and PvP or something. Wagers on PvP matches will be great too.
You have really just the worst, most awful ideas, ever.
Your assertion that open trading is bad for dedicated and competitive D2 players is complete garbage.