ROFL yeah so successful that they still can’t afford to make a second game of their own, and keep milking the same old stagnant cow for 7-8 years, which isn’t even an original game but rather a plagiarized Diablo clone-wannabe.
Back then?? Lol when did D2 stop being a sewer of cheating, duping & hacking??
Yeah, with the way people talk, you’d think every new character will be starting the game with a “small loan of a million dollars”. Since when has finding things worth trading been remotely effortless? Since hacks? Fluff outta here with that.
Blizzard is aiming for a balance between “trading simulator” and “lottery simulator” because they recognize the advantage to having multiple ways to play. And not every Diablo player is hyper-focused on loot anyway, but the greater task at hand (and D4 better have one). For them, the loot is gravy. (Heck, winning without it can carry a certain prestige.) Because getting loot does not improve the player, only the character. Players want something to practice on and get better at, a much more healthy/“natural” means of player retention than that old-hat of permanent stat-tracking (“Bean counter goes ‘brrr’!”). IMO.
Whine some more mithlond, its highly entertaining
All the ‘‘clues’’ are in the OP, i am ‘‘complaining’’ about those complaining about ''trade ‘’(yes the fact that D4 will have it, restricted or not). You are good example of those people in the text written below, aka SSF D3 mentality anti-trade.
That isn’t true, trade is an important part of an online ARPG game, as Diablo 2, later Path of exile proved, in case of online arpgs it adds to the game longevity, another layer to the ‘‘end game’’ alongside PvP, variation is good.
Trading adds to the loot-hunt, it doesn’t remove from it. All traded loot comes from, well ‘‘looting’’ slayed monsters, it only adds another dimension to the process of gearing up the character which can be fun & addictive if done adequately.
Everything can be harmful, it depends on how you use it, trade doesn’t have to be if executed well enough(which doesnt’t imply SSF , trade potions D3 white knightery lol). Should also soccer/fotball be banned becuase it can be harmful, driving a car?
Moral of your story: You don’t like trading.
Sure Diablo 2 gained a lot of longevity from its PvP and Trade…
But it needed it, not because trade or PvP were the best features but because once you did the campaign that really was the only thing left.
More modern aRPGs have a thought out endgame which increases the longevity of the game regardless of if the person is into trading or pvp.
I’m fairly certain a substantial amount of players never engaged in the open trade in D2, did little more than a handful of brawls with the PvP options.
Seriously, D2 came out at a time where so many people just didn’t have the option of playing online. Those players still came looking for more Diablo without any trade or PVP under their belt.
I’m not a fan of completely open trade because it is the defacto way to improve when its present.
I like the compromise they made in D3 where you can trade with people you are playing with - I think they should take that concept further and have non-restricted trade between guild members, players in that game and friends.(at the time of the drop). This would bring back that tight knit community trade feel but help deter many of the problems with fully open trade. (ie, bots,balancing drop rates to make items effectively unavailable to the majority,trade scams, compromising accounts,RMT, seller spam,etc)
I think for me and many more players, it’s about killing monsters and becoming stronger. That’s entirely possible in games without trade and is actually the more common setup these days on the more critically acclaimed titles.
I very much disagree that trade and PvP in D2 were the gold standard, they became the endgame because there wasn’t really another option. Plenty of people never engaged with trade/PvP and have fond memories of the game just the same - Those players will be returning, they won’t be looking for trade, they will be looking for a solid game experience about killing monsters and collecting loot.
Geared an alt fast: Working as intended.
Didn’t factor time needed to farm materials in the “30 minutes.”
Are we now also arguing the fact tha Path of exile is a huge success, in fact mostly due to D3s failures it was allowed to thrive and become the (last time i checked) number 1 most popular online arpg? Blizzard used to have monopoly with Diablo 2, it was THE game, that’s how far they dropped the ball with D3.
They can probably ‘‘afford it’’( have you seen those insane MTX $$$ prices, i’m betting act-blizz is very tempted !).
And how much time was spent gathering said materials?
That SHOULD be factored into this “equation”.
My take on trade is that as long as we have the right balance of it and doesn’t allow 3rd party BS to crank up, I’m good.
I liked the Gold side of the AH. But the RMAH was NOT needed. That all said, we still would have had players selling gold, till Blizzard blocked trading it. (which was both good and bad). I liked giving gold to my friends when I had some to spare. It was very hard to earn in those days.
It might not be important to you personally, but to me and many others it IS an important element and a deal breaker if implemented poorly (or not at all).
Trading in itself isn’t harmful for an aRPG.
The bots who ruin the ingame economy and supply the 3rd party sellers are.
Get rid of the bots, not of the part of the playerbase who likes trading.
Yeah. Sure. Everyone who wants trading in D4 is planning his own 3rd party seller website right now 
The only title of the franchise that restricted trading is D3.
The “old fashioned” way is to find items by killing monsters, keeping what you can use yourself and TRADING away what you don’t need.
Ironically you are geared much faster in D3 than in D2.
It’s all a matter of getting the droprates right - which D2 managed to achieve nearly perfectly, while D3 never even got close to it and just went from one extreme to the other.
It is. Trading is effectively cheating the drop chances and only good in games for kids without grinding and/or competition.
If they make D4 to be a game for kids, I’ll go through the campaign once and be done with it. They are those losing potential money for not attracting players like me who enjoy playing serious games with meaningful competitions.
I don’t know what your idea of trading is, but if I want to get a good item by trading I usually have to offer something good in return.
Items don’t appear out of thin air just because a game has trading.
We’re not. Anybody with a brain knows that PoE has been a HUGE success. That poster is notorious for baiting hard with his low IQ posts.
I don’t think D4 will be the game for you if you are looking for meaningful competition, with or without trade.
You know how people make 10s of mirrors in PoE each league without even playing the game itself?
Scamming noobs in trading who don’t have any idea what the real value of the items they offer is.
Trading won’t create that.
Why would anyone want that?
Seriously, Diablo should not be crowded with randos who will save the world if my character fails. In my game, it should be up to me or, on the rare occasion I do multiplayer, me and my friends.
A very small minority of traders are actually capable of playing the market this way. This point is weak. Majority of traders will offer A for B at “market” prices and enjoy that simple transaction. They will not look to trade their way to full equipment.
By crowded he means that it will have a big concurrent playerbase, not that they will all appear in your game.
It’s not weak, it’s a MAJOR point. Exactly because of this point the competition in PoE is SSF based.
I got scammed in D2 2 or 3 times and I am actually glad that it happened.
It tought me very valuable life lessons without losing anything of great importance.
It is kind of funny how you don’t want D4 to become a “game for kids” while at the same time advocating to create a save space for “noobs” so they don’t get scammed 
Yes, this guarantees fair and meaningful competition.
As said above items without stats (just for the sake of trading and scamming) could be introduced to the game so people like you enjoy that.
It’s a very weak point in the context of which type of players play ARPGs. Competitive players make out for 5% of the population I’d say, even less probably.
It’s also a weak point because a decent competition cannot ever be based on the acquisition rate of items in an RNG driven system rofl. You want a medal for getting lucky?
And so what if they buy the items? Design the game in such a way where player skill will be the deciding factor in the end and then it won’t matter. Then we can talk about proper competition. Until then the competition is a farce and will not (and SHOULD NOT) stand in the way of introducing trading.
RNG-driven or not (same drops for everyone) doesn’t change the fact that trading kills the competition.
That’s the idea behind SSF. It could be extended with zero-rng Seasonal mode.
Grinding stands too, but the majority of grinders are clueless about it. In fact many of these would prefer trading and power creep.
I am for a D4 with the most modes as possible - open-trading, SSF etc… There just won’t be any meaningful competition in the open-trading ones and I would be fine with that as long as there exists some adequate competition. SSF with zero-rng (predetermined drops from a set pool) would serve for such non-luck based efficiency competition.