To me, this whole conversation feels irrelevant, because there’s so many questions still unanswered that having any discussions about it now seems weird.
Questions:
What will the gameplay be at maxlevel?, what items should we be on the lookout for?
What currency will items be traded for?, will it be for other items or some in-game currency?
Will in-game currency have a proper value?
Will the “best” items be irrelevant?, will rares and item affix runes be dominant but still tradeable?
These are questions that can determine on how trading is handled.
If D4 is gonna have both a really good leader board system along with a strong robust PvP system then a free trading system is out the window. That is due to the fact that you will have different types of botters farming for both gear and gold to sell.
Then you will have weekend credit card warriors spending money that will win at PvP all because they were able to kit themselves out in all BiS gear that no one else would be able to get as easily as they would. The same would be true for the leader board spots.
D4 would become a pay to win game due to free trading. Plus we would probably have some spam friends requests that i wouldn’t want returning to a Diablo game. Now if I can give them all to ones like you then maybe I might consider your position.
Finally the drop rates would probably be worse than what they will be in D4. Sorry but I like to be able to find my own gear. I don’t want to have to get it from a botter or someone without a life outside of playing D4.
Genredefining systems being completely different (character customization/development, itemization, loothunt) makes it impossible to even consider it a clone and drops your opinion in the garbage bin as soon as you try to argue it.
This is not neccesarily true though. If you have a proper pvp system that puts more emphasis on skill insted of functioning like a race against a target dummy then any intial gear advantage will be cancelled out once the legit players get their items. So long as there isn’t a lvling system in place that lets botters infinitely gain advantage then pvp can work with trading.
The loothunt will probably be longer than in D3 but shorter than D2. As such there will be no problem for the legit players to acquire the items they need, especially if there’s trade. Obviously you could go down the D3 route and drop items 24/7 but that will destroy the base game.
The trouble is until the legit players find their gear, which could take an extremely long time with free trade.
No, with free trade the drop rates would have to be similar to D2 if not worse than D2, depending on how that free trade is handled. Drop rates always have to be balanced around the existence of trade. If not trading to die very fast due to flooding the market with BiS gear.
I have seen it happen in other games that have supported trading. In City of Heroes when they added an AH. At first some of the most expensive things such as recipes for costume parts costed around 10 million influence (gold). I did farm up the influence by farming rare crafting mats that costed around 1 million a piece. So after got much more than what I needed I bought those wings. Then years later I noticed that the high ticketed items like Hamadon Goo and Mu’s Vestments that went for 1 million each was vendor bait along with the dragon wings that I purchased for 10 million influence.
How many players would be playing in that mode. Plus will Blizz really want to support a lot of different modes outside of normal and hardcore. You have season to add to the mix as well.
I bet a fair amount would be interested in those two modes. Probably more than the amount who are interested in HC currently.
But yeah, it takes some development time, which could have been spent on other things.
No Trading is still my preferred solution for that reason, but two modes would be a good compromise.
Honestly because they will already have seasons most of that development is already going to be done. Creating a “no-trade” mode should be no different than launching a new season, they will just have to add a few new rules that adjust the drop rates and remove trading which can’t be very much different than what they already do with Diablo III with the season themes etc.
Also I think it will over all be quicker for them to segregate trading from no trading, rather than trying to balance having a little of both in a single game mode.
With that said even though open trading is my preferred solution I would be more than happy to wait longer so those that dislike trading can have their own mode, because I want everyone to buy and love the game.
2 game modes would seperate the playerbase even more just because some of you cant live with the idea, that someone is getting an item, they didnt found themselves?
its just cutting out possible gameplay and community interaction
wheres the point?
im not even a shopper
it’s important to me, to find my own loot
but i support ppl who wanna play the trade game
maybe i also just wanna make money with trading to buy some expensive ingame stuff they might implement? i dont know?
Better gameplay experience. Reasonable droprates without having to trade and watch for gear on AH sites (not even RMT, just pseudo-AH sites like in PoE). Not having half of the gear progression ripped out of the game by getting good items nearly for free in trades (like it is in PoE).
I mean, I dont particularly care that people make money doing whatever they want, which is one reason I usually dont talk about RMT when it comes to why trading is bad.
But items having a money value puts really bad incentives into a game. Suddenly people will complain that the item they found, and was just about to sell for $100 got nerfed in a patch and is now worthless. It creates an unnecessary mess for the developer. Blizzard is already way too afraid of nerfing stuff. Money just shouldn’t be a factor in-game.
I’m sure people can figure out how to make money outside of gaming. Really no need to mix these things.
If it is something that is supposed to be time-consuming to get, it seems fine that it is expensive with no shortcuts to the gold.
And if not, the gold cost could just be lowered. Or increase how much gold you get from vendoring items.
Seems like an artificial problem, if there are expensive in-game items, just so you have something you can earn from trading.
I’d rather vote to not have trading at all then if we would go to such extremes. We could spice it up even further. Only the one that dealt the most damage to monster while an item dropped can pick up the item. Otherwise it disappears from the ground
Let’s all be honest, fair and in a pile of sh… all together then so to speak.
Closer to D2 drop rates instead of D3 ones on top of it?
I can live with it. I just wouldn’t bother buying the game in the first place if it’s just going to be a boring, self found, non trading game like Diablo 3 is now.
Im ok with allowing items only to be traded once or twice. I think that there should be in game trading and it should occur face to face in person as it was in D2, I don’t like auction houses and I don’t like modern electronic interfaces distracting me from the gothic dark universe that Im trying to become involved in.
If there is an auction house it should be integrated well into the game, e.g. an npc with a huuuge stash of loot, swords, crowns, amulets, etc. You give him a few items with a set price in runes, gems and gold, he takes a cut and sells it for you and if you want to collect you have to go back to him… Even then I don’t really like that.
I think there should simply be a mode that allows you to create a character that either can or can’t trade (similar to HC, only both trading and non-trading characters could play together, so there will be no community splitting), where being able to trade would be normal, while those who don’t want to trade will get somewhat boosted drop rates to make up for the lack of trading.
