Why are items selling for real money, bad enough to justify a lack of open trading?

General Discussion
44

I’m not going to argue that, it made trading (well… using the AH) even more mandatory.

I only ever found exactly 1 decent legendary in vanilla, which I still have. All my other gear was obtained by farming gold and buying it.

To be fair, rares at that stage could be quite valuable, and better than legendaries in a lot of cases. I would definitely check to see if they were good before I trashed them. It was the boring/basic way main stat worked then (and even worse now) that was the problem… items were instant cr@p a lot of the time because it had the wrong, or multiple, main stats.

That is my main concern in regards to trading, anyway. Itemisation, while very related, is a whole other conversation. But I definitely agree that rares should have potential to be useful at the top end too.

45

Here are few things I’d like to share on the matter:

Regardng your question, from what I’ve seen so far there is no actual, reasonable explanation.
I have looked for one far and wide, even asked straight up questions to MvP MissCheetah and got no response.

The way I see it, there are crazies out there willing to spend money on third party sites.
I do not believe for a second, that the game should lose basic functionality because of some crazies out there.
I should be able to give items to friends, and they should be able to give items to me, even if we were not both online in the same game when the item dropped.

So far, I’ve encountered only one legitimate concern about trading, and that is the so called flippers. Players, who would amass wealth, then start buying items and re-sell them for a higher price, which artificially raises the prices of items.

I think we can do without those, which is why I am not against the idea, that items should be traded just once.
However, I am against the idea of potentially BiS items being bound to you upon you picking them up.

Another concern, that people bring up, that I do not find to be legitimate, is account compromises. To that I say:
Diablo is a game for mature audience. Blizzard should treat their Diablo players as such.
The security of your personal computer and that of your battle net account is your responsibility. Blizzard have done their part on their end. They’ve written articles that teach you as to how to not get hacked. They have added features such as the keychain authenticator, the mobile authenticator, there’s SMS protect.

With all those tools, for someone were to steal your items, he would have to be a freaking Blizzard employee. No one working there will risk his job to mess with your account.

The big boom of hacked WoW accounts back in 2007 or 2008 was a result of people downloading addons, that contained keyloggers or even exe files. This is not going to be a concern for Diablo 4.

Also, most “hacks” nowadays are not even actual hacks at all. It’s stupid people or children giving their account name and password, supposedly to get free skins.
Like I said, Blizzard should treat their audience as mature individuals.

2 roll backs per account (if I am not mistaking, that’s already the policy for D3).
If you still haven’t secured your machine and you are constantly getting hacked, ban the entire battle net account and be done with it. No individual should be allowed to constantly occupy support with his BS, while people with legitimate issues that are not braindead have to wait forever.

I’ve only been hacked once. I followed Blizzard’s guide, I secured my machine, got my account back and I’ve had no problem. I’m not tech savy, so if I can do it – so can everyone else.

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46

I find this amusing, considering that the game for me and my friend list has been extremely active for a change this season. I had over 30 friends online and playing this weekend, the most I have seen for a season start in probably a year.

What cracks me up even more is how many of them are past Paragon 500 already, while I have been taking my time like I usually do. lol

47

When I want to trade i play Ports of Call or Elite, -not dungeon hack’n’slash…

1 Like
48

If you find Diablo boring, why do you want Diablo to be tailored, so that it catres to you? Aside from RoS, every other version has had trading.
You don’t like trading, you don’t like Diablo. Plain and simple.

I’m not sure you have much to say when it comes to character progression. For one, I disagree with the notion, that progression has to be a curve. It wasn’t much of a curve in D2.

No, it doesn’t.
You would still have to kill stuff and get their loot. Then, you would either use the loot yourself, or trade it for other loot.

What could potentially hurt “killing stuff for loot” are the flippers. This can be addressed by items being tradable just once. Blizzard implements that (which they even said they are going to do for some items) and they eliminate flipping.

My only issue with D4 so far are Blizzard saying, that some items will be bound to you upon you picking them up. I don’t like that. I think, aside from mats, all items should be tradable at least once.

If there is no trading, the game gets reduced to luck. You either get the items you want or you don’t. It’s a bad system and deep down you know it.

There are plenty of items in D3 that I want, but do not have. Properly rolled ancient or primal items are extremely rare. ATM instead of trading, people just resort to bots that farm bounty mats. Those of us that refuse to resort to cheating are left with the crappy rolls.
Very interesing system…

2 Likes
49

You bring something I was vaguely aware of. Modran brought up the FinCEN’s regulations on convertible virtual currencies:
Diablo 3 - Why the Auction House got Removed

That’s all really interesting, but you could you provide the source, or between whom these conversation is taking place?
Because the official version Blizzard provided to it’s players and clients was, that they are trying to make the game better. They never publically acknowledged or admited, that they’ve had issues with FinCEN or the IRS.

I am not form the US, but I’ve heard about the IRS here and there and they seem completely crazy. This seems absolutely crazy and unreasonable. Blizzard should have brought it to light.

Forgive me, but I can’t help but think of a funncy scenario. Imagine a boyfriend and a girlfriend playing Diablo, and the girlfriend giving her boyfriend a ** for an item. If the IRS were to find about it, I’m sure they would wanna tax that, too!

That’s true. However,
the way I understand it, the issue was with convertible virtual currencies. D3 gold had a price that was convertible to USD and you could see how much D3 gold you would get for how much USD, and you would see how USD you would get for certain amount of D3 gold. That’s what made gold to be a convertible virtual currency.

You take out the Auction Houses and the gold, you allow an item to be traded for another item, limit the times an item can be traded to once, and you’re golden.

And sure, there will be crazies who pay real money on a third parti site, then trade a crap item for a good item in-game. But Blizzard can’t reasonably be expected to keep track of that.

Come the f on, let players play the game.

Yep. Blizzard lied. The whole “we wanted to make the game better” was a lie, plain and simple. They simply didn’t wanna pay for the special license in order to keep convertible virtual currencies in D3.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure they are paying that license for WoW and the WoW Token. There’s no way the WoW token doesn’t fall under convertible virtual currencies.

They cut major features out of Vanilla D3 and didn’t compensate the player base in any way. They bricked the basic version of the game. inb4 “RoS got free cool updates like the cube”. I am pretty sure players had to pay for RoS and didn’t get it for free.

But you never hear video game critics bring this up (because they are barely capable of surface lvl analysis, and don’t see the essence of things), they can only cry about loot boxes in Overwatch (which are probably the least offensive implementation of that monetization model, compared to other implementations anyways), but they’ll never bring up “Hey, where are my Vanilla D3 features such as trading and PvP Arenas?”.

50

There are two huge problems, one is the loss of money for Blizzard. The second is that Blizzard is fiscal reliable for in game transactions.

The minor issues is that it creates a bad player environment and supports the creation of cheats and bots. The developers behind bots more than often also has these 3rd party item sites, which is how they fund creation and updates.

1 Like
51

Honestly it has nothing to do with any thing other than agenda and control.

There is a certain group of players out there that actually care about other players success and how they gained it because they themselves are failures in the real world.

Gaming is their only outlet to show off their ability. When they discover someone “cheated” they immediately crucify those players forever because they themselves have been treated like this in their own pathetic existence…

It’s just a form of projection… it’s all psychological and has nothing to do with the health of the game itself… it’s personal agenda’s and vendetta’s… nothing more. Diablo II’s and PoE’s trading systems never broke the game, in fact, it enhances it considerably and it’s not a hard thing to learn. I didn’t trade in PoE until they added all the extra content past the first 3 acts and I didn’t start trading until Act 6 when I wanted to just blitz the game because I grew bored of it.

Buying gear off of websites has NEVER effected anyone but the person using said gear. It gives the player power, it makes them happy and they can move on to other lucrative things like farming for other classes or whatever. Sometimes all it takes is for a player to have that one really perfect character and then the rest will follow through normal game play…

For me personally it makes me feel accomplished knowing I have the perfect gear set for my favorite class I enjoy playing. If it means I can help other players more efficiently or grind faster, that’s all that matters to me.

I was never one for PVP either, but it’s a rising concern and seems to be the main attraction for an otherwise shallow argument of why trading shouldn’t be in the game. People are saying it will break the PVP but I doubt it, considering Mythic items aren’t going to be tradable. When someone finds that one really amazing Mythic, does that make him a cheater because he earned his/her strength through luck?

No it doesn’t… it just means people want to ruin other players good time is all and how else to do that then take out a much needed and classic mechanic such as free trading. Free trade was ALWAYS a staple of the Diablo franchise, removing it is like castration… and just furthers my point that D3 isn’t even a real Diablo game, it’s junk but that’s another topic.

Other players also seem to argue the fact that people shouldn’t be rewarded unless they plug in thousands of hours and earn their gear the “proper” [insanely subjective term] way. These are usually the same players that claim to enjoy paragon… Which means they believe that bots should be rewarded more than someone who has to work 40 hours a week and can go buy a good item for 15 bucks because they actually contribute to society and have a life.

I mean, it’s literal insanity… what someone does with their money, is no one’s business and the way they play the game follows the same rule.

At this point it’s about privilege, if players who want a paragon system in D4 to exist, that means they better get ready for more bot players to stay ahead of them…

If that’s the case, then free trade should also exist because it’s a far less corrupt and unfair system than paragon levels…

Someone with tons of time on their hands / knowledge of bot programming will always have an unfair advantage over someone who plays the game manually. Even players that buy gear are at a significant disadvantage because paragon levels are a bull**** system to make your character infinitely more powerful than players without those means of cheating.

If paragon exists in D4, then so should free trade… there shouldn’t even be a question about it… Free trade should exist regardless as it’s a system that doesn’t effect anyone but the player using said system… self found players can ignore the economy and trading and play in their own little bubble… I mean they have no problems living in a fantasy world where they think free trade = cancer, so why not just play pretend on the subject of free trade? Pretend it isn’t there and you won’t hurt yourself.

3 Likes
52

Which games would that be?
PoE suffers from it. D2 suffers from it.

Technically you are probably going to kill something, or farm chests or whatever. But trading means you might trade 10000 gems/crafting mats from low lvl enemies, for the high-end item you wanted.
Which traders seem to enjoy. And good for you.
I am just saying I think that kind of trading hurts the gear progression curve (which, no, it does not have to be much of a curve, but likely will be), and thus the gameplay.
You dont need to kill the monsters that drops the items you are looking for.

Like in PoE, when you get to the end-game, you will have acquired enough random crafting mats during lvling, to easily buy some cheap, decent gear. Essentially skipping a substantial part of the end-game gear acquisition.

Not really. You simply adjust to the items you get. Making it more interesting imo.

53

@ Shadout

I do not believe D2 suffers from trading in any way, shape or form. I have traded over multiple seasons in D2 (what is known there as a ladder reset) and I’ve had no problem.

I’ve even traded on non-season (what is know there as non-ladder) and I’ve also had no problem. Never used a third parti site there, never spent real money to get my gear.

It is elementary and it works like a charm, every time.

I am not an expert on PoE. I believe it could be some truth to what you’re saying when it comes to PoE, because I’ve had some bad experiences trading there.

In PoE there are sites, that allow you to view what items a player is offering and what in-game currency does he want for them. I’m talking about poe.trade. In theory it should work the same way as warframe market.

What I can see as a negative there is, that many times the people in PoE are AFK and are not responding… and also, that at some point the prices of some items skyrocketed for reasons I’m not entirely sure of. Feel free to enlighten me (not being ironic, I would legit love an explanation).

But again, In D2 I’ve never had any similar issues. The economy there is pretty much set in stone, it has been for many years. Between 2007 and 2017 nothing had changed and items were easily accessible.

Only, D3 doesn’t have a semi loot table with RoS, so that you can target an item and kill the monsters, that drop said item. There’s no guarantee you will get a good Ancient or Primal roll of an item. Even with bounty materials, it’s pure gamble and luck.

So, your entire point about having to kill a monster to get a specific item can only work in a game like D2, or one of the versions of Marvel Heroes, where you could farm a boss for a specific item, and even if the item doesn’t drop, on the 100th kill you would get one guaranteed (soulbound, untradable version).

In D3 there’s no “adjustment”. You either have the items needed for your build or you don’t. If you have them, the build works well. If you don’t – it doesn’t.
Just small things as lacking all resistances on a slot or two where you need them (say boots, pants, belt on a DH) or lacking attack speed for a WD Darts build where you need them can make your build play out much worse than it would otherwise.
There is no way for you to “adjust”. Maybe in some other games it works this way, but in D3 it doesn’t.

And until D4 releases and we’ve seen whether the game has a good enough itemization, that allows you to make such adjustments, you really can’t make that argument.

54

I don’t know, man. I mean, sure, there are some crazy people out there, that are envious of others. That is true.

However, in our day and age, where if you’re good at a game, you can amass substantial following and even make a living out of playing a game, I do not believe cheating should be tolerated.

If someone is indeed a cheater in a competitive, online environment and at the same time a popular content creator or entertainer, he would literally be making money based on false pretences.

So yeah, if someone cheats, they should eat a permanent ban.

PvP was NEVER the argument against trading. D3 were advertised to have Real Money Auction Houses and PvP Arenas. We never got the PvP Arenas, and the RMAH was removed due to reasons explained by StonePro in this thread.

There are not many actual arguments against trading, aside from the problem with flippers… and again, this can be resolved by limiting the trading, so that an item can only be traded once.

However, I am very much against BoP, where an item binds to you upon you picking it up. That crap should never exist in a Diablo game.

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55

5 out of 7 people I know that play POE - do so not for the game, but to earn money through that RMT. All they care about is earning exalts and selling them until the prices are brought too low but tens of thousands of other such players. As soon as the price drops - they quit and wait for the next league.

This seems like a super-healthy playerbase to me.

Also, POE is free. Of course it will have more people checking it out.

But is it a better game? No. Not even close.

If you take out RMT from POE - then its popularity will drop IMMENSELY. Because for many people, trading is the only reason to play it at all. They don’t care for the gameplay. And then many others would quit because they would lose the ability to quickly buy power.

It’s not because trading is such a great mechanic for the game itself.

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56

I’ve seen some arguments against trading due to PVP and yeah I get that content creators could monetize off of buying end game gear but if they ever got caught that’d be the end of them… the internet is savage dude.

One little slip up like that, and trust me, people will be looking out for it, especially if they see someone’s gear change dramatically in a short period of time, they will be crucified for it.

But yeah I see your point about that… but either way, I don’t care about twitch streamers, I care about a healthy game environment.

57

I am seeing the opposite issue of prices skyrocketing.
The market essentially crashes, and prices plummet for anything but the best items.

I’d say the same happens in D2 as well. Except, because it is a bit more annoying to sell items in D2 compared to the semi-automated poe.trade, instead of prices falling, they might sometimes simply fall to nothing (as in, people giving away items in games etc.).

Targeting items is a great mechanism, and it should certainly be in D4.
D3 is a bad game, I am not exactly saying D4 should be like it.

Yes. But that is a flaw of D3, not a flaw of A-RPGs.

Of course I can. Any discussion about topic X, has to be under the assumption that it wont be ruined by topix Y, otherwise all topics discussed would have to encompass the whole game every time.
If D4 releases with bad itemization, nothing else really matters. Then you can have your trading in a bad game, and I wouldnt have to care. But it would be disappointing.

58

It’s elementary. You create a game with name N this, O that, you can even set up a password and add the password in the description of the game, in order to avoid bots entering, and you can farm.
Someone enters the game, you trade and he leaves.

At the same time, on the PoE I whisper people and they seem to be AFK, or unwilling to come, because they are playing on some other mode/league or whatever. I personally have much easier time trading in D2.

59

OP - I guess you’ll just have to find something else to sell other than virtual items? Maybe you can get a paper route?

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60

Whether it is PvP or PvE RMTers can buy better gear faster than what others can get through legit grinding.

With open trading without limits you will have to have an abysmal drop rate to balance around the fact that trading exist. The best gear might even need to be tuned to have the drop rates of the original Zod runes just to make sure that the market isn’t flooded with the best gear in the game.

Yes it does affect trading because you will have botters that will bot to acquire both gold and gear. Then you will see the spam bots advertising their wares. Which means that players would leave chat entirely like I did with D3 years ago and have never turned back. Great way to have a social game where players don’t want to listen to the chat going on. All just to have free and unrestricted trading.

Others do and Blizz has to care so you are outvoted by a landslide.

Free trading will bring in the RMTers. Right now the way D4 is shaping up, you have the easy to find common items that can be freely traded. No point in botting to sell those items. Gold is probably BoA so that won’t be an issue. Then you have your trade once sort of items. These items might not be rare enough to make enough real money off of them to be worth while.

But the ones that are currently BoA those ones would no doubt command the highest prices on the RMT market. So naturally there would be those that would love for a free trading system. It attracts them like flies are attracted to honey.

The problem with free unlimited trading is that the drop rates have to be abysmal in order for trading to exist. Otherwise all of the best gear will flood the market. That means in time all of the best gear will be vendor bait.

61

I am afraid that if D4 goes the completely free trade route that will mean that we will see a lot of spam in chat to buy stuff and gold for real money. We would see spam friends requests like in vanilla D3, which I am glad is gone for good.

Plus it might mean that I would never get to build around the best items in the game unless I got my items from those that bot or have no life outside of D4 by playing the trading game instead of actually playing the game of killing stuff for awesome loot.

Without ever seeing the best stuff I would be stuck with alternatives that might even be second and third class alternatives. Gear so low on the curve that I would be struggling to clear the mid range endgame dungeons let alone the high tiered ones. That would even be true for some of the strongest builds in the game.

My biggest fear is that if they launch with completely free and unrestricted trading and it does indeed hurt the game like me and others have said. Then the devs are likely to take the same approach that was done with D3. Which is go from free unrestricted trading to no trading at all.

I say let them launch with the new system. Give it time to see that it isn’t as bad as you think it is.

Finally if players want to play a trading game, then go find a PC trading tycoon instead of asking for D4 to become one.

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62

You do realize that items and services are sold for D3 as well? There’s a pretty big market for it, it just requires you to hand over control - and trust me, some actually do this.

So all these things still exists, they are just removed rather quickly and thus they are pretty quiet.

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63

“Mindlessly grinding for all eternity” is pretty on the nose. You clearly missed a VERY OBVIOUS point.