if there isn’t some kind of time delay of some kind, there’s going to be a problem. xfering just became too easy.
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And why is that an issue? You need to leave game to change characters in either scenario to transfer items to another so I do not understand your issue.
Shared stash worked great in D3 and no one had issues with it.
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I gotta be honest, the youngest person I know who is interested in D2R is 38.
I will likely only have 1-2 hours on average to play a night, if I’m lucky.
I might be biased, but I love the idea of not looking for multiple gg items of the same type.
Muling easily is going to be great, I don’t have 10 hours a night to sink into this game like I used to.
37 here. Ya got a new youngest person, haha!
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This exactly, it holds true to most of what people fear might change, which is basically all what quality of life is
very good point. but most people will say “BuT i HaTe HaVinG tO xFeR aNd HaVe MuLe! MaKe ThInG eAsIeR!”
its not the same. its more work to xfer items without shared stash than with it. the more steps you add to swaping items the more people will have the incentive to get multiple enigmas ect… even with multiple accounts you still have to acquire the other account, figure out how to run both games at the same time, make a game, xfer the item, join new game. most people dont want to swap items like this all the time. with shared stash its literally one step and makes doing this too easy
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But why do you need people to get multiple enigmas?
if they don’t like swapping then they will get another one if they can, even in the old system if I had an enigma and I decided to switch my main character I wouldn’t just leave it on my old character
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Yup. Somehow you are the only other person who is identifying what is going to happen here. I thought I had explained it well enough in the OP post, but let me take a different approach to this. And I am not doing this for the sake of general forum troll debacle. No, I really think people need to be paying more attention to this. This is going to make or break the game’s longevity in critical ways.
Speaking for myself here, this is how shared inventory will effect me:
I am 37 years old. I have been playing Diablo 2 for 20 years. I have already been there and done that with MFing and working hard to build entire accounts full of nearly perfect PvP characters. Surprisingly & strangely enough, I wanted to have a real incentive to do it again. But why would I keep playing seasons if I will be able to have everything I need after the first season, because it can all easily & immediately on-demand be shared between a full roster of NL PvP characters?
Now we can INB4 the argument that: “Shared inventory is the same thing as transferring gear” because that simply is not true. That’s like saying calling & waiting for someone to come give you a ride is the same thing as having your own car to use. The reason why people want their own car and why they pay money to have their own car, is because it is inconvenient to wait for rides. This is the same difference we are taking about with shared inventory and what it will do for player accounts. People were also saying: “Everyone was using multi-account mules to transfer to themselves” which also is just not true. I never used multi-account or multi-boxed mules to constantly juggle gear in between my characters. Even if I did, do you have any idea how inconvenient that is? If I am in a duel game and I want to Swap my Anni & 10x 5/20 SCs from one character to the next, I have to wait for a slot to open up in that duel game for my mule to join, or leave and go to a private game to do my transfer and hope the duel game doesn’t fill up on me. Then when I want to go back to PvMing, I have to multi-box and do this again? This is annoying enough even to do with a small list of 2 or 3 items like a CTA, Anni, SOJ. To be doing this constantly throughout the night with a large list of items would have been ridiculously inconvenient and would very quickly incentivize a player to want their individual characters to have their own individual gear, and that drives purpose to play. Because again, waiting on a ride every time you need to go somewhere sucks, even if that wait is short.
However in D2r with shared inventory, I will probably only need to play one ladder season to get everything that I need for a full list of NL PvP characters. Speaking for myself here, I never played ladder seasons because I liked to XP race. I played ladder seasons for a chance to find/build more gear because gear had value, and this felt fulfilling to do because there was a real incentive to do so, to avoid that obnoxious time spent transferring gear around. No matter how short the wait time was, there was a wait time. This is where the incentive came from to keep farming gear, and why a lesser CTA still had value next to a perfect CTA, because it could be used on a 2nd character to avoid obnoxious wait time and risk losing gear in a transfer. I’m not saying that was right or ok, I’m saying that is a fact. It was hard incentive to obtain more gear, which makes gear have value when people want or need it.
Let me give two distinct concise examples:
- In D2 Legacy, I play a ladder season and it ends. I had played a Sorc and I had built everything it needed. During the 2nd season that I play, I run a Trapper. I am happy to build a 2nd Infinity because I will need it and it is convenient to have even if it is worse stats than the 1st season Infinity, because when my Trapper hits NL, I will still need the 2nd Infinity to avoid obnoxious transferring. This reason this incentive to need the 2nd Infinity drives a satisfaction while playing my Trapper and doubling up on gear that the Sorc already has on NL, even if that doubled up gear is lower stats. I still feel like I am accomplishing goals that are strengthening my account in general and obtaining things that I actually need.
- I play first season in D2r and I play that Sorc. I try very hard in the first season and obtain/build much top end gear, some of it perfect. Now when I play the Trapper in season two, I am disappointed when I see the 2nd Infinity roll lower stats because I know I won’t ever use it when I hit NL on the Trapper, as I would rather toggle the perfect Infinity between the two, seeing as how it is ridiculously easy to do to the point that there is no reason not to. I have no incentive to even keep that lower Infinity as it is cluttering up my inventory space actually. In fact, I notice that my 2nd season Trapper happens to be finding/building all lower stat gear than what the Sorc had already brought in. I have this feeling of “time wasted” because I will not have any real incentive to keep any doubled up gear that is lower stat than whichever is my highest, when the highest can be shared by all characters on-demand immediately whenever I want, with no hassle behind it at all. The shared inventory is so convenient, that it makes outfitting characters with their own lower stat setups actually inconvenient compared to just sharing the highest stat gear that you have. There is a lot wrong with this.
What I will end up doing as a 37 year old veteran who is noticing that I have no real incentive to double up on gear, is I will play a ladder reset or two. When I have everything I need “which will happen quickly” I will retire to NL only for PvP. I will sit back and WANT to have a real incentive to PvM MF on new ladder characters, but it just won’t be there when I realize that I already have all of the gear that I need to easily on-demand share between my roster of NL PvPs.
I have spoken for myself here in this statement, but I’ll 100% guarantee that many old veterans will have the same reaction as what I have listed here. The first season will be absolutely magical for all of us. But after that first season, people will begin noticing that they don’t have any real incentive to keep doing resets because they can share all of their perfect gear between all of their characters, and that it is actually inconvenient to even save & use lower stat gear. Why waste time building a 2nd character through a 2nd season if it’s finding things that you’ll never need that aren’t even convenient to double up on, and that are depreciated in value because everyone else also feels the same way about even mid-stat gear because everyone just shares single high-stat or perfect rolls between all their characters?
Ladder Resets in general will depreciate in play value and this is not good for the longevity of D2r. A lot of people seem to be thinking that “Everyone is playing ladder resets for the XP race and the experience of playing new things” and this may be true for the first season or two, but you are talking a massive player base of people who have already been doing this for 20 years. The first season or two will be a magical experience where everyone enjoys the play value again. But after that first season or two, once everyone grows accustomed to the new graphics and new style, when they realize that item/gear value is seriously depreciated from shared inventory “one item for them all gameplay”, the veteran player base is going to sink down into NL and not play resets so often or not so avidly. I am worried that D2r is going to end up looking like the current state of D2 Legacy much faster than we were hoping to see, and this is what concerns me.
I wanted a hot revitalization of Diablo 2 that drew in veteran & new player base alike, with real incentive to keep playing & grinding & MFing to build new character setups. I am sincerely worried that shared inventory will do much to remove that incentive.
The best suggestion I have here, is that characters should be able to deposit anything they want into the shared inventory at any time. But characters when first joining a game, should have to wait 5 minutes before they can withdraw from the shared inventory and then after that first 5 minute buffer, they can withdraw from the inventory as freely as they wish until they leave that game. This short inconvenience would reissue that real incentive I keep talking about, for players to not just want additional gear setups on characters, but to need it. It gives a real purpose for MFing additional gear even with lower stats, which grants more value to gear in general, keeping the economy healthy just the original game, and driving that good old fashioned addictive gameplay to keep MFing, that satisfying grind.
Without that incentive to actually truly sincerely want & need additional gear, we are going to see so much less participation in the long haul. Blizzard took the time to hammer out a remaster for us. I’d like to see it done right.
Remember, I am just speaking for myself here.
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You make some valid points, but I think they only apply to the specific category you’re in.
It might (as you say) lower the incentive for certain players to farm and gear up every char individually. It might also, however, give people with less time or less die-hard fans a way of playing several builds and chars as they just want to fool around and have some fun without having to go through the long grind just to gear themselves out.
The grind is good for some people and not so good for others.
And while you are correct in your car example, it only applies to those it applies to. I know you said you speak for yourself, but at the same time you state it is a concern for the game as a whole.
Then there is people like me who can’t even handle having to switch anything at all. It’s too much of a hassle for me to mule items between chars that I actively play on.
On top of that we have to keep in mind that people always tend to maximize. We don’t know how big this shared stash will be, but unless it’s close to endless it will be filled up 100%, and then it won’t be any room for swapping like you suggest.
I am very happy about this change and I strongly believe it will be a huge QoL that has been so much sought for all these years.
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Transfering was never hard to begin with. Buy a second account, or get a friend to help, or use a friend’s account, or use a third party service, or use a passworded game, or use a public game.
It was never hard.
This isn’t a problem and never has been.
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Someone clearly hasn’t played D2.
People don’t get multiple Enigmas in D2. They transfer their existing Enigma between characters.
Completing all of your characters 100% is something only a tiny handful of people felt compelled to do. Everyone else just transfers their gear between characters.
People who think there was “incentive” to get multiples of high value items have simply just not played D2 in the last decade, or watched how the pros play the game.
Why would you spend 20+ hours farming for a second Enigma when you can transfer it in 20 seconds?
It’s better to transfer your Enigma and sell a new one you just made so you can get other items you need.
This is literally not a problem, and thankfully Blizzard is extraordinarily unlikely to address this non-problem. Let us have our shared stash so we don’t need to buy second accounts to transfer gear around.
If you are that infatuated with D2’s original limitations, go play that. It’s still around.
But just as an FYI, anyone who still plays D2 uses mules, friends or passworded games to pass gear between characters. You don’t farm a new character from scratch, ever. That’s just dumb and a waste of time.
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No. Just no. You are absolutely only speaking for yourself, and disregarding how D2 is currently played to begin with. Being able to swap gear around will make people play the game more, not less, because they can now enjoy every single class without having to farm 7 sets of gear from scratch. That’s a turn off for casual players, and even for some veterans.
Case in point, 99% of veterans use second accounts/mules/friends/games to transfer gear between characters. They don’t farm a new Enigma for every new character.
A tiny handful of people might, because they’re completionists, but most people did not and never did. You are literally inventing a problem based on your lack of understanding of how D2 has been played this entire time.
Also, Classic will not have shared stash. So if you don’t like the shared stash that much, then play on Classic. I don’t see the issue here.
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The odds of a small charm being a 5/20 in a lvl 85 area are 1:106275.
We’re so used to dupes, I think we forget how difficult gearing up will be if there are no dupes.
I think you have some valid points on certain items, like enigma, for example, but there will always be a reason to farm.
Finding life/skillers, 3/20/20, 5/20, etc. Is still going to be a massive chore, provided duping is eliminated/managed well.
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It will be a minor convenience, but nothing about it is a ‘problem’.
In legacy Bnet you could make an enigma, play it on one char, then xfer it to another char, play it there, then xfer back when needed. It was a hassle but you could do it.
Now it will be somewhat less of a hassle, but you still have to remember to take it off your char & put in in your stash before switching chars, etc… To me that is still very annoying and all the incentive I need to make multiple CTAs / Enigmas / etc if I am capable of doing so.
And until I am, at least it will still be possible without risking my xfer game dropping.
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i have to agree with Drium for once 
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Imho this is like the reason for shared stash: There is a workaround for with 2 copies of the game. Same goes for muling. They introduced shared stash because muling had a workaround. You can mule your perfects the same way in legacy, so this will be treated as QoL improvement I guess.
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Yep. Also agree, and would add that we’re not allowing quest items to be stored in the shared stash tab. So items like Horadric Staff and Khalim’s Will can’t be put in shared stash. This obviously solves some quest continuity and power-level issues.
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Players in single player are using shared stash in plugy for years already. And you can do the same there. It saves time to mule it or joining your second account.
I think its up to everyone how they will use their items. I can tell you one thing. I practicaly never changes items between characters as you think people will. Its counter productive to keep swapping gear all the time. People usualy dont play many different heroes at the same time anyway.
I am telling you. This will not be issue at all. And it will have zero impact on economy. If i will have Hammer and sorc i want 2xshako. Not one to keep swapping him all the time. And if i will play one day sorc and second day paladin i can mule it even without shared stash.
Od you log in to play idk 5 different high level chars in two hours?
In dueling, yes. Especially if you team pk.