Re: Drop Rates
The whole economy is based on duped items & runes that aren't even found anyway, I highly doubt anything will change UNLESS drop rates are increased to a REASONABLE level - which doesn't mean they should rain from the sky - so that duping is not so "necessary".
This is exactly my thinking on the problem. If you create items that with such amazing stats, then make the item too rare for 95% to ever find, there will be duping. I try to take a very realistic approach to this subject. The problem for me starts with the source, which is Blizzard's design for these games. Making the 1.10 runewords was not necessarily the biggest problem, but having them use so many high runes that would simply never be found. The odds of finding one HR is extremely rare, the odds of two? Nobody could realistically look at ever making a Breath of the Dying, since it used Zod.
But the human nature, and let's keep in mind the audience here, is going to dictate that you simply can not hold out on a pedestal certain items and say "Ha! Good luck finding". A simplistic example would be holding out a piece of candy to a child and holding it just high enough out of his reach. Now when the other children have a piece of candy, obviously the desire for that child is going to not only increase, but other emotions such as jealousy will not arise. It is normal, and actually expected point, of games of this nature to continually improve your characters. When the game is so dependent upon items, and you have leveled high enough, then the desire becomes one thing only: items.
I think melee chars are most affected by the drops as they are. For example, it is very difficult to have a decent melee char start the ladder, as the items found are about 99% worthless. The health, defense, resists, life leech, mana leech, etc.. all effect the melee much more than say the Necromancer or Sorc. By creating almost a dependency on items rather than say skill or gameplay, the desire increases tenfold to obtain better items obviously. But when these items are not to be found, people WILL seek an alternative.
I have played this game now for 8 years, and in 8 years they were never able to address duping. Each stage there was always a response by the community. Worse yet the measures Blizzard enacted did not solve the problem, but now merely made it impossible to trade for certain items. While I know my view is somewhat controversial, I merely wish to just look at things objectively. As I see it, duping is not as much the problem as the drop rates, or ability to obtain items. While there certainly is a good percentage of players who wish to avoid things such as runewords made from HRs, I think the reality is most players simply do not realize what the true effect would be if there were no dupes (again I am not advocating, but merely discussing reality). Even at some of the "legit" trading forums you have many players that while not trading their Enigma there, certainly do have them.
In short, if they continue to have some godly-uber must have items that have drop rates similar to D2, and not "legitimate" means of obtaining, then you WILL have dupes and hacks for D3. That is a 110% guarantee. Over the years I have thought of numerous different proposals on this, but sadly none too popular
. I think the best method that at least received some positive responses was this:
The idea behind Diablo Clone was just plain idiotic. This did not solve the problem of SOJs duping, but merely enticed more TO dupe. But the idea of Ubers I believe was excellent. Although collecting keys is time consuming, the reality here is that you are almost guaranteed some keys after a set number of runs. Through time you have the keysets, and then begin to obtain the organs. After all that work you face 3 Ubers which drop one of the nicest items in the game, the Hellfire Torch. Aside from some rare duping of 20/20 Paladin torches, the reality here is that almost all torches are legit. Now think if they were instead dropped randomly at the same rate as Death's Fathom. Does anyone want to argue that torches would NOT be duped?
So now we have the SOH from our conquest of the Ubers. Why not have a vendor that would sell items such as an Enigma or Crown of Ages with enough SOHs amassed? You see the point here is that like the Ubers, you are guaranteed a victory of sorts. I do not necessarily think that all players are just lazy, many simply do not like to MF, and the pay offs can be so disappointing as to make it nothing more than a waste of time. Let's keep in mind also that the D2 community as it is now is one of hardcore D2 fans, but this will not constitute a good percentage when D3 comes out. Casual gamers who simply just want to play, level their character, etc.., well to them item dependency and drop rates are an extreme hindrance to enjoying this game at all. I would agree if someone says then maybe D3 is not the best game for them, but that does not change the fact that a very large number by this game simply to play it.
p.s. If you have read this far....I appreciate that you haven't fallen asleep :thumbup:
