The BoA Mindset: An Acute Illustration

[Greizer]

:smug:
Time for another hate thread, haven't made one in a while. Still banned on the official forums, so I'll just amuse the more tolerant crowd here.

I don't know how to edit video, but it wouldn't work very well anyway because they speak English. Maybe there's a dubbed German version around so this can become a new meme. Anyway enjoy it... Take solace in the hate, as all avenues of real effect seem exhausted. (Blizz is dead-silent about BoA on the official forums, and RoS is near enough now that they've no time left to test and implement a real trade system to replace the AHs.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs


D2 vet: I'm pretty sure what's killing the game is this BoA stuff.

Casul nub: But BoA's got what fans crave, it's called PLAY TO WIN.

WoW lady: So wait a minute... What you're saying is you want us to have TRADING in the game?

D2 vet: Yes!

WoW lady: Trade. Like at the AH?

D2 vet: Well, it doesn't have to be at the AH, but yeah, that's the idea.

Casul nub: But BoA's got what fans crave.

WoW lady: It's called PLAY TO WIN.

D2 vet: Ok look... The players are leaving. So I'm pretty sure that the BoA's not working. Now I'm no developer, but I do know that if you have trade in Diablo, people will play it.

Forum troll: Well I've never seen no fun come out of no CHEATING.

Casul nub: Hey that's good, you sure you're not the smartest fan on the forums?

50 Elite Kills: *laughs*

D2 vet: Ok look... You wanna solve this problem, I wanna get my D-fix, so why don't we just try it, ok? And not worry about what fans crave.

WoW lady: BoA's got what fans crave.

Forum troll: Yeah, it's called PLAY TO WIN.

D2 vet: How is it PLAY TO WIN? Do you even bot?

Casul nub: Bots... don't... affect me because of BoA!

D2 vet: But how would TRADE affect you then?

51 Elite Kills: 'Cause BoA's called PLAY TO WIN.


Thank you. This has been a Greizer presentation. All rights (to hate) reserved.

:jig::jig::jig::alright::jig::jig::jig::highfive:

 

[ShadoutMapes]

The players were leaving before BoA.
Since BoA got what the fans crave, they will be back now! :guiness:

"Now I'm no developer, but I do know that if you have trade in Diablo, people will play it." Hmm.

Your welcome.

 

[Greizer]

If there'd been BoA from the start, people would never have finished Inferno and would've left in far greater numbers. But anyway this thread is not really for serious arguments. There's plenty of others for those. This is just a place for BoA haters to gather and slap each other on their virtual backs and reminisce about the good old times, wondering if they indeed are ever to return. And to hate on the people we disagree with, as the pro-BoA folk do against us in equal amounts. Treat your neighbor as he would treat you. All good fun so long as no one's sold into salt mines or tied to the train-tracks.

EDIT: Btw I agree that most likely millions of 'fans' will be back for RoS once they hear about BoA. And many of the haters who said they'll refuse to buy it, will get it anyway because of desperate hope and the power of marketing. These are not good things (other than for Bobby's wallet), though, and we don't have to be happy about them.

Aww, no comments? Come on, my back needs a good slap to start the day! Say, 'Greizer, well done. That's some swell hatred.'. *puppy eyes*

 

[InteNuIgen]

If there'd been BoA from the start, people would never have finished Inferno and would've left in far greater numbers

This whole BoA discussion seems to be like a hornet nest which i have looked at from a distance.
But the above quote got me wondering.

How can increasing the difficulty (which BoA does, at least according to your definition) make players leave?
Besides from the early Act 1/Act 2 misconfiguration, I fail to see why players would leave because it is too hard?

If you could get Super-God-gear instantly, then you could faceroll MP10 and there would be no challenge left.
THEN it would be logical if players left.

Care to elaborate further?

 

[clueso]

I think there should be an AH, but only for rare & magic items....

 

[Greizer]

I think there should be an AH, but only for rare & magic items....

I think we should be able to drive 300 kmph, but on dirt roads only.

@InteNuIgen: Did you play DIII at the very start? 'Cause you wouldn't be asking that question if you had. It was impossible to get decent gear without the AH, the drop rates were so horrendously bad. Yes; they were far worse than now in vanilla. It's hard to imagine, but it's all too possible.

This point aside, BoA does add difficulty, but it's not the kind I want to have in my games. In Diablo, trading is a way to counter-act the rng: if nothing drops for you that you want, you can still trade the stuff you do get for it. Whereas with BoA... You play only DH, but got a godly Barb drop? Enjoy salvaging it. Want an item with very specific stats that'd neatly fill all the remaining gaps in your stats? Good luck grinding for 8,000 hours for a 50% chance to get it. There's no meaningful way to fight the rng once you get to specific enough items. Once you're at a certain gear level, you can't count on an upgrade for every year spent playing. With trading, you can always get an upgrade within months at most. Unless you spend real money and get BiS instantly, but hey, that's your bad, not Blizzard's (RMAH will be gone so RM trade != legit).

In D2, I never once saw a usable rare item drop. Well, for low level duels, once or twice. Yet these items existed and people paid an arm and a leg for them on the trading forums, here and at that other place (whose name shall not be mentioned). With BoA you can't acquire these items unless you win the lottery (actually that'd probably be easier). I don't want to play a game where I can't acquire them, regardless if I can afford them or not. The BoA mindset seems to be the opposite: if I can't afford these items, no one else should get them, either. I left such a mentality behind when I stopped playing at the sand-box, so it's hard to relate. Hence the hate. To each according to what they deserve...

I'll concede that with Ladder resets BoA could work somewhat (no way to get specific items, but you'll never get to that point before reset); the game will not be terrible then, but to me it won't be a Diablo game and I refuse to play it. To me Diablo = looting + trading + pvp in a dark and gothic environment. Right now the patient has no arms, and with RoS the other leg will be gone. Now if gravity's anything to go by...

 

[InteNuIgen]

First: I have not made up my mind on BoA yet. But i think i am in favor of it.

I played D3 from the start and i know the gear-gap that was inferno pre-1.0.3.

I could not care less about what gear other players has, or how they aquired it.
I run self-found and enjoy finding my upgrades by slaying mobs.

BUT i think the drops as they are now are bad overall because the AH exists.
They had to tune down drop quality to somewhat counter the effect of the AH.
Therefore, i want the AH gone, so the drops will improve. Because that's how I play the game.

You bring up the term "meaningful". That is very subjective as you surely know.
You justify trading by catering for the small percentage of players that will continue for
several years and years.

The reason you state for trading is that if you run DH-exclusive and find a godly piece of barb gear,
then you want to feel that you at least "got something good from it" by trading it for something your DH could use.

For me in the same situation, i would simply stash it for some future barb of mine.
"That is what the RNG got me and i just have to deal with it."

I keep seeing the same outcry: "Trading was an essential part of D2...!!!!1!"
And i understand that alot of players enjoyed trading (i never played D2 myself).
Well, go back and play D2 again is maybe better for you?

There are simply two types of players and Blizzard will never be able to cater for both of them.
You had a trading-isch AH for quite some time. I am glad it is gone.

 

[Nibiru-]

(i never played D2 myself)

You do realize you're the minority here and that if Blizzard had put a tenth of the effort in to incorporating the things everyone loved about D2 instead of trying to reinvent the wheel we wouldn't be having this discussion, right?



Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk

 

[Greizer]

@InteNuIgen: I did try to go back to D2, but the game is just too stale after 7 years of playing... Plus no shared stash is a really big pita after playing D3. If I had a shared stash in D2 I'd never look back at D3.

You are right about the two different types of players. There have been a few polls on the official forums (or links to them before they get deleted, since Blizzard frowns on polls for some reason). In the first one it was 60-40 for BoA, in the second 60-40 for trade (how the question is framed will have an effect on the result). So it's somewhere in the 50-50 range, with a margin of error of 10-15 %. Imo the best solution would be to make two servers, one with inflated drop rates and BoA, and another with free trade (but no AH) and normal drop rates (still higher than in vanilla ofc).

For the record, I'm glad the AH is gone and hope it will never return. AH != trading; with the AH, you can find exactly what you need in 30 seconds, while with D2-style trading it might take anywhere from minutes to years, depending on luck and the rarity of the item. They're not in the same ballpark, not even in the same town; same county, maybe. I want my trades to take effort and have a human factor. I'd rather haggle and fail than click a button and succeed in a trade. Sitting there with a stopwatch in hand, waiting for an auction to end and making a last-second bid was the dullest gameplay I've ever seen in any game (note that it was still 'playing the game', since the AH is a legit part of it).

The AH did affect the drop rate, and to a drastic degree. Free trade will ofc still affect it somewhat. But if you had played D2 (ahem), you'd know that self-found was very viable in that game. There were other reasons (tighter affix ranges on uniques comes to mind...), but the drop rates were much better than in D3 except for the absolute top items (HRs before the latest patch; absurd drop rates, inexcusable mistake that has thankfully been corrected after so many years).

As a final note, it's worth mentioning that with free trade, self-found is still possible (if you manage to battle that nagging feeling of inefficiency), while with BoA, trading is not (no matter how much willpower you exert). So it's effectively -1 option to the game, and one that was loved by a great percentage of the playerbase.

EDIT: I don't play any other char than DH, because everyone else has to spam 3-second buffs all the time and it gives me a headache. So without trade I'm out of luck 4/6 times (and sometimes with a monk item, too) if my loot is not a smart drop... I'd rather skip the expansion than have a broken mouse and monitor.

 

[InteNuIgen]

You do realize you're the minority here

Yes i realize that!

 

[TheNix]

I did try to go back to D2, but the game is just too stale after 7 years of playing...

I'm sorry, but I actually find this amusing on so many levels. D3 became stale after about six months and I really wanted to love the game. I did every thing to reinvigorate the game; I tried playing totally self found, I used the AH to try different weapon combinations, made a new set of characters using completely different skills and I even trying MPing (something I usually hate). I was able to squeeze another four months out of the game but that was it. When the PTR opened I tried again and lasted barely a week. D2 on the other hand I have been playing almost continuously since 2002, I've still got a one of my early characters from August 2002, and I'm still playing.

Plus no shared stash is a really big pita after playing D3. If I had a shared stash in D2 I'd never look back at D3.

If you play single player you can have access to muling programs that give you unlimited stash.

 

[Greizer]

If you play single player you can have access to muling programs that give you unlimited stash.

Can you guess what is wrong with this proposition? Why even make it in a thread like this? If I was a self-found type of player, I'd be indifferent about BoA, which is demonstrably not the case here.

It's no wonder btw that D2 has lasted you longer if you like self-found and play only (or mostly) that way. Me, I can't stomach taking years to find one lousy Tal armor, and never getting a JMOD (didn't own one on Bnet either, but I could have. Once or twice I had enough to afford it, but it would've taken all of my wealth so little point to it). My luck is absolutely horrendous when it comes to rng. It should even out over a lifetime, but I assure you, in every game or situation where extensive rng is involved, I'm screwed, period.

 

[fsj]

I may be in a minority but I used to love bartering for a trade in D2 trade channels. For me the mistake with the AH was using gold/real money. Scrap BoA and allow item for item trading. Post your item/s on a barter house in game (I know ofc this has been suggested many times). People link/show items that they will offer for yours using a GUI so you can see what you're being offered without having to look it all up elsewhere. You evaluate the offers you receive and choose to trade the items via the barter house or to accept no offers and hold out for more or just remove the item from the barter house.

I know people will say if you remove gold/money from trading, people will find a common form of alternative currency (a la SoJs and HR's from D2) but if you eradicate the duping which caused/allowed the items to be used as such common currency, the problem shouldn't (disclaimer: I can't gaurantee ****) rear it's head in D3.

As I mainly play self found or with a small group of friends, BoA probably won't affect me THAT much anyway...but I have to say it won't feel right without being able to trade the best items.

 

[Greizer]

Why is a common currency some kind of a devil for people? I've never understood this. The AH was impersonal and machine-like, but it wasn't because of a common currency but the fact that it was entirely automated. I'd be fine with D2-style trade and HRs as a currency in D3, or even gold if the inflation could be controlled somehow (hello Ladder resets, plus removal of goldfind from gear so that bots have a harder time farming it).

EDIT: Lol I posted before you..? How can that happen?
EDIT2: Ah, misread number. For a second I thought I time-travelled there! Could've sworn it said 15 tho. :scratchchin:

 

[fsj]

Why is a common currency some kind of a devil for people? I've never understood this. The AH was impersonal and machine-like, but it wasn't because of a common currency but the fact that it was entirely automated. I'd be fine with D2-style trade and HRs as a currency in D3, or even gold if the inflation could be controlled somehow (hello Ladder resets, plus removal of goldfind from gear so that bots have a harder time farming it).

EDIT: Lol I posted before you..? How can that happen?
EDIT2: Ah, misread number. For a second I thought I time-travelled there! Could've sworn it said 15 tho. :scratchchin:

Evil mind reader!

At the end of the day it's just my personal preference. I like trading items for items and it feels more rewarding to me. Working out an items value then haggling for an upgrade with what you've got, rather than just listing it's worth X gold. Having said that, there is no reason why gold can't be used in trading, just don't make it the sole currency.

For example, Player A puts up a high end Skorn, Player B offers X amount of gold and Player C offers half the gold + 1 other item that the seller has listed in his profile (or somewhere appropriate) in a list of items he is currently searching for. Player A will likely accept Player C's offer as it is more likely to have an appeal to him. Also for this type of thing to work I think all offers currently made shouldn't be visible by other potential buyers.

That's my ideal world. Will it ever happen? NOPE!

 

[Greizer]

Evil mind reader!

At the end of the day it's just my personal preference. I like trading items for items and it feels more rewarding to me. Working out an items value then haggling for an upgrade with what you've got, rather than just listing it's worth X gold. Having said that, there is no reason why gold can't be used in trading, just don't make it the sole currency.

For example, Player A puts up a high end Skorn, Player B offers X amount of gold and Player C offers half the gold + 1 other item that the seller has listed in his profile (or somewhere appropriate) in a list of items he is currently searching for. Player A will likely accept Player C's offer as it is more likely to have an appeal to him. Also for this type of thing to work I think all offers currently made shouldn't be visible by other potential buyers.

That's my ideal world. Will it ever happen? NOPE!

Ah. This sort of thing did happen in D2; the only difference is that you couldn't list your demands (in in-game trade; on forums you could ofc), but had to state them in the game, or the buyer could ask you. Most often people did want only runes, though, because they were just a convenient store of value; this was also because they took so little room compared to items in D2 (1 space vs. 2-8!). I didn't play back when SoJs were the currency, but it was fortunate for that item to exist before runes were a viable form of currency, as it too was very useful, rarish, took 1 space only and had static stats (most important attribute for a currency item -- well, apart from being tradable). Looking at it, one almost thinks whoever designed it had exactly that use in mind. If SoJs hadn't existed, I'm not sure what other item could've been used in their stead. Bul Kathos' Wedding Band is similar, but it has a variable stat, and +40 life is a lot more marginal benefit than +25 % mana.