This made me all butthurt...

[That_Other_Guy]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

stillman has a point about lottery odds and how the odds of someone getting it are much greater when there are several people playing. At the same time, the system as it was implemented in D2 was fundamentally flawed. For it to really match to the real world, we would have to be able to take our winning ticket, copy it several times, and hand copies to our friends (to trade for real money before the tickets are discovered as frauds).

I think the solution that they choose (or that they should choose, at least) depends on their priorities. What if the difference between a "casual" and a "powergamer" was perfect mods on a rare, for instance? The powergamer would only have a few extra points of damage and/or defense. If their additional playing did not also make them more effective in combat, they would not have much of an advantage against someone who plays less, but has about the same reflexes and decision-making ability.

 

[Bad Ash]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Have you ever found a zod?

It just doesn't work. A zod is several magnitudes more rare then your Unique Sacred Armor. So I don't get what your point. Rare items are good, too rare items simply aren't.


P.S. And why do you assume things will turn out like wow. Runewords were kinda messed up, yet the unique system works rather well.
Never change a winning team, I'm sure blizzard is aware of this.

+1

Simple case of reading too much into a post. He said things wont be as hard to find as some of the Diablo 2 runes. That is only a good thing.

Does this affect the odds of finding Templars Might, or SOj, or Shako, or ANY item? No, it makes some of the best items not nearly impossible to find on your own. Lowering the drop rate of some of the better items lower than some of the runes can STILL MAKE THEM THE LEAST DROPPED ITEMS.

 

[kreeper]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

I think alot of not finding the high runes is people missing them when they are dropped, or being in a game where one dropped and you not getting it, thus reducing the odds you will see it again for a very long time. Me and my 2 cousins played for a little less than a year, in that time I managed to find 2x Vex runes and an Ist while my cousins found between the both of them an Ohm at their hell forge. Now wether this is just rediculous luck or not I found em, odds are if I did then someone else out there was this lucky aswell. The point is just because YOU arn't finding the runes doesn't mean that the community as a whole isn't. Many people forget there are a million other people playing and finding these things and putting them into circulation. If a zod rune is only one in a billion and a million people are playing this game. Thats what? 1000's runs of a boss by each person before one drops for the commmunity? Thats accomplished pretty easily. When I first moved here to South Carolina and my cousins moved in we had nothing to do but play Diablo, so I alone probably accomplished 1000 twice a week. Some quick math that means 286 runs a day, about 1-1.5 minutes a run means about 7 hours a day played. Yeah thats alot I was a nerd, flame me. But I also knew quite a bit of people who did the same. At this rate it wouldn't take nearly as long as you think to put all of these runes in circulation.

 

[Bad Ash]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

I think alot of not finding the high runes is people missing them when they are dropped, or being in a game where one dropped and you not getting it, thus reducing the odds you will see it again for a very long time. Me and my 2 cousins played for a little less than a year, in that time I managed to find 2x Vex runes and an Ist while my cousins found between the both of them an Ohm at their hell forge. Now wether this is just rediculous luck or not I found em, odds are if I did then someone else out there was this lucky aswell. The point is just because YOU arn't finding the runes doesn't mean that the community as a whole isn't. Many people forget there are a million other people playing and finding these things and putting them into circulation. If a zod rune is only one in a billion and a million people are playing this game. Thats what? 1000's runs of a boss by each person before one drops for the commmunity? Thats accomplished pretty easily. When I first moved here to South Carolina and my cousins moved in we had nothing to do but play Diablo, so I alone probably accomplished 1000 twice a week. Some quick math that means 286 runs a day, about 1-1.5 minutes a run means about 7 hours a day played. Yeah thats alot I was a nerd, flame me. But I also knew quite a bit of people who did the same. At this rate it wouldn't take nearly as long as you think to put all of these runes in circulation.

A. I thought Ist was the highest hellforge rune..lol

B. The bottom line is we have no idea the true drop rate of things like the high end runes because of the dupers. All we can do is assume. Duping will not be in D3 and therefore we will have a much better idea of these things when the games come out.

As for me? I've been playing this game for 7 years and have never FOUND any runes higher than Vex. The HR drop rates are absurd and if they bring the chance of Zod dropping even 50% it would still be damn near impossible to find.

This is a good thing and will NOT over populate the game with uber items...hopefully

 

[kreeper]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

A. I thought Ist was the highest hellforge rune..lol

B. The bottom line is we have no idea the true drop rate of things like the high end runes because of the dupers. All we can do is assume. Duping will not be in D3 and therefore we will have a much better idea of these things when the games come out.

As for me? I've been playing this game for 7 years and have never FOUND any runes higher than Vex. The HR drop rates are absurd and if they bring the chance of Zod dropping even 50% it would still be damn near impossible to find.

This is a good thing and will NOT over populate the game with uber items...hopefully

Not sure where you heard that, but I assure you Ist is not the highest hellforge can drop.

Vex is still a high rune and held in more value than a Zod rune last I played so I would say your luckier you found Vex than Zod.

But yes I hope they don't lower all the drop rates and such because of whiners and have everything super easy to obtain. That would kill of most of the population and the remaining population would shortly after find everything become uber and stop playing aswell.

 

[kreeper]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

A. I thought Ist was the highest hellforge rune..lol

B. The bottom line is we have no idea the true drop rate of things like the high end runes because of the dupers. All we can do is assume. Duping will not be in D3 and therefore we will have a much better idea of these things when the games come out.

As for me? I've been playing this game for 7 years and have never FOUND any runes higher than Vex. The HR drop rates are absurd and if they bring the chance of Zod dropping even 50% it would still be damn near impossible to find.

This is a good thing and will NOT over populate the game with uber items...hopefully

Not sure where you heard that, but I assure you Ist is not the highest hellforge can drop.

Vex is still a high rune and held in more value than a Zod rune last I played so I would say your luckier you found Vex than Zod.

But yes I hope they don't lower all the drop rates and such because of whiners and have everything super easy to obtain. That would kill of most of the population and the remaining population would shortly after find everything become uber and stop playing aswell.

Also I would guess the drop rate for a Zod was lower than what I had stated to begin with thus making it even more easy to find, and with them combining USEast and West this time around for one big server, it would surely be much easier to find. Also the math was done assuming that the Boss and no other monster killed could drop the rune.

 

[Bad Ash]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Not sure where you heard that, but I assure you Ist is not the highest hellforge can drop.

Vex is still a high rune and held in more value than a Zod rune last I played so I would say your luckier you found Vex than Zod.

But yes I hope they don't lower all the drop rates and such because of whiners and have everything super easy to obtain. That would kill of most of the population and the remaining population would shortly after find everything become uber and stop playing aswell.

Its not about the Vex being more valuable kinda not really than Zod. Its about Zod's being near impossible to legitamately find.

Dont forget the main point of the thread. someone was worried about godly items being everywhere because Bashiok said that no item will have a drop rate of the high runes, and that those drop rates will be reduced significantly.

Again, reduce Zod's drop rate by 50% and its still over 1 in ONE MILLION

 

[stillman]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

But again, everyone is thinking individuals are meant to "find" zods when the real purpose is more likely having to trade a ton of godly items for one on bnet to whoever found it. It makes sense to me that whoever plays more will have more wealth accumulated and a zod or two should exist on bnet for "powergamers" who want to wrest it from Mr. Lucky's hands.

Why is it a crime to have untouchable items out there? As mentioned, there are ways to insure you can get a zod in reasonable time if you want it bad enough: You can do forge runs with a friend and split the profits, or share the zod rw if it is a really close friend.

I also found that a number of hr's dropped for me over the years of solo chaosing using a very good area of effect attack like multishot. I think many people are targeting bosses instead of hoards of regular monsters--no wonder they're not finding many hrs! In the time it takes to tele and lay down a boss, you could have annihilated many screens of bad guys. You can't have it all. Either you get good uniques from mfing bosses OR you clean out regular monsters (by not skipping them in chaos for example) to get these gul's, ist's, and vex's which I find are common enough.

You could then use those to trade for a zod, which is, imo, what Blizzard had in mind. I don't know where this rule exists that says: "everyone will eventually find everything in ten years." I'm not sure what Blizzard's reasoning was with low drop rates, but it is sound. It may have been to encourage group work where a group of five friends all work on forges together until they convert themselves a zod, then they share the zod rw. Or, maybe Blizzard just wanted epic trades going down over a zod. I still don't see the problem with this.

 

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

I'm not sure what Blizzard's reasoning was with low drop rates, but it is sound. It may have been to encourage group work where a group of five freinds all work on forges together until they convert themselves a zod, then they share the zod rw. Or, maybe Blizzard just wanted epic trades going down over a zod. I still don't see the problem with this.

Their reasoning was "With tens of thousands people playing, they will drop". With 2000 people playing, they don't.

 

[Nimbostratus]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

I think there are two problems with drop rates in D2:

1. Some items are so rare that they don't provide an incentive to keep playing in hopes of finding one. The item is rare enough that it essentially doesn't exist at all.

2. Rarity is (generally) directly proportional to power. It sounds logical, but really hurts the game. Like I mentioned in previous posts, as people hoard their strongest (=rarest) items, the standard rises to unrealistic expectations. I know for a fact that the rarest items would still be sought after even if they were only 10% stronger than average. How do I know this? Look at how much more people are willing to trade for a perfect item, when an imperfect version of it is nigh-equivalent to it.



Oh, and the "with lots of people playing, one will eventually drop" argument is bogus when you consider single player mode. With one person playing, the item just doesn't exist.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

I think there are two problems with drop rates in D2:

1. Some items are so rare that they don't provide an incentive to keep playing in hopes of finding one. The item is rare enough that it essentially doesn't exist at all.

2. Rarity is (generally) directly proportional to power. It sounds logical, but really hurts the game. Like I mentioned in previous posts, as people hoard their strongest (=rarest) items, the standard rises to unrealistic expectations. I know for a fact that the rarest items would still be sought after even if they were only 10% stronger than average. How do I know this? Look at how much more people are willing to trade for a perfect item, when an imperfect version of it is nigh-equivalent to it.



Oh, and the "with lots of people playing, one will eventually drop" argument is bogus when you consider single player mode. With one person playing, the item just doesn't exist.

Well said :thumbup:

I think the crafting system introduced in D3 should address this problem and allow players to modify items for a high cost (maybe lots of gold or even runes), if the system allows that it will open up lots of other methods of getting obtaining "better" items without infesting the game with people running Baal or whatever boss is going to be there.

 

[AniMe]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Nimbostratus; Your arguments doesn't really cut it. Like has been said, not everyone is supposed to have the very best items. It has never been the intention.

And then you say that rarity is mostly proportional to power. This has barely ever been the case with D2. Look at rare stuff like Tyrael's Might, Griswolds Redemption et cetera. Very rare but HORRIBLE items. Then look at items like Harlequin's Crest or Stormshield; very easy to find items (granted you play in Hell games and don't just spend time chatting) yet very powerful.

I would like to see a very big change here. Enormously rare items should be enormously powerful. Even if the scalability is worked so that power doesn't scale exponentially, causing imbalance... Currently there is no correlation between rarity and power unless you draw that comparison "Crude Short Sword vs Elite Unique Ogre Axe".

Of course Single Player is a different story but then again, D3 must NEVER become a game where everybody can get everything. Some things must remain a dream... Sometimes lady luck smiles and one of those "Impossible" items drop... That would make for some experience! Now if all items are just "pretty rare" that thrill and excitement will not be there...

 

[Edairu]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Of course Single Player is a different story but then again, D3 must NEVER become a game where everybody can get everything. Some things must remain a dream... Sometimes lady luck smiles and one of those "Impossible" items drop... That would make for some experience! Now if all items are just "pretty rare" that thrill and excitement will not be there...

Yeah, I see your point. I guess all I'm saying is that there is a fine line between:

1. Super rare, but most people will find one in their lifetime
2. Extremely rare, but still an option for the best traders
3. Never find, not worth looking for or even considering

Balancing item drops in an ever changing player base is a real nightmare.

 

[Krugar]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Well, dammit! Seems I'm always disagreeing these days. Can't someone just say something I agree?

I don't think there must be such a clear cut relationship between rarity and power. I enjoyed very much the fact, for instance, TC3 items were harder to get than many high level items.

The notion of certain items being rarer, even if weaker (heck, even if useless) adds another dimension very much appreciated by Collectors and removes nothing from the game. From a bird's eye view, the system can still maintain a general principle of rarer = better. But there should be a nice representative number of items, that should remain very rare across the whole spectrum of item power.

 

[Bad Ash]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

the hunt is more exciting than the catch.

nuff said? lol

 

[Nimbostratus]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

AniMe:
I didn't say everyone should have a warehouse of elite gear. I just said that the drop rates should be such that a normal player can look at them and say:
"okay, I can do that. It'll take a while of searching, but I'll get it eventually,"
rather than: "One in five billion? Okay, forget this entirely."

Your examples of "HORRIBLE" rare items are not such. Sure, they're not as good as some other things, but they are by no means "HORRIBLE." Cannot Be Frozen, a decent chunk of resistances, RIP, and FRW for no stat points spent? I'd say that's pretty nice. Definitely a lot nicer than any set or rare armor. The rarity/power trend is a little shaky, I admit, but it's definitely there.

Tell me, why should enormously rare items be enormously powerful? As I said in my previous post, the "best" will always be highly sought after, regardless of how much better it actually is.

Also, in regards to the end of your post- Okay, I can see the excitement over finding something very rare. However, I find my battles with the Ancients to be far more exciting than any item drop ever was. Enjoyment of the game doesn't come exclusively from items, remember.

 

[NASE]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

1. Super rare, but most people will find one in their lifetime
2. Extremely rare, but still an option for the best traders
3. Never find, not worth looking for or even considering

And for the overwhelming population of casual players that still play today, those legit items are in that last part of your list.

And that's not good.

 

[AniMe]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Nimbostratus; I guess I'll have to disagree again If the very rarest of items is within the grasp of a casual player though "taking a while" there will be no competition in items at all. For a casual player, Tal Rasha's Guardianship may be a good find but many of us don't bother picking it up anymore or simply trade it away for a few Pul runes.

The points I try to make is that there should be incredibly rare items for
1) sake of competition
2) to cater to those players who play a bit more, to provide content to them as well
3) keep excitement
4) provide diversity and individuality

I agree not all excitement comes from items. I hasn't for me as well, but why tone it down? Excitement is a good thing. It's not as if items won't drop at all and once in a blue moon comes along a Unique one. No. It's more like there will be plenty of good drops but the very best and the very rare will not be something everyone has or will find.

About Tyrael's Might; It is in fact horrible ;P No character has ever had it as optimal in a build nor is it even good on a merc. It would have been okay if it was a low tier item but now it's one of, if not the most rare unique in the game so it simply has no use other than bragging rights =p While I appreciate novelty items I do believe they could have balanced them a wee bit better :}

The best will be highly sought after yes. And the best should NEVER be as easy to obtain as a Harlequin Crest, a Stormshield or a nearly perfect Mara's.

That is why the classic system of rares was optimal. As have been previously explained a casual lowbie would quickly find a 270 damage lance. Works wonders and gets the job very well done. A power player would eventually have found maybe one hundred times more rare lances than the casual player and ended up with a 330 damage one with good mods.

Nothing that throws off balance but it gives us a good incentive to play more than an hour a day!

 

[stillman]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Actually, Krugar, I think most people agree with you.

For me though, I find those 4 points AniMe noted above are harmless and why take them out of the game?

The only problem I see is what Nimbostratus said about single players never having a chance to get such an astronomically rare item, but there will always be things about single player that make it 'unfair' compared to bnet. The whole economy for example. On single player, you have to play for an agonizing length of time to find a shako, but on bnet you can find anything shako-valued and trade for one fast. This is 'unfair' to SP, but it can't really be changed easily.

As for bnet though, the downside to zod type of rares is...the strife that we can't find one? Is that such a problem that they shouldn't exist?

 

[Dimmu]

Re: This made me all butthurt...

Did someone in this thread say a Zod rune is more rare than Tyrael's Might? Ugh.

As far as percentages, yeah tyrael's has a better drop chance. But Tyrael's can only be dropped by a lvl 97+ monster (maybe even 99, not sure). So there's Baal and Listor the Tormentor. I think nilahthak might be able to drop it too.

Zod only needs a lvl 72 or so monster to drop it, which is basically every monster in hell level beyond early act one.