Devil’s Advocate: Why I Don’t Yet Like the Removal of the AH
by Whitney "Neinball" Fairchild - 12 years ago show comments
So obviously the Diablo community is cheering about the announcement that the Beast is slayed. And by Beast I of course mean the Auction House.
The AH has been the single largest source of controversy and discontent in Diablo community, even eclipsing the art debates. With the announcement of the closure of both the GAH and the RMAH the response from the community couldn’t be any happier, but I’m not as excited about this announcement.
There are some negative aspects about the removal of the AH which I think need to be address before any celebration is really warranted.
Trading
Lets get the obvious out of the way first. Trading has never been easier. You don’t need to spend hours trolling chats or reading through forum posts (unless you’re trading some really high end items) when you have the AH. You just search for what you want and then there it is. Same goes for selling, you don’t have to go out and find buyers, you can sell your items while grinding paragon levels. The ability to so easily engage in trade will be gone along with the AH. We’ll be back to the old days of Diablo II style trading and I just can’t see this as a positive change.
One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen in the past is that the AH makes it to easy to get good gear and somehow making trading more difficult and harder to understand is supposed to improve the game somehow? The people who will be hurt most by the removal of the AH are going to be the more casual players that are going to be forced into playing self-found whether they want to or not. Now Loot 2.0 could assuage this issue but it also creates some problems of its own.
Swimming in Legendaries
I have no issues with the self-found style of play. It’s a great way of playing and feels very rewarding for those who make the commitment. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with having the primary focus of the game be self-found, as most people played D2 that way. But there are two big issues this could create.
In D2 there were many builds that were just not possible without obtaining certain super-rare drops. If you played completely self-found you were probably not going to be trying out a double-dream-bear sorc and even something simple like a Rift-a-sin would take countless hours running the Countess for runes. A lot of the wonderful and unique builds that people constantly reflect back on with D2 were only possible due to trading and trading in D2 was anything but simple. You had to spend hours browsing forums or sitting in chats trying to find someone who would trade the items you needed for the items you had. A similar complaint you hear now is that people spend more time browsing the AH then playing the game, funny how we’ve come full circle yet have forgotten what the past was like.
The flipside of this is if you have a reasonable expectation to find every single Legendary in the game in Loot 2.0. Despite the rose tinted glasses many are looking back through, this isn’t how D2 worked. There were many items in D2 that were practically non-existent, like Death’s Web and other Elite Uniques. This aspect added some prestige to these items and the builds they allowed. Making it possible to acquire anything your heart desires without trading will remove the prestige and mystique that many rarer builds may have garnered otherwise. What’s bad about that? That’s a good question, ask everyone who has an issue with the current AH because it’s stocked with every imaginable item readily available at the click of a button.
People hate the fact that you can just open up the AH and find everything you’ve ever wanted. Need a skorn? Sold! Hominculus? We got thousands! It’s the readily accessible, near infinite supply of good quality items in the AH that makes it so attractive to use, so what’s the difference if everyone can find everything they’ve ever needed? The only difference is the psychological aspect of finding the item yourself vs farming up gold or other less useful items to get what you need. We still get to the same place just the trip is a little better. But if we find everything we’ve ever needed without the need of reaching out and trading for them, then what’s left? If the goal of playing is to find loot and you’ve found everything, then what then?
Back to the previous point, what happens if they include D2 style super-rare items? This is healthier for the longevity of the game as it gives something for people to strive for, but also creates the issue of making it hard to acquire for casual players who don’t understand the trading system. A difficult trading system inevitably leads to one thing.
Scamming
I won’t go far into the topic of scamming, black markets, hacking and third party trading since it all exists in the game now due to limitations of the AH. I’m just going to point out that one of the only reasons a lot of these places still exist is because of these limitations (long waits to clear high end transactions, gold/$ limits, limited listing spaces, etc) now imagine how much more prevalent they’ll be once the AH goes away. With third party sites on the verge of becoming the de facto way to trade, hacking and botting could become worse then they are now.
Consumables
Without the AH to centralize commodity trading it is going to be a pain to craft. Imagine trying to collect all the tomes, dust, essence, gems, etc needed to craft en masse. You’re no longer going to buying the lowest priced items in the commodities exchange, you’re going to be paying the asking price set by who ever can fill the quantities of your order. I have no problem really with it being a sellers market but it’s just going to be such a big hassle to purchase mats without some sort of facilitated trade. Buy 300 tomes from this person, 200 from here, 200 there. It just becomes more complicated. Could they re-balance drop rates or crafting costs? Yes. They could also just leave the AH in and accomplish the same thing.
At the end of it all I have to ask, why is the AH incompatible with Loot 2.0? Why can’t we find really good items and yet still have system in place to make trading and valuation easier? I have no idea what Blizzard is planning for the future of trading or Loot 2.0, but I do hope this isn’t a knee jerk reaction to the all the vitriol about the AH since it will likely just swing all the way to the other side and end with people complaining about how horrid it is to trade and that Blizzard should bring back the AH. This is what the community wants though and in that respect Blizzard is doing the right thing.
I’ll be looking forward to Blizzcon and the information we’ll get there, because despite my misgiving towards the removal of the AH, I would actually love for Blizzard to already have ideas in mind on how to address these issues and prove me wrong. I’m 110% sure that I’ll still playing the game as much I as ever did past March 18th
and well into Reaper of Souls, but we can’t just take this news and run with it. We have to question if major changes like this are the best for the game and ensure that Blizzard questions these decisions as well.
I don’t see why they can’t keep a trading system up just for the consumables. That’s not the problem of the AH.
I would love if they did that, but if they were going that route I would think they could announce that now and not keep us waiting until Blizzcon.
I can only conclude that anyone that would defend the auction house at this point doesn’t understand history or what exactly happened. The auction house LITERALLY killed this game. Not “kinda” not “maybe” it KILLED this game. Blizzard knows this. Blizzard knows this better than anyone else. How bad do you think it has to get for a company to scrap a source of income just to get people to come back to playing their game? Really bad.
So you can write up these news articles all you want. You can kick and scream and point at 3rd party black market gold sellers (who are gonna do their thing regardless of whether or not there is an auction house) but the AH is going away in March. Say it with me now: The AH is going away. As they say on the Simpsons: PREPPPPPARE YOUR DIDDLY HOLE.
I disagree. A horribly designed itemization system that forced people to use the AH is what “killed the game.”
Though, I do enjoy that meme.
You can disagree all you want. Blizzard, the people that actually MADE the game, came out and said that the auction-house is part of the reason why their game was so negatively received.
So here’s a meme for you – you can have your own “opinion” but you can’t have your own facts.
I see you grasp the concept of opinion pieces. I’m impressed.
I hope you realize the design of the itemization system was centered around the AH to begin with. You act like it was two separate things.
Unfortunately, for all the good the Auction House does, the ridiculous inflation it caused is a massive problem. As it stands, pretty much the only way to be able to buy upper-tier items in the AH is to hope you get lucky and find a Legendary you don’t want that will sell in the millions … then you’ll have enough cash to get going. (This is exactly what I had to do.) Of course, that only begets further inflation, while new players get hosed.
I think Blizzard realized the AH needed to go when it got to the point where “2 bees” was a thing. When just about everything is starting to sell for the maximum two billion in gold, and they have to keep raising the stack limits and maximum bid amounts, it’s a serious issue that the current state of the game made impossible to solve. (Of course, Blizzard caused the inflation by raising the limits, but that’s a moot point.)
Arguably, itemization was the real source of the problem and why inflation took hold so fast. Items wouldn’t sell for so much if they weren’t in such limited supply and high demand. Unfortunately, you can’t fix itemization while inflation is so rampant, so you have to solve that first, and that means the auction house has to go. I think this is why so many people are speculating that the AH will come back, because once they have a handle on inflation and Loot 2.0 is rolled out, the AH might be reintroduced. But I can’t see Blizzard being willing to risk making the same mistakes twice.
Sad thing is the inflation took quite a few months. Reason it got as bad as it is now is again cuz there is no ladder system or resets. Add those and the inflation is a nonissue. Also adding new content with more intresting loot would also fill that cap. Its easy to blame ah for the problem but it never was the problem.
I fully agree, it’s not the AH that hurt the game but the itemization that forced us all into it. While I think inflation could be combated in other ways like making a vendor to purchase DE or make crafting more expansive.
The problem with D3 is, that it is nothing like D2 and therefore removing the AH creates a problem. In D2 it was really easy to trade (at least that was my experience). All you had to do was open a game with the name “N Enigma O Runes” and wait until someone joined your game. You could even start farming during that time.
D3 doesn’t offer this option at all, so you’ll be forced to use external services like forums or try to spam a trade channel (this won’t work for sure as it will be permanently flooded).
What they need to do is bring back custom games with custom names as it was in D2 and bring back the ability to use all waypoints of all acts in one game. Then remove the auction house and we’re good to go. It will bring back “runs” as they were in D2, even if they were mostly created by bots – D3 offers better opportunities to catch botters.
Also personally I’d LOVE to see Skill Trees return. This was, in my opinion, one of the most fun parts of D2. Now you just farm Paragon Levels and what do you get in return? Nothing. With the new Paragon System this is going to change a bit, but being able to spend stat points is nothing like being able to learn new skills and improve them as you progress in leveling.
Blizzard always talked about “build variety” well without skill trees there’s really not going to be much of a build variety.
skill trees do NOT add build variety. Why does everyone think that? Skill trees give off such an illusion of customization. I am glad more games are straying away from skill trees…it’s just such a flawed system.
Of course it does. If you balance out all the skills in a skill tree to be viable options you have an incredible amount of skill combinations. Much more than the system of D3 could ever support.
Lol that’s why in every game with skill tree’s everyone rolls the exact same builds. Skill trees do not help with build diversity and they never have. Also a lot of the skills in d3 are viable just not the most “efficient”. I roll a build on my barb that is completely different and I still roll mp5-mp7.
Getting about 50% less XP/hour doesn’t seem viable to me. You might call it inefficient I call it not viable because it’s so inefficient. And what you’re saying is totally wrong. There has been quite a lot of build diversity in Diablo 2, and there has been some in WoW just not quite as much as in Diablo 2. There were sooooo many builds in Diablo 2 compared to the few in Diablo 3.
Diablo 2 did not have a ton more viable builds. I remember playing a barb and the only viable builds were frenzy and WW. All i saw from paladins were hammerdins and zealadins etc. I saw sorcs use the same blizzard build. Also the necromancer was a pain to play if you wanted to do a summoner build.
I guess you didn’t play D2 that long then. There also was the Concentrate Barb and a load of sorc builds lightsorc, firewall-sorc, meteorb sorc and a ton of variations to those because of the resistances the mobs had on hell. The least different class was probably the amazon as there were just two ways to go: Bowazon or Javazon but even then you had a lot of options in the secondary tree.
There was so much you could do with the skill trees while in D3 all you can do is change a rune or two and thats it if you dont want to sacrifice a minimum of 20m XPhour just to play a different build.
Yeah sorc is the exception but that was the only one that had tons of builds. THere weren’t very many other viable builds for each class. Skill trees will not solve the issue with viable builds. They can make skills viable without putting them into a skill tree.
And I never denied that. I said that I personally would like to see skill trees return because I think they’re more fun than the system that D3 has. And also what I said is that skill trees which are perfectly balanced offer more build variety than the D3 system perfectly balanced. Not that Blizzard could ever “perfectly” balance anything.
Well id say Amazons had alot of variety and some sick builds. But the main thing is that you could still put points in alot of different skill and benefit from em, even with just 1 point put into em. currently in D3 i play wiz and in mid action i use 2-3 abilities actively. while back in D2 you had alot more skills to use depending on the situation. Andyou had to take immunities into account so you where forced to explore other options in ya skill tree.
Yeah, overall I wish D3 would be a lot more like D2.
The way the AH drained the fun out of the game for me was the listing of items, i would save up a bank and a mule full of rares worth selling, then id haveto break out pencil and paper to go thru every items stats to try and deduce the items value… x200 and thats hours ive spent as an accountant and not slaying demons
The AH was and remains a terrible feature. Its core problem is the fact that is undermines the loot hunt of Diablo, which is at the heart of the experience. This goes into psychology a lot, and is quite similar to flying mounts in WoW. If you can do it the easy way, you will. No one wants to fall behind.
But deep down inside, we all know we’d be a lot happier if we actually had to fight for our rewards in the game, knowing that others also had to fight for theirs.
It undermines the loot hunt because the current loot hunt IS terrible.
The console version is miles ahead of the current PC build and in that regards, the AH would have it’s place.
The loot hunt currently being terrible is a completely separate issue from the Auction House, although it was in part caused by the implementation of the Auction House in the first place.
You cannot have Loot 2.0 with the AH still in the game, as the AH would, within weeks, nullify all the cool changes by still offering the best loot easily accessible to everyone. Nor can you remove the AH without implementing Loot 2.0, as no one would find anything cool and just feel miserable.
This is why they are doing both the changes in RoS, and I love them for it.
It’s not a separate issue, it is the central issue. The horribleness of the drops in the game, especially at the beginning, was what made people feel like the AH was being forced on them. It was a complication of that and the overtuned difficulty of Inferno that lead everyone to think the AH hurt the game because they felt it was part of the issue and was the only way to get ilvl 63 gear.
I still don’t see why we have to remove the AH for better loot drops. If part of the reason for the Loot 2.0 system is to offer the best loot everyone through drops then why not still just offer trade for the hell of it?
Whether people fought for their rewards or bought them doesn’t matter to me. In D2 people with the best gear probably trade for the majority of it so does that reduce their prestige because it was traded? It’s the same exact thing as the AH.
I agree with Neinball, without a good trade system and a way to get materials it will make crafting a hard job. Chat will be so spammed that will be impossible to see anything, and i already get spamed by gold selling site invites, around 10 per day.
I hope they came up with at least a good trade system, easyer to let everyone see. Like a personal store or something with a limit ofc.
Sadly ppl wont realise this and the game will decline again when they do. So back to square one the whiners keep whine and ppl that like the game kkeeps playing. But, chanses are with no good trade I just cba anyways.
i was happy with the ah just wasnt fond of the milky rmah id like some sorta trade post more though ingame .
and who are we to judge how people spend or trade their gear nobody forced to do it.
If they just removed the RMAH I would have been fine with that. I never saw it as pay to win, since it’s player to player trade and not something sold by Blizzard.
yeah i think rmah just gave people a reason to bitch if they didnt have that at release they would have found something else to bitch about.
The game is too easy with AH. Thats all.
Loot 2.0 will have the same effect for characters, if not increasing everyone’s overall power. Is that a dislike of the difficulty curve of the game?
See, I 100% agree. Ah did nothing but good. But beacuse ppl dont understand basic economics they complained about a problem that arrised with to many items, to much gold, oversaturated marked, to easy to get good items bla bla bla. So what if you can buy items, this wont change if you remove ah.. So what on earth dose this acomplish. Not a god damn thing.
http://lostgenerationgap.tumblr.com/post/61971361816/d3-ros-economy-game-changes-questions
D3 needs to change before mass trading is even a viable option
a low legendaries are useless
d3 loot are alot more random than d2
there is no inferno profession
if you cant handle inferno mp0