28 replies to this topic

[Ashin]

Okay so the gf thing didn't work with this crowd.

Anyhoo.

As an experiment related to our discussion, I decided to play through nightmare without using the auction house at all.  What I learned is that the phenomenon that you guys describe inferno actually exists in the whole game.  Basically the gear that you need for current content has only a very very low chance to drop in current content.  I think the reason you guys didn't notice it until inferno was simply because lower level gear is so bountiful on the auction.

It would seem that Blizzard did this intentionally to spur auction activity.  That makes sense given that they want to make transaction fees off the auction house, but we could argue whether that is actually good for the game or not.

Here's the part I am still trying to figure out for myself.  If desirable gear is so hard to get when you farm it yourself, why is it SO overabundant and cheap on the auction?  People cannot give stuff away, it seems.

Maybe the answer is that too much, or too low, items drop in higher difficulties.  So the inferno farmers are basically pissing on the lower tier economies (ie, trickle down economics).  Or maybe Blizzard just needs to limit the number of slots on the auction further, from 10 to 5 like I said earlier.  Either way, it seems like something Luc said earlier is probably correct.  With few exceptions, there doesn't seem to be any kind of meaningful economy for $ auctions until you are talking about level 60 gear.

[Stasis]

Can't believe I missed that. So disappointed in myself.

[Huntyre]

Yeah.. after hitting 60 on my Monk this weekend I checked out the AH and the prices for items definitely takes a significant jump.

[Luc]

The other problem is that no gear binds to your character/account ever.  So a bunch of the lower level gear on the AH is hand-me-downs.  As it stands now, that market will continue to get more and more flooded over time since everyone that hits 60 and starts to upgrade their stuff ends up auctioning all their old stuff  (not to mention getting a bunch of new low-level drops while farming).  You still get Nephalem Valor stacks even in normal/nightmare/hell if you're 60 also, so some people prefer to farm those difficulties rather than deal with the headache of Inferno.

If gear drops were more normalized between the difficulties, and there was some sort of bind-on-equip for rares and higher, then we wouldn't have quite this amount of gear bloat going on.  

As reference, there's one type of item that currently works the way you'd expect on the AH -- Level 60, high DPS weapons.  (mostly blues that rolled +lots of damage as their 2 stats).  If you look on the AH for these, you'll notice that anything near the best damage (even if that's all it has) is quite expensive, and its very rare to see anything in that range for cheap.  My ceremonial knife is 865 dps and I can't find anything that's an upgrade for less than 3-4 mil, and that's just a slight upgrade. I've yet to see anything over 1000 dps that costs less than 20+ million gold--and it seems like the prices continue to rise day after day.  Every skill in this game for every class is based on weapon damage though, so it's not surprising that the weapon slot is by far the most expensive/important.

Side gripe:  Offhand searching (for both wizard and WD) is terrible.  The main stat that matters is the +DMG stat that exists on every one of them, yet you cannot add a filter to the AH search for that stat.  At all.  Nor can you sort it by that stat.  So you're left looking at every single entry in a search result several pages long just hoping to find one that has a higher average damage than what you have.   To reduce the size of the list, you have to add other stats you're looking for (Intelligence, etc) but realistically, i'd take a mojo with +200-400 dmg and no other stats over a mojo with +50-100 dmg and 80 int, so by adding any other constraints to the search you're basically limiting yourself and possibly missing a good deal on what matters.

Edited by Luc, 04 June 2012 - 03:20 PM.

[Ashin]

If they don't want to do BOE, the alternative is (again) to make the Blacksmith a lot more attractive, so that there is value in salvaging and/or selling salvage mats.

That, combined with the 10-slot-per-account Auction limit, *should* make most high level players not want to bother wasting a slot of lowbie gear anyway.

[Ashin]

Stasis, on 01 June 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

You should actually reply in that thread. The constructive criticism and back and forth between the two of you that would surely ensue can only benefit the game.

Belatedly responding to your request
http://us.battle.net...241?page=15#293

[Feja]

I've actually been salvaging level 60 items for the highest level mats rather than vendoring. I've come to realize the blacksmith really isn't that bad, 52k + 5 Tome of Secrets for the Sovereign 4 stat leggings. I pumped out one of these babies past couple of days:

 leggings.png   119.68K   19 downloads

I've made only 5 pairs overall, 3 of them no good, 1 I sold on AH, can't remember how much, and those above. They're not omg awesome but pretty dam decent imo.

As I was typing this out I felt like crafting a pair of gloves...

 dexgloves.png   111.82K   16 downloads

Should sell on the AH for something. With the prices being reduced the Blacksmith will definitely be worth it. Salvage your 60 items now, save those mats and craft like a fiend when the patch hits.

Edited by Feja, 12 June 2012 - 02:08 AM.

[acierCRISIS]

Prices skyrocket for 6 property items. There like 50 dust, 11 tears and 171k a pop.  But yeah i salvage everything and ill just wait. Sitting on like 1k dust and over 300 tears.

[Stasis]

Ashin, on 11 June 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

Belatedly responding to your request
http://us.battle.net...241?page=15#293

Great post. I mean that from a neutral perspective too! =)