Legendary Debate, Item Drops AH, and Blue Posts

Here are some blue posts regarding Legendary Items, item drops and the Auction House.

Buffing Legendaries:

Hopefully they give about 30-50% "damage per second" buff for Legendaries to return that nice feel of legendary drops.

Maybe not in a manner such as this but in a future patch, most likely the one to include PvP, we are planning to outright buff legendary items :) We also want to over time expand the current affix diversity as well as the unique bonuses of legendary items, we are looking to share more details regarding this after the PvP patch.


In addition to all of this we will be exposing the item levels (ilvl) of all 60+ items in patch 1.0.3 to increase the clarity of stat distribution on items. This will help indicate as to why in some occasions an ilvl 60 Legendary might not be as strong as an ilvl 63 Magic item.

They said they wont convert the old items, the changes will apply to the new drops only.

Exactly as is stated by Puttokany. The buff to legendary items will not be retroactive, it will only apply to items found after the changes have been implemented.

Even in the face of us confirming players comparing vastly different item stats as equal due to player level requirement and not stat budget, AND that Legendary items (despite your personal feelings) are not intended to be the best of the best and only the best items in the game? Seems like dropping the ball about talking about balls being dropped without ball dropping context.

Who doesn't want Legendary items to be the best items in the game?

Players shouldn't, really. I mean if you want all end-game characters to look the same and have on the exact same items by having a single #1 best item in the game, it's a good way to get there. It's a lot easier, to be sure, to just chase a single BiS item, but we really don't believe it should be a lot easier. It should be difficult to find and judge and compare and build characters out of a mix of randomized items, not just go after a tier set.

Bash, have you even read some of the Legendary Item descriptions? The GrandFather for instance, has a crappy 700-800 dps for a 2h sword and it's supposed to be the "most revered" sword in the game? Lmao? Whoever made the Legendary Items was smoking a pipe.

Have you read the article I linked to where we said we'll be buffing them? :) Also The Grandfather is actually ilvl 61, so an ilvl 62 or 63 blue could beat it out on straight DPS.
Technically the Warmonger is the best 2h legendary sword.

But that's not the issue here, the issue here is the legendaries are worse than rares and blues. And that should not be. Please accept that THIS is what players want. For once in my life I am VERY comfortable speaking for everyone. We're accustomed to the term "Legendary" actually MEANING something.

And we've stated we plan to buff them and add more unique affixes.
What do you want to talk about now?

Of course no one here expects a level 30ish legendary to be worthwhile at level 45. That's simply splitting hairs, or obfuscation. But at level 60, a legendary from say, Hell mode, ought to be better than most everything in Hell mode ( or insert advanced mode here).

I don't think anyone with basic common sense believes it is in the best interest of the game to undervalue the rarest drops in the game. We realize you guys are still laying the foundation, it's going to take some time. That's understood. But also be cognizant of the fact that we, as players, don't dig the treatment that the legendaries are getting as of right now. Stand back and count the dollars, but ignore the sentiment at your own risk. This isn't WoW. I'm not on the hook for 15 bucks next month. /wink

Hah. Well, no one is standing back, every designer is in the thick of it working on future updates, patches, hotfixes, etc. I think it really comes down to a perception issue that color quality differentiation and name have made. If the items were called Uniques, as they were in Diablo II, would you assume they were the best items in the game? Maybe, if they're the hardest to find. But I think the point is that the hardest to find items are not in fact Legendaries, but perfect Rare items. It's less intuitive to not have clear separations of item power through name and color, and that's tripping people up to be sure.

I don't know ... we're looking to buff them. Whether we guarantee a blue item dropping in the same difficulty/Act can't have higher DPS than a Legendary is still a judgment call we've yet to make. It'd sure make more sense to people who are stuck on item colors telling them which should be better, but whether it's the best for game's itemization I think is still up in the air. Giving players a clear 'best item' is not necessarily the best decision for the game and itemization landscape.

Hey Bashiok, Are you able to get/contact the "blue" that is in charge of updating the estimated server status updates? I would really appreciate a heads-up on what the night is looking like, so i can see if I should find something constructive to do with my time. I know this isn't the right forum; but the other ones don't have a "Blue paroling them atm. Plz and thank you!

Well, servers are back up. We don't anticipate any further downtime, but we didn't anticipate this downtime, so it's a bit tough to predict the future. Knock on wood everything is good from here on.

Are they going to add unique affixes in the way that D2 did? Instead of just buffing the current stats (taking the strength and doubling it) are they going to add INTERESTING affixes that support 'quirky' builds.

I'm fine with perfectly rolled, or well rolled rares having a better overall dps/stats, but make the legendary items good enough that they can compete with the damage/armor of great rares, but other interesting affixes that would have players think about it.

Yup, that's mentioned in the article.

Everyone is looking at the front page, right? Game Design Update

Current Legendaries being buffed and new and more unique affixes aren't currently estimated to arrive in the same patch, though.


Item Drops and the Auction House


i have ZERO chance to find a legendary, because the server has now adjusted the rates on the fly, because others have already found it.

That's not what was said or implied at all, sorry if it was confusing. The AH doesn't have any affect on the literal drop rates of items depending on what's available.

What I said, and what is true, is that with far more players and an increased proliferation of item trade, we have to factor in how many items are being found by players and how quickly a player can gear up by 'sourcing' items from others through trade and the convenience of the gold auction house.

If we say "a player should have X power in Y amount of time through drops" and completely ignore that the time factor can be reduced by simply having access to more drops through trading and the auction house, players would be gearing up far quicker than we've determined they should. It has nothing to do with the auction house per se, but the general ease at which players have access to more items than they would without it and us needing to keep that in mind while balancing drops. It would be rather poorly thought out if we balanced drops completely ignoring all of the ways players can gear up, and trading is certainly one of them.

Obviously everyone wants the best gear possible as quickly as possible, and us attempting to mediate that through design that takes all factors into account is not always going to be a popular notion.


Blue Post Tracker


Continuing After Normal

Believe me, the game suddenly shifts up a gear or two when you try it on the next level of difficulty. Enemies have many more skills and nasty things to throw at you, gear becomes much more important, and so do your skill choices. It's much more of a challenge!
As others have said though, trying another class is also an option, as is teaming up with friends, which sometimes means skill swapping to be most efficient on harder difficulties :)

First legendaries

I got The Witching Hour when I was about level 20, which was a huge upgrade for me (WD) and then I found a Fletcher's Pride and gave it to Kaivax. Nothing since. I'm worried I wasted all my good luck too early. 

Sets

Yup, just pick an armor type and then click the Set filter button: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/

Example, set pants: http://us.battle.net...pants/#type=set 

Auction House and Items
The drops you get will be determined by the current stock of the AH. If the market is flooded with good items, you won't see as many drop in the game.

I specifically clarified the exact opposite of that in the text you quoted.

No, you did not. You just added sugar, sprinkles, and your shiny blue text to the fact that you made a mistake and revealed what is actually true. Well done by the way, most people bought it.

Alert Chris Carter. This sounds like a case for Mullen and Skulder!

I dont care about the the conspiricy theory, what I dont get is that having the auction be a core part of the game and necessary to even get through hell, detracts from over long term playability of the game. Instead of playing the game I go to the auction and by my stuff, now look there is no point in playing the game. HMM DID THIS NOT OCCUR TO YOU.


Use of the AH isn't necessary. You can go to the Trade forum and get items direct from other players if you want. Or you can just find upgrades yourself - it's just going to take longer. It would be very poor judgment to not include all factors when balancing drop percentages.