Jay Wilson and the other devs have been asked on many occasions, how they are going to keep Gold valuable, how they are going to deal with item sinks and Gold sinks, and most importantly; how are they going to stop the inevitable item inflation without a binding system.
They have always given this same answer :
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We expect salvaging to be compelling enough to remove a good percentage of the most valuable items from the economy. High end components obtained from salvaging high end items are needed for high end crafting and enhancement.
As for gold: (paraphrased)
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nearly everything your Artisans do for you will have a gold cost associated with it.
In regards to a binding system, their answer again, has been the 1% analogy (which is beyond stupid IMO). For those who haven't seen it:
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Yeah, we realized that binding is kind of a crappy way to pull items out of the economy. If you say that the average player produces 100 items an hour and maybe gets 1 upgrade in that time, then binding at best can account for removing 1% of items from the economy. And that's being very generous at high levels.
Binding isn't really substantial in making a viable economy, but it is really good at establishing item prestige. Which is how it's used in WoW.
So, is it just me or are these possibly the silliest thoughts and ideas Blizzard have ever made? When you actually analyze how this will work in Diablo, it is littered with flaws and is just plain wrong.
Firstly, I'll address why the Salvaging to stop inflation can't possibly work, and does not at all stop high-end inflation.
Salvaging will almost certainly be based on two things, iLvl, and item quality type (ie rare, legendary, magical etc). It really can't be based on anything else, due to how the affix system works.
Salvaging will NOT take out the best items out of the economy, ever. Why? Because the logic is flawed:
1) If you have one of the BEST legendary or rare items in the game, WHY ON EARTH would you destroy it for Mats to make another item that has less than 1% chance of being better?
2) IF the crafted item is guaranteed to be better than your item that you need to salvage, than it DOESN'T SOLVE ANYTHING, because you have "swapped" one item for an even better item, which IS INFLATION.
3) EVEN IF you don't need the item anymore because you got an upgrade, you would rather sell it for money than salvage it into a material that is worth 1/100th of the items value (since its an excellent item).
The way people will use salvaging realistically, is they will ONLY salvage high-level items that have crappy stats. Eg. A rare item with really crappy affix rolls on it, but still has a high ilvl. Again, no one is going to salvage one of the best items in the game for some mats. Not when they can sell it for large amounts of money or trade it.
So that one is completely false, crafting/salvaging will do NOTHING to stop high-end item inflation, period.
Now for the binding 1% explanation. Firstly for the record, I'm not FOR or AGAINST a binding system at all. I'm just pointing out why this is such a stupid analogy.
So they are basically saying that the rarest items are so rare, that a binding system would only take out the rarest items out of the game, which is less than 1% of items, therefore binding would only solve 1% of the issue.
This would have to be the most idiotic thing I've seen Blizzard put out. Why? Because the other "99%" of items don't matter. They are basically items you would interchange every few levels, and also the exact type of items you would salvage or vendor. They are also the types of items that you wouldn't sell for money because no one really wants them. They are in essence, consumable, and have little to no impact on the economy.
The good, high-end items (the 1%) are the problem. So by combating the inflation of that "1%" of items is exactly what the whole point is. It is irrelevent whether or not the finder equips the item, because someone eventually will, which takes the item out of the economy (if there was a binding system), instead of the item being "permanant" and traveling through the economy indefinitely.
Inflation is a simple concept - it is caused by a constant supply of items without those items ever leaving the economy. So in other words, as time goes on there will ALWAYS BE MORE of that item, with nothing taking that item out of the economy.
A bind-on-equip system would stop inflation on high-end items better than anything else that I can think of. This is because you cannot trade it once it is "consumed", hence taking it out of the economy.
Again, I'm not advocating the binding system, I'm just pointing out how stupid that statement and explanation from Blizzard is.|||I have to agree Xaviar; no one will grind up uniques unless they are common and/or useless. I could see BoE's working in Diablo; they still have sale value, but it cleans the economy once someone uses them, and becomes fodder for salvaging, making that system relevant, something I felt was a concern; that grinders might never use Artisans at all.
I guess we'll have to see just how good the set mods are on the patterns; if you find a pattern with ED/LL, for example, you can almost make it a mill.|||Thing is though, when someone trades for/buys an item for their toon, isn't that item out of the economy? For something to be 'in the economy', I would think we're only talking about things in the AH or things that you're actively trying to trade. If I go and make a trade to get a legendary axe for my barb, for example, a system that had BoE would mean once I started using it I couldn't trade it again. But even without BoE, why would I trade it again? If we're talking about the best of the best here, then once you've got it you're done upgrading. It's functionally out of the economy since it's in use.
The only time it would likely come back in to the economy would be if:
A) I stopped playing my barb and wanted to trade to outfit another character
B) new, better items have been patched/expansioned in and I now want to upgrade (but in this case, this item no longer represents the best of the best, so should we still consider it?)
C) I stop playing Diablo altogether and want to get whatever cash I can for my items.
Am I missing something?
Also, with the inclusion of character selling, would BoE really take items out of the economy, since presumably any binded items would come with the character?|||Quote:
Thing is though, when someone trades for/buys an item for their toon, isn't that item out of the economy? For something to be 'in the economy', I would think we're only talking about things in the AH or things that you're actively trying to trade. If I go and make a trade to get a legendary axe for my barb, for example, a system that had BoE would mean once I started using it I couldn't trade it again. But even without BoE, why would I trade it again? If we're talking about the best of the best here, then once you've got it you're done upgrading. It's functionally out of the economy since it's in use.
The only time it would likely come back in to the economy would be if:
A) I stopped playing my barb and wanted to trade to outfit another character
B) new, better items have been patched/expansioned in and I now want to upgrade (but in this case, this item no longer represents the best of the best, so should we still consider it?)
C) I stop playing Diablo altogether and want to get whatever cash I can for my items.
Am I missing something?
Also, with the inclusion of character selling, would BoE really take items out of the economy, since presumably any binded items would come with the character?
I imagine absolute BiS items won't be re-traded, but any item could potentially be sold ad infinitum; this also means items that have good sale value will likely never be salvaged.
As far as what comes with the character, it depends on how the seller handles the gear; obviously, a naked 60 is worth much less than one geared to the teeth, but i wonder if people who sell characters won't take off the gear and sell it piecemeal.|||Quote:
Thing is though, when someone trades for/buys an item for their toon, isn't that item out of the economy? For something to be 'in the economy', I would think we're only talking about things in the AH or things that you're actively trying to trade. If I go and make a trade to get a legendary axe for my barb, for example, a system that had BoE would mean once I started using it I couldn't trade it again. But even without BoE, why would I trade it again? If we're talking about the best of the best here, then once you've got it you're done upgrading. It's functionally out of the economy since it's in use.
The only time it would likely come back in to the economy would be if:
A) I stopped playing my barb and wanted to trade to outfit another character
B) new, better items have been patched/expansioned in and I now want to upgrade (but in this case, this item no longer represents the best of the best, so should we still consider it?)
C) I stop playing Diablo altogether and want to get whatever cash I can for my items.
Am I missing something?
Also, with the inclusion of character selling, would BoE really take items out of the economy, since presumably any binded items would come with the character?
The item would still be in the economy regardless of how long you use it. You might decide to quit the game and sell your gear - you might find a better axe - you might reroll a Witch doctor and want gear for him, so you sell all your barb gear etc.
The point being is that the item is still in the economy and is free to be put into the market at any time. This represents inflation. (its like saying that Inflation for USD isn't an issue because you are saving money in a bank account).
It is a little bit hard to explain if you didn't study economics - but supply and demand plays a part in why this is.
Supply and demand is the deciding factor in pricing - supply doesn't decrease if your item is freely trade-able. This means that your item's value will decrease despite you not selling it (because you would theoretically sell it once it reaches a value higher than its perceived worth.) However if it is bound to you, than it is literally out of the market forever, representing deflation.|||Quote:
1) If you have one of the BEST legendary or rare items in the game, WHY ON EARTH would you destroy it for Mats to make another item that has less than 1% chance of being better?
Enchants, to craft items better suited for your desired build, e-peen, etc.
As for super uber rare items that have nigh-perfect or better rolled stats, I would be genuinely surprised if there will be more than a few hundred of those.
They don't need to eliminate inflation. Just slow it down for a looong time. So they can come up with an incentive to permanently eradicate the best items from the economy.
Though, yes, it will depend on exactly how the salvaging system will work. If you can do all the crafting by picking out a random crappy Inferno drop, they screwed up.|||Quote:
Enchants, to craft items better suited for your desired build, e-peen, etc.
But a smart person would sell their high-quality item for a good sum of cash, and buy the Enchant mats, crafting mats etc. It is far superior than dismantling a uber item for mats that you can get from dismantling a similar worthless item with a similar ilvl.
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As for super uber rare items that have nigh-perfect or better rolled stats, I would be genuinely surprised if there will be more than a few hundred of those.
Except for legendaries. They will indefinitely increase as time goes.|||And that's a bad thing if done slowly enough? Again, Blizzard doesn't need to obliterate inflation. They just need to slow it down until they can come up with a good solution to everyone walking around in epics.
I am greatly in favor of something similar to Uber Diablo - incentive to sacrifice the strongest/most sought after items for a once in a life time opportunity to gain some very special, awesome, never will appear again item.|||Well as far as breaking down items goes, we don't really know if it's only based on ilvl. Mats for the best crafting might only come from legendaries for all we know.|||Or maybe there will be a "proportion," based on item budget - higher affix rolls are required for best materials to have a chance to form.
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