What Exactly Killed Diablo 3's Economy (and Implications on PoE)

What killed the economy is simple. Bots.

Botting and Duping killed that game.


It was more efficient to bot for items and gold then it was to play. That made lot of people do it simply because blizzards banning process was slow. By slow i mean that botting would make more than enough money for one to make it profitable by simply buying a new account once banned.

What I liked about this thread was the perspective taken. Scrotie approached this from the viewpoint of "why isn't farming magical". For the most part I agree with his premise and conclusions. Diablo 2 was a better game and OP explained a big part of why.

One thing only briefly touched upon in the OP is an auction house's effect on loot depreciation. As the collective gear of players improves their possible upgrades become more scarce, meaning it's harder to find loot of value. Auction houses, and trade in general, catalyze loot depreciation by making it easier for players to improve their gear. That in turn shortens the lifespan of an ARPG economy - and it's why we reset the ladder every 4 months. Because when you find nothing of value, loot isn't fun.

While I agree that a blind bidding auction house would be a welcome improvement, we must recognize the economic repercussions that would follow. To be fair it might not be much worse. We already have a de facto auction house in POEXYZ and POETradeChat, so an in-game competitor that uses less harmful mechanics, like blind bidding, might actually diminish economic damage.

The perfect ARPG would maintain the magic of farming through difficult valuation, convenient trade through a blind bidding auction house, and include some kind of mechanic to counter to loot depreciation.

If crafting with items below max iLvl is considered a waste of currency, then perhaps what is needed is a (greatly) improved crafting system rather than a direct economic overhaul.

If one could, for example, use the 'worthless' rares one finds while farming to improve a crafted item, whether that be by raising an individual affix or adding an additional one (subject to caps, of course), huge numbers of items would disappear from the economy due to being used as crafting materials. Alternatively, add vendor recipes that allow one to break items down into orbs, so that one can actually get sufficient materials for high-end crafting without being essentially forced to trade for them.

Even then there still needs to be some damping of the RNG, as well as improving of some affixes so that they're actually competitive (Thorns, for example, is basically a waste of an affix slot), as otherwise crafting will still remain too much of a gamble for most folks to bother with.

Basically, the idea is to shift thinking away from sale value to crafting value. 'Do I keep this for potential use by an alt, or do I scrap it for parts to try to improve what this character already has?' is the question that one should be asking, not 'How much can I sell this for?'. If it were up to me, that latter question would never (or at least rather seldom) come up; the crafting system should be sufficiently robust that selling an item to someone else should be the last thing you think of rather than the first.

In fact, I would argue that fixing the crafting system is the way to insure a healthy economy; if people are willing to dump massive amounts of items into crafting (because they know they'll get at least something out of it), then the market will auto-correct due to the removal of all that wealth from circulation keeping prices from spiraling out of control.

I just read the 1st post, but i can say that the nr.1 problem i have with looting and itemization at this point in POE is the fact that white items dominate the screen, even after the so called "nerf" to white drops.

Just played a 77 shrine with 2 friends, i had 100iiq and 240 iir, and we got a total of 15-20 yellows for the whole map, exept piety wich we skipped.

White items were still so many that i had to turn off with Z to be able to see clearly.

I know that the base for poe it seems is crafting, but for people that are used to the D2 days where set items and uniques were common in boss runs, it just feels very boring playing for items.

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Hathrox wrote:

In fact, I would argue that fixing the crafting system is the way to insure a healthy economy; if people are willing to dump massive amounts of items into crafting (because they know they'll get at least something out of it), then the market will auto-correct due to the removal of all that wealth from circulation keeping prices from spiraling out of control.

What you're describing is an item sink for good items. That will only work if you can define good and the sink is constant - not merely until players have what they want. There are obstacles in defining what a good item is and you don't want to inadvertantly give value to bad items in the process. It's important that the sink works best with the most attractive items otherwise only unattractive items will be used - leaving market saturation and therefore loot depreciation intact. The other problem is that what you're suggesting is in essence price fixing and has all the associated economic problems.

I'm also worried what you describe would be too much like MMO item progression, where you work towards gear improvement, rather than chase the adrenaline of finding or crafting something of value. MMO item progression doesn't work in a game about hunting items. Maybe I misunderstood.

I do agree with a lot of your premise however. It shows a clear understanding of the problems. Low level crafting can and should be greatly improved. Additional diverse and competitive affixes are a great idea. Both would greatly improve the shallow item progression of hunting items with similar properties but bigger numbers.

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Asmosis wrote:

Great post.

I disagree somewhat that it was all the "ease of valuation" that helped kill it to a certain degree, the right click + search similar items was a good feature.

The problem as you said was a combination of how

simplistic it was
how many new gear slots there were
the fact they were all basically the same.

All 12 or so pieces of gear would have the same core stats. All res, Vit, main stat. Your gloves, rings amulet and weapon basically looked the same. shoulders, boots, armor, belt, head were all basically the same.

It really was the fact you had to find essentially the same piece of gear 14 times !! which really killed it.

The auction house itself was really good to use. It is a legitimate gaming feature that anyone who has played something like EVE online, or simulation games like SimCity or something actually enjoy playing. Thats not a joke, some people legitimately enjoy using the AH more than playing ingame and that isnt neccessarily a BAD thing, if the itemization doesnt suck.

It's funny that you "disagree" with me, because I pretty much agree with everything you say here, and my opening post agrees with it too.

One thing I didn't emphasize nearly enough: the non-trading mechanisms which make items too easy to evaluate will always be in a position to do more harm to the game than the trading-based ones, because no matter how hard they are pressured to, some players simply will not trade, or will choose to trade minimally. Diablo 3's oversimplified item system made it so that even those who never traded or never used the Auction Houses a single time had no difficulty determining which of their items trumped another, which essentially removed all possibility for meaningful choice from something as intrinsic to ARPGs as choosing one's own gear.

The additional gear slots thing must have been some idiotic attempt at a counterbalance; "if it's too easy to determine which item is better than another, let's give them more item slots to increase the difficulty!" However, that's not a true challenge, not more meaningful choice; all more item slots meant was more tedium.

However, although the item system itself is the biggest problem with D3, it is nevertheless part of an overall category of "excessive ease of evaluation." The way which Diablo 3 approached trading took this already formidable problem and made it even worse, turning trade into more of a science and less of an art. Seeing this as an overall theme allows you to see how non-farming mechanics, especially trade mechanics, impact the core farming experience. The OP had an overall theme focus and a trading focus, because I wanted to elaborate on how people routinely bring up D3 in regards to trading suggestions/theories and my take on it. That doesn't mean I didn't think the loot itself was the most important thing; of course was. And of course it is and will be in PoE as well.



@Veta: Thanks for linking to the "Dust system" idea for low-level crafting. I think it's an important suggestion for those who get all hung up about orb hoarding.

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Veta321 wrote:

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Hathrox wrote:

In fact, I would argue that fixing the crafting system is the way to insure a healthy economy; if people are willing to dump massive amounts of items into crafting (because they know they'll get at least something out of it), then the market will auto-correct due to the removal of all that wealth from circulation keeping prices from spiraling out of control.

What you're describing is an item sink for good items. That will only work if you can define good and the sink is constant - not merely until players have what they want. There are obstacles in defining what a good item is and you don't want to inadvertantly give value to bad items in the process. It's important that the sink works best with the most attractive items otherwise only unattractive items will be used - leaving market saturation and therefore loot depreciation intact. The other problem is that what you're suggesting is in essence price fixing and has all the associated economic problems.

The point here is that they're only 'unattractive' because they're not a direct improvement to what you already have. Someone else might be able to use them, so will be willing to take them off your hands. Unfortunately, at the top-end point that seems to be a major area of contention, that descriptor applies to almost everything other than the very best items, with the result that the prices thereof have gotten way out of hand. Removal of currency in bulk through crafting would bring these prices back to something more sane. It's definitely not price-fixing, because that assumes a small group is acting to screw everyone else over and that's not the case here.

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I'm also worried what you describe would be too much like MMO item progression, where you work towards gear improvement, rather than chase the adrenaline of finding or crafting something of value. MMO item progression doesn't work in a game about hunting items. Maybe I misunderstood.

You seem to be under the impression that they're mutually exclusive, which isn't the case. You still have to go out and farm for the items to break down, which means you can still get the rush of finding something awesome should it happen to drop while you're grinding materials.

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I do agree with a lot of your premise however. It shows a clear understanding of the problems. Low level crafting can and should be greatly improved. Additional diverse and competitive affixes are a great idea. Both would greatly improve the shallow item progression of hunting items with similar properties but bigger numbers.

By 'improved crafting' I mean across the board, not just low-level. Even with iLvl 77-79 items I'd be reluctant to craft them, since the odds are heavily against my getting something that's better than what I already have. Even massively upping the drop rates of Divine, Eternal, and Exalted Orbs wouldn't help, because the underlying problem of high-iLvl items being able to roll low/bottom-tier affixes would still exist.

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Hathrox wrote:

By 'improved crafting' I mean across the board, not just low-level. Even with iLvl 77-79 items I'd be reluctant to craft them, since the odds are heavily against my getting something that's better than what I already have. Even massively upping the drop rates of Divine, Eternal, and Exalted Orbs wouldn't help, because the underlying problem of high-iLvl items being able to roll low/bottom-tier affixes would still exist.

If that's the case, trade them to players who are willing to. These people exist, in large numbers, because unlike you they realize that using an orb on a high-level item or on a map is as good as using an orb ever gets, for anyone. The economy exists as an outlet for the risk-averse... with convenience fees attached, of course.

I mean, if you were advocating a moderate increase in orb droprates — as I have in the past, and will continue to do so, but along with the suggestion of decreasing gear droprates simultaneously to keep the game equally challenging — then I might agree with you. But there is no pleasing you; even a massively upped droprate will not help you conquer your fear of RNG. So go trade instead. Apparently that's your preference.

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The point here is that they're only 'unattractive' because they're not a direct improvement to what you already have. Someone else might be able to use them, so will be willing to take them off your hands. Unfortunately, at the top-end point that seems to be a major area of contention, that descriptor applies to almost everything other than the very best items, with the result that the prices thereof have gotten way out of hand. Removal of currency in bulk through crafting would bring these prices back to something more sane. It's definitely not price-fixing, because that assumes a small group is acting to screw everyone else over and that's not the case here.

This is a misunderstanding, I explained what I meant poorly. When I say attractive items I mean items that are only slightly less powerful or attractive than what a player is already using. And when I said price fixing I meant it as price flooring, which has an identical economic impact.

The bad thing about auction house is that it lets everybody sell all there stuff or some of it all the time.so instead of possibly having no market competition because everyone doesnt want to be sitting there trying to sell there stuff all the time or cant,your competing against the other 10 people who have the same thing. .this didnt kill d3 economy but it didnt help it ethier...d3 had alot of economic problems which they did nothing about.it was when they increase the drops that really messed the economy up.bots didnt help ethier,but all these type of games have bots im sure this one does too but thier kept secret and not avalible to public and even the botters dont want to be sitting there selling all there crap messing up the economy all the time....you dont want problems in the economy or to slow it down cause once an economy starts to slide its hard to tip the balance back the other way.