Leaving behind past/legacy baggage?

At this point in time, I don’t think Blizzard cares about catering to this particular demographic of the franchises player base.

While I hate to put it this way, a lot of us who played the first two games to death, represent a lot of legacy baggage when it comes to this franchise as far as expectations go.  The previous games didn’t have much rules and allowed players to create their own meta-games whether it be trading, going hostile and pk’ing, creating their own rules for PvP, etc.  They also do realize that a portion of the player base do place a value on their items.  It’s one (and just one out of many) of the reasons they had an RMAH to begin with (providing a sanctioned trading vehicle).

The problem is that it created a whole different set of problems, exasperated by the underyling core design which led to the itemization system that had to be subjected to wider ranges, and lots of RNG with those rolls and ranges.  This naturally affected the quality of drops, which made the general game, unfun/unrewarding to play after awhile, where many short circuited the reward loop by gearing via the AH’s instead.  That also led to the whole AH meta-game that some played (playing it, more than the game itself).

Since the pre-expansion changes with loot are still being based on the original core design, the fundamental issue became, how do you increase that quality level, without repeating this cycle all over again.  One of their decisions was removing the AH’s.  The 2nd and most volatile one was making the best items in the game (legendary and set items), soul bound; thus preventing freely available trading for only those items.

While it would have made far more sense to address the underlying root cause, that isn’t feasible because the entire game is designed around those systems (would require a total overhaul and re-balancing of skills and would break everyones gear in the process – basically translates into an entirely new game).

Yes, being able to freely trade everything has been one of the key parts of the franchise.  It isn’t mandatory but it was something that was there for those who enjoyed that part of the game.  D2:LoD became the go-to benchmark for many comparisons.  The problem is that the creators and teams that worked on the first two games, are no longer in that equation.  The team that did work on D3 have their own design philosophies and vision for the franchise.  While they’ve stuck to some key things, they’ve been willing to part with the past in others.

Even their own design iterations during D3’s development, went from BoE on the highest end items (announced during BlizzCon 2009) to no binding in early 2011 (see http://www.diablowiki.net/Binding).  And in 2013, this design philosophy is coming full circle where it is again being implemented, for the highest end items (allowing them to increase their quality level).  The option for trading will still exist for rares and lower level items (this is the compromise so it isn’t like trading is going away completely for those who enjoy that part of the game) but yes, I do realize that parts of the player base want unrestricted trading with no soul bound legendary/sets period.  Like the removal of the AH’s, I highly doubt they will be changing their mind on this.  Most of the arguments against this idea aren’t sufficient enough and I believe they aren’t going to cater to this particular demographic even if it means losing them.

The current team are telegraphing their objectives; the current mantra being “wanting us to find our epic loot by killing monsters”.  Thus the decision to make legendary and set items soul bound with a very restricted trading window.  They of course knew that this would not please everyone.  The reality is that trying to please everyone can lead to a less rewarding experience (this applies to many other areas as well which is why some companies focus on specific markets, genres, demographics; eg. luxury car makers, luxury apparel, etc).

So the current team are doing what they feel will be best for the game/franchise going forward.  They want players to feel rewarded for actually playing the game and getting their items by killing monsters.  And when something high end does drop, it will be build changing good.  But it’s not like they don’t realize that this won’t appeal to everyone who has been a fan of the Diablo franchise since the first one was released in 1996.  If that means players like yourself aren’t going to buy the expansions nor play the game, then it is clearly something they are willing to accept (see why below).

How many players they end up losing, no one really will know until the expansion actually goes on sale.  To be honest, I think Diablo III lost a lot of the really hardcore Diablo II:LoD players early on.  What remains today are a vocal minority who aren’t sizable enough to make a huge impact when compared to the much larger silent majority who never visits these forums, let alone even play the game co-operatively.  Opinion:  I believe the loss of desktop players due to the inability to trade legendary/set items will be relatively small (but continually arguing that point without any hard numbers either way is futile).

Kevin Martens made the following two statements in a recent interview:

Source: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/13/blizzard-talks-diablo-iiis-new-path-defends-online-req/

This of course was in regards to the online only requirement of the game.  The point however is that they aren’t interested in making Lord of Destruction II or sticking to past formulas.  The 2nd quote telegraphs they are willing to make certain decisions even if it means losing potential players (and as I mentioned at the beginning, this franchise has major legacy baggage to deal with).  So replace “has no Internet access” with “doesn’t like soul binding on legendary/set items that prevents just these items from being freely traded”.   Statements like this allude to a willingness to leave behind some of that past baggage.