So... buyable runes

[Delreich]

As for fixing the economy: removing GF% from Radiance is easy; getting rid of all the -% vendor prices items already floating around, unfortunately, is not.

Couldn't you just turn the current rvp stat into a display only stat (saying something like "This thing is old, get a new one") and, if you still want it, make a new one?
It would consume another stat of course, and it might upset some players, but the amounts available right now are kinda ridicoulus (I would know, I've got 85%).

[Brother Laz]

I can't edit the actual stat, which is hardcoded, and removing it from the property does not seem to work...

[PwnyExpress]

...As for fixing the economy: removing GF% from Radiance is easy; getting rid of all the -% vendor prices items already floating around, unfortunately, is not.

Cant you just take off that stat?

I mean...you ARE a modder...What can be made, can be destroyed, dontcha think? ^^

[Brother Laz]

No, not from existing items. I can perhaps set saveadd to -100 so each existing item ends up with a negative bonus... if it works. Most likely it'll just corrupt your character. Hmph.

[Datharaur]

Except PlugY is already an accepted cheat, and much of the game is already balanced around it because everyone uses it. Without PlugY I'd add things like affix transfer and clickable stands that drop runes, but balancing the game for non-PlugY users would completely break it for PlugY users. It is currently somewhere in the middle.

As for fixing the economy: removing GF% from Radiance is easy; getting rid of all the -% vendor prices items already floating around, unfortunately, is not.

For both instances, I suppose. I don't run PlugY nor do I collect -% vendor prices items for gambling, but I'm almost definitely the exception rather then the rule. Still, you're trying to make a fun game for all, so aim for your main audience. The problem is that you really can't balance it for PlugY players (and forget about both the PlugY and non-PlugY players), can you?

You're in a no-win situation.

I guess all you can do is when the next major revision hits (Median2009, perhaps?) is to keep a tighter rein on the -% vendor prices items and gold find. Sure the PlugY players can and will break it, but it's unavoidable.

[Smiling Hobo]

...As for fixing the economy: removing GF% from Radiance is easy; getting rid of all the -% vendor prices items already floating around, unfortunately, is not.

Cant you just take off that stat?

I mean...you ARE a modder...What can be made, can be destroyed, dontcha think? ^^

Modder does not equal miracle worker. The .txt files only allow a modder so much control. A lot of the game is still not in the .txt files and is hardcoded into. dlls, which I'm pretty sure Laz wants to stay away from for this mod...

*Nibbles on kitten*

[DemonicAngel]

So Laz: Implemented or Rejected?

[Baerk Konnevala]

Actually Lax you can get away with setting the mininum value of RVP by 5 lower. This will in turn lower maxinum reduce vendor prices a char can obtain by 40% (because each of the 8 slots you get vendor reduction in loses 5%). The items with less than 5% will end up negative, but not by much. While 55% may be a decent reduction in price it is not a crazy reduction like 95% is.

[Stubbs]

Greetings fellow Median players. Long time reader turned poster here. My laziness finally got out of the way for me to do the dern forum signup, hehe.


Noob query, Laz: Are you able to place vendors outside of town areas?

[pza]

oh, come on. that discussion is getting towards the wrong direction. even ith 55% vendor prices a pala could achieve a xar for 1 million. and that's still WAY too low price.

if i had to make a price for a xar, i'd put it AT LEAST 15-20 million. that'd mean that it should cost 30-40 million with rvp. that would be at least a real challange. getting 3 million gold is really nothing. and don't you think farming gold is totally boring??? that's what the whole thing would lead to.


btw: that argument "if you find that your gameplay experience is destroyed with buyable runes, then don't buy them" is not valid. because that sounds like: "i want that cheat to be legit, and if you don't want to be a cheater, don't use it"


and making at least low runes buyable would lead to more people going to rush the game through hatred at /p8 untwinked and then start a reasonable campaign why things get so much harder in terror, and that the only solution would be to make higher runes buyable, too. at least for me, that'd ruin my gamng experience in terms of runes, runewords and challange in finding runes.

[Baerk Konnevala]

When I think about it I haven't seen a gambling price over a million. As it is I haven't seen anything over 3 million in value even with stuff in throwing weapon stack sockets bug. I highly doubt Laz could even set anything for higher than 8.3 million value (due to the similiar mechanics that apply to the damage cap).

Also a Xar for around a million sure as hell beats having a Xar buyable for around 110k by a paladin by a longshot.

[pza]

you simply cn't have more than X gold( 4 millions? dunno) on one char anyway. wih or without plugy. and every price under this is simply imbalanced.


sometimes features aren't possible to be included. they just aren't supposed to be balanced then.

[Baerk Konnevala]

Actually I've already seen runes be sold in a mod and it worked perfectly fine. As I remember El was 10k, Tir 15k, and then I forget the price progression for the next 7. I think it was Thul for 270k or something around that.

My vendor price reduction suggestion would permanently kill the crazy RVP possibilities. That combined with a Radiance GF nerf means even paladins aren't going to have such a field day buying the runes compared to other classes. As it is radiance is broken, because any paladin who maxes it can do trial of greed super easy (from my personal experiance and I was intentionally gold sinking well over half million to gambling to boot by the time I hit level 50).

[Datharaur]

btw: that argument "if you find that your gameplay experience is destroyed with buyable runes, then don't buy them" is not valid. because that sounds like: "i want that cheat to be legit, and if you don't want to be a cheater, don't use it"

and making at least low runes buyable would lead to more people going to rush the game through hatred at /p8 untwinked and then start a reasonable campaign why things get so much harder in terror, and that the only solution would be to make higher runes buyable, too. at least for me, that'd ruin my gamng experience in terms of runes, runewords and challange in finding runes.

Well, with all due respect, it is perfectly valid. The last time I checked PlugY was considered a cheat (or hack or what have you) by most. A useful cheat, for sure, but it's still a way to break the Diablo II rules. When someone installs LoD (or Median), he's agreeing to whatever rules Blizzard (or Laz) establish. When Blizzard enabled gambling in the first place, it was not cheating. If Laz makes runes buyable, then it is not cheating. Simply put, he makes the rules for his mod. Once anyone decides to use a third-party program to, for example, transfer all the gold from all his characters to a level 1 character, he really shouldn't be complaining about validity for anything. Heck, if he does that without a third-party program, he has no right to complain about the validity of his gaming experience.

Regarding your second point, I do understand you, though, but I am coming at it from a completely different perspective. I don't run PlugY, and one of the greatest problems I'm encountering with this mod is limited stash space (yes, I know, PlugY would fix that) almost exclusively due to an accumulation of low to mid-level runes. If I didn't have to save every rune I found because I knew I could buy replacements, I would have more room for items in my stash.

However, I know I am in the minority when it comes to PlugY, so I generally don't comment on Laz's tinkering with the status quo unless it is something I personally can see a use for; this is one change that I could personally benefit from, so I'm advocating for it. Besides, to me, it makes logical game-world sense that people should be able to buy/gamble runes (Just why don't merchants offer them for sale?) as opposed to cube them up/down.

Side question for Laz: I'm sure it's been asked before, but would it be possible to make a "rune bag" or a similar sort of item (not unlike the horadric cube) that could be used only for storing runes? I would suspect not, but it never hurts to ask.

[Brother Laz]

Side question for Laz: I'm sure it's been asked before, but would it be possible to make a "rune bag" or a similar sort of item (not unlike the horadric cube) that could be used only for storing runes? I would suspect not, but it never hurts to ask.

Possible, yes. (Gem cans in ES) Will require a few hundred base items to be added, though; and you'd still get stuck with one rune bag per rune type, because using magical affixes to keep track of the runes would require me to dump a few dozen affixes from the pool first to make room.

......

By the way... I realised that making runes sell for a high amount of gold would also cause the merchants to buy them for a high amount of gold. Sell an Eld, get 25K gold. Whoops.

[pza]

it's not valid. it breaks the gameplay experience, and plugy doesn't. and while plugy is optional, buying runes isn't. for usingg a shared stash you need to install plugy first. for buying runes not. it's a feature that makes the mod unbalanced. you could also throw in some imba uniques and say "if they destroy your gameplay experience then don't use them" but that wouldn't make the mod more balanced, would it.

regarding space for runes: low-midlunes are so common that you don't have to save them in your stash. you should be able to just find them whenever you need them. say, you're waiting for making a rainbow runeword, you'll have to keep a belt and a el in your stash, until you've found the tir or higher(you can downgrade). now if you're going to keep all runes there are to be able to build every runeword at once (d'uh... you'll need multiple of each) and DON'T want to do that "item managing" (which is btw a feature of diablo2), then there is still plugy.
but you can't demand for both at once.
(hint: use uniques/sets that you're keeping anyway to save your runes/gems/jewels inside them, it costs you only 3 tp's to make them avaiable again)

now again i repeat: making runes buyable means that people will be expecting to get them easily (at least those who want to get through the mod in 2 days) and because of balancing issues that will not be the case. they should cost massive amounts of gold, everyone agrees to that. but this means people will get disappointed when they see that it's not so easy to get them, and that it requires them to spend time on boring goldfarming. and it leads to people start QQing. it will not cease unless laz changes it again.

[Skeleon]

PlugY breaks the gameplay by making Uberquests easier than they should be and giving you the opportunity to give gold to lower chars and so on. Which is why many Uberquests are almost impossible to do without twinking. They were actually balanced for twinkers! Luckily, Laz is going to change that.

PlugY shouldn't be considered optional but should be considered a cheat. Granting you the ability to keep UNLIMITED AMOUNTS of items is not the way Diablo (or rather Median) was meant to be - you were supposed to choose carefully, sell stuff that you don't have any room for and hope to get the next item you want (or make it yourself with easily accomplished jewelwords, good crafting recipes and still rather easy to get runewords, whereas uniques and sets are the topping).

Also, I don't understand how buying runes isn't optional. If you have money over, you decide if you want to revive your worthless merc, gamble a little or buy a rune for a runeword you're planning to get. It's one of those, not all. You can't keep your cake and eat it, too.

If people want to start farming, then that's their problem. A lot of people already farm for runes, items and whatnot, but that is optional as well. I for one tend to play through the game and pick up whatever I come across. My equipment is never perfect, but it's still OKAY. Farming sucks, I agree.

But making runes buyable won't really increase the amount of farming done, it might relocate it...

[pza]

relocate it to areas where you have to open massive amounts of chests urns and have no fun at all.

now i want to know when laz said that he's going to consider plugy a cheat/ making all uberquests avaiable for nontwinkers. i think he said the complete opposite: he's going to leave plugy optional as it is, isn't it?

PlugY shouldn't be considered optional but should be considered a cheat. Granting you the ability to keep UNLIMITED AMOUNTS of items is not the way Diablo (or rather Median) was meant to be

the only one who can tell us this is laz himself. and i think he did not think like you think. otherwise he wouldn't have given crafting points and all the stuff you want to keep in stash for a certain situation. i find plugy is not necessary ( i played some time without and went well, but it was by far not that lot of fun than with plugy)
i agree to the guy who said that diablo is all about twinking. if not, what would charspecific stuff do on chars that can't do nothing with them? laz found a solution for this: shards. but i prefer giving my so beloved items to a new char so that he can try them out for new builds. if there was no twinking, MANY MANY builds would have never existed.

You're in a no-win situation.

not fully correct. if he doesn't insert buyable runes at all it would be balanced as it is now. noone (that matters) ever complained about it, so it can't be too bad, isn't it.

If people want to start farming, then that's their problem. A lot of people already farm for runes, items and whatnot, but that is optional as well.

playing median is optional aswell. let me try an analogy: i could wander around with the starting gear through the whole mod and not beat 1 uberquest, just because i don't want to use better gear because i consider it "cheating"(not using plugy). or i could use normal gear and have fun with the uberquests aswell as with different kinds of builds, not needing to stick at the most powerful mainbuilds (use plugy). or i could cheat me some stuff (no i couldn't but it's only an analogy) and make it through the game in 2 hours (rune buying).

i hope you got my meaning

[Datharaur]

it's not valid. it breaks the gameplay experience, and plugy doesn't. and while plugy is optional, buying runes isn't. for usingg a shared stash you need to install plugy first. for buying runes not. it's a feature that makes the mod unbalanced. you could also throw in some imba uniques and say "if they destroy your gameplay experience then don't use them" but that wouldn't make the mod more balanced, would it.

regarding space for runes: low-midlunes are so common that you don't have to save them in your stash. you should be able to just find them whenever you need them. say, you're waiting for making a rainbow runeword, you'll have to keep a belt and a el in your stash, until you've found the tir. now if you're going to keep all runes there are to be able to build every runeword at once (d'uh... you'll need multiple of each) and DON'T want to do that "item managing" (which is btw a feature of diablo2), then there is still plugy.
but you can't demand for both at once.
(hint: use uniques/sets that you're keeping anyway to save your runes/gems/jewels inside them, it costs you only 3 tp's to make them avaiable again)

now again i repeat: making runes buyable means that people will be expecting to get them easily (at least those who want to get through the mod in 2 days) and because of balancing issues that will not be the case. they should cost massive amounts of gold, everyone agrees to that. but this means people will get disappointed when they see that it's not so easy to get them, and that it requires them to spend time on boring goldfarming. and it leads to people start QQing. it will not cease unless laz changes it again.

First, we're disagreeing about the use of the word valid, which I suppose happens from time to time. Also, I know my problem is one of stash management, which is why I find the idea of buying low-level runes appealing. I already store runes/jewels in uniques and unsocket as necessary... and still it's tight. If only there weren't all these pesky quest rewards...

Correct me if I am wrong, but your arguments against the selling of runes seem to be that:

A) It will create the impression that people should be able to get them easily, which is something that shouldn't be true at higher levels due to balance issues. They will complain.

B) It should cost massive amounts of gold to buy runes and will encourage gold farming.

Regarding A, people will always complain; it's human nature. I'm not sure if Laz is going to enable the purchase of high-level runes, but I would think that would be a mistake due to balance issues. Regardless, if people are not dissatisfied about buying high level runes, then they're complaining about Cold Blood's "damage bug" or trading the skills Retaliate for Bloodstorm. It's not just new players that complain about Laz's decisions... Laz will deal with it the way he deals with everything else.

Regarding B, so what? If people want to play the game to gold farm and they have the patience for it and think it's fun, God bless them. How is spending X (where X is a relatively high amount) gold to buy a thul going to ruin your (or anyone else's) gaming experience? It's not like we're talking about a WoW-like persistent world here, and that gold farmers will destroy the economy of the world. Laz has already pretty much admitted that the economy is messed up due to GF and % reduced vendor items (please correct me if I am mistaken). He's looking for a way to give people something to do with the outrageous amounts of gold they've acquired (through farming or normal play). Letting them spend it all on useful low-level runes seems like a reasonable compromise, especially if the % reduced vendor items can be capped. Also, if they can't spend it on something like this, then they might as well use PlugY to transfer it to a new character.

[Skeleon]

making all uberquests avaiable for nontwinkers.

You're right, I don't remember him saying he considers PlugY as a cheat. But he doesn't support it, either. Also, he did say he'll change some of the Uberquests, making them easier. Which I appreciate.

i could wander around with the starting gear through the whole mod and not beat 1 uberquest, just because i don't want to use better gear because i consider it "cheating"

That's just blatant mockery. There's a big difference between only fighting with the newbie short sword (whooo, just 1 Gold for repairs, imba!) and not using PlugY to twink up my chars.

not needing to stick at the most powerful mainbuilds (use plugy)

Take the Plasmagunner for instance, it's a highlevel build, because you can use neither Araboth nor Plague at the start of the game. It's not a mainbuild. Hey, know what? I COULD gather jewels, the pdiamond and a 6 socket crossbow DURING THE TIME I PLAY to get to level 90! But what the hell, I'll just twink Araboth and some other stuff and while I'm at it, I'll twink all the Uberquest charms and maybe some lowlevel gear as well, so I can get to level 90 quicker.

i agree to the guy who said that diablo is all about twinking.

You obviously never played Diablo 1.

[Baerk Konnevala]

B) It should cost massive amounts of gold to buy runes and will encourage gold farming.

Regarding A, people will always complain; it's human nature. I'm not sure if Laz is going to enable the purchase of high-level runes, but I would think that would be a mistake due to balance issues. Regardless, if people are not dissatisfied about buying high level runes, then they're complaining about Cold Blood's "damage bug" or trading the skills Retaliate for Bloodstorm. It's not just new players that complain about Laz's decisions... Laz will deal with it the way he deals with everything else.

Regarding B, so what? If people want to play the game to gold farm and they have the patience for it and think it's fun, God bless them. How is spending X (where X is a relatively high amount) gold to buy a thul going to ruin your (or anyone else's) gaming experience? It's not like we're talking about a WoW-like persistent world here, and that gold farmers will destroy the economy of the world. Laz has already pretty much admitted that the economy is messed up due to GF and % reduced vendor items (please correct me if I am mistaken). He's looking for a way to give people something to do with the outrageous amounts of gold they've acquired (through farming or normal play). Letting them spend it all on useful low-level runes seems like a reasonable compromise, especially if the % reduced vendor items can be capped. Also, if they can't spend it on something like this, then they might as well use PlugY to transfer it to a new character.

And if people think gold farming is too tedious and boring then they can go sacred unique farming in tran (or set farming in Kurast 3000 BA) if they think farming Tran is not as boring and Tedious. There will always be some sort of farming involved at higher levels. Whether it's going directly for the runes in fauztenville or getting the gold to buy them is up to the person.

As it stands the current concencous for getting non-sacred uniques seems to be gambling, because of the imba amounts of gold find and RVP makes it much quicker to gamble a non-sacred unique than to find it through farming.

[oneillz808]

laz, you shouldnt have even brought up this idea in the first place. bring up ideas that you yourself know that definitely works for you/the mod. then there wont be anymore cue cue's.

[pza]

yeah, you got me right. those were/are my arguements.

A) people never complained abot neither runes beeing to rare, nor that runes should be buyable (unless they had the background of wanting to make it hrough the mod in 2 hours or not beeing able to cheat runes with a prog). so making runes not beeing buyable will stop any complaints from the roots on.

B)

so what? If people want to play the game to gold farm and they have the patience for it and think it's fun, God bless them.

there are many players that want to use the feature. and to be able to use that feature at all, they must farm.
all in all i don't find that gold is too common. get a meleechar and make a runeword into a superior sword and you will constantly be out of gold.
also, if you have a lot of gold, you'll stop picking it up. that's good for the gameplay too, you don't have to make so many senseless clicks on gold piles anymore.
you could now make again that silly arguement, "don't use it, if you don't want it" but i'll stay to my opinion: i WANT to use it, since i want NOT to miss out a feature that helps me getting runes i need faster, of course. but needing to buy runes is really the most annoying thing there is. both the "noob avaiability"(everyone that has enough bucks by farming chests can get them, and therefore they loose they value) and the need for boring goldfarming is annoying.
and why not giving gold to lower chars? if you want to challange yourself with the challange of greed, then don't do it. i don't find it necssary so i don't do it, too.

[Baerk Konnevala]

By my standards Pza... sacred uniques and sets are worthless, because I don't have the patience to get my hands on the ones I want by farming Kurast and Tran for them. I on the other hand actually enjoy gambling and I don't mind gold farming as it is because it's easy.

I would actually rather use high end runewords by fauztenville farming than go sacred unique/set farming. People are going to always farm one way or an other to make their char stronger (even if it's just passive farming from just progressing through the game and not repeatedly doing uberquests). People have a variety of tolerances far the various types of farming. For you gold farming is a oh god it's boring thing. For my gold farming paladins it's a breeze. While Aerial loves farming sacreds I hate it. Buying runes will simply allow the guys who enjoy gold farming more than you to get their hands on runes easier without running fauztenville so much which they might hate.

[Datharaur]

yeah, you got me right. those were/are my arguements.

A) people never complained abot neither runes beeing to rare, nor that runes should be buyable (unless they had the background of wanting to make it hrough the mod in 2 hours or not beeing able to cheat runes with a prog). so making runes not beeing buyable will stop any complaints from the roots on.

B)

so what? If people want to play the game to gold farm and they have the patience for it and think it's fun, God bless them.

there are many players that want to use the feature. and to be able to use that feature at all, they must farm.
all in all i don't find that gold is too common. get a meleechar and make a runeword into a superior sword and you will constantly be out of gold.
also, if you have a lot of gold, you'll stop picking it up. that's good for the gameplay too, you don't have to make so many senseless clicks on gold piles anymore.
you could now make again that silly arguement, "don't use it, if you don't want it" but i'll stay to my opinion: i WANT to use it, since i want NOT to miss out a feature that helps me getting runes i need faster, of course. but needing to buy runes is really the most annoying thing there is. both the "noob avaiability"(everyone that has enough bucks by farming chests can get them, and therefore they loose they value) and the need for boring goldfarming is annoying.
and why not giving gold to lower chars? if you want to challange yourself with the challange of greed, then don't do it. i don't find it necssary so i don't do it, too.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree. I doubt you'll change your mind, and I've yet to read anything compelling me to change mine. I don't see how buying low-level runes can break the game's fun (and economy for that matter) any more than it is already "broken." I do see how introducing this element will offer characters with lots of gold the opportunity to do something useful other than resurrect mercs (rare for mine) or waste time skipping through pages of items looking for the one item type and level that never seems to be available (the only current realistic sink for gold).

Of course, Laz decides.