Idea for Crafting and Stabilizing the D3 Economy

[MongoJerry]

First, a general point: I don't think the D3 economy is broken, it's just different. Very different from anything we've seen before in online games.

When items are selling for 10 million+ gold after the game has been released for less than two weeks, it shows enormous gold inflation is around the corner, if it's not already here. There just aren't enough gold sinks in the game, which means if something doesn't change, it won't be long before gold becomes as worthless in D3 as it was in D2.

Onto specifics, the system seems to be forcing everyone to be a crafter. There are many players who are quite firmly against that idea. So you risk spoiling some people's enjoyment by imposing a playstyle across the board.

I'm not exactly sure how it's forcing a person to do something. They don't have to use the best class specific items if they don't want to. But if they want to, then they need to spend the gold and materials crafting them. Many people don't like to use the auction house to find their items, either, so by enabling the blacksmith to do something useful at the end game, this will enable them to create a few excellent pieces for their character without having to using the AH.

Also how would people find these recipes? If they're rare drop that will suck, it would be like trying to complete Griswold's Set in D2 by finding every piece. (As a WD I'd need to find my Ceremonial Dagger, Voodoo Mask and Mojo). If they're bundled in with level 10 Blacksmith then everyone gets the best item in the game, potentially without much effort, and could get it without even finishing Nightmare.

I don't think they should be too difficult to find. Perhaps they could be farmable drops. The difficulty will come from the sheer volume of crafting materials needed to create a good version of the item. As I said, the crafts should be expensive to create and have a lot of randomness in their stats, so one should be expected to make a large number of them to make a good one and perhaps hundreds to make a near "perfect" one. Thus, you could see having to craft for your class specific gear, expending enormous sums of gold and crafting supplies, for your entire character's career just to get that one perfect item. (And then a new upgraded recipe will be released and it'll be time to start over again).

Lastly the classes don't have parity of specialist gear. I get head, weapon, offhand. A Barb gets weapon and belt. Not really as good.

That's true. Barbs should get helms or specialized shields imho. That's something that should be fixed separate from this.