06-29-2012, 07:47 PM
I'd estimate that when one factors in people who either don't know or don't care what's useful for anyone but themselves, don't AH at all, and that what this change did was increase the item level of dropped items rather than the total amount of items dropping, the effect of the change on the actual useful item drop rate was probably something like +2%, which means in about a week or so, their forum is going to be full of 500 people claiming this change never happened or didn't work because they're not suddenly flooded in RMAHable items (and not knowing that if they were and everyone else was too, that there'd suddenly be a lot less buyers.)
As far as the change doing anything Lurkers or RMAH-addicts want it to do, the change isn't going to do much. The ultimate end result is that it will take slightly less time farming A1 before being able to progress to other acts, and somewhat increase the possibility of farming viable equipment from A3/4 Hell first. Given how much easier A3 mini-bosses are than A4 ones in general, that's somewhat good news. (Plus, so far as NVing champ packs, I'm pretty sure Hulking Phasebeasts are the worst threat from A3 for most ranged builds, versus Morlus and CAs from A4.)
As far as the change doing anything Lurkers or RMAH-addicts want it to do, the change isn't going to do much. The ultimate end result is that it will take slightly less time farming A1 before being able to progress to other acts, and somewhat increase the possibility of farming viable equipment from A3/4 Hell first. Given how much easier A3 mini-bosses are than A4 ones in general, that's somewhat good news. (Plus, so far as NVing champ packs, I'm pretty sure Hulking Phasebeasts are the worst threat from A3 for most ranged builds, versus Morlus and CAs from A4.)