05-23-2012, 02:50 PM
(05-23-2012, 02:23 AM)Treesh Wrote: Speaking of the AH, a buddy of mine at work has completely trivialized the entire game because he played the gem market and bought of all his gear. He's convinced that the way to get the good gear isn't by MF gear, but extra gold gear instead because instead of hoping for the perfect rare, you can just buy it. He's just blowing through things because his gear has made it too easy so now he's saying nothing is a challenge in the game, although I forgot to ask him if he was inferno mode yet.
I enjoyed trading in D2, where the only way to do it (that I was aware of- I didn't learn about D2JSP until after I quit) was to monitor the trade spam chat channels. I went bug-eyed looking for deals and avoiding scammers. I tend to have anti-social tendencies like Swirly, so actually interacting with someone was a thrill in and of itself, aside from the whole 'getting a good deal' thing. So anyway, I was definitely interested in the AH since it provided a safe easy way of buying & selling.
I have sold a few pieces of old & unwanted gear on the AH, but nothing serious until two nights ago. My little witch doctor was 27 and just about to start Act 3, which destroyed my barb. I decided that it was time to upgrade the level 10 gear I had been wearing, so for the princely sum of about $10k I outfitted myself in all rares with +Int. I think my DPS went from 300ish to over 800 (I could hit 1500 fully buffed from my spells/passives) and I was sitting pretty at 2200+ health.
I promptly proceeded to destroy all of Act 3, setting new records of monsters killed in one hit (48, I believe) and killing the bosses in less than 30 seconds each. It was exciting for a bit- walk into a room, fire off a few spells and watch everything melt in a blaze of fireballs and locusts. But then it got boring. There was no challenge, which is exactly what your friend was complaining about, Treesh. PapaSmurf joined me for a bit last night and I don't think he had much to do since things would be dead before he could get a few spells off. I felt kind of bad, really. (Sorry PS!)
I don't know if I will do it again. I will still use the AH to sell stuff and maybe keep my weapons current, but the wholesale upgrade of my entire gearset just makes the game trivial, which subsequently removes a lot of the fun. I enjoy making huge mobs of stuff disintegrate as much as the next guy, but there has to be some challenge to it. Granted, this was in normal mode, so maybe (hopefully?) I'll change my tune as the difficulty progresses. I doubt I'll be upgrading all my gear for 10k once I hit Inferno, though...