Oh agreed, for D4 gold is very nearly valueless. Mostly I was referring to WoW that I had mentioned earlier in terms of incremental improvement. And since I sell gold back to Blizzard in that game (tokens) it’s actually paid for my sub for over 3 years now, the expansions, and 2 copies of D4.
Which tells me I’m more playing wow as “Gringott’s Banking Simulator” at this point than anything else.
See, that’s pretty cool to me. If I could sell gold and get the currency you can use to buy cosmetics in D4 that would be pretty neat. Instead it rots.
Is it wrong that I’m not at all repulsed by the idea, and it sounds kind of fun?
It’s not exactly uncommon in many modern games. For the period I was playing EVE Online, I was the embodiment of “Spaceships and Spreadsheets”. Hunt pirates? Why, when I can (briefly and on a small scale) corner the market for a sector on rare metals after buying them up cheap elsewhere, and dole them out at usurious prices?
Most games try to kill illicit sales of in-game currencies to third parties for IRL cash, although I did briefly do well using D3s (!) Cash Money AH (bwahahahaha, yeah, that didn’t last long for good reasons), but I find WoW’s token system a good compromise so that people don’t get taken advantage of by scammers. You buy “tokens” sold and controlled by WoW’s AH - said tokens can be redeemed for WoW game time (30 days) -OR- turned into $15 Blizzard cash that can be used for future game time, cosmetics, or other Blizzard Online Products… to a cap of $350 (for authenticated accounts). And yes, I know of the cap from experience 
Said tokens, on the other side represent IRL players who want to buy in-game gold for their characters, and -they- pay Blizz (not a third party) 20 USD of their real money to get whatever the current “market price” is for the token. And tokens, once purchased are NOT transferrable between players. So a hefty cut and profit for Blizz.
I absolutely think D4 would benefit from being able to benefit from converting gold into something more useful, but since it’s a incompletely multiplayer game without a sub, there’s no way to monetize it on that end the way they can WoW. And it would cut into their profits from selling premium perks to players for cash directly, or mini-subs that “gift” them with platinum.
So, long story short, WoW’s system was a way to monetize past the monthly sub after the fact, and cut out bad experiences with third party farmers, while for D4 the grifting of the player base was a large part of the plan from the start… wait…
What if you could use it to buy a Battle Pass? That seems like D4’s equivalent of a subscription. Rather than actual platinum, just let people spend enough to get the Pass and earn seasonal cosmetics. And then on top of that, if they aren’t advancing fast enough with the grinding of rewards from the Pass to get all of them before the end of the season, then the customer might spend RL money to make up the difference. It seems like it would be a good move on Blizzard’s part, a way to make gold feel less useless, and at the same time entice people into a Battle Pass where they might spin more money.
Or if they’re feeling really greedy, let you buy discounts to platinum with gold. That way gold still feels useful, but only when you’re spending money. (Though I don’t like that idea in general, personally.)
Honestly, anything that makes D4 more fun (it’s greatest failing for me is that it just wasn’t for me) is worthwhile. Go submit the feedback!
Note - while I didn’t find it fun, I loved the way it looked, it played just like earlier Diablo games I enjoyed, and felt even the free customization was pretty good. Again, I just didn’t find myself enjoying playing it as a game, especially past level 50.
On the subject of grinding, I like it. The problem with grinding in D4 was bad because there weren’t incremental goals. I could play all day and my character wouldn’t be one iota better at the end of it. EXTREME repetition in the dungeons too. No real bosses. Itemization where you had to keep both aspects and vanilla loot and hope to pair both of them and unique loot that was practically impossible even if you played 12 hours a day.
Also, maybe this is just me, but I don’t really like seasons. I feel like the eternal realm should be the main game, not fleeting changes.
Agreed. I did the first season because I had bought the digital collector’s edition or whatever it was called, and it came with one Battle Pass. And it was okay, because I was already planning to try the game out with an alt and a different class, but once was enough.
Really, when I play a game like this, I usually find one really good build that gives me the most fun, and just run with that. That goes with pretty much any ARPG or MMORPG. I’m not an altaholic. Sure, I’ll make alts, but it’s rare that any of them get very high. I have one real character and then some diversions to play a bit of. Having to create new characters to enjoy new content is not fun for me. I’m aware that I can just recreate the same character type over and over again, but it’s not the same. Because my character isn’t just a class and a build, my character is also my loot that I’ve carefully cobbled together and upgraded, and anyway starting over and over again from low level sucks. It’s a terrible design ethos.
Play EVE Online if you want a hardcore banking/finance simulator.
There’s a reason that game gets the nickname “Spreadsheets Online.”
I used to have some excellent spreadsheets for that game yet there were some who absolutely blew away anything I had in complexity and thoroughness.
I did and hated the PVP and quit.
Same here. Hated the PvP and the game really kinda forces you into it unless you never undock.
So, I quit too.
I was enjoying the PVE and the visuals and really got into it, then I was looking for some groups to team up with and they all wanted to do PVP. I said wasn’t interested and they said, if you don’t like it you’d better give up on this game, so I did.
I have an issue since the new patch (I assume, actually haven’t played since season 1) where I get no sound at all unless I have sound playing when I launch the game. Which is only… slightly annoying when i forget, but it’s such a silly bug to have.
We are loading it up again after a looong hiatus. We’ve heard too many new, positive reviews not it check it out. Fingers crossed!
I hope you have fun. I have also heart that this update has massively increase the fun value and nerfed some of the endless grind for the one key piece of gear without which you’ll always be a “scrub”. 
Let me know how it turns out, and maybe I’ll re-install myself.
I’ve tried to play again as well because the updates look good. Multiple times. And I truly have had a ton of fun playing the game. But each time it feels daunting, I just still feel that same grind doing dungeon after dungeon trying to advance myself incrementally.
I also don’t like that in order to avoid that problem, you are supposed to start all over with a new character in seasonal play. That’s a cop-out. You have an online game and yet have no real end game so the solution is to just redo all the old content again with some minor twist. That’s crap.
I just have a lot of trouble finding a reason to play anymore.
So far I would say the game is much improved. It’s been really fun. I started a seasonal Barbarian, Princess Cupcake, and playing Barbarian is so so so much more fun than it used to be. I actually feel like a solid badass. Mostly I’ve been playing along with my husband’s sorcerer.
We switched to World Tier 3 at level 42 and promptly got our assess handed to us. As it should be.
Now at level 54, a few levels into paragon points, we are still having fun. I played many hours today, including starting a solo Rogue which I leveled up to 20. The Rogue was a rough start in hell tides but I quickly built up the items needed to stay alive. Being able to temper items to add bonuses makes a huge difference. Especially to the Barbarian who has four weapons! Slap some damage bonuses on each weapon and you have a game changing setup (they do stack, but I can’t remember the cap.)
They also made it much easier to imprint items by taking the legendary aspects automatically from items you salvage. When you salvage a better version of that imprint it updates automatically with the occultist.
The hell tides are legitimately hard. I like that the level of threat builds and recedes as you are racing to those chests. During each hell tide you can summon a Boss with three something hearts, they come out of tortured gifts chests so you’ll never have a shortage of them. All the demons run toward the summoning so it is an absolute free for all between bad guys and players.
In Tier 3 we’ve had a couple of close calls and a few painful deaths. Also it can be difficult to access the chests with demons raining down on your head. We’re running nightmare dungeons and whispers now.
But the loot, yes, they finally figured out that players want loot. There is a lot of new stuff. There are a lot of ways to get cool stuff that augments your preferred class and build. Also, I think this season’s free items don’t suck. I like the solstice garb.
The only frustrating part of loot is that now that you can temper items, it’s more difficult to tell what items are better, and the green numbers often don’t tell the whole story. So if I have a tempered item with a 50% damage bonus, the tooltip will be showing that a replacement item is +200 dps better, but there’s no real way to know it’s better unless you also temper the item you’re considering. Also the fact that damage bonuses like “180% to close enemies” don’t show up. As a Barb doing almost exclusively damage to close enemies this is a huge bonus that just isn’t shown in the item to item comparison. I would be way more annoyed about this if tempering weren’t cheap and easy.
And in case you’re wondering, you cannot temper unique items.
In all honesty, how can anyone not have fun playing a Barbarian named Princess Cupcake?
We are level 75 and still, miraculously, having fun. This is the highest we’ve ever leveled a character.
My attack power isn’t experiencing any massive jumps up, but I’ve made steady improvements. The customization of items in so many ways is fun, but sometimes exhausting. Sometimes I look at slightly better items and think, I don’t really feel like tempering and imprinting that thing all over again.
I appreciate the quality of life improvements like in the profile it explicitly tells you when you are at maximum magic defense or armor so you can plan your items accordingly. It even lights up in green when you’ve met the max.
I really like the paragon board. As a Barb I’m using it to beef up resistances and fortify because I’ve always been a defensive player. I’m not skilled enough not to be.
They just started March of the Goblins special event so treasure goblins are everywhere.
Last night I said, “We made it to 75!”
Then I said, “We made it to 41!” (As in, our actual age.)
To which my husband replied. “Yeah. I hear it’s all a bunch of nerfs from here.”
(applause)
Back to the game though, I fully appreciate the point you made about gear - before I stopped, I’d get that drop that was arguably 2-3% better, but then you had to affix it, socket it, test it (because dammit the game info tips were anything but clear) and sometimes you’d find out AFTER you did all that (because of the vagueness I just mentioned) it wasn’t better at all, or at best some sub-fraction of 1% - and you just spent 20-30 minutes of short adult play time and energy to find out.
Has their been improvement on definitions between closely related terms especially when it comes to things like “shock / lightning / energy” and similar overlaps in damage and defense?
Yes, I think they’ve streamlined a lot of the language around itemization bonuses. I don’t remember exactly how it used to be because it’s been a while, but it seems simpler to me now, and I checked with my husband and he agreed with me.
There are still some issues but it’s not really in understanding what the language means. The language is very clear. I no longer look at an item and have to guess WTF it actually does.
The issue is that when you slap a tempered affix to your gear, like say, 100% damage to close enemies, it doesn’t affect your attack power. The only time it affects your attack power is with a straight damage bonus. And it doesn’t give you any other helpful way to compare.
So you end up going, hmmm, what’s better? This 1,256 dps item with 150% damage to close enemies or this 1043 dps item with a 20% damage bonus and 56% damage to crowd controlled enemies? Since as a Barb my damage is exclusively to close enemies it’s a little easier to guess, but the more different kinds of damage you do the harder it is to figure out.
It’s still not as bad as it used to be though.