DiabloFans

Quote from Mormolyce

It was pointless muting spammers in D2 and also in WoW because they just constantly create new accounts. And any kind of filter is easily gotten around, they put spaces and special characters in the names etc etc. Blizzard has been in a neverending war with them in WoW, you can't beat them. As long as they can make a few bucks off it it'll always be worth doing. The RMAH is actually the best shot they have of undercutting their market enough to make the activity unprofitable. We'll have to wait and see.

WoW actually has a group mute system like your 2), which not many people are aware of. Just think of the abuse if they were!

I can't accept that in 12 years Blizzard has not been able to come up with a solution to this problem. They have to make over $50 per account on average to make it profitable. By muting but not making them aware of the mute, they could easily EASILY screw over a lot of goldsellers straight away.

Muting people who put the same line in their post multiple times is another way, and still to this day www.sitenamehere.com repeated five times in a post can be shown. You can't tell me removing this wouldn't help alleviate the situation.

Quote from wolfpax181

I actually like the filter against the spam sites, though it'd quickly grow enormous, hopefully not so big that the database check alone would start lagging the server, but it's a risk.

@Swirlyball - Would you like a tinfoil hat? Blizzard running the 3rd party goldsellers would be insane. As soon as they fix their crap, the RMAH is going to be selling gold, and the last thing they want is competition from anyone. They don't want a price war pushing the value of gold below their acceptable threshold of profit which leads to further destroying the value of gold.

You'd think it would grow enormous but I doubt it would grow to more than 30k entries or so before they start seeing spam as non profitable for them, and instead resort to the 'friendlist add' which Blizzard needs to fix.

@Swirlyball Blizz don't run goldsellers, they have no need to, RMAH is providing them WAY more income than even the best of the current goldsellers are capable of at their paltry 1.4 per m price.

I originally wrote this article for the popular Australian games site, Games.on.net - Since a recent change has caused the original to become irretrievable, and since the problem seems to be getting worse, I thought I would post it here. I hope this gets some constructive conversation going around the problem.



Spam is one of those everyday occurrences in modern gaming, that most people are pretty much used to by now. No matter the game you’re playing, if it’s a persistent online world there will be someone trying to make a quick buck from you. The problem comes when you have a company who has an extraordinary amount of experience dealing with spammers, and yet do anything about it. And that, is what’s happening in Diablo III.

The Problem

It all started in Diablo II, twelve years ago. Item farmers got the idea to setup chat bots to promote their trades. Then came the gold and item sellers, who had built websites around the idea, and it snowballed from there. Despite the number of people complaining about this to Blizzard, their hands were tied - with only a skeleton staff and no regular money coming in from the game to fund development costs, nothing could be done.

It took them until a patch about two years ago to implement a rudimentary block system into the game, that to this day frequently wipes itself when you leave. Spam bots still run rampant in the game, and third party programs designed to maintain a blocklist would frequently cause Blizzard to ban your account, despite helping you maintain a quiet peaceful online experience.

And now Diablo III is upon us - and on the third day of its launch, the spamming began. It was a trickle at first, one or two bots that would post about once every 30 minutes, but quickly it got to the point where for every three lines of dialogue, chat bots would completely flood the window. Why is this happening? Well for one thing, Blizzard, bizarrely, has allowed guest accounts to chat.

That’s not all they did, however. For some reason, they haven’t even included the URL blocking feature from their other massive online game, World of Warcraft. They also still don’t have a report option for goldsellers, instead relying on the generic ‘Spam’ tag that most people abuse to report others they simply disagree with.

So how does Blizzard fix this? The answer is surprisingly simple.

The Solution

You might think an easy solution would be to simply stop guest accounts from using the chat service. While this would work, the solution would only be temporary at best. If a gold seller can make more money in the time it takes to get banned than the cost of the game itself, they’ll simply purchase keys over and over and over again.

It also would not be incorrect to assume that the Real Money Auction House will curb many of the sales that go on, and make gold selling less profitable... except that there will still be groups of uneducated masses who do not even know the RMAH exists, and will likely continue to provide a regular customer base for gold sellers. This needs to be fixed now, before it gets completely out of hand.

Step 1: Provide a report option specific to gold sellers, or advertisers, or whatever you want to call it. This is important! While a single person being an idiot and spamming random insults in general chat can be annoying, we can block him and know he won’t bother us anymore. We need a specific way to deal with the problem.

Step 2: Initiate a group reporting system. Say four different people who aren’t on each other’s friend lists (and therefore can be assumed to not be working together) report someone for gold selling. This triggers an automatic muting and flagging of the reported person. Leave them muted until a Blizzard rep can look it over. Make sure that their account is muted, and their IP as well if possible.

Since it’s a temporary mute, you’re unlikely to run across issues with other legitimate people using that IP, and if you do, it’s temporary for a reason.

Step 3: This is the big one. See those URL’s people are posting? Setup a server side filter that prevents those messages from being displayed. Don’t mute the people saying them, and don’t inform them that the message hasn’t gone through. Every time a bot makes it to Step 2, find the unique wording in his message, add it to the filter. Make sure anybody hitting that filter more than once in an hour period is immediately flagged.

This would help immensely, and pretty much make it financially impossible for gold selling bots to do business. A spam bot has put spaces in their website to fool the filter? Add it to the filter, and all of a sudden w w w. b u y m y g o l d . c o m will no longer work, and the people running the bot will be none the wiser. As far as the gold sellers will be aware, Diablo III must just not be a profitable market anymore, and they will move onto other games.

The reality is that Blizzard has had 12 years of experience with spammers, five games, and a whole host of expansion packs to figure this out somewhere in the development cycle. It is disappointing that spam problems still continue to plague their latest title, despite the advances in protecting against it that they’ve demonstrated in their other games. For the good of the community and the health of the game, Blizzard needs to address this sooner rather than later.

Quote from Findulidas

Of course this is good for us users if it was possible. However having 4 search options might not be there for very good reasons. Perhaps it takes a lot of strain on the computers handeling the search or something like that. I think they would have added it otherwise.

Except that Blizzard stated it was purely a UI concern when asked back when the game started. I agree, it's probably a back end issue, I just don't see why they can't be open and honest regarding it.

Just did a quick test, 800 x 600 is a practically identical UI with practically identical spacing. This can not be the reason why it isn't implemented, so 'UI space' is bs.

As for the person mentioning they don't change UI.... They changed a whole host of the UI in the first couple of patches, including an entirely remodeled friends list and chat window.

EDIT: Sleep time for realsies now. I am going to make a post on Blizz forums tomorrow with the following additions to my initial post

1. TAB key should change input fields, mouse should not be required once categories have been selected
2. Switching from RMAH to GAH or vice versa should not erase search contents. People like to compare item prices between the two, and will do so even more once Gold trade has been implemented
3. 5 Search boxes provides barely any UI cramp, and should be implemented, at the minimum 4 should exist, as per pictures
4. If only adding 4 search boxes, a button that will not include the stats of gems into your search query should be allowed! I'd like to see a 130 dex BASE armor with 3 sockets, not a 130 dex TOTAL armor because the dude has 3 42 dex gems in an armor with 0 base dex.
5. Fixes to current searches that provide no filtering. Health Globes heal extra is a good one, there are a number of other ones that editting the # in the 'min' field simply doesn't work
6. Selecting a legendary should not mean that I can't search for specific stats on that legendary.
7. Class/Character selection should have an 'All Items' option, that way nothing is greyed out and I do not have to input extra amounts just because I want to search for a 1h crossbow, and then a monk fist, and then a barb belt. A lot of players use the AH to compare prices on their current loot for selling purposes.
8. A fix to 'input limit reached' when buying a large quantity of crafting materials. Heck, while you're at it please make all stack sizes equal (999) so I can get those 12,000 gems out of my completed tab, thanks. Unless Blizzard can provide an adequate and non arbitrary reason for making stack sizes completely different (30/100/999)

I'd like a 9 and 10 to be submitted by you guys. I'll be up in about 6 hours Hope to hear from you all then!

Hey guys, I'm glad everyone is feeling frustrated with the lack of a fourth search. It's sleep time for me now, but when I get up I'm going to test the 800 x 600 UI to see if that is the problem (I imagine it is), and see if I can figure out a way to improve on that. Also going to provide a screenshot of a 5 search field option, which you will see looks only mildly more cluttered than the 4.

I'm surprised this received a (mostly) unanimous level of support. Makes me think that my brain is doing something right.

Quote from Severed

Dear God, yes, please.

The 3 stat search is incredibly limiting, at the least a 4th option would narrow the searches and speed up browsing many times, getting people out of the AH minigame and back into the real deal. ^^

Theoretically you could squeeze even a 5th in there without it looking too cluttered, you would have a 4 pixel defecit though, on 15/5: which would likely mean top and bottom gaps would be 13 each to make up for it. I'll maybe fiddle with my picture to see if I can edit it to add what a 5th would look like. It would be a 'little' cluttered though I would think.

Firstly, I know, I'm a crazy person. I have rapid cycling BiPolar and am Manic right now, so I apologise if this seems... erratic (I like to think of myself as a slightly saner Mordin Solus when I'm like this, if you read this in his voice, I would approve):

Early after launch, someone asked for a fourth search slot, and a blue responded that they were running out of UI space to add a fourth. I was looking at the search tab, and felt that the UI there could be improved. I've helped a few people with their games (I'm a games writer and journalist by trade), and so gotten along with a lot of devs and artists, all of which have explained to me the use of keeping things 'tidy' and to make sure that everything matches to the best of ability.

I'll just show you the picture, easier that way:



Now the picture on the left is Blizzards current setup. As you can see the gaps between fields are all over the place in size, there is barely any standardisation between them. This allows me to add an additional field for searching, while almost maintaining the same 'free space'

Interestingly, I would also edit the individual search fields. I would move the red box down 1 pixel, then shorten the box entirely by 1 pixel, so that way both top and bottom of the search field match (See purple, 7px/6px). It looks like there is a pixel of space extra there for that button, so shouldn't be hard. That would actually give them MORE space.

They could also instead of making it 15/5 make it 20/5, but that would run them into a space defecit of 7 pixels. these pixels could be taken from the very top and bottom if required, since these need less space, and the difference would be barely perceptable. With the additional search box and search box tweaks it's an 1 pixel space increase, even at 20/5.

To give you a rough look at how the two search tabs would look side by side.... (left side is nicer looking due to double save on right side)



Feedback?

Hi, before we get into this I'd like to state a little bit about myself. I do not gear switch. I don't care about people who do and my honest belief is that the system should be kept the way it is. I know of people who gear switched in Diablo 2 for finishing off mobs and the like, so I don't see how this is of any consequence.

I wrote frequently before the release of the game that Blizzard should remove MF from items before launch, but a blue actually argued with me that because it caused less diversity they wouldn't do it, regardless of the problems it would cause (and did cause).

But my belief is that any option should not punish players who have never or will never gear switch (for mf). I'm hoping that you'll follow me here, in my understanding of why the options are bad (except for the non existent option 6)

Option 1 - MF Cap.

MF Cap is a bad solution, as this is something that will impact all players. I love how all of blizzards options go for nerfs, well done.

Option 2 - Slowly adjust MF over time

We'll get back to this one, but obviously if you're not switching out gear it's not going to impact you. If you find a new item, and it gives like 15% more MF it might impact you for a minute or so while you put it on, OH NOES!

Option 3 - Use you average MF% or your lowest MF% for 5 minutes

5 minutes? Seriously? Just like Option 2 it's going to simply force players to leave one mob of the group behind and then clean them all up in MF gear at the end. Also impacts 'legit' players finding gear with 5 minutes of harshness that they shouldn't receive. 1 minute? fine, 5? seriously?

Option 4 - Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear

14% of you voted that? Really? Let me explain why this out of everything but 1 punishes legitimate players the most. I play a high damage, high survivability character. Often I get hit with a reflect damage mob with desecrator, plagued, etc. My way of dealing with this is to switch to a shield, or switch to a weapon with smaller DPS and huge Life on Hit to mitigate the reflection. In doing so, I would be punished by having no MF? How is that fair? I'm playing the game legitimately, but choosing to adjust my gear when faced with a tough monster.

Option 5 - Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor

Once again bad. If there was no cap to Nephalem Valor and no MF on items (as I suggested to blizz eons ago), this wouldn't be a problem, in fact, this would be kind of cool. But here we have an issue. 4-5 NV stacks is huge, as it is a 100% extra rare on that mob. If I find an item midgame that is an improvement, I have to wait till the end of run to equip. If I find a pack that is too hard, It is now more efficient for farming purposes to skip it rather than adjust equipment to counteract it.

Option 5 could only be good if there was a weapon switch you couldn't be punished for (so I could have my LoH weapon or my shield on a switch, that wouldn't impact NV)

-------------------

In conclusion, Option 2 is the only option that is at most a minor inconvenience to players already playing legitimately. I say legitimately only because to my knowledge (from those I play with and friendslists) a large majority of players who do gear swapping do so with the aid of an external program.

Remember, if it's going to change the system, it has to impact those not at fault the least.

Quote from ssViolett

Why simple not to disallow gear swapping in combat as it is in WoW ?

Because people would just wait till 1 mob left, tp to town, swap gear, go back to fight.

Produces more problems than the cooldown option.

I actually said this from the beginning of Beta, but I will say it again, not that Blizzard will ever read this statement, and even if they do it is FAR too late to interact with it:

REMOVE MF/GF ON GEAR FROM THE GAME.

All players get Nephalem Valor right from the start of the game. there is no cap to Nephalem Valor, and Nephalem Valor persists between acts (letting players start at Act 1 and go through as far as they can handle for the most efficiency). Anything above 5 stacks acts like it does now.

Pity it's too late to implement this solution.

As I suggested to the creator of that awesome EHP calculator, shove a donate button on the side of the page or something. Many users, including myself, are more than happy to donate to a tool that is helping them, and it will definitely help with server costs.

Quote from Entropy42

I think the block formulas that are going into the tool should do the trick pretty well, but the results will (rightfully) be dependent on what people enter for the expected incoming damage. I have no idea what these values truly are for mobs that matter in Inferno. It seems like the damage of the "average" hit isn't as important as the damage of the hits that are likely to kill you (i.e. the harder hitting mobs in each act).

Does anyone have info on how much Inferno mobs hit for? Either without mitigation, or with known mitigation so we could back-calculate the damage?

I used to know non champ ponies did 200k. No idea what now after nerf.

EDIT: Also, glad you're getting some donations, see what happens when you listen to me? Hope it's enough to warrant continued support of the project. I've been pimping it as hard as I can on jsp.

Quote from aldrek

I'm thinking Act II is gonna be the best place to farm, if you can't handle Act III. Act II and III got about the same reduction in 50-60 ilevel drops, whereas Act II got the highest increase of ilevel 63 items (New% divided by Old%) out of all three categories.

Act I has 2.4 times more, and Act II has 2.268 times more ilevel 63 drops, but Act I has 2.4% more chance to drop ilevel 50-60. Act III/IV only got a 2.0375 times increase in ilevel 63 gear, but it does have a very high chance now. It's actually very tempting regardless of it being the hardest to farm.

Act 2 however you have to go all over the place to find Elites, Act 1 I know exactly where each of them spawn and have an identifiable route. filling my bag in Act 2 is 40minutes, Act 1 is 15. double the percentages of Act 1. Yep, that's what I thought. Still miles and miles and miles better.

Quote from Skelly

I thought they were going to make A3/4 farming more viable since people were just farming A1 instead because they could clear faster, but they buffed ilvl 63 drop rates more for A1 than for A3/4...

This. Congrats blizzard, you made it EVEN MORE PROFITABLE to farm Act 1 over Act 2-4.

I'll enjoy filling my bags in 15 minutes on Act 1 unlike the hour+ it takes on Act 3, and I'll enjoy the fact that crafting is worth EVEN less!