D2JSP ladder advantage?

So while all of us here will be entering the ladder season with absolutely nothing and starting from scratch, aren't those who use d2jsp for trading going to be entering the ladder season with big banks of Forum Gold? This seems like a massive advantage compared to those who use sites like this and haven't been able to accumulate some imaginary currency for use in the ladder season.

Yeah, the introduction of a third party currency outside the game itself is why I don't like nor use d2jsp. Not even looking at the RMT part of fg.

Pretty much why I never used d2jsp and never will. The carry-over Wealth from years and decades of duping and bot farming sounds too toxic to ever touch.

And having use of a site like this is a huge advantage over those who solely trade in-game.

And trading in-game is a huge advantage over those who only play with what they find and don't trade at all.

That chain continues quite a bit, albeit a more extreme difference which places like d2jsp. But yeah..to each his own. I for one can't be bothered with places like that. If only because the interface makes me cry 2 seconds in and I just give up.
You won't ever do anything against that short of removing trading entirely.

yea its really weird why people even do this because the entire point of ladder is to start over... if you have 50k FG and are able to fully gear every character in the first couple days, why not just stick to non ladder? lol

BillyMaysed wrote: 2 years ago

yea its really weird why people even do this because the entire point of ladder is to start over... if you have 50k FG and are able to fully gear every character in the first couple days, why not just stick to non ladder? lol

I guess the point for many is simply to compete in the race to the top. In that context..
a) A lot of people sadly don't mind cheating to win (if you consider it cheating that is, which is a larger discussion)
b) Regardless of whether or not you consider it cheating, they're effectively still competing against one another on "even JSP-powered footing", leaving the race aspect in tact.

Good thing I never cared about that race or ladder rankings anyways. If I did, that currency head start would seriously bug me.

d2jsp is used by a lot (if not all) of DClone farmers as forum gold would be their easiest way to get set up as quickly as possible when a new ladder season starts. I'm personally trading over there as forum gold is the best store of value in my opinion.

At the risk of advocating for the devil...

I don't really think d2jsp is an issue. Sure, people with accounts there can trade their currency to other ladder players who also value the currency, but so what? There are no items being moved into or out of ladder and it therefore shouldn't affect the real supply and demand of items.

What an external currency offers is a potentially more liquid and sustainable storage of Wealth, since you can effectively trade between game modes, ladders, etc. So what?

Whether an item is traded for an item or an item is traded for currency which is traded for an item does nothing to the supply and demand of a market, it simply increases the speed in which goods are exchanged. If D2 had a good currency, d2jsp wouldn't be necessary.

Editing in some specific reactions:

Valar wrote: 2 years ago

[Forum gold] seems like a massive advantage...

Yes having FG or the ability to trade items from non-ladder for items in ladder gives those with those stores of potential Wealth an advantage. It's not the only advantage veteran/dedicated players have though: 10000 hours of experience, a good internet connection, the time to play and a 4000 dollar rig also make a difference.

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Pretty much why I never used d2jsp and never will. The carry-over Wealth from years and decades of duping and bot farming sounds too toxic to ever touch.

That's kind of like someone selling Ice cream saying that they don't take fiat currency because of their country's amoral history. Yeah, there are families who haven't had to work for decades if not centuries because of the Wealth they accumulated by nefarious and amoral means. But dude, your Ice cream is going to melt/expire and in time no one is going to want it for what it's worth now. It will take time before you find someone willing to trade your magnum bar for the fish you want. There's a reason currencies were invented the moment societies had surpluses to manage, thousands of years ago.

BillyMaysed wrote: 2 years ago

yea its really weird why people even do this because the entire point of ladder is to start over... if you have 50k FG and are able to fully gear every character in the first couple days, why not just stick to non ladder? lol

While I agree with you personally and I also play ladder as a fresh page, I can also empathize with those who don't play D2 for D2 but play d2 for forum gold. For some, the purpose is to amass forum gold and by investing in their characters early on, they can very quickly multiply their earnings in return. Not every potato farmer wants to start out using their hands to dig for a few years until they've sold enough potatoes to buy a shovel...

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

At the risk of advocating for the devil...

I don't really think d2jsp is an issue. Sure, people with accounts there can trade their currency to other ladder players who also value the currency, but so what? There are no items being moved into or out of ladder and it therefore shouldn't affect the real supply and demand of items.

What an external currency offers is a potentially more liquid and sustainable storage of Wealth, since you can effectively trade between game modes, ladders, etc. So what?

Whether an item is traded for an item or an item is traded for currency which is traded for an item does nothing to the supply and demand of a market, it simply increases the speed in which goods are exchanged. If D2 had a good currency, d2jsp wouldn't be necessary.

you want people start the ladder with gg items bought with old currency? might as well just have the shared item tabs transfer items between previous ladder / non ladder to any new ladder then. why bother farm the items again if people just gonna use saved fg? way more effective to just transfer you're old saved items..

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

you want people start the ladder with gg items bought with old currency? might as well just have the shared item tabs transfer items between previous ladder / non ladder to any new ladder then. why bother farm the items again if people just gonna use saved fg? way more effective to just transfer you're old saved items..

Every item in ladder is generated in ladder. This never changes. Thus the supply of items is effectively a function of hours played by players. No one starts the ladder with items. They exchange items players find for FG. The existence of FG does not magically generate items.

Having shared item stashes would affect the real supply of items in ladder. You are setting up a straw man argument comparing this to having externalized currency.

I agree with Udyret and others:
even though the supply is the same - the demand is bigger because people that did not accumulate Wealth in ladder can bring their money from outside, tanking the price for others that play solely in ladder and have currency aquired there. If let's say I got an

Ist dropped and I'd like to spend it to buy some gear - I need to remember there are people that have fg already and can outbid me easily, so I compete with offers that are not exactly fair.

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Pretty much why I never used d2jsp and never will. The carry-over Wealth from years and decades of duping and bot farming sounds too toxic to ever touch.

That's kind of like someone selling Ice cream saying that they don't take fiat currency because of their country's amoral history. Yeah, there are families who haven't had to work for decades if not centuries because of the Wealth they accumulated by nefarious and amoral means. But dude, your Ice cream is going to melt/expire and in time no one is going to want it for what it's worth now. It will take time before you find someone willing to trade your magnum bar for the fish you want. There's a reason currencies were invented the moment societies had surpluses to manage, thousands of years ago.

Not really. That's kind of like saying that d2jsp is a toxic pile of garbage, in every single respect, that I don't want to touch.

Katonda raises some valid points - its true that FG doesn't affect the supply (and demand for) items in-game.

Remember you can also barter on d2jsp just like you can here, with no FG involved.

Holders of FG do have an advantage just because its way more liquid than runes or swaps.

The big pain point for a lot of players though is that you can directly exchange real money for in-game Wealth. That means that you don't have to participate in the game to have buying power.

Furthermore, as some have pointed out already, FG carries over from previous seasons, which sort of defeats the purpose resets in the first place.

Freshchasty wrote: 2 years ago

I agree with Udyret and others:
even though the supply is the same - the demand is bigger because people that did not accumulate Wealth in ladder can bring their money from outside, tanking the price for others that play solely in ladder and have currency aquired there. If let's say I got an

Ist dropped and I'd like to spend it to buy some gear - I need to remember there are people that have fg already and can outbid me easily, so I compete with offers that are not exactly fair.

I'm not convinced this is the case as in your example you seem to assume that everyone is trading on d2jsp (the supposed seller of the item you wish to buy with your

Ist as well), which is very far from the truth. And why would the increased demand for items tank the price?

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

you want people start the ladder with gg items bought with old currency? might as well just have the shared item tabs transfer items between previous ladder / non ladder to any new ladder then. why bother farm the items again if people just gonna use saved fg? way more effective to just transfer you're old saved items..

Every item in ladder is generated in ladder. This never changes. Thus the supply of items is effectively a function of hours played by players. No one starts the ladder with items. They exchange items players find for FG. The existence of FG does not magically generate items.

Having shared item stashes would affect the real supply of items in ladder. You are setting up a straw man argument comparing this to having externalized currency.

you're saying that fg is a way to transfer Wealth between ladder. meaning you transfer something to the new ladder. fg is something effecting the supply and demand. because bots and heavy farmers will have gg gear to farm new items to sell in no time. flooding the marked with items they don't need anymore. why do you think it's okay to transfer this Wealth but not Wealth in items? it doesn't motivate me very much to farm items when the majority of player base is just cheating using fg anyway.

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

you want people start the ladder with gg items bought with old currency? might as well just have the shared item tabs transfer items between previous ladder / non ladder to any new ladder then. why bother farm the items again if people just gonna use saved fg? way more effective to just transfer you're old saved items..

Every item in ladder is generated in ladder. This never changes. Thus the supply of items is effectively a function of hours played by players. No one starts the ladder with items. They exchange items players find for FG. The existence of FG does not magically generate items.

Having shared item stashes would affect the real supply of items in ladder. You are setting up a straw man argument comparing this to having externalized currency.

you're saying that fg is a way to transfer Wealth between ladder. meaning you transfer something to the new ladder. fg is something effecting the supply and demand. because bots and heavy farmers will have gg gear to farm new items to sell in no time. flooding the marked with items they don't need anymore. why do you think it's okay to transfer this Wealth but not Wealth in items? it doesn't motivate me very much to farm items when the majority of player base is just cheating using fg anyway.

Correct. This guy gets it.

Hypothetically, I can play with a friend who uses forum gold and I do not. From 0 to hell we could find little of value on the first run. At the end, he can use the fg to buy items from others who have gotten lucky or simply use bots. I have to find something of value before I can trade for something of value. Not to mention his fg could have been generated completely from games besides d2. That is literally cheating.

Freshchasty wrote: 2 years ago

I agree with Udyret and others:
even though the supply is the same - the demand is bigger because people that did not accumulate Wealth in ladder can bring their money from outside, tanking the price for others that play solely in ladder and have currency aquired there. If let's say I got an

Ist dropped and I'd like to spend it to buy some gear - I need to remember there are people that have fg already and can outbid me easily, so I compete with offers that are not exactly fair.

The demand for items in ladder, is a function of the amount of individuals who want them, which is basically a proxy of the amount of players actively playing Ladder looking to advance.

Let me try to expand on your example, because I'm having trouble following your logic (or seeing what's unfair):

If you have a

Ist and it's worth a

Shako, they're worth the same. Let's say they're each worth 1000 fg. If you want that

Shako, you aren't competing against players outbidding you with fg (since you could sell your

Ist for 1000 fg), you're competing against players who can offer the liquidity to buy whatever the player with the

Shako wants, not just your

Ist. Even within the game, people prefer to trade items for runes and runes for items, rather than items for items because it's more efficient.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

Holders of FG do have an advantage just because its way more liquid than runes or swaps.

The big pain point for a lot of players though is that you can directly exchange real money for in-game Wealth. That means that you don't have to participate in the game to have buying power.

Furthermore, as some have pointed out already, FG carries over from previous seasons, which sort of defeats the purpose resets in the first place.

I agree with your first and second points. On the first, I just don't see why having to spend less time trying to trade is a perverse advantage. On the second, being able to buy FG, is pay to win. No way around it. However, I think the minority of traders actually do so, given how expensive it is in relation to how quickly you can trade for it with items, especially early in the ladder. I doubt new players are joining D2R and spending a couple grand on forum gold so they can deck their characters out with 50k fg worth of gear day one. I think the majority of players currently active on d2jsp, trading with fg are those who participated at the launch of d2r and gained some Wealth since then. There could be the occasional titan, logging in for the first time since 2009 with 500k fg though, I can't rule that out.

On the third point, again I agree with you and udyret. In our collective opinion, the point of ladder is to start out fresh without any support. However, others may see it differently and be playing for other reasons. I don't see why we should inhibit their fun, when they really aren't getting in the way of ours. At the least, we should find a compromise. I liquidated my softcore non-ladder characters into fg when I switched to non-ladder hardcore and liquidated those again in anticipation of ladder. I don't personally plan on touching that fg in this ladder, but I'm kind of happy I have some fg stored on some website somewhere instead of nothing. If I ever want to pick up non-ladder again, I can get the gear I need to pick up where I left off, if d2jsp exists. If not, no biggie.

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

you're saying that fg is a way to transfer Wealth between ladder. meaning you transfer something to the new ladder. fg is something effecting the supply and demand. because bots and heavy farmers will have gg gear to farm new items to sell in no time. flooding the marked with items they don't need anymore. why do you think it's okay to transfer this Wealth but not Wealth in items? it doesn't motivate me very much to farm items when the majority of player base is just cheating using fg anyway.

That's not exactly what I said, but your points are valid.

Yes, fg effectively facilitates the trading of items from non-ladder to ladder by proxy, you're right. It's possible to do it without it, but it does make it a lot less cumbersome to do so. It also allows players to trade today's

Shako for next month's

Ber rune. And yes, if characters who spend a lot of time in game killing monsters (whether bots or no-lifers) can become more efficient at doing so, there will be more items in the game, sooner. With more items in the game, chances are the item that you found while spending less time in-game is no longer worth as much as it was yesterday. So the overall speed in which items are generated within ladder and thus become obsolete is accelerated. But this also means that those good, but obsolete items become easier to trade for sooner and cheaper, so everyone's character gets better.

I don't see why this acceleration is necessarily an evil. I definitely don't see why using a more liquid form of value retention/exchange is cheating. The majority of people using fg (without paying real money for it) simply don't want to spend the time hunting for people to barter with. d2jsp definitely isn't as wholesome and mature as the diablo2.io community, but they aren't the evil hoard you make them out to be either.

0Tyrael0 wrote: 2 years ago

Hypothetically, I can play with a friend who uses forum gold and I do not. From 0 to hell we could find little of value on the first run. At the end, he can use the fg to buy items from others who have gotten lucky or simply use bots. I have to find something of value before I can trade for something of value. Not to mention his fg could have been generated completely from games besides d2. That is literally cheating.

I get it and it's an impactful example. I can empathize and see how it could be frustrating. I'll just say that I take a more holistic view and my view of cheating doesn't include using fg. Buying fg for real dollars? yes. Botting? yes. Trading using an intermedium to make the process less painful? no.

If you and your friend play D2R and it's your first time playing and he's logged 10000 hours, you might spend time learning the controls and it might take you a week to get out of normal. He'll be geared up and way ahead of you, simply because of his inherited knowledge of the game. Is that advantage cheating? Say you've never played a game and your friend has been playing 10 hours per day ever since pong was invented, is that cheating? Maybe your friend has another friend who kind of likes d2 but really wants to switch to d3, and offers d2 items for d3 items your friend has, is that cheating?

I think the amount of people playing game X to buy items in D2r is exceedingly small. The few players who use d2jsp for other games probably like the idea of being able to carry the sunk cost of time spent playing previous games as leverage into to the next one. We do it in so many other ways. Maybe I'm weird, but I just don't get why being able to take things from one game you've played to another is such a bad thing as to warrant being called cheating. Especially when it's by far, not the main use or purpose of fg.

ALLEyezOnMe wrote: 2 years ago

Freshchasty wrote: 2 years ago

I agree with Udyret and others:
even though the supply is the same - the demand is bigger because people that did not accumulate Wealth in ladder can bring their money from outside, tanking the price for others that play solely in ladder and have currency aquired there. If let's say I got an

Ist dropped and I'd like to spend it to buy some gear - I need to remember there are people that have fg already and can outbid me easily, so I compete with offers that are not exactly fair.

I'm not convinced this is the case as in your example you seem to assume that everyone is trading on d2jsp (the supposed seller of the item you wish to buy with your

Ist as well), which is very far from the truth. And why would the increased demand for items tank the price?

What I was trying to say that people who use d2jsp and use the fg they accumulated prior to ladder start have more resource and if they have a demand to buy something they can easily outbid you with your limited currency you earned so either you give up and keep on farming to catch up with them or you spend your currency on less valuable stuff because there are people that can afford inflated prices.

If everyone had 10$ noone would pay all 10$ for an Ice cream so the price would decrease, but when there are people that have 1000$ and they want an Ice cream they can easily afford it - so the prices will be inflated.

Freshchasty wrote: 2 years ago

What I was trying to say that people who use d2jsp and use the fg they accumulated prior to ladder start have more resource and if they have a demand to buy something they can easily outbid you with your limited currency you earned so either you give up and keep on farming to catch up with them or you spend your currency on less valuable stuff because there are people that can afford inflated prices.

If everyone had 10$ noone would pay all 10$ for an Ice cream so the price would decrease, but when there are people that have 1000$ and they want an Ice cream they can easily afford it - so the prices will be inflated.

The example is weird to me. Let me work it out and let me know where I don't get it.

A world exists in which Ice-cream is in demand. Peanuts are used by some people as a way to trade Ice-cream.

Enrico has red Ice-cream. Tom has two blue Ice-creams. One red is worth two blues.

Olivia has 10 peanuts. Bob has 1,000,000 peanuts. Peanuts are a useful currency. Neither has any Ice-cream.

I can see how Bob has an advantage over Olivia when it comes to buying Ice-cream, but as long as Tom wants red Ice-cream and Enrico wants two blues, Bob and Olivia have 0 power.

If Tom wants yellow Ice-cream which is worth the same as red Ice-cream, Tom will find someone else other than Enrico to trade with or start a bidding war between Bob and Olivia to get some peanuts to buy what he wants from someone who has yellow and accepts peanuts in exchange.

Enrico, who's allergic to peanuts needs to keep looking.

I don't see where the amount of peanuts Tom can get for his blue Ice-cream changes anything for Enrico.

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

Freshchasty wrote: 2 years ago

What I was trying to say that people who use d2jsp and use the fg they accumulated prior to ladder start have more resource and if they have a demand to buy something they can easily outbid you with your limited currency you earned so either you give up and keep on farming to catch up with them or you spend your currency on less valuable stuff because there are people that can afford inflated prices.

If everyone had 10$ noone would pay all 10$ for an Ice cream so the price would decrease, but when there are people that have 1000$ and they want an Ice cream they can easily afford it - so the prices will be inflated.

The example is weird to me. Let me work it out and let me know where I don't get it.

A world exists in which Ice-cream is in demand. Peanuts are used by some people as a way to trade Ice-cream.

Enrico has red Ice-cream. Tom has two blue-creams. One red is worth two blues.

Olivia has 10 peanuts. Bob has 1,000,000 peanuts. Peanuts are a useful currency. Neither has any Ice-cream.

I can see how Bob has an advantage over Olivia when it comes to buying Ice-cream, but as long as Tom wants red Ice-cream and Enrico wants two blues, Bob and Olivia have 0 power.

If Tom wants yellow Ice-cream which is worth the same as red Ice-cream, Tom will find someone else other than Enrico to trade with or start a bidding war between Bob and Olivia to get some peanuts to buy what he wants.

Enrico, who's allergic to peanuts needs to keep looking.

Yeah, My whole point was around that Bob <-> Olivia advantage - if we start from scratch (so we are Olivia here) the Bob's that have fg will make it more difficult for us to get what we want than it would be when bob had no headstart.

Now, I do not get what Enrico and Tom have to do with that example, but I haven't been going that deep so that's fine by me

Edit:
I probably mistook your example here - apologies, long day at work.

If I understand correctly you compared peanuts to fg, right?
I don't see where in the case you described is the currency that is already in game (runes, pgems etc.). It's not that Enrico has red Ice-cream and the only way to get blue Ice-creams is to find someone that would want his red Ice-cream - he can exchange it to someone who offers, I dunno, Ice cubes and then use his Ice cubes as a currency - but people with peanuts will easily afford more icecubes than what he can and offer more for same blue Ice-cream just to outbid him.