Is the exchange of free items a harmful desire?
Here we address another sensitive point concerning Diablo IV in trade, since the community is terribly divided about it.
For the record, the current plan of the development team is to limit the ability of players to trade items with each other.
Consumables and crafting components will be freely transferable. Rarer items can only be transferred once, for example to give your old weapon to a friend.
Finally, the best items will be directly linked when collected, such as legendary and mythical items.
Some players, especially Diablo II enthusiasts (or those who idealize it?) would like a return to the totally free and unbridled item transfer system.
This is not without its advantages, but it has the huge disadvantage of being able to wreck the players' progress curve, while opening the door to an inevitable return of third-party item-selling sites.
It's not for nothing that almost all multiplayer games link items to the player, especially as these transfers of items and funds can have much more serious implications in the real world.
An example would be money laundering on Steam with Counter-Strike, against which Valve had to take drastic measures. In fact, it was to guard against this that Blizzard introduced the highly unpopular real-money auction house in Diablo III.
If there's one thing almost everyone agrees on, it's that we don't want it to come back. So don't expect free trade to be reintroduced, because that would probably be a disaster.
From our side, we think Blizzard has come up with a relatively good compromise on trade at the moment, and that going against the expectations of many players in this case is not necessarily a bad thing.
It's obviously not a guarantee that the end result will be satisfactory, but the loot system, equipment, and progression must be well thought out and well balanced.
In any case, we are convinced that it would not be a good idea to offer an easy solution for players, which would encourage them not to play to find their equipment.
A compromise could be to allow free exchanges between long-time friends or with a certain number of hours of play in common, even if flaws are always apparent with such a system.
