13 Feb 2011 at 07:44 - 3
Loot scale is designed to stick it to the bots and illegal gold farmers, not legit players. It basically functions as an income/minute cap. This limits "stupid" farming to being only slightly more profitable than the same amount of time spent playing normally. That keeps inflation down by limiting the amount of gold that sold sellers can produce and increasing the relative purchasing power of normal players.
"Good" drops are exempt because it really hurts for a normal player to miss a good drop, and its gold value can just be taken out of your future white drops to stay inside the cap (which it is). Bots and illegal gold farmers care about white drops; you generally don't.
Real players looking to make a bigger profit need to be more intelligent about what and where to farm - specifically, stick to things that are worth significantly more than their gold value when sold to other players. This is not inflationary (because gold is merely reallocated form the buyer to you). Nor is it something that bots and illegal gold farmers can do (because neither speaks English well enough to trade with other players).