Had a lot of fun, taking a break, but tell me if you agree

I had a great time playing a few different classes in POE (Tornado Shot, Dual Totem, Ground Slam...etc), and I got them to 80+ which is a personal achievement for myself. I really wanted to hit 100 on 1 character at least, but I have now hit a wall, and it's a wall which will require a significant time and effort (more so time) to climb over.

My main issue with POE isn't the low drop rates, because they are the same for everyone. So it puts me and everyone else on a relatively even playing field. My issue is the lack of liquidity in this game. There should be multiple ways to achieve an item rather than hoping for a drop, because it is likely the item we are searching for may never drop for us.

Yes, and you can trade. Yes you can trade, but without any in-game option for trading aside from shouting in trade chat, which my God scrolls so extremely fast, the process is so damn difficult. First I need to make a forum post about something I am selling, and I need to do this a specific way so it shows up on poe.trade. I then need to DL a separate program which will then constantly update my forum thread. I then need to stay logged on, in hopes of a possibility that someone will message me in game.

This whole process also causes the prices of similar items to vary enormously. I don't think most players are out to astronomically inflate the price, but when I go to poe.trade and I see item A for 5c and item B for 4ex, I am very confused on what the price should be. I honestly, don't think most players know the actual value of an item. And, how could they?

I have asked more experienced players the question and their answer has been the typical micro econ answer they read in their first year, "...the price of an item is whatever someone is willing to pay". That's great, but it makes the game so tedious and not very fun. I myself, don't want to sit there for hours hoping someone will contact me for an item. I don't have that much free time on my hands. I would think most players (aside from the Twitch streamers), want to come home from work or school, play a few hours and log off. We want to have fun, not be stuck in an endless haggle-off.

Even moving away from items, currencies have the same problem. I look on poeex.info and I see that the rate for chaos to fuse is 1:2. Let's say that is true, I have never been able to find someone who wanted to trade me more than a few fuses. I then think about the 1200 or 1500 (can't remember which) fuses you need to have for a 6L item. I am not complaining that the number of fuse is too high, although some may complain. I am simply stating that converting one currency to another form, not matter the exchange rate, is too difficult. Again due to a lack of liquidity.

End game of POE comprises of far too much tedious forum perusing and chatting in trade, than actually having fun and enjoying playing the game itself. I really hope they introduce some form of an auction house or just any solution which will make it easier to sell/trade items and currency, because that is the only way I would download POE again. I am not a beta player, and relatively new, but I don't see how anyone could enjoy this in its current state.

I don't agree. You don't just sit around waiting for trades to come in. You play the game and people randomly pm you for the items they want. Want to improve your sell rate? Put reasonable buyouts on your items.

As far as pricing goes, I haven't had your problems with price checking on poe.trade. If you see an item listed for 5c and most people are asking for 4-5ex, the 5c guy probably listed the wrong price.

As for fusings, why would you trade them away at 2:1c when you get a much better rate vs exalts? The only reason to do so is if you don't have enough fusings to trade them for exalts. That is why you only get a few at a time when offering chaos, the people willing to sell at that rate just don't have many fuses.

Agree. Playing an aRPG should not entail daily shop maintenance and routinely dropping what you're doing to cater to someone elses needs so that you can scrape a few currency. Design game around global economy, fail to facilitate trade. Fucking dumb.

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b15h09 wrote:

Agree. Playing an aRPG should not entail daily shop maintenance and routinely dropping what you're doing to cater to someone elses needs so that you can scrape a few currency. Design game around global economy, fail to facilitate trade.

This is a design decision. Which is why (well, back in closed beta) an auction house will never exist. It is a meta mechanic which makes the player choose between spending their time playing the arbitrage game, or to spend their time grinding out items/currency in the game. Both ways are a means to accumulating more wealth/power. They are just different approaches.

If trade automates, the indexed availability of good items will have an exponential and highly negative influence on player power (As evidenced by D3, which in my opinion, is ultimately why they removed the AH. There was no reason for them to, as it was a total cash cow), which will trivialize the content and require GGG to retune the game. This would also exacerbate the power gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots', which has plagued the game since Atrizi and it has become quite the white elephant in the room.

While there are discussions all over this board about player choice and how one is to make the most of the game we have all been given, it creates a nightmare for GGG to try to plan game elements for such a dichotomous group of players.

I have read some thoughts on how to bring the power levels closer together (dramatically improve monster AI and mob composition, place more power on the tree to offset gear dependency, revamp damage elements or retune defensive mechanics so the game isn't just about aoe clears and avoiding one shots), and I trust GGG has read them too.

Regarding currency liquidity. I agree, and fundamentally, my personal opinion is that the currency drop rates should be dramatically increased to bring item valuations more in line with actual crafting costs.

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Garr0t wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

Agree. Playing an aRPG should not entail daily shop maintenance and routinely dropping what you're doing to cater to someone elses needs so that you can scrape a few currency. Design game around global economy, fail to facilitate trade.

This is a design decision. Which is why (well, back in closed beta) an auction house will never exist. It is a meta mechanic which makes the player choose between spending their time playing the arbitrage game, or to spend their time grinding out items/currency in the game. Both ways are a means to accumulating more wealth/power. They are just different approaches.

If trade automates, the indexed availability of good items will have an exponential and highly negative influence on player power (As evidenced by D3, which in my opinion, is ultimately why they removed the AH. There was no reason for them to, as it was a total cash cow), which will trivialize the content and require GGG to retune the game. This would also exacerbate the power gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots', which has plagued the game since Atrizi and it has become quite the white elephant in the room.

While there are discussions all over this board about player choice and how one is to make the most of the game we have all been given, it creates a nightmare for GGG to try to plan game elements for such a dichotomous group of players.

I have read some thoughts on how to bring the power levels closer together (dramatically improve monster AI and mob composition, place more power on the tree to offset gear dependency, revamp damage elements or retune defensive mechanics so the game isn't just about aoe clears and avoiding one shots), and I trust GGG has read them too.

Regarding currency liquidity. I agree, and fundamentally, my personal opinion is that the currency drop rates should be dramatically increased to bring item valuations more in line with actual crafting costs.

Agree with everything but this:

"

Regarding currency liquidity. I agree, and fundamentally, my personal opinion is that the currency drop rates should be dramatically increased to bring item valuations more in line with actual crafting costs.

Currency drops shouldn't be increased or increased very much. You shouldn't be exalting items simply to improve it, they added masters for this. Exalts and eternals are the currency for high tier crafting, not something that should easily be accessible to anyone.

1. Forum trading. Right now when you pull up a profile on the forums you see PM button (and Q if they're posting). A "T" button gets added. It pulls up a trade window that looks like the one in-game, but in browser. You can pull up your inventory and double-click items to add them to trade window, or double-click items in trade window to remove them (when double-clicking currency a pop-up asks you to specify quantity). Options for the bottom are "send," "confirm and send," and "cancel." players receive these trade windows and cancellation notices in a new inbox. You are notified in-game when you receive a new forum trade, and from whom. You are notified of the # of open forum trades when logging into game client.

2. Dual login options. Logging in with email and "full rights" password lets you pay the game, post, read and send PMs, and view, send, confirm, or cancel trades. Logging in with just your account name and a "read-only" password only works on pathofexile.com and allows you to view stash, current gear, and passive trees. Nothing else.

With those two functions alone you'd have asynchronous trading, an automated web-based (third-party) Procurement which doesn't leave your account vulnerable, powerful (third-party) build analysis tools, and no more mandatory shop threads (internalized by third-party item indexer).

We shouldn't ask for more than this. Let's keep GGG costs low and have third parties do the grunt work.

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Garr0t wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

Agree. Playing an aRPG should not entail daily shop maintenance and routinely dropping what you're doing to cater to someone elses needs so that you can scrape a few currency. Design game around global economy, fail to facilitate trade.

This is a design decision. Which is why (well, back in closed beta) an auction house will never exist. It is a meta mechanic which makes the player choose between spending their time playing the arbitrage game, or to spend their time grinding out items/currency in the game. Both ways are a means to accumulating more wealth/power. They are just different approaches.

I am not saying that an AH is the answer. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. There are multiple ways to operate the AH concept. All I am saying is, this is a MAJOR part of the game play and it is NOT fun. GGG created a great game, I refuse to believe they are powerless trying to solve this issue. I am not a game developer, just a HS student and a varsity Lacrosse player, so I don't have the answer. I just know there is a better way to do this, and there are tons of ideas, good or bad, on the forums.

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ivqancorp wrote:

I just know there is a better way to do this, and there are tons of ideas, good or bad, on the forums.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

1. Forum trading.
2. Dual login options.

With those two functions alone you'd have asynchronous trading, an automated web-based (third-party) Procurement which doesn't leave your account vulnerable, powerful (third-party) build analysis tools, and no more mandatory shop threads (internalized by third-party item indexer).

Yup. I suspect ScrotieMcB is going to be shown as prescient with this one.
GGG had been talking about forum based trading since forever ago.
Given the tiniest hints and an inclination to speculate as to what the next major content release will hold, the long incubating and long awaited asynchronous trade may finally make it's appearance... Ironically, given just how long it's taken (assuming it even gets released), the complexity of integrating such a system must have consumed a huge amount of GGG's resources to implement.

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Garr0t wrote:

Given the tiniest hints and an inclination to speculate as to what the next major content release will hold, the long incubating and long awaited asynchronous trade may finally make it's appearance... Ironically, given just how long it's taken (assuming it even gets released), the complexity of integrating such a system must have consumed a huge amount of GGG's resources to implement.

chris spoke about it on one of the last "state of exile" podcasts where he said that the system was basically ready to be deployed (masters in your hideout would sell the stuff you placed there to be sold), but they had doubts that it wouldn't be good for the game.

The masters crafting has gone a long way to help.
Still much more to be done tho.

Trade is sooooo painful here. I'd hate to add up the hours wasted that I could have been playing the game.

Tho I'll recommend 'procurement' as managing a shop without it will soon send you bonkers.

The biggest one by far that drives me up the wall, is 'currency'.
Pretty much, unless you want to buy 1ex of something, don't bother!

This game SOO needs something like a 'built in currency exchange'. User set prices. But automatic, talk to a vendor/click a UI.

Seriously change my mind of it's more like a dodgy drug deal on a street corner, to one in front of a big cop shop.


Another big one they said they have had working. Is 'trade from anywhere'. Hours spent waiting for someone to finish maps with group before bothering to trade the item, after the long offer > offer, long barter fuckaround. Even more so, the amount of people who will fuck around and ague price for a hour, then say 'fuck I'm not swapping leagues'


While were on things that make me NOT want to log in, even tho I do love this game to bits:

Death msg/what killed me.
Latest example: Took my latest lowbie toon to a Zana 8 daily. 77 map, 2 exiles. Made it (Big buzz on) had to do a Vorchi mission. He's level 8 too. Did the mission with like 3% life left out of pots. *HUUUGE BUZZ ON* walking back to Vorchi on a 0 monsters left map. Explode. Just dead.
I'll guess, I desynced, ran over and decided to take a bath in a Des pool. *Shrugs*
Anyway, it's also what puts off most my friends, it's soo hard to learn 'what went wrong' when you 'guess this coloured thing from that sort of looking mob hurt you?'

Offline mode.
Look wonders have been done with desync. I got a cycloner who doesn't have to open the map to see where desync's tele'ed him to.
But it's still bullshit! I'm soo fucking over being punished as I've got no interest in ever cheating.
Offline mode - no trade, no ladders, whatever. Just let me play 'glass toons' my way, for my fun.


Atrizi fragments.
Current system is bullshit! FUCKING MAD BRO BULLSHIT!
Multi-instances feels cheaty/exploity and very detrimental to servers. I won't do it. But that means, I'm instead saving chaos to buy them from some asshole I'm pretty damn sure is doing it.
Don't care if ya got to add a scrap to a vendor for a chaos or less, or do some bandaid fix. It's just soo far from the GGGenius of rest of your endgame it stands out soo far and makes me feel MADBRO.

Summoner feels SHIT vs D2
Ok, doesn't make me madbro and not want to play. But it's next on my list of what's stopping me screaming from the rooftops that PoE's best game evarrrrrr.
- Ani Guard - make him not suck without +levels and X gears. (Iron Golem in D2 was soo cool! come on!)
- Spect Soul Bag - I wan't to put in the effort of 'farming' X mobs from Y maps, I want to be able to 'snapshot' my gems on to them. (Yes the extra effort of leveling different sets of gems for diff mob types, not cheaty or make it easier) With the removal of snapshotting, specters can't have 'custom support gems' meaning you pick 1 minion type, and summon all the same. When they die, particularly in a group, it's a total pain in the ass, and usually 'bahh I'll go get my alt'