Let me dispel some of your illusions about auction houses.

I think good solution to the problem would be that the buyer needs to go to hideout and buy the item from a NPC there that spawns there after the two parties agree over the price.

I didn't read through the topic, forgive me if this has been said already.
I recently watched What's up Wraeclast EP 14, where Wabachaw, ZiggyD and Mors talked about trading. It has been mentioned several times that Diablo 3's AH did hurt the game in a very bad way. What they didn't mention (and what people tend to forget) that it was the real money Auction House that caused alot of damage. The real money AH and, as ZiggyD and Mors stated, the itemization concept were the real problem.

We will obviously never know how the game would have turned out if they had chosen not to impplement a real money AH. All I want to say is that people should consider this before saying that 'the AH destroyed D3'.

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kahzin wrote:

I didn't read through the topic, forgive me if this has been said already.
I recently watched What's up Wraeclast EP 14, where Wabachaw, ZiggyD and Mors talked about trading. It has been mentioned several times that Diablo 3's AH did hurt the game in a very bad way. What they didn't mention (and what people tend to forget) that it was the real money Auction House that caused alot of damage. The real money AH and, as ZiggyD and Mors stated, the itemization concept were the real problem.

We will obviously never know how the game would have turned out if they had chosen not to impplement a real money AH. All I want to say is that people should consider this before saying that 'the AH destroyed D3'.

in the same podcast they went over how exactly non-RMT AH destroyed the game.

also if you got time listen to ProjectPT's story about D3 and auction and how he was able to control/manipulate his competition (like sniping/buying out high DPS weapons and vendoring them ASAP)
before most of heavyweight AH bots started their work.

it's a good one, hopefully making one realize that instant buyouts AH don't belong in these type of games.

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grepman wrote:

try to understand the impact of an instant buyout and what this would do to the game first.

I think it's time for GGG to write a manifesto about this topic. Too many people just ignore this point and don't believe other players.

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grepman wrote:

in the same podcast they went over how exactly non-RMT AH destroyed the game.

This is a nice example.

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grepman wrote:

in the same podcast they went over how exactly non-RMT AH destroyed the game.

Uhm I'm pretty sure that both ZiggyD and Mors said that it wasn't the AH that destroyed the game but rather the concept of itemization (i.e. needing the gear from the end of the act to beat the act).

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kahzin wrote:

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grepman wrote:

in the same podcast they went over how exactly non-RMT AH destroyed the game.

Uhm I'm pretty sure that both ZiggyD and Mors said that it wasn't the AH that destroyed the game but rather the concept of itemization (i.e. needing the gear from the end of the act to beat the act).

I couldve sworn they discussed why auto buyouts are bad, but if not - I stand corrected.

Mors is the one who talked about itemization - and hes right. meaning, itemization prevented non- AH people from venturing into later acts on inferno pre-nerf.

but that isnt really all theres to it. itemization was one of the things that sucked in d3. AH was bigger. AH was always a better, easier, faster, painless way of getting gear than actually playing the game. It was always better than grinding the game, and so much better you could argue that it wasnt any point in playing the game if your goal was to get best gear.

and since d3 was all about gear anyway (toons identical and no variation without gear), you getting GG gear meant you beat the game (which was obvious once they nerfed inferno damage of mobs and fixed the itemization)

again, auto-buyouts are evil in any game. you go from making trade an important part of the game, to the only part of the game that matters while progressing. all under your fingertips in-game and tailor-made for automating/abusing and flipping while being ultra-efficient.

current trading system has a lot of problems, but the one thing GGG is adamant on- - no-auto buyout in the future -- prevents the game from being all about trade. if you want to flip endlessly you have to put a good amount of time into it, probably with other players, it's hard to automate, and efficiency tanks.

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grepman wrote:

and since d3 was all about gear anyway (toons identical and no variation without gear), you getting GG gear meant you beat the game (which was obvious once they nerfed inferno damage of mobs and fixed the itemization)

again, auto-buyouts are evil in any game. you go from making trade an important part of the game, to the only part of the game that matters while progressing. all under your fingertips in-game and tailor-made for automating/abusing and flipping while being ultra-efficient.

current trading system has a lot of problems, but the one thing GGG is adamant on- - no-auto buyout in the future -- prevents the game from being all about trade. if you want to flip endlessly you have to put a good amount of time into it, probably with other players, it's hard to automate, and efficiency tanks.

You know you can have an AH without auto buyout. It is option that was added to sell item quickly. We can have an AH that is Ultra-inefficient. Automated but really slow. Would you like that?

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deathflower wrote:

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grepman wrote:

and since d3 was all about gear anyway (toons identical and no variation without gear), you getting GG gear meant you beat the game (which was obvious once they nerfed inferno damage of mobs and fixed the itemization)

again, auto-buyouts are evil in any game. you go from making trade an important part of the game, to the only part of the game that matters while progressing. all under your fingertips in-game and tailor-made for automating/abusing and flipping while being ultra-efficient.

current trading system has a lot of problems, but the one thing GGG is adamant on- - no-auto buyout in the future -- prevents the game from being all about trade. if you want to flip endlessly you have to put a good amount of time into it, probably with other players, it's hard to automate, and efficiency tanks.

You know you can have an AH without auto buyout. It is option that was added to sell item quickly. We can have an AH that is Ultra-inefficient. Automated but really slow. Would you like that?

no auto-buyout of any sort whatsoever. rule of thumb is if its automated, its bad. automated auctions are not good either, because more time will be spent on them than the game as well.

Id welcome an in-game way of listing items instead of poe.trade but no real ability to buyout easily.

however, trading must occur in a way that is hard to automate and transactions are not homogeneous (ie, hard to predict/patternize). the instant you trivialize efficient trading is the instance there becomes little point to actually play the game.

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grepman wrote:

no auto-buyout of any sort whatsoever. rule of thumb is if its automated, its bad. automated auctions are not good either, because more time will be spent on them than the game as well.

Id welcome an in-game way of listing items instead of poe.trade but no real ability to buyout easily.

however, trading must occur in a way that is hard to automate and transactions are not homogeneous (ie, hard to predict/patternize). the instant you trivialize efficient trading is the instance there becomes little point to actually play the game.

Sure if you don't like the name we can call it asynchronous trading. If you don't like automation, we will require more button pushing to complete the deal. I hope this is to your liking.

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grepman wrote:

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kahzin wrote:

Uhm I'm pretty sure that both ZiggyD and Mors said that it wasn't the AH that destroyed the game but rather the concept of itemization (i.e. needing the gear from the end of the act to beat the act).

I couldve sworn they discussed why auto buyouts are bad, but if not - I stand corrected.

Mors is the one who talked about itemization - and hes right. meaning, itemization prevented non- AH people from venturing into later acts on inferno pre-nerf.

but that isnt really all theres to it. itemization was one of the things that sucked in d3. AH was bigger. AH was always a better, easier, faster, painless way of getting gear than actually playing the game. It was always better than grinding the game, and so much better you could argue that it wasnt any point in playing the game if your goal was to get best gear.

and since d3 was all about gear anyway (toons identical and no variation without gear), you getting GG gear meant you beat the game (which was obvious once they nerfed inferno damage of mobs and fixed the itemization)

again, auto-buyouts are evil in any game. you go from making trade an important part of the game, to the only part of the game that matters while progressing. all under your fingertips in-game and tailor-made for automating/abusing and flipping while being ultra-efficient.

While I don't completely disagree with this, I feel you're painting a picture which is a little too black-and-white.

I like to use the word balance when I'm talking about players weighing two different options in their mind, trying to figure out which is better, and I like to use the word tuning when I'm talking about stuff players face in the game, beyond their control, which determines how difficult the game is. In that sense, there is concept of balance between trading and farming. Players are going to evaluate whether they'd progress faster trading or progress faster farming, and then mostly choose based off that evaluation.

Unfortunately, this isn't always in sync with what the player enjoys doing. I have absolutely zero problem with a player who loves trading choosing to trade hard, and eventually becoming quite good at trading, and then making unimaginably large stacks of loot trading. That's all good, because it's fun-creating design - players getting rewarded for doing what they enjoy. However, I have a problem with a player who despises trading choosing to trade hard, and without much effort in developing skill immediately making large stacks of loot trading, and feeling compelled to continue because the progression is so much faster. That's addiction-creating design - players getting rewarded so much for doing what they despise, that they continue doing it anyway - and it's bad business.

Skill is really key here. If trading is designed such that the traders with developed skill are the ones who are rewarded, and the ones without developed skill are rewarded much less or even lose value, then it's less likely that someone who doesn't like trading will be heavily rewarded for it, because their initial ventures into trading will be a mostly-losing learning experience. These learning experiences are mostly wasted on those who find little enjoyment in trading, as they quit and go back to doing something else.

What doesn't work here is tedium. If the key to being a successful trader is something easy but boring like staying logged in more than anyone else, or routinely going to trade chat and spamming Ctrl+V to repeat your sales pitch, then that doesn't reward the most skilled players, it rewards players for raw time commitment, regardless of skill.

I feel the main problem with a buyout system isn't that it's inherently "evil" or anything, but that it affects trade vs farm balance in a way which doesn't encourage cultivated trading skill. It doesn't just make trading fast, it also makes it very easy. We don't really want fast and easy; we want fast and difficult.

But just to be clear, we want slow and easy least of all.

I feel it's very important for the trade system to make the buyer as responsible for pricing as possible. Pricing an item is the key demonstration of trading skill, and in buyout systems this responsibility is placed entirely upon the seller's shoulders. It's a little distressing that systems like poe.trade have taken so much of the evaluation responsibility off of buyers already, encouraging an increasingly passive acceptance of seller prices. While it's okay for a seller to set prices and indicate that they are not willing to budge on what they want to sell, it should still be up to the buyer to decide whether or not he wants to try to budge the prices anyway. Against offline sellers in particular, buyout systems make the cost of haggling too high for sellers to seriously consider it as an option.

That's why it's bad. Not because "D3 did it" or any kind of superstitious mumbo jumbo. But because a system which doesn't encourage skill in trading will, by its nature, lead to an imbalance between trading and farming which creates addictive behavior patterns in players who would rather be farming.