Trade is in a sad State

Fucking sad. Thats exactly how someone can describe PoE's trading experience and system. Other words fit too, horrible, outdated, tiresome, stressful, demanding/taxing, unfinished, etc. Seriously while the game has progressed quite a bit since alpha, it seems like the trading system has not, and if not in alpha its in the open beta kind of version.

First and foremost the biggest mistake and sign of unprofessionalism, lack of experience and initiative is the existence of a 3rd party site that serves as the true trading medium for the game. Not only that but due to lack of creativity since open beta when a new trading experience was promised, GGG with time came to embrace that 3rd party site and the trading system it forced on the game, and even released paid features that help players use that said medium with more ease. Seriously when they announced a while ago that the trade improvements they came up with was enhancing the experience on that 3rd party site for the players i was like laughing maniacally cause i believed it was a troll post from Chris, but no, GGG was deadly serious on that. Just think that for a while, the trade improvements a gaming company came up after 4years of promises and teasing was to enhance the experience players had with a 3rd party fucking site by adding more functions on their paid features (premium stash tabs). Not only that but they continue acting like this is the right way and solution to the problem by promising more updates for the 3rd party program.....Let that sink for a while, and realise how atrociously sad this is, so we can continue.

Why is this sad you might ask. Well maybe its because whenever and wherever Chris says something about the game, the "economy and trading is very important part of the gaming experience" phrase is always somewhere there to add salt to the INFESTED wound. Since those things are SO important dear GGG, why the fuck are you in year 2016 still have the worse and most outdated trade system a game could possibly have? How hypocritical towards your players can GGG be to make comments like the one above but still refuse to upgrade the trading engine by themselves? I seriously cant understand how can you be so contradictive "saying X and doing y that is completely the opposite of x".

And dont get me wrong, i too believe like GGG that an automated auction house wouldnt be the best course of action, but damn, there are so many sweet and good suggestions around the forum, its a shame nothing has yet been done.

Like for example, in the past GGG mentioned a system were npcs semi-controlled by the player could act like vendors for specified items, other players could enter the hideout, bronwse said vendor's inventory and buy things without the player controlling the vendor doing anything. Or other cross instance trading features were players could sent trade offers, if the other player pressed accept then a trade-like window would appear were the items and the offer would show and by pressing accept again or decline the deal could be done without players having to be in the same instance. Or a mail system, where offers could be sent even to offline players, if the item has a buyout price then he doesnt even need to be online for this. And so many more options. And GGG can easily implement those and even restrict some features (like limiting the space of the vendor's inventory, trades per day with the mail system etc.)

Solutions exist, a lot of them, but i dont know if there is willingless from GGG's part to improve said aspect of the game. So let me share the reason i made this post because the point might make GGG more willing to improve the trading exprience.

So...what made me post this were recent events that really showcase how the state of trade at the moment is so sad. It started 2-3 days before the recent State of Exile podcast, when a perm HC player whispered to me about an item. As usually i said, "let me finish some prophecies i procced and ill be right there like 10-15minutes", he said "ok". As soon as i was done i whispered him again only to find out that he was offline. The exact same scenario was repeated a bit after the first one, but this time i added the other player in my friendlist so i can invite him as soon i was finished with the map i was doing in proHC. Not even 5minutes had passed, and the player logged out.

The day after that the podcast was on and people were talking about possibilities and whaat would happen to the game if this or if that. I was searching an item, after whispering like 10-12 people and getting the not logged in/afk messages, i finally found a person who said "ok, but im in a map trial atm, so can you w8 5-10minutes?" Ofcourse i said yes, and then went on mapping. As i was mapping i received a message again from that player who made a comment about the trials, and by actually paying attention to his name i realised it was ItsYoji (streamer/youtuber), who after the trade and some fun discussion we had said "and people in the State of Exile complain how trade is bad atm" only to receive the answer from me "well it is, as i very well know it and you know it and every sensible players knows it, the fact that every once in a while a worthwhile interaction occurs doesnt mean the system is ok" in which he simply agreed and went on talking about the trials again. I continued hearing the podcast, and realised that popular streamers (ziggy, zeno, pohx, lifting) all had some gripe with the current trading system (others bigger than the rest) but all wanted an improvement, and these guys bring GGG traffic and money with their streams, like it or not they influence their viewers/players who talk with their wallets to GGG.

So the last incident was today, when i again got a whisper from a person in perm HC asking for an item (5l white chest), i was in the middle of a montrous treasure map so i said "ill relog in 5-10 minutes", to which he responded "ok, ill w8". Not 3 minutes later he came back to me saying "never mind mate, i found another piece for my needs", me as a gentleman only said "ok, take care and have fun", only to receive a messaage from the same person again asking me for another white 5l chestpiece i had. Realising that i was the same seller he only admited his "mistake" and patiently then waited for me to finish saying ":(, oooh ok then i cant but wait".

"What is the point of those stupid stories man? Like what the fuck, why you do this?" Dont worry everything has its meaning, and those stories are not an exception. What i want to point with those is that the game is bleeding players with this trading system we have, a person that wants to play 30minutes after work and has to wait for 15minutes to buy an item, loses interest, and GGG loses potential customers. When the 3rd party site is down for example it greatly affect the game, and that is a shame, and even bigger one that GGG still refuses to either integrate it or come up with her own better trading system/experience.


The fact that the current trading system somewhat works doenst mean that there is no room for improvement, its not broken but is not optimal/nice to use too, its like that old jacket you are used wearing but fuck when its cold outside you freeze. Over the years the promise of a better trading system kept our hopes up, but this cant last forever, we need improvement, THE GAME NEEDS IMPROVEMENTS, and GGG must deliver.


Much Wall such Text. Thanks for reading and keep it civil.

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Regulator wrote:

open beta kind of version.

I can attest to this. Since open beta I have gone on many a hiatus only to return to the same mess. I have made one trade in three years and will not repeat the experience.



One time I came back and read that the game was no longer "in Beta." I still do not believe it.

Honestly, the way GGG approachs this is innovative, I basically stole it from one if not the most successful game ever. The thing that made WoW really great was that all the developers did was providing an API for others to hook into.

GGG basically did the same. They provide an API and extent that and allow the players to toy with it. The Lootfilter is another example of this, they could have filtered loot themself, but there isn't really a reason to. The other thing is that poexyz works really nice, there isn't really a good reason to replace it with a selfmade solution that would do exactly the same.

Calling a lack of professionalism and disregard for the quality of their own product 'innovative'... lol

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Not only that but due to lack of creativity ...

Stopped reading right there. Not gonna wade through a bitter mean-spirited rant.

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

Calling a lack of professionalism and disregard for the quality of their own product 'innovative'... lol

A trading system is a very simple thing and honestly it just wastes time of a professional programmer that an amateur could do as well. And like Blizzard shipped a very basic and often lacking UI with their game POE does the same with their trading system and instead of creating their own they just safe time and provide hooks for people working with it. Of course it would be cool to have a modable UI which would allow content developers to add stuff, but that'S already a lot harder.

And to be fair the trading already works pretty well. There are a few improvements that could be made but in general it works nice. It would be an entirely wasted effort to recreate the same tool you get from the community as yourself. You can do that if you grow bigger and can basically effort as many programmers as you want, but that isn't very likely so outsourcing things to the community is a very smart thing and honestly the side is done well, offers good support if things aren't working and most issues are fixed fairly quickly. Considering that GGG would have to make that effort without actually getting something they would have to drop a few other things they are working on.

You are beating dead horse.

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a person that wants to play 30minutes after work and has to wait for 15minutes to buy an item,

1. open poe.trade
2. find item you want
3. pm 20 ppl that have item u want
4. make trade in 1 minute.
It is no where close to 15 minutes.

IF this take too much of your playtime then plying build that require to buy items is not for you. There are self found build that you should try.

You can also try to manage your time so you can have longer play session.

too much pure anger in this post regulator. You must be having an off day. You are right ofcoarse. The trade system is atrocious. Too many fucks in your post though. I dont approve

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kamil1210 wrote:

3. pm 20 ppl that have item u want

... without waiting for replies.

that would explain why a guy declined my party invite not even 3 seconds after messaging me, saying he doesn't want the item anymore.