Trade is in a sad State

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JPK_ wrote:

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kaepae wrote:

When I run uber lab, I can't trade. While there is already a price agreement, it is just the matter of the click to make it final. When I am in a race, I can't trade. When I am in a map, it costs me a portal. Unless I open up a secundary account and do all trades from there, which to me is a hassle.

Imo it is the only issue with trading right now. You should be able to invite someone for a trade and him to join your HO and open a stash with the items you have for sale, and proceed on the trade of his own.

If we work away that the invite requires me to click on things I agree that this would be a viable improvement. This because during a race additional clicks are even too much (not that my noobish racing warrants every made click...). But that could be settled by allowing the hideout to be publicly accessible. Although people could crowd someone's hideout and an option to have trades listed somewhere that people could choose from would be better. But that would look alot like an auction house, in principle (without auction house cuts).

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kaepae wrote:

The action house in Diablo was not the problem. It is the commodity of power that killed the play experience. The auction house is merely a vehicle that brings forward the symptoms of underlaying issues more strongly. One should not blame the vehicle, but address the underlaying issues and focus rebalance.

While I agree that the Auction Houses were scapegoated for far more damage than they actually caused... just because a thing is not The Problem doesn't mean that thing is not a problem.

The common alarmist, paranoid mentality is that every D3 ill was caused by Auction Houses. Having an AH doesn't making upgrading a strictly linear series of minor, inconsequential improvements -- shitty itemization does that. Having an AH doesn't cause third-world-dictatorship hyperinflation -- forcing a single trade currency and having it massively counterfeited by botters does that.

I'm against Auction Houses, but on trading skill grounds. I think that a game with skill-intensive farming deserves skill-intensive trading (as a matter of farm vs trade balance) and because of that I think it's important that buyers can have an active role in the pricing of a trade - that is, haggling as a viable option. Not because "if you have easy trade the sky will fall" alarmism, but because I don't think traders should have an entitlement mentality to immediately getting the items they desire (any moreso than farmers should).

I want traders to be as afraid of getting fleeced by another trader, as Incinerators are scared of Corrupted Blood.

This is a much more subtle reason, and as far as my argument goes, D3 is almost completely irrelevant. Furthermore, I'm clearly a minority opinion; pretty much everyone else is in full entitlement mode, and wants both trading and farming to give them everything they want with minimal exertion. Even I wouldn't argue that trading should be hard if softcore had no penalty for death.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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kaepae wrote:

The action house in Diablo was not the problem. It is the commodity of power that killed the play experience. The auction house is merely a vehicle that brings forward the symptoms of underlaying issues more strongly. One should not blame the vehicle, but address the underlaying issues and focus rebalance.

While I agree that the Auction Houses were scapegoated for far more damage than they actually caused... just because a thing is not The Problem doesn't mean that thing is not a problem.

The common alarmist, paranoid mentality is that every D3 ill was caused by Auction Houses. Having an AH doesn't making upgrading a strictly linear series of minor, inconsequential improvements -- shitty itemization does that. Having an AH doesn't cause third-world-dictatorship hyperinflation -- forcing a single trade currency and having it massively counterfeited by botters does that.

I'm against Auction Houses, but on trading skill grounds. I think that a game with skill-intensive farming deserves skill-intensive trading (as a matter of farm vs trade balance) and because of that I think it's important that buyers can have an active role in the pricing of a trade - that is, haggling as a viable option. Not because "if you have easy trade the sky will fall" alarmism, but because I don't think traders should have an entitlement mentality to immediately getting the items they desire (any moreso than farmers should).

I want traders to be as afraid of getting fleeced by another trader, as Incinerators are scared of Corrupted Blood.

This is a much more subtle reason, and as far as my argument goes, D3 is almost completely irrelevant. Furthermore, I'm clearly a minority opinion; pretty much everyone else is in full entitlement mode, and wants both trading and farming to give them everything they want with minimal exertion. Even I wouldn't argue that trading should be hard if softcore had no penalty for death.

Because video games are meant to be fun and not actual chores. The crux of an ARPG is to kill monsters to go get better loot. That is what made Diablo 2 fun; the game wasn't even hard at all except for very specific cheesy areas of the game (such as Iron Maiden vs melee, CE from Nihilathak, etc.)

When you make trading more efficient then actual farming by significant measures, you essentially get a game where it's more efficient to flip currency/items/trade rather than actually playing the game. The only people who actually need to play are those who are pushing ladder at the beginning of leagues, and those people tend to saturate the league with enough items where those who come in at the 2nd and 3rd waves will be able to simply trade without playing very much outside of leveling their character.

I personally think that's horrible game design, especially when it comes to an ARPG. PoE is finally moving in the correct direction for once, where the crux of the game's design is centered around the player actually going out and playing the game and not having to 24/7 trade for everything except for the rarest of items.

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allbusiness wrote:

Spoiler

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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kaepae wrote:

The action house in Diablo was not the problem. It is the commodity of power that killed the play experience. The auction house is merely a vehicle that brings forward the symptoms of underlaying issues more strongly. One should not blame the vehicle, but address the underlaying issues and focus rebalance.

While I agree that the Auction Houses were scapegoated for far more damage than they actually caused... just because a thing is not The Problem doesn't mean that thing is not a problem.

The common alarmist, paranoid mentality is that every D3 ill was caused by Auction Houses. Having an AH doesn't making upgrading a strictly linear series of minor, inconsequential improvements -- shitty itemization does that. Having an AH doesn't cause third-world-dictatorship hyperinflation -- forcing a single trade currency and having it massively counterfeited by botters does that.

I'm against Auction Houses, but on trading skill grounds. I think that a game with skill-intensive farming deserves skill-intensive trading (as a matter of farm vs trade balance) and because of that I think it's important that buyers can have an active role in the pricing of a trade - that is, haggling as a viable option. Not because "if you have easy trade the sky will fall" alarmism, but because I don't think traders should have an entitlement mentality to immediately getting the items they desire (any moreso than farmers should).

I want traders to be as afraid of getting fleeced by another trader, as Incinerators are scared of Corrupted Blood.

This is a much more subtle reason, and as far as my argument goes, D3 is almost completely irrelevant. Furthermore, I'm clearly a minority opinion; pretty much everyone else is in full entitlement mode, and wants both trading and farming to give them everything they want with minimal exertion. Even I wouldn't argue that trading should be hard if softcore had no penalty for death.

Because video games are meant to be fun and not actual chores. The crux of an ARPG is to kill monsters to go get better loot. That is what made Diablo 2 fun; the game wasn't even hard at all except for very specific cheesy areas of the game (such as Iron Maiden vs melee, CE from Nihilathak, etc.)

When you make trading more efficient then actual farming by significant measures, you essentially get a game where it's more efficient to flip currency/items/trade rather than actually playing the game. The only people who actually need to play are those who are pushing ladder at the beginning of leagues, and those people tend to saturate the league with enough items where those who come in at the 2nd and 3rd waves will be able to simply trade without playing very much outside of leveling their character.

I personally think that's horrible game design, especially when it comes to an ARPG. PoE is finally moving in the correct direction for once, where the crux of the game's design is centered around the player actually going out and playing the game and not having to 24/7 trade for everything except for the rarest of items.

The only reason I can see for implementing trade in an ARPG is precisely because it benefits players in those second and third waves. Trading should be viewed as a catch-up mechanic to make laddering competition more interesting, and to gauge content by time commitment (no-life progresses slower per unit time than time-constrained).

However, there's a lot more than simply "second wave gets first wave hand-me-downs" that goes on with trading. A lot of trading is parallel between members of the same wave, evening out loot RNG. While trading between waves will have strong supply/demand forces to make a lopsided benefit for the later waves - essentially an unskilled handout for a late start, but guaranteed to be a smaller benefit than if they'd played from the start (which is good design, especially for temporary leagues) - trading within a wave is what interests me in terms of talking about skill-intensive trade. It's the context for all my earlier ranting.

However, I'd have to assume trading within a wave is everyone's context when requesting easier trade. If you don't believe that trading between waves is brain-dead easy, then you are doing it wrong. It'd be like complaining that Tic-Tac-Toe is too challenging.

how did people trade in diablo 2?

kk

poe.trade is better

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Vapala wrote:

how did people trade in diablo 2?

kk

poe.trade is better

D2jsp, which is basically the spiritual father of what poe.trade does today for poe. And thats 16years back in time, 16. Thats how much outdated actual poe trading experience is/was. Only made a bit more automated with the auction-house-look-alike that is poe.trade.

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kaepae wrote:

Blizzard used different concepts by opening up their API.

The user interface allowed people to make mods, and eventually many mods made it into the user interface itself. This follows easy pickings from a best of community bred options.

The action house in Diablo was not the problem. It is the commodity of power that killed the play experience. The auction house is merely a vehicle that brings forward the symptoms of underlaying issues more strongly. One should not blame the vehicle, but address the underlaying issues and focus rebalance.

Blizzard did not just remove the auction house as many players believe. They have changed the underlaying design by even removing trade outside the group, for various benefits regarding to loot distribution. D3's loot is about known legendaries and set items that are vastly more fixated by design. An issue that still manifests is loot saturation (people get their stuff too fast, elites lose their loot incentive too soon) which is basically the same symptom still in effect.


On the subject of PoE's current trade system, I find it clunky. Ideally opening up API for third parties yields more websites and ties third parties' time investment to the succes of the game, which translates to positive advertisement (usually). But an auction house there will be only one of (the most convenient one) and the rest won't succeed as much.

When I run uber lab, I can't trade. While there is already a price agreement, it is just the matter of the click to make it final. When I am in a race, I can't trade. When I am in a map, it costs me a portal. Unless I open up a secundary account and do all trades from there, which to me is a hassle.

Alt tabbing to check prices I find no fun.

All but few interactions with other players when trading were very friendly, and I agree this is a plus. However, it often feels more like a friendly handshake from both sides knowing that trading can be a bit tedious at times but we cope with it by showing each other good behaviour.

An auction house, in my opinion, would be a good idea, but not without first handling underlaying issues of the commodity of powerful items (namely the uniques).

Interesting read, but i want to stand on the part about lab/races where players cant trade. Add to that different leagues and in a lesser extend mapping, and you basically have the reasons why some form of cross instance interaction should be in the game. Especially when buyouts are set by the sellers.

As was made obvious by previous threads im torn on the trading issue, and while i want improvments i dont want TOO many, especially in the form of an auction house where everything then would be automated. Sure it would be nice for those who hate spending time haggling/interacting with others (and i respect that others can and are many times assholes), but in the same time would suck for those who like that player interaction (after all its a multiplayer game) and are good/skillful talkers.

In my opinion an ingame indexer would be the first and most important step on the improvment of trade. No instant auction-house like buyouts, only notes if the seller wants, everything after that is pure player interaction. Having your game be based upon a third party site is something i personally would never digest.

Then proceed with adding cross instance interaction, example: "Buyer found a nice item in hardcore using the ingame indexer and offers x ammount of currency for it plus a link of the item to the seller who plays ProphecySC and he is currently running the lab. The seller sees the link (which must be a way to be verified and protected by the mechanics of the ingame indexer) and agrees that the offer is fair for the item (or might the offer is exactly what his note for the item is), and decides he wants to sell, sending a cross instance and league trade invitation to the buyer. Automatically (might even be a feature of premium tabs though i would prefer if it was for everyone) the item is moved from the seller's stash tab to the trade window and the currency from the seller into it. Accepting will end the trading interaction and the currency would be put in the place where the item was OR even better would create a remove-only tab for it."

I dont say thats that perfect way for cross instance trading but something like that would indeed be INSANELY helpfull for players like those mentioned in the example. As for the ingame indexer it would serve the same purpose that 3rd party ones do now in a sense. While automating the search process the actual trade would still need player interaction.

I am thinking that anti autotrade is so ingrained into GGG's philosophy that we will never see it. They have said there are more qol items they could implement, and are looking into it. What those are, no telling.

I played POE in beta and a little at release and then stepped away up until last month. I must give props to GGG for the essence and atlas system. We need more of that. What has turned me off to the point of probably quitting the game entirely is the trading system. The implicit need for items and trading has forced people to use a 3rd party site. Its nice for buying but it's an utter mess for selling items. Its a huge barrier to the game. I can see if there was a legitimate reason for not having an in game auction house but its mute if there is an out of game auction house. Even if the out of game one is just bad and clunky. GGG just make an in game Auction House all ready.

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vaseler wrote:

I played POE in beta and a little at release and then stepped away up until last month. I must give props to GGG for the essence and atlas system. We need more of that. What has turned me off to the point of probably quitting the game entirely is the trading system. The implicit need for items and trading has forced people to use a 3rd party site. Its nice for buying but it's an utter mess for selling items. Its a huge barrier to the game. I can see if there was a legitimate reason for not having an in game auction house but its mute if there is an out of game auction house. Even if the out of game one is just bad and clunky. GGG just make an in game Auction House all ready.

Never going to happen. The funny thing is you perceive it difficult for some reason to sell items, which it is in no way difficult, either using procurement\acquisition or premium tabs, its really as easy as setting what you want for the item or just listing it and hope you get offers (i recommend the first)

The issue is people that complain about trade and selling, that don't care to put a price on their items, they become frustrated when they make fewer sales and they don't want to undervalue something. Its pretty easy to price check something and its not a game design problem when you fail to do so.


I'm looking forward to more trade improvements, but not at the cost of the games design, which again is why automation will never happen.

The biggest problem with trading is that PoE is not really a social game. There is little in the game that encourages ppl to play with strangers. The performance issues alone make groups impossible for most ppl, pushing that aside the games mechanics do little to promote public parties or social play.

This current trade system would be significantly better if the game actually encouraged social style game play. Without that, the interactions required, in the context of trading, become a very tiresome and tedious thing. No different that standing behind the counter as a retail worker selling items to random ppl you will never have any meaningful interaction with.