Trade is in a sad State

I completely disagree that trade even should require skill. I disagree that AH systems are inherently bad. It's my opinion that "barter" systems are the worst possible form of trade in video games. They completely disrespect other people's time, and arbitrarily forces them to engage in the unpleasant trade process with a very high chance of either neutral or negative interaction. The rare positive interactions are not worth it.

That said, GGG has their head up their ass about this, always has, and likely always will. I'll settle for some trade improvements that facilitate faster/smoother transactions. As someone who completely fucking hates phones, I don't want an app for this either. I want in-game fixes to this problem, because that's where it exists.

The attitude that trading should not require skill is as toxic as the idea that farming shouldn't require skill - they're both entitlement mentality. The more skill-testing the combat of an ARPG, the more skill-testing its trade system should be, and vice versa, to preserve some semblance of balance between the two methods of wealth acquisition. I wouldn't necessarily be against a very casual trade system in an ARPG from a design perspective, but only if its combat was similarly very casual.

Do you think the gameplay of self-found PoE is, or should be, devoid of skill checks? I'm not taking about raw tedium, I mean actually relevant decision-making in a post-theorycrafting setting. Personally, I come down rather hard on the "shouldn't be" side, from a (former) player perspective.

I don't think trade has required any skill in some time. Unless you're completely new to the game and refuse to seek out information about 3rd party tools it's already all but named AH. There's no going back either. Trade will never get any more difficult than it is right now and any in game trade improvements can only make it easier otherwise people will stick with 3rd party.

Personally I think that's why they haven't introduced trade improvements; there's probably no way to improve it in game and not make trade even easier without having to nerf trade overall to balance it out.

The backlash of either scenario probably means keeping the status quo is a safer bet.

E: I say that from the perspective of agreeing that trade should require more skill and wish it were more challenging.

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I don't think trade has required any skill in some time. Unless you're completely new to the game and refuse to seek out information about 3rd party tools it's already all but named AH. There's no going back either. Trade will never get any more difficult than it is right now and any in game trade improvements can only make it easier otherwise people will stick with 3rd party.

I definitely disagree on the "no going back" part.

Affordances play a huge role in player perception of pricing control. The current truth is that buyers have pricing control, because they can easily modify quantity offered and put sellers in a binary yes/no position. However, the affordances of the system give the appearance of the opposite - the seller names a specific price in a public tab, while the buyer's opportunity to price is split between chat and the Trade window itself, creating an environment where almost no trades which make it to Trade window are refused. The result is customary waiving of buyer pricing privilege, putting sellers firmly in the driver's seat.

Imagine instead if the interface was:
1. Seller lists an item, including a Description box which is free text, the seller can type anything. (There'd need to be a Report feature for hate speech, etc.) Indexers might parse this for prices but the interface wouldn't tell players "type your price here."
2. Buyers can place bids on listings (even multiple bids on the same item, perhaps using different currencies). This means taking currency and putting it in a window with the words "Name Your Price" on top. This bid is escrowed, but the bid can be retracted and refunded at any time voluntarily, or automatically if a competing bid wins.
3. As long as a bid is on a listing, a seller may accept, refuse or ignore it, with the first two choices as the only buttons the interface allows (to ignore, do nothing).

Under that system, buyers would both have and feel control over pricing, instead of only the former; similarly, sellers would have and feel the nature of their binary choice in responding to offers.

Regulator does have one thing right: it's truly a barebones interface which gives the feel of two decades ago. The trade interface seems completely devoid of the type of design polish which carefully considers the player experience.

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Albinosaurus wrote:

I have a critical question to ask that calls into question an assumption that people here take for granted:

Why is player interaction important for trading?

Honestly, I have never seen a good justification for this, so I want to know why this assumption exists. There's almost no interaction in general other than General Chat and forums. The game does a good job of making sure players see each other in an adversarial light, so why would we want to interact with those players?

~~

I too struggle with the question of how easier trade interacts with game difficulty, but I inevitably come back to the same conclusion: Difficulty is not really about trade; crafting has more say in both of those than they do with each other, and this is because crafting is in a terrible place. The sheer RNG involved in getting a decent roll makes trade the default option, and this is the real reason difficulty and trade are considered to be in tandem.

If you can see how that is true, then the consequences of easier trade are easier to deal with, because crafting is supposed to be a viable alternative (which it's not right now). When more currency is sunk into actually crafting gear, and that crafted gear can be competitive with some good finds, the over-inflation of raw currency diminishes greatly.

I don't see how else you can reconcile the issue if crafting continues to be ignored.

To somewhat answer your question Albi. In my previous post i said "keep or enhance the current player interaction" meaning for trading too. I also said "trading, pvp, and partying" are the only character interactions ingame we have. PvP is by far the less common, partying hasnt been doing well for quite some time. Trade is the only thing that actually incentivizes a bit of interaction and plays a big role since the beggining, after all PoE is a multiplayer isnt it? If there is no interaction here we might as well get an offline version and be done with it. Why player interaction is important is because it keeps the game alive in a way. Its because GGG's marketing system they want players to interact with each others, they want to see each other's MTXs, they want a social game, they want trading (at least they wanted with the old system) to be a task that needs commitment and time and social skills cause they know how powerful tool it can be.

As for the crafting i have to agree and disagree. In general crafting is not a viable alternative we have to agree on that, its much easier to get an item for 5c while crafting a similar one could take you over 100c to "craft" (gamble that is). There are some exceptions though that make crafting very viable and even superior to trading for examble, most notably early game crafting in a new league (that missing life or resist to progress to maps and get a head start) and +gem leve bows/staves crafting. If everything though became like that then crafting would be far superior to trading and thats against the basic notion GGG had for trading. To make it easier to understand thats the reason GGG removed the hybrid %physical mods from the masters, their effect on the economy was HUGE.


@Appreciate the feedback Scrotie. As i said in a post before to summarize my mentality about the trading system

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Regulator wrote:

I know this post comes out very weird, like "dafuq dude? do you want easier trading or not? you fucking got me very confused like seriously what drugs are you on?". The answer to that is not a simple one (not the drug related one), trading has room for improvement, it doesnt need to get "easier" as in instant buyouts, no player interaction, no alt-tabs, no stops, everything automated with auction houses, but rather keep the very important player interaction for a multiplayer game intact (or even enhance it) and make small but important changes like cross instance trading for starters.

As i already said, trading is a very sensitive matter, it affects literally the whole game (unless you SSF), in various ways, going in one direction like making it more automated will bring huge downsides as in item devaluation, easier time making the game boring faster, botting, the things you mentioned etc. But going in the opposite direction like bring back beta-age trading without search engines (that basically is an auction house without instant buyout) will have downsides too, the main ones being the game will get harder for the average joe, player retention receive a HUGE blow, items will again skyrocket in prices etc. There are ofcourse upsides for both directions dont get fooled, but the balance is difficult to achieve between the two directioons. There is no absolute right or wrong direction here but i think we all (except some fanboyz) agree that there is a lot of room for improvement.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

I completely disagree that trade even should require skill. I disagree that AH systems are inherently bad. It's my opinion that "barter" systems are the worst possible form of trade in video games. They completely disrespect other people's time, and arbitrarily forces them to engage in the unpleasant trade process with a very high chance of either neutral or negative interaction. The rare positive interactions are not worth it.

That said, GGG has their head up their ass about this, always has, and likely always will. I'll settle for some trade improvements that facilitate faster/smoother transactions. As someone who completely fucking hates phones, I don't want an app for this either. I want in-game fixes to this problem, because that's where it exists.

Wouldnt a non-skill/non-time consuming trading system though be in contrast with the purpose of trading in the first place? As it is already pointed out trading initial purpose was to be an alternative to wealth acquisition, there have been time that was the better way and times that it was worse. Removing any more levels of difficulty for trading would instantly make it the best way to "win" in the game.

I cant but agree though that the player interaction as of now is quite underwhelming and often toxic too, but human nature is mainly responsible for this.

As for the targeted farming, thats basically the design idea behind divinations cards, thats exactly what GGG had in mind when they added it. Though it isnt working on its own as of now cause the drop rates are balanced around the ability to trade.

"

GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I don't think trade has required any skill in some time. Unless you're completely new to the game and refuse to seek out information about 3rd party tools it's already all but named AH. There's no going back either. Trade will never get any more difficult than it is right now and any in game trade improvements can only make it easier otherwise people will stick with 3rd party.

Personally I think that's why they haven't introduced trade improvements; there's probably no way to improve it in game and not make trade even easier without having to nerf trade overall to balance it out.

The backlash of either scenario probably means keeping the status quo is a safer bet.

Yeap, trading has been almost in an auction-house level for quite some time adding to the insane powercreep too. There is no need though to go back or whatever. We can have a similar in effectiveness trade system without the automation poe.xyz already offers.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Imagine instead if the interface was:
1. Seller lists an item, including a Description box which is free text, the seller can type anything. (There'd need to be a Report feature for hate speech, etc.) Indexers might parse this for prices but the interface wouldn't tell players "type your price here."
2. Buyers can place bids on listings (even multiple bids on the same item, perhaps using different currencies). This means taking currency and putting it in a window with the words "Name Your Price" on top. This bid is escrowed, but the bid can be retracted and refunded at any time voluntarily, or automatically if a competing bid wins.
3. As long as a bid is on a listing, a seller may accept, refuse or ignore it, with the first two choices as the only buttons the interface allows (to ignore, do nothing).

I was literally going to give the same example. This resembles the trade chat system and how it was in open beta. Sellers were posting items in trade chat or forums, buyers then would make their offers in what currency they had, that was like real life auctioneering (NO INSTANT BUYOUTS), it was up to the seller and the buyers then to come to an agreement. And in that system the player's social skills come into play MUCH MUCH more often, they still do dont get me wrong but god i miss the conversations i had back then.

Now polish that mechanic and make a solid interface, add it IN the game, remove the ability from indexers to scan for items, and see the world burn, and from the ashes a new one will emerge. Well thats over-dramatic.

regarding ScrotieMcB's trading solution, i'm afraid players will solve all those limits you put on them with tools outside of the game.


community driven development and the direction ggg went with making trade info public looks genius and fine but not without problems: it gives tech savy players a huge advantage and in the worst case it could even lead to players charging real money for access to their external tools that analyze the trade data stream ...

@Regulator

I don't think indexers are a bad thing. I do think seller-dominated pricing is a bad thing, but they do need to make some kind of indication of what they'd like to receive, so going to the opposite extreme is bad too.

@vio

I was talking about affordances, not limits; they are as different as suggestions are from rules. Nothing I described would really be a change from the rules as they are now, but giving buyers the perception of control over pricing would lead to more buyers exerting a control over prices which they currently have but rarely use.

"

vio wrote:

regarding ScrotieMcB's trading solution, i'm afraid players will solve all those limits you put on them with tools outside of the game.

Players have essentially forced an AH into the game as it is, regardless of GGG's original intent. GGG needs to rethink that intent if they are serious about making "trade improvements" at all.

As for player interaction:

"

Trade is the only thing that actually incentivizes a bit of interaction... after all PoE is multiplayer isnt it?

Technically? Yes. Effectively? Not so much. There are ways they could remedy this, but partying is a far superior method of encouraging interaction than trading will ever be--especially as long as a barter system is used (turning it into a who-can-scam-who ordeal). This is one of the main reasons players default to poe.trade instead of trade chat (to say nothing of the bots/RMTers). So how can we make partying with other players more attractive?

1a. The notion that soloing gives each player 100% of the loot they find.

1b. Partying splits this loot up.
From the wiki:

"

Each player after the first adds a bonus +10% Increased item quantity and 40% Increased item rarity to the party. For skill gems and currency items, party members add 50% Increased item quantity and 0% Increased item rarity.

2 Players:
110% quantity / 2 = 55% items for each player.
150% currency / 2 = 75% currency.

3 Players:
120% / 3 = 40% items
200% / 3 = 67% currency

4 PLayers:
130% / 4 = 32.5% items
250% / 4 = 62.5% currency

The interesting thing here is the 40% IIR per extra player... 140%/180%/220%. The implications are that if you are working in a coordinated group (friends/clan), you can optimize this system for substantial gains (like using an MF/Culler).

The drawback is that this is rarely (if ever) the case with randoms. Even with the IIR, having to split the loot so harshly discourages party play with strangers. In fact, this used to be a point of competition before Permanent Allocation existed in the game, and this turned many players off.

Add the fact that many people have figured out builds (or can just copy one from a streamer) to clear content extremely fast on their own, and the incentive to share that loot is diminished even more.

This is why games like Torchlight 2, Diablo 3, Warframe, and others have moved to a system where each player gets their own "instance" of the loot. They may not always get the same items, but they always have the same number of chances for it. This makes sense too, because if people are just going to solo anyway just to have their own loot, this removes that issue and encourages people to play together for the potential benefits implied by teamwork.


I have a few other point to expand upon in greater detail, but I have to leave right now, so I'll be happy to flesh those out later. Maybe you can guess what those issues might be simply by the topics themselves:

-Auras
-GFX
-Summoners/Pets and their interaction with the UI
-Map Portal Limits

Anyway, I'll see you all soon. Think about it.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

Here's an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNF3aaPBjQU

He uses over 800 orbs. He probably could have just bought one for less than that.

But "crafting is fine." This guy is a professional streamer. All he does is play. People with jobs don't have the time to simply amass that kind of currency to do this, but somehow they should be excluded from enjoying some of the best things the game has to offer? Because of shit RNG? Bullshit.

Just wanted to point out that it is factually incorrect for him to have been able to purchase that bow 6 linked for cheaper, assuming of course he had the bow from a previous run he did and didn't just purchase it.

Lets look at the current price of a 6 link of that bow, the cheapest are 8ex, but are corrupted, some have the colors he might want, but it removes the easiness of flexibility for the build. But even if he purchased a corrupted one for 8ex he would have spent more then the cost to link that himself.

Fusings are around 150:1ex in the PSC (can get more). So his total cost for 800fusings is around 5.3 ex.

Lets also consider the fact that a non corrupted 6 link goes for 10ex. Even if you purchased the bow and spent that much fusings on it you would still have saved money, lets also consider it would cost .5ex or less in jewelers to 6 socket it too.

So his total cost was at the most extreme 6ex, netting a savings of over 2ex off the corrupted one and 4ex off the non corrupted one.

I guess he could have tried to sell his bow for 3ex, then just buy a 6 link, even then he would be coming out behind, plus he has to worry about divining the bow for a better roll or maybe being limited on the sockets.


But lets be honest here, you shouldn't be viewing chroming, fusing or jeweling as crafting. Yes these can help you improve your gear, but it does so more by making it useable rather then giving you stats like actual crafting does, you know +res, +life, whatever.


In terms of crafting, you view it as a failure because Poe's system is more designed to sink currency then it is to reward players for the investment, when there was a reward for investment, people complained because various items were BiS and trying to compete with those players was impossible, hell it still is. However you can master craft stuff (him craft stuff, that sounds familiar), this allows you to improve gear with a various roll(s). There is the whole scour trick which can be used to create almost perfect gear, abit really expensive.


In terms of buying from another player being cheaper, no shit they aren't invested into the item and they know it is also easier to just buy an item off another player if they can get the currency from selling an item to you. Its a process that works alright for this game, some games do different things, but I haven't heard a single suggestion that builds upon the PoE system, but rather stuff that would replace it. I fell in love with this game because of the systems it had, master crafting, while I dislike it for the most part supplements the system.

In terms of no crafting is viable its just better to buy, well that is up to you. I've demonstrated here that it can be cheaper to "craft" depending on goals. Hell reddit has a thread about how people can get more out of rare amulets (and i guess iron rings) by converting them. Perhaps play the game and participate.

"

goetzjam wrote:

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

Here's an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNF3aaPBjQU

He uses over 800 orbs. He probably could have just bought one for less than that.

But "crafting is fine." This guy is a professional streamer. All he does is play. People with jobs don't have the time to simply amass that kind of currency to do this, but somehow they should be excluded from enjoying some of the best things the game has to offer? Because of shit RNG? Bullshit.

Just wanted to point out that it is factually incorrect for him to have been able to purchase that bow 6 linked for cheaper, assuming of course he had the bow from a previous run he did and didn't just purchase it.

Lets look at the current price of a 6 link of that bow, the cheapest are 8ex, but are corrupted, some have the colors he might want, but it removes the easiness of flexibility for the build. But even if he purchased a corrupted one for 8ex he would have spent more then the cost to link that himself.

Fusings are around 150:1ex in the PSC (can get more). So his total cost for 800fusings is around 5.3 ex.

Lets also consider the fact that a non corrupted 6 link goes for 10ex. Even if you purchased the bow and spent that much fusings on it you would still have saved money, lets also consider it would cost .5ex or less in jewelers to 6 socket it too.

So his total cost was at the most extreme 6ex, netting a savings of over 2ex off the corrupted one and 4ex off the non corrupted one.

I guess he could have tried to sell his bow for 3ex, then just buy a 6 link, even then he would be coming out behind, plus he has to worry about divining the bow for a better roll or maybe being limited on the sockets.


But lets be honest here, you shouldn't be viewing chroming, fusing or jeweling as crafting. Yes these can help you improve your gear, but it does so more by making it useable rather then giving you stats like actual crafting does, you know +res, +life, whatever.


In terms of crafting, you view it as a failure because Poe's system is more designed to sink currency then it is to reward players for the investment, when there was a reward for investment, people complained because various items were BiS and trying to compete with those players was impossible, hell it still is. However you can master craft stuff (him craft stuff, that sounds familiar), this allows you to improve gear with a various roll(s). There is the whole scour trick which can be used to create almost perfect gear, abit really expensive.


In terms of buying from another player being cheaper, no shit they aren't invested into the item and they know it is also easier to just buy an item off another player if they can get the currency from selling an item to you. Its a process that works alright for this game, some games do different things, but I haven't heard a single suggestion that builds upon the PoE system, but rather stuff that would replace it. I fell in love with this game because of the systems it had, master crafting, while I dislike it for the most part supplements the system.

In terms of no crafting is viable its just better to buy, well that is up to you. I've demonstrated here that it can be cheaper to "craft" depending on goals. Hell reddit has a thread about how people can get more out of rare amulets (and i guess iron rings) by converting them. Perhaps play the game and participate.

He's playing on HC PC so a shit tier RoTC is like 200 chaos. Even a really good one that is 6 linked is like 600 chaos depending on the seller. He for sure would have saved money just buying a 6 linked and then divining it most likely.