anti-fun systems

"

PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

This is where I would like to assume that an average solo self found person wouldn't be too keen to not do the chaos recipe. That does start to border on mandatoriness of doing the chaos recipe, but you are also introducing more variables such as choosing to go solo self found versus light trading/heavy trading against GGG's design aim. It gets messy and I can already see more bickering about particulars ensuing.

I don't play solo self found, I just dislike trade, which is why I don't flip or sell much. Which is fine, I have all the equipment I need, I don't need to get more wealthy.

But the game imposes a wealth generation mechanism not in order to get item upgrades, but to play the game. Which makes some form of wealth generation mandatory if you want to actually go beyond T10 maps or so, and even if you are fine with T10s, you will run out of Alch orbs.

And btw, I do know that flipping can be very advantageous, I made about 10ex in Standard purely by flipping a bit within a week or two. It is efficient, it is annoying, and it also makes me feel bad for stealing other people's currency.

"

Char1983 wrote:

But the game imposes a wealth generation mechanism not in order to get item upgrades, but to play the game. Which makes some form of wealth generation mandatory if you want to actually go beyond T10 maps or so, and even if you are fine with T10s, you will run out of Alch orbs.

Did you mean to say chaos? I've struggled with alchemy orbs in the past, especially this league earlier on when I was first hitting that T10 mark but never really ran out and never been concerned about them.


I wasn't trying to flat out deny your type of scenario from happening. Just looking at my own personal experience, and what I have seen of actual SSF players, in assuming that the chaos recipe isn't super tedious to people that choose to play like that most of the time. I could be wrong though and there is a silent mass of people who try to avoid trading as long as possible/don't have enough stash tabs for their purposes and then chaos recipe becomes tediously mandatory but I am having trouble deciding what the odds of that are since I haven't seen too much evidence of it.

So I am aware that my view is biased, but at this moment, I feel people that have solo self found-like gaming habits don't find chaos recipe to be that big of a pain that borders into mandatory territory. Otherwise at the very least, I would like to think they are neutral towards stashing chaos recipe items.

"

Char1983 wrote:

And btw, I do know that flipping can be very advantageous, I made about 10ex in Standard purely by flipping a bit within a week or two. It is efficient, it is annoying, and it also makes me feel bad for stealing other people's currency.

The average flipping profit (meaning: profit from middleman trading, NOT enhanced value for end user and original farmer) is zero. If you buy low and sell high, that is profit for you... but it's buying high and selling low for others, so it's a loss for them. Zero sum game.

So what's really going on here is: some players are sacrificing in-game reward to spend less time trading, others - who presumably hate trading less - receive that reward for their assistance in facilitating trade. This creates an equilibrium - there is a certain price point, determined by market forces of supply and demand for human labor, where flipping becomes the choice of just enough players to facilitate the easy trade of all the other players.

The common myth is that easy trade facilitates flipping. This is false (except for bot-assisted flipping) because flipping isn't trade in general, flipping is middleman trading and therefore predicated upon the original farmer's and end user's dislike of trading. The better trade is, the more those two entities "flip their own stuff" and disregard flippers.

So in short, flipping is a free market jobs program giving in-game reward to players who collectively do the work which developers fail to do in making trade fun and/or efficient (and developers will always fall short of perfection, so flipping will always exist). While I agree that this tends towards the bad model I described earlier - paying players for "work" - it's strictly superior to its (hypothetical) absence, because it has the players most willing doing a job which really deserves to be done. Plus, a few weirdos genuinely enjoy it.

Scrotie, your trade talk is utter bullshit, and you know it. Look at the real world, same example. Still, some people are billionaires. The wealth accumulates at the flippers. I just don't like flipping much because it feels like ripping other people off. It also is zero fun. Do you like the real-world market system? No? The majority of people probably don't. Then why is GGG trying to re-create a system that is known to cause frustration in the majority of people in a game? Sorry, probably too fundamental a question.

You are right though that easy trade does not (necessarily) facilitate flipping.

As for being SSF, I am still not. And I have to constantly buy Alch orbs. I think if I would vendor more rares, I would get more Alchs, but I don't because there is no point and no fun in picking up trash rares. I take about a third half an inventory full of rares from the average map, and I do not find enough alchs to alch my maps.

IRL I'm a pretty staunch advocate of capitalism. Invisible hand of Adam Smith and whatnot. But that's because I believe the purpose of a real-world economy isn't to solve puzzles for entertainment, but to solve problems for practicality.

The important part, which you may have missed, is that flipping breaks the fourth wall. It's not a game system so much as people fixing a problem in the game and getting paid in-game items instead of real money. The demand, in this case, is for human labor, which isn't a game object but a real one. That's pretty amazing when you think about it; motherfuckers are working for peanuts.

When a non-flipper trades to a flipper, they are paying another human in in-game currency to smooth over problems developers failed to address. Much like spending real money on a third-party mod which improves upon the UI of a game so you'll enjoy it more. I definitely don't think that the mod creator is a bad guy in that situation, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing if that mod is outrageously popular. Such things are symptomatic of underlying problems.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

I believe the purpose of a real-world economy isn't to solve puzzles for entertainment, but to solve problems for practicality.

I guess capitalism is one of those things where it only works if everyone believes in it, because capitalism as she is played sure creates a fuckton of problems. Sorry, off-topic...

"

The important part, which you may have missed, is that flipping breaks the fourth wall. It's not a game system so much as people fixing a problem in the game and getting paid in-game items instead of real money. The demand, in this case, is for human labor, which isn't a game object but a real one. That's pretty amazing when you think about it; motherfuckers are working for peanuts.

When a non-flipper trades to a flipper, they are paying another human in in-game currency to smooth over problems developers failed to address. Much like spending real money on a third-party mod which improves upon the UI of a game so you'll enjoy it more. I definitely don't think that the mod creator is a bad guy in that situation, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing if that mod is outrageously popular. Such things are symptomatic of underlying problems.

I read this a couple times, and I still don't understand what problem flippers are solving. The problem of items being sold too cheaply? Over time, or as flippers work in a market system, they raise the price floor of the items that they flip. Is that a good thing? And when the market is saturated, what are the flippers going to do, are they going to say "Great, I guess there's no reason for me to flip anymore, problem solved!"?
As you say, flippers operate in a zero-sum system, so every good deal that a flipper pounces on is directly taken from another (non-flipper) player. I fail to see how that either benefits the economy or is any fun.

Personally, I would sell my items more cheaply out of charity, if I didn't believe that I would be providing an advantage to flippers by doing so.

In find it EXTREMELY ironic people hamper on the 'optional' part but have no issue with aggregating 'FUN' as if there is a uniform fun meter. it's actually quite sad.

what recipes provide to a player is a concept of choice- you can CHOOSE to do it or NOT to do it. people arguing about it always being efficient are wrong - at some point in the game it becomes less efficient time-wise to check vendors and do chaos recipes (especially if you run high maps, then you get regals instead and you know...regals arent worth much nowadays)

the game asks you to find that breakpoint yourself. or be slightly inefficient sometimes and choose your own fun, if recipes arent fun to you.

there is no choice if the chaos rate is increased but for it you get less rare sets dropped. and in fact, I would rather have more GEAR drops than CHAOS drops, because PoE is built upon loot as a major pillar. As such, I want to id rare gear, not get an extra chaos.

the whole concept of the op is fallacious in a way that it effectively is asking to remove choice, and that it ignores similar instances of it

thats like saying, game encourages you to pick up wisdom scrolls and rare gear.
no, it's just AT SOME POINT in the game it might be efficient or beneficial to you to collect wisdom scrolls or rare gear. and at some point, you might have 100 exalts. then it probably isnt worth for you at all to pick up bad rare bases or wisdom scrolls- doesnt mean you can't do it if you want to roleplay scrooge.

choices are beautiful- if you're trying to take away choices, at least have a proper justification. using 'fun' as a justification is about as non-descriptive as it can be. I reject your deposit.

"

ThatsSoGoodman wrote:

I read this a couple times, and I still don't understand what problem flippers are solving. The problem of items being sold too cheaply? Over time, or as flippers work in a market system, they raise the price floor of the items that they flip. Is that a good thing? And when the market is saturated, what are the flippers going to do, are they going to say "Great, I guess there's no reason for me to flip anymore, problem solved!"?
As you say, flippers operate in a zero-sum system, so every good deal that a flipper pounces on is directly taken from another (non-flipper) player. I fail to see how that either benefits the economy or is any fun.

It's the same value-add that "Next-day Shipping Service for extra $5.00" provides. Because GGG likes there to be difficulty in trade, the market will never reach the saturation that you mentioned, mostly because there is imperfect matching of buyer to seller, though poe.trade is slowly inching closer like with its active tracking with notifications, I think, and premium tabs of course make it easier for sellers. Overall, I assume flipping has actually gone down with trade improvements, as ScrotieMcB predicted.

But I'm digressing a bit. As far as I can understand POE economics, flippers enable faster turnover, which in turn allows sooner reinvestment of capital (similar to the Just In Time inventory system). It's paying to the flipper the transaction cost that would instead presumably be rendered in time spent tracking down online players, or trying to perform more comprehensive price analysis.

In theory, at least.

Basically what adghar said.

When you're selling, you probably suspect that, if you were online more often and waited longer, you could probably sell an item for more; if this is true, that item could be flipped. But you probably don't do this, because being online more and waiting longer sucks - in your opinion.

When you're buying, you might notice the offline sellers who are selling an item you'd like cheaper, or someone who's selling but isn't even listing a price. If you waited for the former or tried to haggle with the latter, you might be able to get a better and/or cheaper item; if this is true, that item could be flipped. But you probably don't do this, because dealing with offline sellers and/or haggling sucks - in your opinion.

What flipping represents is: you essentially take a currency penalty to avoid an experience which sucks for you, and someone else received currency to have an experience they either enjoy, or at least enjoy more than you do (because you'll "throw money" at the problem while they won't). While that is potentially a fun system for the flipper (assuming demand isn't so low relative to supply that it doesn't compel those who dislike it), it is certainly an unfun system for non-flippers. Flip, or pay for it.

What a lot of people don't realize is: without flippers, you might not even have a choice. Instead of selling an item cheap to a flipper, you either wait for that special buyer (which sucks)... or the item just sits your stash (until vendored). Instead of buying for a little extra from a flipper, you either wait for that special seller (which sucks)... or your currency just sits in your stash (until consumed).

Success is relative here. A mildly unfun system is better than a horrendously unfun one. And that is the service flipping provides.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

A mildly unfun system is better than a horrendously unfun one.

only if your definition of 'mildly' is 'better' than 'horrendously', in which case it's an obvious tautology :p

just wanna add on to my post... in any procedural games - strategies, tactical rpgs, etc, there are routines. in arpgs the 'mild' routines are the ones that usually dont have to be done during the gameplay- ie combat and traveling through map.

and even then- the act of picking up shit and inventory management, which comes in between combat 'phases', is nothing more than a routine and can be considered 'unfun' by some contingent. so ?