A plea for official bots

GGG already realized that limiting access to skill gems is annoying and useless. So they gave us gem vendors.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to also have

A) zana sell all maps for chaos
B) "all currency exchange" vendors at slightly expensive, but somewhat reasonable rates.

Would it hurt the economy if you could buy an ex for 100 or 120c, effectively putting a cap on its exchange rate?

Would we burn out that much sooner if we could buy a missing tier15 map for 15c?

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Peterlerock wrote:

Would we burn out that much sooner if we could buy a missing tier15 map for 15c?

Filling up the Atlas and progressing through the endgame would be significantly faster without a doubt.

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Fruz wrote:

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Peterlerock wrote:

Would we burn out that much sooner if we could buy a missing tier15 map for 15c?

Filling up the Atlas and progressing through the endgame would be significantly faster without a doubt.

Yes, I guess. But that's a good thing, isn't it? If you can complete the map and afford it, then you should be able to run it without whispering x people who don't reply...

So yeah, if Zana sold more maps at non-exorbitant prices, a lot of trade complaints would disappear. Problem is how to determine what is "non-exorbitant" and how to change it over the course of a league. Zana is pointless (outside of SSF) if the maps are much more expensive than on the market. Zana causes inflation / faster rush to 100/ etc... if she is cheaper than the market.

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SisterBlister wrote:

Yes, I guess. But that's a good thing, isn't it? If you can complete the map and afford it, then you should be able to run it without whispering x people who don't reply...

Or you could run with cheap MF gear and just buy every map while running only blue maps until shaper.

That's extreme of course, but still ...

Map sales would have to be handled carefully; map drops are a large part of the profit from running higher maps.

I don't mind NPCs with fixed rates, but it should leave some room for trade to be profitable. Currency would have to be able to be bought from vendors in bulk though.

Bots! Bots!
Official bots!!

xD

Only NPC i would appreciate would be Zana having ALL maps with cleared atlas bonus in unlimited amount with price like 5c per T16 map, scaled down to 1alch for T1.

I would still buy occasionally maps from players, well rolled maps (like 140/40), this would be biggest QoL improvement since adding gem vendors.

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Peterlerock wrote:

GGG already realized that limiting access to skill gems is annoying and useless.

GGG fun fact: Added Chaos damage support doesn't get sold by NPC vendors. When I first stumbled across this, I wrote a bug report because I couldn't believe they wouldn't sell an ordinary, non-unique, non-white gem intentionally. Replies indicated they do (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2227674).

I also don't get what was supposed to be so "top-secret" about white gems (portal and detonate mines) to make them drop only.

Not selling unique gems seems understandable but on the other hand inconsequential since they occasionally do get offered by masters.

Unique gems are also an interesting example for our discussion. If they get offered by a master, the price is 1 Divine orb. On the player market, you get a clean level 1 enlighten for 5+ C; empower and enhance are just 1 C.
The official ratio sets a maximum price far above the player market. It demonstrates how "price cap" ratios could work, although an official ratio should be set closer to the player market.


If your main goal is to stomp out illegal trading bots by taking away their market you could reach that with tiny effort and 100% effectivity by setting strict ratios for NPC vendors offering all kinds of currency exchange.
The only downside for players would be that this would make human flipping pointless too. It is a matter of taste whether you want human flipping to be a factor of POE or not. To me, the "wall street" aspects of the the game are just as foreign to the ARPG concept as the "Tomb Raider" content in the labyrinth. To me the point of a hack'n'slay game is to hack and slay and not to flip currency, but I realise a vocal part of the community (whether it's a majority or not I don't know) wants to keep it, and unlike the labyrinth, it doesn't really annoy me. For GGG, the downside of a strict ratio would be that there was no reason to keep different orbs any longer. You could easily convert both drops and crafting costs into gold currency, thus making currency stash tabs obsolete. That's probably the decisive factor that guarantees volatile ratios for the future and makes any discussion about gold currency or strict ratios pointless from the beginning on.

If your main goal is to ensure availability of all kinds of orbs, setting guidelines for player market prices and making trade less annoying without destroying human flipping, probably quantity restricted trade like master's special offers could be a solution. If, for example, Zana sells once a day 10 C for 22 fusings, this would satisfy the needs of casual players without limiting large trades. It would give guidlines to the player market just like the current alt/jew/fus master conversions do without replacing it because of the quantity barrier. Human flipping could concentrate on flipping larger amounts, without wasting time on small trades with small profits.
Most important, especially for SSF, was an option to convert different upgrade chains (like chrom to fus and vice versa) or get a downgrade option (like chrom and fus to jew).

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Marxone wrote:

Only NPC i would appreciate would be Zana having ALL maps with cleared atlas bonus in unlimited amount with price like 5c per T16 map, scaled down to 1alch for T1.

thanks for illustrating the problem. *facepalm*