POE.trade is an auction house

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Unquietheart wrote:

Spoiler

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archonmagus wrote:

I dont think people have a good understand of how the auction house worked in diablo3.

I played Diablo 3 when it was new and when it had the Auction House running. I understand exactly how it worked. So do most of the people I've seen objecting to the idea of an AH existing in PoE. That specifically includes Chris Wilson, PoE's lead developer.

He wrote a response to you, and to everyone else who fails to understand how much of an impact an AH would have on the core game play loops. His response covers pretty much every single thing that you, or any other proponent of an AH have ever proposed. It's called the Trade Manifesto, and you can find that here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2679445

I'm certainly not telling you that you have to agree with what he said in there, but if you want to argue the issue, you need a much better understanding of the nature of his ojbections to it.

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archonmagus wrote:

They seem to think blizzard loaded the auction house with items for people to buy with real money.

I've never heard anyone make that mistake.

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archonmagus wrote:

The difference between an auction house and something like poe.trade is you have to whisper someone in game and they come to you open a trade window you put in the items and transaction is done. I have not once even had a conversation with anyone i have traded with, theres no sense of personal connection just a tedious step of waiting for the other player to respond to a whisper or he may no longer have the item.

Yes, and that difference, that friction is part of the design intent. The existing trade system (regardless of the fact that poe.trade or GGG's own trading site facilitate those trades) is designed to work well for small volumes of high value trades. Trades where both parties are highly invested in the trade being successful.

The thing that you, and others like you, misunderstand is: The existing trade system is also designed to work poorly for high volumes of low value trades. Trades where the seller has very little investment in making the trade work.

The inefficiency, that you mistake for bad design, is actually intentional.

While frustrating the player base is not (necessarily) the goal, player frustration is still seen as a driving motivator to discourage excessive trading. It's a "lesser of two evils".

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archonmagus wrote:

I feel everyone is against an AH because so many people blame it for diablo3s initial hickups. The reality is just like POE diablo3 had way too much RNG.

You're incorrect. The speed of progression (through content) is a function of level, passive skill points, and gear. The time it takes the average player (to progress) is one of the single most tightly controlled aspects of any ARPG. That goes for Path of Exile, it goes for Diablo 3, or pretty much any other ARPG you care to name.

That means, the speed at which gear you (believe you) need drops is part of that. There isn't "too much" RNG, there's exactly enough to meet the intersecting needs of the Game Developers and the Player base. Certainly there is friction between those two points of view, but the bottom line is just exactly that, the bottom line. GGG is a for profit business. Dwell time within the game impacts the likelyhood that a given player will spend money on the game.

This is perfectly reasonable, the question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you're getting a fair value (in entertainment) for the money and/or the time you choose to invest. If the answer is "yes" then everything is fine. If the answer is "no" then you should probably consider other entertainment venues, because the existing system (despite what you perceive as a mistaken element), serves the business needs of GGG.

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archonmagus wrote:

I really dont think having an ingame AH would really take away from POE, most people are already using poe.trade as build guides suggest and the insane RNG on completing season challenges pretty much means you need poe.trade to fast track it as i have been grinding it solo and in the end just to get my portal effect i said screw it and traded for a few oils.

I disagree with you. It would cripple the primary game-play loops. Chris Wilson disagrees with you. Blizzard disagrees with you.

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Lylirra wrote:

Q. Why is the auction house system being removed from Diablo III?
The gold and real-money auction houses have provided a convenient and secure system for trading, but it's also become increasingly clear that despite the benefits they provide, they ultimately undermine Diablo’s core gameplay. A big part of Diablo is the thrill of battling demons and finding epic loot. While buying epic loot in the auction houses might be more convenient, it doesn't feel anywhere near as heroic as plowing through a pack of fearsome-looking monsters and having them drop that one awesome item that seems like it was made for your character.

Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/9972208129

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archonmagus wrote:

And the people who were saying they just want an ingame browser to use poetrade thats even dumber of an idea just make a damn auction house. its been going fine in wow. not a single person has ever accused wows auction house of ruining the game even at its height of 15 million players. If anything the wow auction house has kept me subscribed for the past 6 years due to it allowing players to make gold easy enough to buy game time

WoW has nothing to do with Diablo 3, nor with PoE. WoW is an MMO. MMOs run on completely different rules and gameplay loops than ARPGs.

Yes, WoW has an AH, lots of MMOs do.

(To name just a few of the key differences):
WoW has a shared overworld where players compete for resources.
All gear (that isn't white qualtiy) in WoW is Bind-on-equip.
Top tier gear in WoW is Bind-on-pickup.
WoW is about large scale groups, working together to defeat elaborate boss encounters.

No MMO AH represents a relevant comparisson (to what an AH would do to PoE). Only Diablo 3 is relevant. Because it's the only ARPG that's ever tried it. And it's extremely telling that Blizzard, with their huge pool of talent to throw at any problem, couldn't manage to make an AH that didn't undermine core gameplay.

This. +1.
I like RNG loot in this game. I can get something expensive I don't need and sell it, to buy something I need. I can negotiate price, had even few funny whispers when I was playing on character named Kim Jong Un. Love it.
I would like to add, that if anyone is feeling forced to trade, he can go play SSF and don't worry about trade anymore. Or if you want to trade with friends only, make your own private league with your own rules!

Only thing I would add is:

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Faster API -
Better updates to when people are afk or offline -

ETC

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MrsDeath_ wrote:

At least half of my friend list does love crafting their own stuff.

Same, I like to tinker my own gear and stuff for sell - usually most expensive rares I sell are self made.

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007Bistromath wrote:

He's kinda got a point. To the best of my knowledge, the most powerful crafting technique right now is still fossils. Delve requires specializing for Delve.

I don't have a delve character this league, but I made few exalted orbs selling fossils. You don't need much time or delve dedicated build to farm fossils - just a little bit of knowledge. If you're interested about learning, msg me and I'll share what I know.


EDIT:
Btw, I also liked auction house in D3, I quit after they changed loot to more personalized - It was a disaster, ruined the game for me.

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Mortyx wrote:

There is only one big flaw in what you described, the game has been balanced around crafting and blocking content access for years now.
And the way they proposed you to craft/access content is making a lot of high volume low value trades.

I've never seen them say that personally, do you have a source for that?

Chris Wilson has specifically said:

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Chris wrote:

Most players who play Path of Exile never trade. Out of the players who do trade, most only complete a few trades in a league. The subset of players who regularly trade strongly overlaps with our core reddit and forum communities.

Source: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2025870

So, I would argue that the percentage of the player base that's actually impacted by a desire to trade in order to craft is much, much smaller than you imagine it is. I would also argue that the dichotomy you perceive between what I said about the trading system design, and any suggestion that high level crafters should depend on that trading system is actually not present.

And I'll completely reject the idea that they're trying to "block" access to content. What they are doing (as I mentioned above) is manage the pace at which players progress through content. The further you go in the game, the less "game" there is left for you to play, and thus the friction to progress must increase.

You see the friction as bad. The devs see it as a tool for managing player behavior, and for managing the speed at which players progress.

I'm sorry if it frustrates you, but I don't see a problem with the design. Nor do I see a better solution that wouldn't just annoy you more. Which is why I said it's a "lesser of two evils".

Would you want to be restricted to a maximum of 6 trades per character? Or would you rather be capable of pushing back against the system with as much effort as you personally feel you can invest? Because that's the sort of trade off the developers have to look at. They could arbitrarily impose trading limits, or they can push the choice down to the level of the individual player.

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Mortyx wrote:

The current trade system punishes everyone that want to actually engage with all the cool things the game has implemented over the years while benefiting those who just trade once for their full gear, grind random maps for a week, say the game is too easy and quit. While those who want to access content or craft their own gear either have to bore themselves to death with the shit trade system OR use bots/macros/etc to do the trading for them.

Yes, the system does punish those who try to over use it. I already said that.

Again, I'm sorry you find it frustrating, but propose a better system that wouldn't destroy core game play. Specifically, core game play for all those who don't trade, all those who only trade for a handful of items per character, or those who play SSF.

Because an AH system would destroy the game for those players, and there are a LOT more of them then there are of of the high end crafter players.

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Nomancs wrote:

Faster API -
Better updates to when people are afk or offline -

ETC

I can agree with that, sounds like a good addition.

I love all of these super geniuses who wish POE's trade system were more like Diablo, despite the fact that Blizzard is changing Diablo to be more like POE because even Blizzard realized after the fact that in-game one click buying was a terrible, terrible idea.

Threads like this prove the old "Hindsight is 20/20" adage wrong.

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I've never seen them say that personally, do you have a source for that?

Chris Wilson has specifically said:

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Chris wrote:

Most players who play Path of Exile never trade. Out of the players who do trade, most only complete a few trades in a league. The subset of players who regularly trade strongly overlaps with our core reddit and forum communities.

Ok, there is also data that states most players(don't remember the correct number but is a lot higher than 50%) don't ever reach act 10 (where the game actually starts), so using these players as a balance standpoint for endgame is not really smart.

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And I'll completely reject the idea that they're trying to "block" access to content. What they are doing (as I mentioned above) is manage the pace at which players progress through content. The further you go in the game, the less "game" there is left for you to play, and thus the friction to progress must increase.
You see the friction as bad. The devs see it as a tool for managing player behavior, and for managing the speed at which players progress.

I'm sorry if it frustrates you, but I don't see a problem with the design. Nor do I see a better solution that wouldn't just annoy you more. Which is why I said it's a "lesser of two evils".

But that's exactly what it is, no matter if the motivation is just, the fact that they are blocking content behind a grind most players can't reliably do by themselves without playing 12+hrs/day is true. People play a game to have fun, there is a lot of people that don't really like to stay in the map grind cycle forever and want something different, be it breachstones, emblems, atzirs, cortex, or Uelder. And most of these encounters are pretty much impossible to access without trading for it.

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Would you want to be restricted to a maximum of 6 trades per character? Or would you rather be capable of pushing back against the system with as much effort as you personally feel you can invest? Because that's the sort of trade off the developers have to look at. They could arbitrarily impose trading limits, or they can push the choice down to the level of the individual player.

Yes, any restriction that don't works with the main intention of frustrating players would be preferable. And if you read any of my posts regarding trading, you would notice that i am in favor of making gear pratically untradable, and focusing mainly on self found gear and crafting. What i want is a not frustrating way to trade for the materials i need (i would not care if they made a system where you could only trade essences for essences or fossils for fossils for example) and to be able to access all the content GGG team put all effort into creating and 99% of the players never even see it.

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Yes, the system does punish those who try to over use it. I already said that.

Again, I'm sorry you find it frustrating, but propose a better system that wouldn't destroy core game play. Specifically, core game play for all those who don't trade, all those who only trade for a handful of items per character, or those who play SSF.

Because an AH system would destroy the game for those players, and there are a LOT more of them then there are of of the high end crafter players.

Wrong again, the current system punish those who "legit use the system" and benefits those who "cheat on trade", be it scammers, price fixers, botters or other 3rd party gray area apps.
But the only way for them to reduce all this 3rd party non sense would be completely removing the API, and allowing it only inside the game (from where it should never have left).

And just to be clear about my point of view, i don't care if the game is focused mostly on trade (in which case trading should be revised) or if they want the game to be completely SSF, the problem is when they choose that middle ground that don't work and will never work.
It might be just my imagination, but from what i read in forums there is an ever increasing tendency of players to move to SSF, not because they want more challenge or whatever, but mostly because trade is ruining their game experience, it's not like they don't like trading, they just came to despise THIS SPECIFIC GAME TRADE SYSTEM.

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Mortyx wrote:

making gear pratically untradable, and focusing mainly on self found gear

This ruined Diablo 3 and killed the game (even in WoW there are ways to buy/sell BOP raid gear - but that is totaly different game and story). To compensate in D3 they just give endgame gear for free to everyone in 1h of playing. Doing so will destroy PoE too.


Trade in PoE is not a problem. I had many funny chats while trading.

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Nomancs wrote:

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Mortyx wrote:

making gear pratically untradable, and focusing mainly on self found gear

This ruined Diablo 3 and killed the game (even in WoW there are ways to buy/sell BOP raid gear - but that is totaly different game and story). To compensate in D3 they just give endgame gear for free to everyone in 1h of playing. Doing so will destroy PoE too.


Trade in PoE is not a problem. I had many funny chats while trading.

Ok let me explain to you what would be one example of a system where "gear is pratically untradable". (even tough PoE itemization and crafting can't be compared with d3 one).

A- Removal of the API.
B- Making so you can only trade one item type for another of the same type (gear for gear, maps for maps, currency for currency, etc).
C- Introducing a NPC with a trading interface:
c1: Players can search items as they already do in the trade site.
c2: Players with premium stashes can link their items to the trade interface setting minimum parameters for what they want in exchange. (so if i have a TS shot enchantment helmet i can set the parameters so only helmets with a MS enchantment can be offered).
c3: Buyers can offer any items they have in any type of stash, as long it respects the minimum parameters set by the seller. (and up to a limit of one offering per item per player)
c4: Items offered are locked until the trade is finalized or 24hours passes. (both the buyer and the seller can cancel their offering at any time)
c5: Players can then interact with the trade interface to see what offers they have for their items and either accept or reject them.
c6: if the offer is accept the corresponding items go to a special trade remove only stash.

So, what would be the consequences of a system like this? i am going to bold everything that the developers have already stated as desirable.

It Does not solve price fixing/false listing (but make so it is less efficient).
It discourages playing the game with filters that only shows currency and ignoring everything else.
It hinders RMT impact in the economy.
It can possibly exacerbate the "content access problem".
It keeps players from alt tabbing every few seconds to go to a trade site.
It removes the ability of 3rd party sites to gather item information (RIP PoeNinja, TradeMacro, PoeMaps) .
It keeps premium stashes premises
It goes along PoE core idea of players exchanging things instead of using money.
It reduces the ability to use the market to heavily accelerate progress in the game.
It makes uniques harder to trade (but still possible).
It does not solve BOT problem (but hardly exacerbate it).
It removes the disruption of gameplay to finish a trade.
It keeps being a time sink (you have to setup your listed items, look for offerings, etc).

So what do you think? Do the the pros outweigh the cons?

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Unquietheart wrote:

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Mortyx wrote:

There is only one big flaw in what you described, the game has been balanced around crafting and blocking content access for years now.
And the way they proposed you to craft/access content is making a lot of high volume low value trades.

I've never seen them say that personally, do you have a source for that?

It doesn't have to be said directly, it's an obvious deduction from how the system is set.

You get 10% chance to interact with any 'non master' mechanic which isn't a zana-mod for each specific map. Those 10% then are further watered down in what they'll give you as a possible reward, either by the faction spawning (breach, legion) or directly with the spawned rewards (essence).

Also a large portion of content provides unique mechanics for crafting rather then 'direct' rewards, people run delve for fossils, bosses and maps, not for the random loot it spawns, this is only a side-effect. Also Essence for example is a pure crafting league.

All this gives a heavy incentive to move towards trade to either buy the possible rewards (rare uniques, crafted items) directly or gain access to those mechanics personally. The chance to obtain many items personally without trade is nearly non-existant.

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Unquietheart wrote:

So, I would argue that the percentage of the player base that's actually impacted by a desire to trade in order to craft is much, much smaller than you imagine it is. I would also argue that the dichotomy you perceive between what I said about the trading system design, and any suggestion that high level crafters should depend on that trading system is actually not present.

That's the common misconception here though. Obviously the amount of players affected by the current situation is small. But the reason why there are so few players trading at all is also the fault of the current situation. Trading feels awful, nobody complains about the trades with 1ex+, people complain about those in the lower spectrum.

Those affect people who search for large quantities of crafting materials (post end-game) as well as beginners (low-tier maps, low-tier upgrades) as they are affected the most. The middle-ground is affected the least, neither will they invest a hefty sum into crafting a very specific item nor do they need access to low-quality maps and equipment.

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Unquietheart wrote:

And I'll completely reject the idea that they're trying to "block" access to content. What they are doing (as I mentioned above) is manage the pace at which players progress through content. The further you go in the game, the less "game" there is left for you to play, and thus the friction to progress must increase.

I absolutely disagree with this statement. It's an option, but I personally deem it a sub-optimal one. The same effect can be acquired with deterministic slow-paced upgrades as well as linear scaling mechanics. Both aren't used at the moment.

What I simply want to say is that your mentioned (and used by GGG) way isn't the non-plus-ultra, there are ways to gain the same effects without frustrating the player. Gradual but slow progress where you can see even small changes or at least progression feels a lot better then no progress at all with the small chance to obtain massive progress suddenly.
That's why the crafting-mechanic of Last Epoch feels so immensely good in comparison, though sadly it's not providing a long-term possibility to do it (yet).

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Unquietheart wrote:

I'm sorry if it frustrates you, but I don't see a problem with the design. Nor do I see a better solution that wouldn't just annoy you more. Which is why I said it's a "lesser of two evils".

I can give an example how one solution would feel better. I'm going to use the Incursion-mechanic for it, as well as providing an example for how that's already been implemented via another mechanic in the game, es well as the impact it had:

At the current moment it's fully RNG-based if you'll get any specific room, you run through it, you gain access to a room and from then onward it's solely luck-based if that room gets to a 'useful' state or stays a 'dud'.

By changing that mechanic to filling a bar for that respective room and allowing to shape the temple fully to one's own needs it would immediately make the whole mechanic feel a lot better. People can work their way up towards a corruption-room via a deterministic way, they can apply the best rooms into one 'big' run or simply throw the unwanted rooms into a 'trash-run' simply to kill the omnitect. It gives power of choice to the players, even if the overall speed of achieving any single room becomes slower.


We can already see how it worked out with the master-rework. Formerly it was fully RNG which master was on a map and how often one appeared, since we now stack charges for them and people can personally choose the reception of this mechanic has become purely positive. Formerly people complained about it becoming boring as they had no choice.

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Unquietheart wrote:

Would you want to be restricted to a maximum of 6 trades per character? Or would you rather be capable of pushing back against the system with as much effort as you personally feel you can invest? Because that's the sort of trade off the developers have to look at. They could arbitrarily impose trading limits, or they can push the choice down to the level of the individual player.

Let's say 1 trade-slot per premium-tab and 4 trade-slots per quad-tab. This way the invested amount of money per person stays the same.
Yes, I would definitely be up for that, we already have arbitrary trade-limits (premium-tab space.) and have to decide which items we're going to sell as managing them long-term becomes a large chore (Since there's no easy way to properly price-check the large amount of rolls).

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Unquietheart wrote:

Again, I'm sorry you find it frustrating, but propose a better system that wouldn't destroy core game play. Specifically, core game play for all those who don't trade, all those who only trade for a handful of items per character, or those who play SSF.

Good enough.

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Mortyx wrote:

Ok let me explain to you what would be one example of a system where "gear is pratically untradable". (even tough PoE itemization and crafting can't be compared with d3 one).

(...)
B- Making so you can only trade one item type for another of the same type (gear for gear, maps for maps, currency for currency, etc).
(...)

I don't want to be forced to trade gear for gear, because if I'm selling 20ex worth wartcher's eye and the guy is offering me 3x neck, 1x 6L armour, 1x boots and some ring in exchange - how would it be profitable for me? If I don't need those items, even if they are worth in total around 20ex on market, they're worthless to me because I don't need them and I wouldn't want to waste time trying to sell them waiting for inflation/drop in value, to kill the profit. Forcing to barter would kill the trade.

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Mortyx wrote:

C- Introducing a NPC with a trading interface:
(...)

So I could just list my items for sale and log off for a day, to come back and just collect profit? I think this is going against online trade where both sides need to be present. I just could make a offline bank character on dedicated account to just handle trade while gaming undisturbed on my main, like in MMO.

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Mortyx wrote:

It discourages playing the game with filters that only shows currency and ignoring everything else.

No, nothing would change. I wouldn't change my filters at all. I still would check many items on the league start, and pick only best stuff after two or three weeks because I would be already geared and "rich".

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Mortyx wrote:

It hinders RMT impact in the economy.

How so? Only if you would remove trade between 2 players. And that would kill any cooperation with friends. RMT are outside poe.trade. Even without trade window, they can give items with guild stash.

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Mortyx wrote:

It keeps players from alt tabbing every few seconds to go to a trade site.

I would still alt tab for any other stuff, like yt, fb, news, netflix... Instead of alt tabing I would be forced to go to some npc, probably in Oriath, and this takes way more time.

[quote="Mortyx" realm="pc"]
It removes the ability of 3rd party sites to gather item information (RIP PoeNinja, TradeMacro, PoeMaps) .
[/quote]
yeah, but this is not a good thing. You wouldn't know about drop rates etc. All this data would be hidden by GGG.

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Mortyx wrote:

It goes along PoE core idea of players exchanging things instead of using money.

It would go against "need to be online for trade".

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Mortyx wrote:

It makes uniques harder to trade (but still possible).

Rather untradeable - I wouldn't want to sell Headhunter for tab full of junk I wouldn't have any use for.

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Mortyx wrote:

It removes the disruption of gameplay to finish a trade.

It removes the need to be in game in the first place.



For me it would overcomplicate a simple system. What for? To make offline trades using dedicated bank characters/accounts? isn't that crossing a line? Enforcing barter rare item for rare item would entirely kill the trade, this is why people invented money (or orbs in PoE).


But at the end it does not matter what me or you think about trade system.

Chris Wilson is a boomer