Do I have to pay money to use the item trading system?

I am an ssf player, but I decided to play trade this league, as being constantly messaged for items is why I play ssf. The way the new trade system was implemented, was exactly how I have wanted it to be for years, so I was looking forward to playing a league in trade, having a different experience, and trying a build I could never make normally.

So I go to faustus, and see:

This account has no stashes available [MTX Shop]

I have plenty of premium tabs, do I need to buy 'merchant tabs' to use the item trading?

I plan to go back to ssf next league, so I no interest in buying these.

Also, this is straight up pay to win, and leaves a really bad taste tbh.

so it turns out I can upgrade premium tabs, so I am less bothered by this, do these stay premium in SSF? or have I lost them?

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seaman#4993 wrote:

You will lose them.

great now I get to be disappointed that something so important is behind a paywall, and I have lost my ssf tabs too :(

The best explanation I have heard is that trading with the listings has always behind a paywall, needing the premium tabs. So if it was free it would mean trading is no longer behind the pay wall. They allowed upgrading of old tabs because of this I think, as players had already paid for the trade buy purchasing premium tabs.

Loosing a tab is a bit annoying, particularly as you mentioned for SSF where there is nothing gained, if you play both, as I also do. Perhaps they should just of added one tab free if players had old enough tabs purchased.

For me the bigger problem was that it was confusing to navigate the purchase and function. I ended up buying a second tab because I didn't understand the upgrade page and didn't see it available from Faustus when interacting with him in act6. As well as encountering differences between the POE1 and 2 shops.