poe.xyz.is = The "auction house" that everyone thought we didn't need?

It's not bizarre. What was bizarre was not taking advantage of an enormous player community to create value, basically, for free.

I think u need to research how this game was funded and made, to understand the mentality of the founders.

I'd love to see more user-generated content. Has worked for a website or two...

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vulcanfury12 wrote:

Drop rates are pretty shitty as is right now. If it weren't, I wouldn't have had to go to xyz to replace my Mightflay after 22 levels of using it. 3 months of playing and I've only seen an exalt once, and 5L four times 2 crappy base armors and 2 crappy base 2h swords). And eith the existence of Poexchange, your precious ARPG is now essentially an economy sim with a side of mobslaying.

If you aim for a specific weapon type, it's getting harder to find upgrades but you can maximize the efficiency of the build.

Back in the days when I was leveling as 1H melee build in Nemesis, I didn't have to find weapon since I didn't really find necessity of replacing Mightyflay for long. Also I didn't have to stick to a specific weapon type because I had decided to not go for dagger build right away. When I finally found a good sword through Merveil runs switching to MF gears for the last hit, I had 10+ possible upgrades in the stash. And I decided to go for sword build though I could start picking dagger nodes and use one of 2 daggers (one with top physical mods w/o attack speed, one with balanced mods.)

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finisterre wrote:

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vulcanfury12 wrote:

Drop rates are pretty shitty as is right now. If it weren't, I wouldn't have had to go to xyz to replace my Mightflay after 22 levels of using it. 3 months of playing and I've only seen an exalt once, and 5L four times 2 crappy base armors and 2 crappy base 2h swords). And eith the existence of Poexchange, your precious ARPG is now essentially an economy sim with a side of mobslaying.

If you aim for a specific weapon type, it's getting harder to find upgrades but you can maximize the efficiency of the build.

Back in the days when I was leveling as 1H melee build in Nemesis, I didn't have to find weapon since I didn't really find necessity of replacing Mightyflay for long. Also I didn't have to stick to a specific weapon type because I had decided to not go for dagger build right away. When I finally found a good sword through Merveil runs switching to MF gears for the last hit, I had 10+ possible upgrades in the stash. And I decided to go for sword build though I could start picking dagger nodes and use one of 2 daggers (one with top physical mods w/o attack speed, one with balanced mods.)

My build is a Scion Reaver that uses no weapon-specific nodes other than the new Axe/Sword with life node. Ideally, it would use swords, but the Mightflay proved too useful. Had I not gone to xyz, I would probably still be using it, and would not break 5k DPS at level 74 (yes, I'm not even a hundred damage above 5k). Simply put, I haven't found anything close to the DPS offered by Mightflay, and I have been farming Piety/Maps for 14 levels now.

It sucks because the other "economical" method of upgrading gear (alch'n'go, if you don't like the result, alch another white you find) is just as layered in RNG as actually finding a replacement from farming. The rare rustic + whetstone + weapon recipe can only get you so far.

I don't understand the logic for removing the in-game currency "auction house" from Diablo 3.

I never thought auction systems were a bad idea.

In PoE an automated auction system just won't work properly since there is no universal currency, or universal exchange value which an automatic system could use for conversion.

Sellers could set their own conversion rates for auctions, but that makes the auctions confusing and potentially exploitative. It wouldn't be particularly confusing if the auctions were in 1 currency of the seller's choice, but the problem then is that there's not enough granularity for auctioning a large number of items to precise enough values. (items worth 1-2 divine or 1-2 exalted or 1-2 eternals wouldn't really sell well in auctions) I guess it's better than nothing though.

yes it is kinda like the auction house and its great. Only thing bad is that you need to wait to person to become online, become not afk and actually made a bargain process and trade. In-game ah with bids and no b/os would be great addition to xyz

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Xapti wrote:

I don't understand the logic for removing the in-game currency "auction house" from Diablo 3.

I never thought auction systems were a bad idea.

In PoE an automated auction system just won't work properly since there is no universal currency, or universal exchange value which an automatic system could use for conversion.

Sellers could set their own conversion rates for auctions, but that makes the auctions confusing and potentially exploitative. It wouldn't be particularly confusing if the auctions were in 1 currency of the seller's choice, but the problem then is that there's not enough granularity for auctioning a large number of items to precise enough values. (items worth 1-2 divine or 1-2 exalted or 1-2 eternals wouldn't really sell well in auctions) I guess it's better than nothing though.

The problem I had with D3 was the RMAH, not the AH. Seems like people also hated the AH for whatever reason.

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mozom wrote:

An auction house isn't the problem, an automated auction house without any player interaction is a problem ie you're wrong.

This is pretty much it. Whatever the solution may be, if it involves automation, it's going to be great at first and then everyone will complain that, "the only way to find gear is by farming the AH and not playing the game". Just like D3

The indexers are not perfect systems, they are annoying at times but they get the job done and prevent the game from turning into an AH simulator.

Tell you what - let's remove in-game trading altogether. Just kill it dead. Change RNG to suit the idea that your lazy ass has to go out and actually kill mobs to find or craft gear. I don't mean make it easy, but not a .000001% chance to drop for anything decent that would suit your class/build.

Then we might have some fun with this game, you know...playing it, not sitting in town sorting through an endless chat spamfest until you quit from boredom or frustration.

What a fucking concept, hmm?

Poe.xyz.is and Procurment pretty much made the game actually worthwhile and simplified the trading/buying aspects to where it needed to be in the first place.
Call it what you want but many people think the same way.

Now i barely even leave the in game trade chat opened and never even try selling stuff there since its a waste of time.

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rrtson wrote:

The first common issue people have with an auction house is that people don't want to play a "trade simulator", and how PoE is supposed to be a dungeon crawler, where you're supposed to find your own gear upgrades and forge your way through the foreboding world of Wraeclast.

I totally get that most players don't want to play a "trade simulator." But I'll have to disagree if what you mean here is that all players don't want to.

So I guess the real question is: to what extent should PoE tolerate the players who do want to play "trade simulator?" Should we try to encourage players to give playing the trade simulator game a try, even if they'd otherwise be predisposed not to, in favor of the more pure hack-and-slash? Should we work on balancing the two options, and if so, do we balance them as mutually exclusive options, or with an eye for your average player to use both from time to time, depending on which tool is more efficient for the given task? Should we discourage players from playing trade simulator, introducing mechanics to ostracize them and seek a different game, because Path of Exile no longer wants them?

There's a lot of opinions here, and the last one — an almost rabid hatred of trading, going so far as to call trading "evil" — is a common one, as evidenced by some of the commentary regarding a suggested self-found league. However, I personally am in the "balancing the two options" "with an eye for your average player to use both from time to time, depending on which tool is more efficient for the given task" group. I believe that for some things in this game, trading should be the most efficient tool in one's toolbox; however, I also believe, with equal fervor, trading should not always be the most efficient tool in one's toolbox.

On its face, this appears to be a rather moderate view, but by now I've learned not to expect moderate views to be well tolerated by this community. To be frank, even this thread seems, perhaps deliberately, to appeal towards the "no trading, all farming" crowd, almost in the way a US politician is suddenly more partisan during primary season.

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rrtson wrote:

People will undoubtedly find/craft valuable gear that they have no intention of ever using, in which someone else would gladly take off their hands. Do we place them in a large crowd and tell them "good luck finding each other"? Or do we develop a system where both parties can transact in a hassle-free manner? I'm betting the latter. Now the question is, how do we reduce the amount of time spent trading, so that everyone can get back to doing what really matters?

This essentially assumes trading is "evil" — something unpleasant to be ended quickly so as to be as pain-free as possible. I believe trading should be more enjoyable. Making it effective in terms of time investment is one way to accomplish this, but I think it utterly misses the point for players who want to play the trading game.

This is the part where someone replies with "trade is poe ez mode, how could they not enjoy it, go back to d3, oh wait no more ah there either trololol." To which I retort: If the hack-and-slash part of Path of Exile was as easy as Hello Kitty Adventure, would that be enjoyable? By the same logic, do you really think playing trading simulator in Diablo 3 was enjoyable? Hell no it wasn't. Some people are actually looking for challenges, not just trying to get what they want on a silver platter.

I believe trading should be viewed as a minigame within the larger ARPG game. This is actually an RPG staple, if you think about it: remember chocobo racing in Final Fantasy VII, or blitzball in FF X? You might critique those minigames in terms of how engaging they actually were, and you might have some very valid points... but the point is that a well-designed minigame is fun in-and-of-itself, while not overly obtrusive (that is, if you don't like the minigame, you can pretty much ignore it and continue playing the main game). This shifts the emphasis away from getting players out of the minigame (trading, in this case) as soon as possible, and instead puts some emphasis on finding ways for them to not gnash their teeth quite so hard during the time they are there.

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rrtson wrote:

People may ask... "well wasn't it the AH that killed D3?" Not exactly. The idea of an auction house is sound. But the biggest issue about D3's auction house was its poor implementation. Namely, the instant buyouts. Blizzard allowed players to sell their items at all hours of the day, 7 days a week, even if the sellers weren't online to do so. Items were held in escrow until a buyer came around to snatch the item for whatever price it was listed at, whereby the buyer would immediately receive the item, and the seller would receive his/her funds. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what killed the auction house idea.

Sigh...

No, sorry. Diablo 3's shitty itemization is what killed the economy. You can't have an in-game economy thrive for very long where the only difference between a best-in-slot Barbarian weapon for beating monsters in the face, and a best-in-slot Wizard weapon for channeling arcane might, is three letters: find "Str," replace with "Int."

The D3 economy was thus doomed to die, and die soon after launch. The instant-buyout auction house sped up trading, and in doing so sped up the demise. It's valid to say the AHs contributed, but they were not at all the cause of death; if the shit itemization was a rattlesnake bite, the auction house system was drinking a fifth of vodka after being bit.

I don't want this misinterpreted as me endorsing an instant-buyout system for Path of Exile. Would it destroy the game? Perhaps, but I don't view it as an inherently bad thing. Is PoE's itemization strong enough to withstand the alcohol, or are there traces of the same rattlesnake venom at play in this game as well? I honestly don't have the answers to those questions; all I have is concern.

I guess not allowing any type of instant buyout is erring on the side of caution, even if it isn't on the side of convenience.

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rrtson wrote:

One common misconception with an auction house / in-game indexer is that people assume the market will be overrun with low-tier items, and only the top-tier items will sell. This is simply untrue. The reason why lower-tier items do not sell as frequently on poe.xyz.is is because most of the users of that site have only discovered that site when they hit end-game, and thus are no longer in the character range to purchase low-level rares/uniques for their characters.

One of my concerns with an official auction house is indeed that the market will be overrun with low-tier items. What I don't understand is how explaining that these items will sell, while they don't know, is supposed to placate said concern. Think about how many low-level items there are on the market now, when sellers know there are very few buyers. Can you imagine the shop junk explosion when, suddenly, a significant number of them actually start selling?

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rrtson wrote:

The last point of concern is that GGG will nerf drop rates in order to offset the immediate availability of items in the auction house, thus making the auction house the only way to progress item-wise...

The drop rates should be tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House, as I'm sure there are those who would prefer to play self-found anyway.

Balancing the game around players who use just one method exclusively is just as dumb as balancing the gme around players who use just one method exclusively. The correct answer is not "balance around those who trade all day," nor is it "balance around those who always farm and never trade." It's "balance around those who do a healthy amount of both." Of course, there's room for debate regarding how much trading is "healthy," but answering that debate with "zero" is kind of contradictory in a thread discussing how auction-house trading should work.