What Do Some "Old School" Gamers Have Against Player Trade?

This game requires trading to reach end game.

I have no problem with that at all.

However, if a game is going to require trading to reach end game, it needs a better trade system than this.

I had 3 friends I brought into POE for Ambush/invasion and every single 1 of them loved playing the game and eventualy left because they couldn't stand the trade system. It is ridiculous to try to explain this crappy system to new players.


"Well 1st you go to "X" 3rd party site and you look up currency ratios, then you go to "Y" forum page to list what you want to sell, but if you want to buy or check prices then go to "Z" 3rd party site which compiles all the stuff listed in the previously mentioned "Y" forum page."


I am not even mentioning trade chat as it is overrun with spamming macroers and impossible to effectively use consistently.

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Consequence wrote:

This game requires trading to reach end game.

I have no problem with that at all.

Whilst this is completely untrue (with the one exception of killing Atziri)

The rest of your statement was correct.

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Amiag wrote:

I have nothing against trade in general, but in the hack and slash genre makes absolutely no sense.

The whole point of this genre is getting stronger through levels and equip so trading basically bypasses half of the game.

In the specific case of poe, trading is also the reason why itemization and crafting problems arent being addressed because as long as you trade, you can skip all that and keep progressing anyway

Personally i think a good solution for poe would have been make currency items not tradeable, that way you could still have had the barter economy just not so dominant as it is now

All this post, but especially the bolded items. Make "currency" effectively BoA - if you drop it, it evaporates; it can't go in a Guild stash, etc. Any economy would be true barter; wildly inefficient, in terms of pricing, but people could still trade valuable A for valuable B. (And by all means improve the trading experience then!). Which fits the feel/theme of the game far better.

Game balance would be rather easier for the devs, and as a bonus RMT would be minimal - unique "selling", mainly, but I' not sure people would bother running bot farms to sell the occasional Kaoms.

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Varana wrote:

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Amiag wrote:

I have nothing against trade in general, but in the hack and slash genre makes absolutely no sense.

The whole point of this genre is getting stronger through levels and equip so trading basically bypasses half of the game.

In the specific case of poe, trading is also the reason why itemization and crafting problems arent being addressed because as long as you trade, you can skip all that and keep progressing anyway

Personally i think a good solution for poe would have been make currency items not tradeable, that way you could still have had the barter economy just not so dominant as it is now

All this post, but especially the bolded items. Make "currency" effectively BoA - if you drop it, it evaporates; it can't go in a Guild stash, etc. Any economy would be true barter; wildly inefficient, in terms of pricing, but people could still trade valuable A for valuable B. (And by all means improve the trading experience then!). Which fits the feel/theme of the game far better.

Game balance would be rather easier for the devs, and as a bonus RMT would be minimal - unique "selling", mainly, but I' not sure people would bother running bot farms to sell the occasional Kaoms.

I think the players would find a fungible SoJ, if that were to happen. "WTS Alpha's Howl for 3 Dream Fragments" or something. Markets always seek efficiency.

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b15h09 wrote:

I think the players would find a fungible SoJ, if that were to happen. "WTS Alpha's Howl for 3 Dream Fragments" or something. Markets always seek efficiency.

Yup, and it would only further encourage RMT. The more frictions exist within in-game trade systems, the more external trade systems look relatively attractive.

P.

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mrpetrov wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

I think the players would find a fungible SoJ, if that were to happen. "WTS Alpha's Howl for 3 Dream Fragments" or something. Markets always seek efficiency.

Yup, and it would only further encourage RMT. The more frictions exist within in-game trade systems, the more external trade systems look relatively attractive.

P.

you are missing the point, this wasnt about making trade harder it was about

1 ) decoupling trading from crafting, so that orbs can be used for theyr intended purpose (and recipes) instead of being mainly currency


2 ) lessening the gap between traders and non traders. Everyone would have the same shot at crafting, instead of being so skewed towards who has huge amount of currency to invest. Sure people will still be able to amass valuables but it wont be as easy or rewarding as it is now


Then of course players will find other items to use as currency, maybe maps or good jewelry, it would be actually interesting to see what the new currency items would be and how much prices would fluctuate

Main reason is that buying high end gear feels like I didn't truely earn it, bypassing RNG odds and cutting down on playtime to farm for it.
Other reason is that I don't know if the item I bought would be a dupe or farmed by bots or multiclient players or maybe even from a hacked account.
Also it usually drives up prices for hard-to-get items as a whole, making the rich players richer etc.
I definitely don't want to support RMT'ing in any way shape or form, not even indirectly.

The only stuff I exchange is simple *crafting* currency since I'm making too many alchs and chromatics, but never got enough chaos. I'm crafting all my gear from scratch (white items) or use what I find.

I love PoE - it's one of my favorite games of all time.

But trading in this game is totally FUBAR, and we haven't seen any signs of improvement, beside a two year old post that keeps being quoted.

The balance between self found and trading is also totally FUBAR. Trading SHOULD yield an advantage, but in PoE the advantages of trading are on crack.

I'm about to give this game up for several reasons:

- The "hard core" player base is somewhat used to skipping content, skipping RNG - and is so used to be able to buy what they need, when they need it - so they are pretty negative to any change that may favor the non-traders.

- GGG is too quite about when and how the trade mechanics is getting changed. What about a word or two? Some hints on their progress?

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mrpetrov wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

I think the players would find a fungible SoJ, if that were to happen. "WTS Alpha's Howl for 3 Dream Fragments" or something. Markets always seek efficiency.

Yup, and it would only further encourage RMT. The more frictions exist within in-game trade systems, the more external trade systems look relatively attractive.

P.

I thought most of the SoJ trading was based on duped Stones (and runes)... I never found one with two toons in the 90's. That can't happen in PoE so far as we know.
And I don't see any ready fungible that could be used in place of cash, because most of the rares are so uncommon and those that are least uncommon are also not very valued. The example you give might well be a valid trade; but how many Dream Fragments are there which people don't want, and who - without trading, remember - would acquire that many very often? Plus even if that does happen, it'll be independent of the orb supply, so orbs return to crafting/gambling uses; and it will be inconvenient enough that play will outweigh trading as the regular means to gear up.

As for RMT, it may be around... but unique farming is not nearly as reliable an income as currency, so it's less worthwhile to bot, and probably easier to track. How many RMT farmers are going to stay doing business just for the occasional uniques (which remember, they presumably farm and sell already)?

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Varana wrote:

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mrpetrov wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

I think the players would find a fungible SoJ, if that were to happen. "WTS Alpha's Howl for 3 Dream Fragments" or something. Markets always seek efficiency.

Yup, and it would only further encourage RMT. The more frictions exist within in-game trade systems, the more external trade systems look relatively attractive.

P.

I thought most of the SoJ trading was based on duped Stones (and runes)... I never found one with two toons in the 90's. That can't happen in PoE so far as we know.
And I don't see any ready fungible that could be used in place of cash, because most of the rares are so uncommon and those that are least uncommon are also not very valued. The example you give might well be a valid trade; but how many Dream Fragments are there which people don't want, and who - without trading, remember - would acquire that many very often? Plus even if that does happen, it'll be independent of the orb supply, so orbs return to crafting/gambling uses; and it will be inconvenient enough that play will outweigh trading as the regular means to gear up.

As for RMT, it may be around... but unique farming is not nearly as reliable an income as currency, so it's less worthwhile to bot, and probably easier to track. How many RMT farmers are going to stay doing business just for the occasional uniques (which remember, they presumably farm and sell already)?

Presumably, a SoJ would have had much more purchasing power without the duping, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have still been used. And I really don't see a DF being a great deal rarer than an Exalt, yet the economy has managed to inflate Ex economic usage to numbers that no player will actually find themselves. But, I think white maps and atziri frags would probably be more in tune with a fungible currency were the actually currency items bound. Even a DF isn't totally fungible, since the cold resist can vary.

With the gambling system, it would essentially stop people from making mirror worthy items. Binding currency would also pretty much kill the mirrors value and utility. As you say, though, it would probably get people finding their own gear. The gambling system would just be a second chance at dropping a piece of gear, with some base item control. If such a change were made, I'd hope they'd tighten affix ranges so that items were useful for your level more often, even if they lowered the drop rate.

As far as botting and RMT, I ocassionally check in on bot forums, and I've seen more than a few botters claim that it usually takes a few weeks to drop a Koam's or other 20-30+ exalt item with their bots. If a botter can get away with running a bot for a couple months, I'm sure that the income is pretty good. Haven't looked in on it for a couple months, and maybe GGG has cracked down on it better now, though.