Player feedback on trading (both sides welcome)

First I want to disclaimer that I never intended to create a thread of this nature until after divination cards have been shown and their effect on the economy, however due to some downtime and recent post in another thread I was asked to create this thread to hopefully shed some light on either misconceptions or things people might not be aware about.

Said thread that prompted this discussion to be posted:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1282096/page/2


My personal thoughts on the trade system we have now is that it can work, if you are willing to put forth some effort and if you think trading should be something with player interaction. I am strongly against any form of automated trading that results in never talking to the player, specifically an AH like system. I don't want this thread to become another circle jerk around that discussion so if we can stay on topic of actual trade and a system you feel would be suit your and other players needs I would appreciate it.

The current system derives of basically 4 parts:

1) If trying to buy an item you use the website poe.trade select the league, base type, item name or stats you want, typically sorting by either price, stat an\or if the player is online.
a) Currently a player can show online without actually being online, improvements to messaging players have been made in beta, specifically afk messages, I've yet to see how this affects contacting sellers.

2) Poe.trade simply searches items posted on the forum, technically you could never use poe.trade and find the items you want, although that is highly inefficient as poe.trade displays things in a way the forums currently can't\don't.

3) You have items you want to sell, typically the best\fastest way to list those items on the forums is by using a program called procurement or acquisition, these are 3rd party programs that either use your forum login information or a session ID to capture thru the website\forum your inventory and character stashes. They both have interfaces that allow for things like making a specific tab cost a specific buyout or setting specific b\o for items, they both create or post in a way to make your items shown on the forums like:

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linkItem location="Weapon" character="boomgoesthescreen" x="0" y="0" linkItem location="Stash7" league="Standard" x="5" y="8"

b) its worth noting that you aren't required to use these programs to list your items, but the work required to manually list every <5c item you have can be painful, especially if you aren't organized. For the longest time that is exclusively how I did sell items though.

4) The only part about the whole trade system that actually uses the game is contacting and completing the transaction for purchase. Its this time you can try to barter with the seller (typically the seller isn't going to try to get more then list price, although this happens) to get a better deal. As a seller if I am contacted about a small thing at first I wonder if its worth my time to exit the map (i play mainly solo) and get the item to sell, but the vast majority of sells I do like this I am able to sell MORE things to them, like they wanted a cwdt gem, I'll see if they need a curse or enduring cry or anything else I have that might be useful for their purchases. I understand this specific example is somewhat removed by the change in beta to gems being on vendors, but it can apply to gear as well. If a level 55 character contacts me trying to get a ring with specific stats, i'll see if they need another ring upgrade or weapon upgrade or quality gem. The whole point here is this player interaction IMO is what makes the trade system we have completely worth it. I know some people don't care to or won't do this, but this is something I enjoy about the current system and I feel I wanted to share it with people to get thoughts\experiences that might be similar or not.



I think its a common misconception that the issue of trading smaller items in standard is a trade system flaw, rather then an economic one. Imagine this a good amount of characters on standard were a) never just standard characters, meaning they were played, leveled and geared elsewhere or b) characters created a long time ago. That is not to say new people don't play in standard, they do, especially right now when no temp league (i dont count the 1 month as one) is going on.

But if you are following me on this you will understand that these characters don't need budget gear to improve their characters they need GG stuff 1ex per slot or more typically. Of course that doesn't count the number of people that have mirrored gear in almost every slot that will probably never get an upgrade (or they do once a year) to progress their character. Those people probably don't even bother selling items worth less then an ex typically.

So if someone wants to tell me, why they think these previously played character might need your 1-5c items or your "nerfed" unqiues you just found like BoR, I'm listing, but as far as I can tell even me purchasing the new BoR off of eleron for 8c wasn't really worth my time\money in standard because people much rather pay more for something better.


In the temp leagues you don't typically have this mentality of I can just suffer until later or if you do it isn't to the point where MOST people hold out to buy significantly larger items. In order to progress in a new league you need to either have a build that requires no gear, this is significantly nerfed\changed in beta. Or pay for slight upgrades in order to cap resistances to progress.

In the temp leagues you don't have previously completed characters either deing (and adding more gear into the sell pool) or characters already geared, everyone starts with nothing, that is why the whole issue is an economic one, not a trade system one in my eyes.

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Standard isn't limited to the few top-players, there's a lot of other players out there, and being able to occasionnally sell one of the items you grind to someone that actually needs it, even just for a few chaos, would make the grind much more enjoyable than the usual selling everything mindlessly routine.

I know it isn't and I wish I was able to get the numbers of activity during the temp leagues, specifically players geared (in endgame stuff) vs players needing gear (in level 50ish +) that are active. But I don't have those stats to provide.

I don't typically bother selling in standard unless I am trying to achieve something specifically, I have almost everything I wanted thats "affordable" so the 1-5c sells aren't going to be enough to get what I want in a timely fashion.

I think if you spend the little bit of work to use either program mentioned above and list your items, you would be surprised on how many people contact you. If you aren't getting contacted and believe your items are priced correctly, wouldn't that prove my point that the economy isn't in need of those cheaper items?

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Majority of core problems for this game are coming from balance around economy and trade. Remove the economy, and most of things will be fixed.

I dislike this notion completely, the economy is fun for a lot of players. If everyone had access to every piece of gear then all but the top gear would be pointless. At least now we have a varying degree of things like budget builds, mf builds, low life builds, crit builds, ect. Are you suggestion removing the foundation of which the game was essentially based? Orbs instead of gold for trade specifically.


I'll close my opening statement with this. A while ago I was completely fine with 3rd party programs doing this job, but GGG its time you either hired/contracted/purchased or otherwise acquired (no pun intended) these 3rd party sites and programs an implemented them for a smoother process, especially for new players. I understand this isn't something that can be done for Act 4 release, but I can promise you trade system will become one of the larger issues after things settle down. I firmly believe that if you didn't have to leave the game to search for and list items people would be MUCH happier with the process. While I personally disagree with making trade easier, this is a logical step in the right direction both to ensure players can safely trade and efficiently trade. Keep in mind I don't want automation, simply implementing the trade tools we have now in a similar fashion.

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My major gripe with trading is that both seller and buyer needs to be online at the same time. That completely kills it for me, and I suspect many others as well.

The way things are now works well if you're a hardcore kind of player that spends many hours a day in game. But if you're a casual player that maybe only gets an hour or less a day, or maybe just a few sessions in a week - it's not working at all. Why bother listing something for sale when you cannot be online to meet your customers? That only leads to frustration, for both yourself and your prospective buyers. For buying stuff it works well enough, thanks to poe.trade. It's the selling side that is the problem.

I think what has to happen is what Chris has hinted at earlier: we need an asynchronous trading system that doesn't require both parties to be online at the same time. Not an AH mind you, both parties still need to negotiate and haggle if you like. That is the only thing that's going to work, at least for me. Until something like that happens I'm just not trading gear, and I'm unhappy about that! Even though I enjoy playing self-found, I'd like to try the other side of the fence too.

Thanks for the reply @ceri

I know that players that don't get much time to play and be online suffer from the current system, however I'm hesitant to agree with asynchronous trading in any fashion that isn't limited. I specifically left it out of my original post because I wanted to see if someone would bring it up.

I think it could be fine, but like I mentioned in my post I am wary of any method that will or can remove the interaction between people.

I think a system similar to steam trade (not sure if you are familar with it) could work as long as it required player interaction, hopefully something in game. I specify in game because if it becomes something the forum can do, someone will find a way to automate it and you could essentially create an AH or another account specifically designed to sell items for you, which goes against the whole principle of "trade"

Again I'm wary of this discussion now vs after divination cards has its affects, but I was asked to post so i did.

Also whats your supporter unqiue, if you have one in or going to be in soon?

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goetzjam wrote:

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Majority of core problems for this game are coming from balance around economy and trade. Remove the economy, and most of things will be fixed.

I dislike this notion completely, the economy is fun for a lot of players. If everyone had access to every piece of gear then all but the top gear would be pointless. At least now we have a varying degree of things like budget builds, mf builds, low life builds, crit builds, ect. Are you suggestion removing the foundation of which the game was essentially based? Orbs instead of gold for trade specifically.

And i must say economy is also not fun for a lot of people. This suggestion removes the thing that is game build on, yes, but the game is build on a very wrong thing for a arpg loot based game that adds more negative things than positive.

Whole systems in this game are here because of trading, and those system dont help the game it self, they are there just to be currency sink to slow down inflation. From drop rates balanced around economy, to RNG and currency layer on items with linking/color sockets, to things like maps and problems with them, or bad balance around risk reword (skip hard bosses), time reword and similar.

So how to fix it? Remove it and balance the game around players themselves and progression around players. The best way to do it, is nothing new, a separate league, so people that like to flip flop can still play their version of the game. The problem with that is that majority of players playing this type of games, will move to that new league, because most of people will always have more fun getting items from killing monsters than getting items from spamming chat and trading.

Would I like AH? No. Would I like your suggestion here to have 3rd party programs be implemented in the game? No. The reason is, that process of trading in arpg is just not fun, and if I need to chose a system I would chose one where I need to waste the least time with it, so AH is the lesser evil of this two things, but again this doesnt fix any problems the game has.

GGG made several mistakes, from desync, to the core problem with building a arpg, a loot based game around a economy. But the things I see is that they are very slowly moving away from it, from masters, to new gem system (where normal ones will almost be totally removed from economy) to divination cards. But they are more smaller fix here and there, without looking on the real problem.

been talked about to death, atm trading is fine and good for the game. not everyone can be successful at it or enjoy it, which is like everything else in game and in life. those who learn, accept, persevere, change and adapt are more probable to achieve success than those who refuse to put some effort and just complain.

we have a good enough system that any avg joe can succeed if they put minimal effort. heck even those whose english isn't their 1st language have been able to trade very well in this social interactive system. this showz that the current system we have is simple enough that anyone without even needing top notch communication skills can take advantage of the current system.

all you need is a bit of knowledge, patience and common sense. maybe some qol is welcomed, to solve timezone and inactivity/offline problems to improve efficiency (this is debatable) but trading does not need a major overhaul or anything that reduces the social interaction part of it.

@miljan

I am glad you posted here as I wanted to gauge someone's opinion that doesn't value what GGG has set out to create here with this system.

That being said I can't agree with what you are saying. If this was JUST an RPG then I would agree with you that personal character progression is more important then everything, but this is an ONLINE ARPG game. Many of its ideas stem from D2 and magic the gathering, I don't agree with all of them, but lots of people seemed to enjoy trading in D2 and people kinda did in D3 before that was removed.

Just so you know you are basically asking GGG to do what Blizzard did with D3, if you know that then I don't know why you would ever try and suggest a system like that for PoE. Not only that you are also essentially asking for a solo self found league to be created as well, I know personally I think D3's system of account bound was terrible, part of the fun of an ARPG is sharing and exchanging loot you find for other stuff you might want.

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GGG made several mistakes, from desync, to the core problem with building a arpg, a loot based game around a economy. But the things I see is that they are very slowly moving away from it, from masters, to new gem system (where normal ones will almost be totally removed from economy) to divination cards. But they are more smaller fix here and there, without looking on the real problem.

Desync they didn't think would be as big of a deal as it was, however they acknowledged that mistake and are fixing it now.

I don't agree with your statement or observation that an economy in an ARPG is a bad thing, let alone a mistake, especially with the things you've mentioned being added.

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goetzjam wrote:

@miljan

I am glad you posted here as I wanted to gauge someone's opinion that doesn't value what GGG has set out to create here with this system.

That being said I can't agree with what you are saying. If this was JUST an RPG then I would agree with you that personal character progression is more important then everything, but this is an ONLINE ARPG game. Many of its ideas stem from D2 and magic the gathering, I don't agree with all of them, but lots of people seemed to enjoy trading in D2 and people kinda did in D3 before that was removed.

Just so you know you are basically asking GGG to do what Blizzard did with D3, if you know that then I don't know why you would ever try and suggest a system like that for PoE. Not only that you are also essentially asking for a solo self found league to be created as well, I know personally I think D3's system of account bound was terrible, part of the fun of an ARPG is sharing and exchanging loot you find for other stuff you might want.

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GGG made several mistakes, from desync, to the core problem with building a arpg, a loot based game around a economy. But the things I see is that they are very slowly moving away from it, from masters, to new gem system (where normal ones will almost be totally removed from economy) to divination cards. But they are more smaller fix here and there, without looking on the real problem.

Desync they didn't think would be as big of a deal as it was, however they acknowledged that mistake and are fixing it now.

I don't agree with your statement or observation that an economy in an ARPG is a bad thing, let alone a mistake, especially with the things you've mentioned being added.

No problem, we are just chatting here

You see this game is not like d2. D2 was never build around economy. Economy was made by players them selves (after expansion), the ones that wanted to have it. And it had economy only for high tier runes, because in d2, getting anything than runewords was easy, as drop rates where balanced around players them selves. I can talk a lot about d2 systems, and how economy made by community and progression and pushed with duping was going if you are interested, or maybe better in PM (if you really want to know).

But on topic, we just disagree with each other. Now, in a way yes, I ask that they should do what d3 did in a way. But I know that there are people like you that like trading and economy, and because of it, my suggestion is a separate league, so everyone can play the way they like. Also, it's not a surprise that POE is the only arpg (in diablo style) out there that was build around economy, d3 tried it, and they removed it, for good reasons, and the game compared how shitty it was in vanilla and AH is a lot better now.

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miljan wrote:

No problem, we are just chatting here

You see this game is not like d2. D2 was never build around economy. Economy was made by players them selves (after expansion), the ones that wanted to have it. And it had economy only for high tier runes, because in d2, getting anything than runewords was easy, as drop rates where balanced around players them selves. I can talk a lot about d2 systems, and how economy made by community and progression and pushed with duping was going if you are interested, or maybe better in PM (if you really want to know).

But on topic, we just disagree with each other. Now, in a way yes, I ask that they should do what d3 did in a way. But I know that there are people like you that like trading and economy, and because of it, my suggestion is a separate league, so everyone can play the way they like. Also, it's not a surprise that POE is the only arpg (in diablo style) out there that was build around economy, d3 tried it, and they removed it, for good reasons, and the game compared how shitty it was in vanilla and AH is a lot better now.

Glad to have a conversation with someone that understands I want all impressions even ones I disagree with :D

I think just a little more information on direct comparisons with D2's economy and PoE's would fit the topic, if you don't mind. I understand there is a different between a game company induced and player induced economy, but you have to keep in mind the founders of this game were avid D2 gamers back in the day as well. IMO you can view them as players that designed this system to succeed.

I'll admit I didn't do much trading back when I played D2, hell I think getting to hell was almost impossible for me then, its not what I wanted out of a game. Now I play D2 on the "unofficial" PoE community server with slight modifications and love it, even playing in hell :D But back on topic from what I understand that game lacked any specific types of currency as what we see now in PoE, everyone used either runes, SOJ's or bartered for whatever pieces they could.

GGG went another direction and its "currency" as we all know is also useful for crafting things. Because these orbs can be used to create cool things they keep some value and are perfect for trading IMO.

I've kinda ranted a bit more then I wanted to, but if you could explain the pros\cons you see of poe's currency vs the trade system that I remember (that might be actually different then what happened) with Soj's, high\mid tier runes, ect I think that might shed some insight on your position further.

D3's attempt at an economy you have to admit was doomed to fail, not only did its drop system and itemization seriously sucked, it lacked any form of control of inflation because it used gold. As much as I hate to admit or say it PoE wouldn't fail as a game if it had an AH because it has the ability to still maintain a somewhat stable economy and it isn't based off of 1 form of currency. That being said I do think an AH would be a mistake and a very large one at that.

If D3 had an AH right now it would be fine, people get the gear drops they need in order to progress, PoE has made improvements to this and has mechanics that make it so you can create weapons\gear\ect to progress, D3's crafting system at the start of release was terrible, I remember spending a couple days just farming for gold to craft gloves, the amount of times I was tempted just to say fuck it lets spend $20 and get something so I don't have to grind was hard, but I resisted. I even went as far as selling a shitty wizard source for $25. I wish I had capitalized on the market there, I know there is at least 1 diamond supporter that purchased his pack FULLY with money made from RMAH. What do you think could an AH be fine with D3's current itemization if so why, if not why not?