Player feedback on trading (both sides welcome)

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Nobake wrote:

If you can even call this a social interaction:
a: "WTB X."
b: *invites*
a: *goes to hideout, completes trade, leaves*

I wouldn't. Not all trades need social interaction.

However, if buyer offers below-buyout price, that is social interaction. If seller says he has two whispers at once and encourages a bid war (even if one of the "bidders" doesn't actually exist), that is social interaction.

Basically, counter-offer is what is meant by social interaction. And although trades do not require counter-offers, they should allow each participant to do so.

A lot of people strongly dislike counter-offers. A lot of people cease dealing with a player as soon as a counter-offer is made. That is also your right. But it does not diminish their right to counter-offer.

And it also does not diminish your right to, after much frustration trying to complete a trade at a price you thought was fair, trying to chase down that counter-offer and see if it's still available.

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Why are counter-offers important? Because they raise the skill cap. It allows buyers to have meaningful input on pricing, when normally the power to price is on sellers. Sometimes, that power is a burden, and counter-offer systems allow proper auctions (you know, with competing bids) to spontaneously form when interest for an item is high enough, helping to correct price points which were set incorrectly.

Now I agree that no one likes that nickel-and-dime jerk who tries to adjust the price of a trade with a firmly established market value. But for the big trades especially, where there are few or any comparable items available on the market, these price correction tools are invaluable.

Tying a trading speed boost to sellers waiving the use of these tools, and cutting buyers out completely, is just not a good idea.

It's important to note that there is a broad range of middle ground between PoE current clumsy trade system and D3's disastrous automatic auction house. Not sure if it was in this thread, but folks have suggested all kinds of means for asynchronous trading that would still require back-and-forth messaging between players and allow for bidding, negotiation, etc. if the parties so desire. At the same time, these systems would make trade where the buyer accepts an initial buyout very fast and convenient.

If I remember correctly, one of these systems was a simple way of allowing folks to post items for sale in-game, then trade whispers to go into an inbox in-game and both parties could back and forth about price. The parties would post items in a trade window like we already have, and both parties would have to hit accept in order for the trade to take place. The difference is that they could hit the accept trade button at different times, whenever they are online; one party would not be able to alter the trade after the other hit "accept" (although they could cancel entirely and go back to negotiation whispers). Any kinks/potentials for scamming could be worked out by people who are more expert than I.

I will never understand arguments why buying something that has a market price, especially currency exchange (which obviously fluctuates, but buyers would be able to accept a given ratio), shouldn't be easy if both parties decide it should be that way. PoE DOES rely on trade in order to get upgrades, because upgrades do not drop after a certain point! They must be bought. So must build-determining uniques. Self-found players know this better than anyone, hence their constant frustration.

Anyway, we need more middle-ground, original solutions to PoE's trade problems (problems that many, many players recognize as existing, although I suppose people who have a lot of wealth and all the items they need seem to be claiming everything's fine). I encourage future posters to keep coming up with those solutions to remind everyone that we aren't stuck with only two extreme options!