Player feedback on trading (both sides welcome)

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goetzjam wrote:

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Ragnar119 wrote:

With mechanics or balance in game so progression is same as it is now in PoE with trading. In what way or form, is it better/cheaper crafting, better drop rates, more currency, better rewords from bosses, or quests I dont know, but end result should be a better progression for solo players.

I don't love trading but I understand the idea behind it.

But something I don't think people understand about an adjusted solo self found league is that its essentially what D3 has done with loot 2.0 and account bound items. IMO its the "cheaper" and "quicker" experience for players.

But I didn't want this topic to turn into a circle jerk around self found, feel free to make a post about it.

I am not sure you understand very well balance and mechanics around self found league. You can not have a "cheaper" and "quicker" experience for players than one where there is trading. In self found league, you will have minimum same thing. Same difficulty, cheapness and quickness as if you would have in PoE version with trading, because progression in the end will be same, but in this case without any need (or better said balance) to trade.

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Ragnar119 wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

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Ragnar119 wrote:

With mechanics or balance in game so progression is same as it is now in PoE with trading. In what way or form, is it better/cheaper crafting, better drop rates, more currency, better rewords from bosses, or quests I dont know, but end result should be a better progression for solo players.

I don't love trading but I understand the idea behind it.

But something I don't think people understand about an adjusted solo self found league is that its essentially what D3 has done with loot 2.0 and account bound items. IMO its the "cheaper" and "quicker" experience for players.

But I didn't want this topic to turn into a circle jerk around self found, feel free to make a post about it.

I am not sure you understand very well balance and mechanics around self found league. You can not have a "cheaper" and "quicker" experience for players than one where there is trading. In self found league, you will have minimum same thing. Same difficulty, cheapness and quickness as if you would have in PoE version with trading, because progression in the end will be same, but in this case without any need (or better said balance) to trade.

I am not sure how you say that.

What about rare unqiues how can you get those without them falling from the sky? You just don't?

At what point would the game become every pack dropping a unqiue in order to give you a chance to get what you might need?

If you are talking about making loot "smarter" and easier to aquire rares, perhaps thats not an issue, but if the SFL is raining unqiues and other rare items (exalts, eternals, ect) then why would anyone ever play regular poe?

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goetzjam wrote:

I am not sure how you say that.

What about rare unqiues how can you get those without them falling from the sky? You just don't?

At what point would the game become every pack dropping a unqiue in order to give you a chance to get what you might need?

If you are talking about making loot "smarter" and easier to aquire rares, perhaps thats not an issue, but if the SFL is raining unqiues and other rare items (exalts, eternals, ect) then why would anyone ever play regular poe?

A lot of ways. From quest rewords for low level uniques, to boss having incriss drop rates for specific uniques, to divination cards that you can farm. There are a lot of options how you can do it.

Why would people not play regular PoE? You do know that most of HC new leagues are 90% of time harder? And people still play them.

Also if most people would actually like to play a version of the game without trading, thats telling what is for them important and priority in arpg games. And giving them that options will make the game better. People that like to trade will play the league where you can trade, people like me will play in self found league. More options the game has the better.

EDIT:
Also it looks like you have misconception that a self found league means you get all items super fast and they drop from sky like rain. That is not correct. From games like d1, d2, sacred 1/2, grim dawn, titan quest, dungeon siege 1/2, torchlight 1/2, all this arpg games are around self found balance, but you still have extremely rare drops of high tier items that you will need to farm a lot to get them.

1. Asynchronous trading

Totally a good thing which would make the game better, because it is NOT synonynous with...

2. Fixed price trading

For clarification, this is where the seller inputs a price which an asynchronous trading system then enforces. This creates a system where the buyer closes transactions instead of the seller. These are the devil, because they completely remove bargaining skill for buyers (choosing the lowest number isn't a skill). No skill means no fun.

3. Average player progression

I agree with the OP in terms of average player progression. It should surprise no one that the average participant in the Standard economy has a very well-developed stash by now. And in any economy, the bulk of activity is going to be in the form of gear flowing from those slightly above average in wealth, to those s lightly below average, in terms of original farm to end user. There might be some flippers along the way, but...

4. Flippers aren't evil

People who farm tradeable loot don't want to work hard finding a buyer. People who want to buy an item for use don't want to work hard finding a seller. All flippers do is collect some currency in fees in exchange for your convenience of not having to put in the work yourself. (By the way, flipping being big during D3 auction houses is a myth, trading was too convenient for anyone to be an effective middleman.) Don't hate on flippers, community, because YOU make their opportunities.

5. Drop rate balance

Myth: balancing drop rates for multiple characters sharing drops is inherently incompatible with balancing drop rates for self-found players.

Truth: balancing drop rates for multiple characters sharing drops is inherently incompatible with balancing drop rates for single characters who don't share items with other characters on the same account.

Conclusion: Drop rates are NOT balanced according to the economy, so much as they are balanced assuming multiple characters. Much how a roguelike game assumes you'll need multiple attempts, Path of Exile assumes a collection of characters working together to amass wealth - regardless of whether the collection is on a single account, or on several...

Well, for the most part, anyway. There are differences in tuning for thousands of characters versus tuning for seven, but it isn't anywhere close to the (irrelevant) differences between tuning for thousands versus one. Ideally droprates should be tuned for several level 90+ rerolls on a single account.

What irks me here are those who expect everything they need to drop for them in a single playthrough. I mean, what about after? Only your second character, and they'd have every item they'd ever need, already farmed by the first. In order to maintain item progression during replays, the game must spread itemization over more than one trip to 100... actually, more than two. More than three as well. Six, maybe?

6. The other "balancing for economy"

The thing I dislike most about the "balancing for economy" cliche is that it implies this is what GGG places over everything else, that the economy is good. But they don't, and it's not. The reason is that droprates are NOT the only vector of balancing for economy.

The other vector, the one which determines the FUN of trading, is valuation variance. To explain the concept, imagine several experts, in both playing the game and trading, looking at identical versions of a brand new item which has never dropped before. If they all have very close answers in terms of value, the item has very low valuation variance; if the answers are all over the place, you have strong valuation variance.

The mark of a good collectibles game is to maintain the highest possible levels of valuation variance. When you confound even experts on the value of items, it means that there are no clear winners on which items are best, and by extension, no clear winners on which builds are best. Players can reasonably disagree on item value in a way which makes trading feel more rewarding (lose trash, gain treasure) and which can allow an insightful player to outpredict the market and make a killing acquiring multiples of a currently underappreciated item.

What causes valuation variance? Balance. You know, the old-fashioned items-builds-and-skills kind. In a truly balanced game, there are no clear winners on items, and no clear winners on builds.

What we have instead is a moderate-VV on many uniques and builds with plenty of low-VV thrown in, especially when it confess to rare items, which are barely more interesting than D3's rares, which is to say: attrociously boring.

GGG is often quoted as claiming the economy is the most important part of the game to them. If that were really true, they would care more about the most important part of the game to me - balance.

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Ragnar119 wrote:

A lot of ways. From quest rewords for low level uniques, to boss having incriss drop rates for specific uniques, to divination cards that you can farm. There are a lot of options how you can do it.

Why would people not play regular PoE? You do know that most of HC new leagues are 90% of time harder? And people still play them.

Also if most people would actually like to play a version of the game without trading, thats telling what is for them important and priority in arpg games. And giving them that options will make the game better. People that like to trade will play the league where you can trade, people like me will play in self found league. More options the game has the better.

EDIT:
Also it looks like you have misconception that a self found league means you get all items super fast and they drop from sky like rain. That is not correct. From games like d1, d2, sacred 1/2, grim dawn, titan quest, dungeon siege 1/2, torchlight 1/2, all this arpg games are around self found balance, but you still have extremely rare drops of high tier items that you will need to farm a lot to get them.

So people would play the HCL and maybe the temp SC league, but the SFL you and others have described is better for 90+ % of softcore players and new players. So you are just moving the population from the game GGG created to one you and others think is "better"

More options blatantly isn't better. That statement is as false as possible because everything has a cause and effect and GGG is likely aware of the playbase split that would happen from it along with the clearly "better" loot experience for the majority of players.

"farm a lot" means it will still drop, yes those games have unqiues that are still rare even for solo play, but everything that isn't T1 would have to drop in an "acceptable" amount of playtime, which when comparing the current drops in PoE to this self found league it is literally rainbows and butterflies following.

It goes against the whole design GGG had to have self found leagues, especially ones with increased drop rates, again if there were no other reasons then this it would be enough to not do it.

Again this isn't a SFL vs not adding one argument so I won't go off topic again in a reply.

ScrotieMcB

Well written post! What are your thoughts on what can be added or should be added to the game to improve trading as many people are NOT ok with using 3rd party programs specifically to sell (buying isnt an issue theres never a "risk" in searching poe.trade.

I think one of the most important things you pointed out is the asynchronous thing, aside from a limited system not sure how it could be added where it wouldn't be "abused" to basically complete trades without set buyouts.

Proper asynchronous would essentially follow the same steps as poe.trade:

1. Seller lists item. Sellers can put whatever they want in description (such as "b/o 5 chaos") but it's just words, nonbinding. Seller logs out.

2. Buyers make bids. These are binding and are held in escrow while the bid is still active, although buyers can retract bids at any time. If you bid and there is an identical of strictly uperior bid, your bid is rejected; if someone makes a bid strictly superior to yours, or the listing closes, your bid is immediately retracted. Buyers log out.

3. Seller logs in to see multiple bids on item. He can choose a bid, keep the listing open longer (at the risk of bids being retracted), or cancel the listing entirely. He chooses a bid, and the game places the winning bid in a remove-only tab in the seller's stash.

4. Buyers log back in. All buyers have new remove-only stash tabs; the winner has the item, others their losing bids.

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goetzjam wrote:

So people would play the HCL and maybe the temp SC league, but the SFL you and others have described is better for 90+ % of softcore players and new players. So you are just moving the population from the game GGG created to one you and others think is "better"

More options blatantly isn't better. That statement is as false as possible because everything has a cause and effect and GGG is likely aware of the playbase split that would happen from it along with the clearly "better" loot experience for the majority of players.

People will play what they want to play and what is more fun for them. I am not moving anything, nor is GGG moving, they are giving options so people can chose what is more fun for them to play.

More options in games are always better no matter how you look at it, because every person has a different thing what is fun for them, and the more options you have the better. Splitting a community is better than forcing everyone to play in something that is not fun for them, especially as most self found players are not participating in community or trade to begin with.

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goetzjam wrote:

"farm a lot" means it will still drop, yes those games have unqiues that are still rare even for solo play, but everything that isn't T1 would have to drop in an "acceptable" amount of playtime, which when comparing the current drops in PoE to this self found league it is literally rainbows and butterflies following.

Everything that isn't t1 drop in an "acceptable" amount of playtime? What do you want, that the drop rates are not balanced in acceptable time? Its like you never played any other arpg with self found balance, except maybe d3, but as I didnt played d3 that much dont know how they made it there. Are rainbows and butterflies in current POE game when you trade? No its not.

I mean again from your post and reasoning i am getting a impression that you just dont understand the balance around self found, and so many other arpg games did it and are doing it.

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goetzjam wrote:

It goes against the whole design GGG had to have self found leagues, especially ones with increased drop rates, again if there were no other reasons then this it would be enough to not do it.

Again this isn't a SFL vs not adding one argument so I won't go off topic again in a reply.

No it doesnt. It only goes against trading design of PoE. And as that is really not the most important thing in games like this it can be changed. Especially as the change is option for people that want it and is not forced on other people.

Will not go offtopic anymore, if you want to talk more maybe make a thread for it or send me private message or something so we don't post here anymore.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Proper asynchronous would essentially follow the same steps as poe.trade:

1. Seller lists item. Sellers can put whatever they want in description (such as "b/o 5 chaos") but it's just words, nonbinding. Seller logs out.

2. Buyers make bids. These are binding and are held in escrow while the bid is still active, although buyers can retract bids at any time. If you bid and there is an identical of strictly uperior bid, your bid is rejected; if someone makes a bid strictly superior to yours, or the listing closes, your bid is immediately retracted. Buyers log out.

3. Seller logs in to see multiple bids on item. He can choose a bid, keep the listing open longer (at the risk of bids being retracted), or cancel the listing entirely. He chooses a bid, and the game places the winning bid in a remove-only tab in the seller's stash.

4. Buyers log back in. All buyers have new remove-only stash tabs; the winner has the item, others their losing bids.

This. I'd be very happy if this was implemented, it would solve all problems for me, without compromising the current system I feel. Thanks Scrotie, well summarized. :)

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Proper asynchronous would essentially follow the same steps as poe.trade:

1. Seller lists item. Sellers can put whatever they want in description (such as "b/o 5 chaos") but it's just words, nonbinding. Seller logs out.

2. Buyers make bids. These are binding and are held in escrow while the bid is still active, although buyers can retract bids at any time. If you bid and there is an identical of strictly uperior bid, your bid is rejected; if someone makes a bid strictly superior to yours, or the listing closes, your bid is immediately retracted. Buyers log out.

3. Seller logs in to see multiple bids on item. He can choose a bid, keep the listing open longer (at the risk of bids being retracted), or cancel the listing entirely. He chooses a bid, and the game places the winning bid in a remove-only tab in the seller's stash.

4. Buyers log back in. All buyers have new remove-only stash tabs; the winner has the item, others their losing bids.

I think GGG has worked already in something similar (Chris mentioned a merchant master). Again, the problem with convenience will be market saturation, and that's someting they should work on.

That being said, a system like that is mostly what it should be done.