Why does GGG hate auction houses?

It all come down to making the game enjoyable for everyone. When a game like this, or D3, has an AH, the designers have to assume that the players have access to it. Those that choose not to use it are left so far behind the difficulty curve that the simply don't play the game. Low player retention lowers GGGs income.

So with the trade system we have now, they're safer in saying that they don't cater to someone decked out in nearly perfect gear. The game is hard enough to encourage growth, but not so hard as to exclude people who would rather play solo/self-found. That's a hard line to maintain.

Adding an AH would trivialize most of the game, and it would have to be increased in difficulty to match the new accessibility to items. Some players already choose to do this... through trading that we have. But the plausible deniability of trade not being automatic gives GGG the moral high ground when it chooses to balance difficulty the way they do.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

It all come down to making the game enjoyable for everyone. When a game like this, or D3, has an AH, the designers have to assume that the players have access to it. Those that choose not to use it are left so far behind the difficulty curve that the simply don't play the game. Low player retention lowers GGGs income.

So with the trade system we have now, they're safer in saying that they don't cater to someone decked out in nearly perfect gear. The game is hard enough to encourage growth, but not so hard as to exclude people who would rather play solo/self-found. That's a hard line to maintain.

Adding an AH would trivialize most of the game, and it would have to be increased in difficulty to match the new accessibility to items. Some players already choose to do this... through trading that we have. But the plausible deniability of trade not being automatic gives GGG the moral high ground when it chooses to balance difficulty the way they do.

I made bold everything which is false or misleading.

I actually recently made a new OP in Feedback explaining why, for at least most of the points of contention. I guess I should TL;DR it here though. Trading is much more powerful in Week 3 or Week 87 of a league, than it is in Week 1, so the idea that a game's difficulty curve can be, or is even intended to be, balanced for trade at all times is nonsense. For the most part, trade is intended not to trivialize the game's content during Week 1, but to trivialize it at some point later on as a league gets older, allowing late comers to catch up to players who have been playing more steadily since league launch.

I guess "Adding an AH would trivialize most of the game" and "those that choose not to use it are left so far behind" are close to true, but I don't feel it's necessary for it to trivialize any of the game if we're talking about the game from a serious no-life racing perspective, therefore those who are at the top ladder positions are not left so far behind if they choose not to buy gear. I do think they'd probably need to use it to sell gear, to sustain mapping, to remain competitive in any league long enough for high-mapping to have relevance.

It's not "false or misleading". You're simply interpreting my statement with a very narrow definition of what you consider "the game" to be.

That would actually be great if they made playing solo self found too difficult, then perhaps people could be playing a single player game that matches their play style instead of crying in every single thread concerning trading, grouping and other multi player activities.

"

RandallPOE wrote:

That would actually be great if they made playing solo self found too difficult, then perhaps people could be playing a single player game that matches their play style instead of crying in every single thread concerning trading, grouping and other multi player activities.

Lol! So true.

EDIT: Apparently pointing out an observable aspect of another poster is grounds to get [Removed by support]. It isn't like anyone in this very thread is a SF whiner. Nope no one at all.

No idea why they hate it.
I'm sure some fans are going to defend the idea of there not being an auction house, but the fact that POE.trade was created at all, means that the current trading systems in game are inadequate.

NEWSFLASH: poe.trade = Auction House (with occasional haggling)

this s**t is getting old:

"

grant_m wrote:

"

Caridor wrote:

No idea why they hate it.
I'm sure some fans are going to defend the idea of there not being an auction house, but the fact that POE.trade was created at all, means that the current trading systems in game are inadequate.

GGG doesn't have the available resources to create an AH platform and then babysit it. AND every time they'd need to nerf/change an existing item or add/remove one, it would be a mess of conflict of interest accusations, sniveling and who knows what else.

They don't want to be in control of, or have anything to do with trading/flipping/shopping/etc. in PoE. Too much of a headache and expense for them with no $$$ return.

Baby sit? What does that even mean? It's an automated system that takes in bids/autowins, and then mails you the items you won while mailing the seller their currency. There's nothing there to babysit, and no room for accusations. If you use poe.trade, then you're already basically using an AH with a roundabout dash of player interaction.

The people who hate the AH never really make sense. They always make weird arguments like "AH killed D3" - which makes me wonder whether you even played D3 - or some random bullshit about trivializing the game. How is the game trivialized? I can already farm currency and buy items to make late game a breeze. That's like saying that knowledge and skill trivialize the game...

Honestly, are any of you anti-AH people happy using trade chat? If you use anything but trade chat, then you're a hypocrite.

"

RegulusX wrote:

Baby sit? What does that even mean? It's an automated system that takes in bids/autowins, and then mails you the items you won while mailing the seller their currency. There's nothing there to babysit, and no room for accusations. If you use poe.trade, then you're already basically using an AH with a roundabout dash of player interaction.

The people who hate the AH never really make sense. They always make weird arguments like "AH killed D3" - which makes me wonder whether you even played D3 - or some random bullshit about trivializing the game. How is the game trivialized? I can already farm currency and buy items to make late game a breeze. That's like saying that knowledge and skill trivialize the game...

Honestly, are any of you anti-AH people happy using trade chat? If you use anything but trade chat, then you're a hypocrite.

AH is actually costly to maintain and need a dedicate team to fix its codings on every buggy transactions. D3 had a dedicate AH team and it was constantly down for maintainence if you remember back in the days.

The people who hate AH and cause its shutdown actually prefer the current system - not even trades but just self-found loots. You see, the original intention of AH was for easier and faster trading, but Blizzard wanted people to use it frequently so they tuned the items drop rate to atrociousity. This way people could find upgrades only through AH and it served its purposes - and that's how the RMT light came to be because blizzard wanted to profits from every transactions people made on the RMAH.

The design of the AH limits how frequent a rare item drops, and you may read this piece all on the orginal blizzard forum posts for their designing reasons. The GAH was just a testing ground to see how it worked and then to push the real thing - RMAH because profit was everything.

Source: "How Blizzard Fixed Drop Rates Affect RMAH" You can tell this author at the time was very distasteful with all these AH fisacos and made bunch of assumptions, but still he quoted words from blizzard officials that they did factor the AH into their overall items availability.

If you just think about it and look at the current iteration of the D3 loots system. If loots pinata is everywhere, who would actually buy upgrades on the AH? You can just find all the drops on your own. That's why D3 crater toward casuals because the majority of the players just want to play & find awesome loots NOT trade.