Thoughts on trading's place in ARPGs

"

I wasnt talking about that. Trading for highly specific items, like uniques, is understandable, since you cannot expect a game to be designed where everyone would loot eveything in a short-term. You either postpone specific builds until you loot the items (what I do), or work toward those items through trade. I'm fine with that.

I see.

"

With trade-centric game design, I mean stuff like:

"

* insane Zana mod prices (non-traders cant afford them)

Calling bullshit on this, only the nemesis one and the current league mod, which requires zana 8 are ones that cannot be used by non-traders.

The zana mod prices are balanced around splitting the cost between multiple players, it really has nothing to due with trading, but rather the fact that if the cost is split up per potential player its really cheap.

People have suggested before have the cost associated with the amount of portals you open, problem is if you log out your simply done with that map or if the map disconnects you or whatever reason.

"

* huge rng variance in map drops (dry streak will rekt your pool -> have to buy maps)

I think its important to not just run your highest level maps and only go up in tiers when you have a very large amount 10+ of the next tier. While people do hit streaks the opposite happens and you can get multiple cartos in a day and have returns on almost all maps. This is a larger issue, but I don't think you absolutely have to buy maps unless your just having the most shit luck ever. If you feel like mid-high tier maps aren't worth your time, well thats another issue completely.

"

* chisels not sustaining themselves through drops (ofc when you dont have maps, you dont need chis :P)

There is a recipe for these for a reason. I can't imagine anyone running out even if they do chisel every high map, as long as you even just do the gavel version.

"

* vaal orb shortage (I use them almost exclusively on maps, they are way too rare)

They are rare because they affect a lot of things. Prices of specific corruption only jewels, rare corruptions like +block chance or frenzy charges on amulets, ect.

"

These things are designed only to artificially 'promote' trading. GGG improved many things (masters, gems available at vendors, div.cards...), but still some BS remains.

Bullshit. They are designed to give you options and they all carry merit outside of maps and outside of trading.

"

You can easily play self-found up to mid-high maps (if your build works only with rares). But if you want to continue playing at this point, you need much more orbs than you will find / create through recipes.

High end mapping isn't suppose to be sustainable without cost, if you aren't wanting to trade or willing to party with others to help with the cost that is a choice you made. And one I make almost every single league too, I don't complain that I can't sustain 79+ maps because I know I don't invest enough into it and I'm not willing to play with others that can affect my gameplay negatively (not calling out bloodlines mobs and such)


I think you are quite mistaken of the design of these features and are only seeing one point of view, which is all of this somehow directly effects your maps, when your completely ignoring the larger picture. If vaal orbs dropped from the sky many things would be effected, I understand you use yours on maps, but there are people that just exclusively use them on viridian jewels and ones that use them on blood dance boots or what have you. Even then, there is still a recipe for these, its just not worth using because it technically cost you more to do it, then you can purchase them for.

First of all: good post.

Let's get the big one out of the way first: asynchronous trading - Yes! This is a must-have.

The one thing I have a problem with is the distinct lack of buyouts. That, to me, is the main reason trading is successful in the first place. Consider how efficient poe.trade is, as a buyer - you look up what you want, find an online seller and boom - trade completed. Any new solutions presented that is less efficient than that will fail, guaranteed.

If you suddenly expect everyone to take part in a potential bidding war, well, no that will not work.

The few times I do engage in trading is when I get tired of a gearing problem I have, typically while leveling, and decide to cheat, err, trade for an upgrade. When that happens, I want the item NOW. Not hours later, or next weekend, or something like that. If that was reality, I might as well skip the trade and just grind for a couple more days and my problem might go away by itself. So, in practice, a solution like this would pretty much kill all trading pre-endgame. Not a good idea, I think.

Now, on to:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

<snip> both bidders and sellers should be able to retract their bids/items voluntarily at any time.

No. NO!

The amount of griefing and market manipulation this would create, oh dear. No! There must be checks and balances in place, like if an item is listed on a market place, it is still available for sale. If you place a bid on an item, that bid must be binding. I would prefer a system where the actual item and any currency bids are directly withdrawn upon listing the auction and bidding on it, put into some limbo database while the "auction" is progressing. If not you'd end up with tons of people putting fake bids on everything, just to see them withdraw later on or just ignore the sellers if they win. Or just sellers putting up fake listings with bogus prices to manipulate the market values (like they already are doing with poe.trade).

It would be a complete disaster, trust me.

So yeah, I know what I've described is pretty much an auction hosue, which will probably not happen. Frankly I don't see a middle ground though, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Like I said though: anything that is less efficient than what we currently have will be dead on arrival, so it's a tough nut to crack - for sure.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Calling bullshit on this, only the nemesis one and the current league mod, which requires zana 8 are ones that cannot be used by non-traders.

The only mod non-traders could afford was Onslaught, when it did cost 4c. But then we doubled it.

(partying in this game is a bad joke: 1.) too easy gameplay 2.) a clustefvk of laggy effects)

Trading should be the shortcut, alternative / easy option to gear up, but shoud not be required for content access.

"

morbo wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

Calling bullshit on this, only the nemesis one and the current league mod, which requires zana 8 are ones that cannot be used by non-traders.

The only mod non-traders could afford was Onslaught, when it did cost 4c. But then we doubled it.

(partying in this game is a bad joke: 1.) too easy gameplay 2.) a clustefvk of laggy effects)

Trading should be the shortcut, alternative / easy option to gear up, but shoud not be required for content access.

Rampage and bloodlines both are 4c currently. Tempest is only 6c, which depending on how it works might be worth doing often (for example is it a random test effect or is it determined by map type every hour, like it was in the league)

The others can be used, just not as frequently when solo. Aside from using chaos on maps, what need do you have for chaos if you aren't going to trade? Considering how easy it really is to get chaos from recipe I don't see an issue with the current cost, I do kinda wish that nemesis was in chaos not exalts.


It isn't required to access really any of the content or at least a very small amount. Currently the only content I would say you can't access is the new unique maps made from the lightning staffs and uber atziri.

In terms of previous league mods, the content can be accessed for a price, GGG determines what is able to be rolled as map mod and what can't. For whatever reason the only way we can get tempest is from zana mod.

Personally I would love for the league specific things to be tied to stuff that drops or can be rolled, I almost always go back to the map shard idea that was posted here a while ago. Its such a fantastic idea and fits poe so well, it would add so much to endgame mapping.

So if you agree\disagree what content do you think is trading required for?

"

Ceri wrote:

Now, on to:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

<snip> both bidders and sellers should be able to retract their bids/items voluntarily at any time.

No. NO!

The amount of griefing and market manipulation this would create, oh dear. No! There must be checks and balances in place, like if an item is listed on a market place, it is still available for sale. If you place a bid on an item, that bid must be binding. I would prefer a system where the actual item and any currency bids are directly withdrawn upon listing the auction and bidding on it, put into some limbo database while the "auction" is progressing. If not you'd end up with tons of people putting fake bids on everything, just to see them withdraw later on or just ignore the sellers if they win. Or just sellers putting up fake listings with bogus prices to manipulate the market values (like they already are doing with poe.trade).

It would be a complete disaster, trust me.

Market manipulation is another keypoint of trade problems. Forcing the player to complete the auction, however, would not solve the problem. Eventually, i can use a secondary account to buy my own item if I'm not satisfied with available offers.

Again, the solution is to introduce a currency unit which would provide an objective way to recognize the higher bid. Furthermore, if one put a tax on the transaction, the aforementioned trick would only partially work since i have to pay a tax to buy my own item. Another interesting aspect is that, if bids are in currency, they may be kept secret even for the seller (thus preventing again market manipulation).

Asynchronous trading is a risk to add imo. It might prove useful but it's a big undertaking and there's a good chance it will fall short of poe.trade in terms of convenience. If it does fall short and gets underutilized, that's a whole lot of dev effort wasted, probably much of it from senior developers. I'd much rather see such efforts go into improving the quality or the timing of the regular mini expansion and act releases.

"

morbo wrote:

reply to goetzjam, slightly offtopic

"

goetzjam wrote:

So if you agree\disagree what content do you think is trading required for?

Since 2.0 and all the nerfs to map drops, you need to pump some serious orbs into 76/77+ maps. Chis, chaos spam (not because of difficulty, but because you need 5+ affixes), vaal, sac. frag... then Zana mods at 80+. This is not doable as non-trader and is basically the only reason I do have a small shop in temp leaguse - to cover gameplay expenses in mid-high endgame.

That's if you are lucky with map drops, but as you can prob. see from forum feedback, many people have to buy their maps (and its not always because they "dont roll them properly").

But playing up to 75s maps is doable solo SF for everyone, that is true.

Whoa now, logical discussion with goetzjam? Get prepared for him to come to GGG's defense.

"

allbusiness wrote:

Whoa now, logical discussion with goetzjam? Get prepared for him to come to GGG's the game's defense.

corrected it for you.

"

goetzjam wrote:

There is a recipe for these for a reason. I can't imagine anyone running out even if they do chisel every high map, as long as you even just do the gavel version.

This^. Every map drops at least 4 chisels, or 4 gavels, 16 whetstones and 4 low level maps, or between 9 and 32 superior low maps, or a combination of the 3.


Ohh, no, sorry. Even if you buy the 20 chisels from Zana every day, using 12 chaos, which won't actually drop but require you to scrape together with chaos recipes, using the few jewellery items that you will demote from a regal recipe, you will not keep up in chisels.

Goetz, listen to morbo, he knows wtf he is talking about, because he is talking from experience. You, are not, and it is glaringly obvious.

It's even funnier, because he mentioned the cost of zana mods and the shortage of chisels. You dispute both being trade design. Then, go to extremes saying gavel recipe alone will allow you to chisel every high map. The reality is, even using every chaos that dropped, doing chaos recipe instead of regal with every full item set drop and using those chaos to buy chisels from zana, you will STILL not keep up with chiselling even HALF the high maps you run, half the maps you had to run if not only to produce the chaos for the chisels from zana alone in the first place. And you are using all your chaos to buy chisels, so rip any zana mods, not even one a day there.

Unless you trade, or you drop out of high maps and farm some mundane content. And those <- are the points morbo is making.


You can't imagine, goetz? Well take morbo's experienced word for it and stop imagining at all.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Rampage and bloodlines both are 4c currently. Tempest is only 6c, which depending on how it works might be worth doing often

Often?

Just how are you defining 'often'? In the context (non-trade mapping), you are already using 12 chaos a day to buy 20 chisels and I'l tell you, there aint a lot more than that coming to you, like you are already scraping to meet that 12 per day.

Actually, I do want you to imagine, imagine that there are no orbs getting messaged you from a random shopper for random shitty items several times a day.