just add gold and be done

The current system is far from being functional or fun for release.
We need all the feedback we can TO KILL THIS MONSTER.



Regarding the poster above: Merging threads has always been used to shut discussions and shove them into a single chaotic thread that nobody cares to read after a while. New threads are new. They bring more and new attention. Some people actually care about posting only in new threads, because they dont want their post lost in the maelstrom of junk that merged threads become. Usually the people against whatever is being criticized or suggested is the one to come in their mighty horse and say that threads should be merged, winning the argument by indirect ways.
Each individual thread, created by different individuals, at different times and read by different people is a different thread and deserves its own light.
When I have an idea, I make my own thread, to define and limitate the amplitude of the subject, to specify the focus of discussion, to carefully choose the wording of tittle and style of writting and presentation, to verify the repercussion of my ideas, to bring more attention and to center it around my idea. Posting on existing threads? not all threads are worth it. Some topics on subjects that deserve attention are so badly thought out that they are born dead. I reserve myself on the right of make new topics when the existing one, by my subjective evaluation, does not meet the standards I want.

"

WhiteBoy88 wrote:

OMG, people are linking things, so they must be right.

Fact: people trade in PoE without a uniform currency and set values. The sky isn't falling, the system isn't dysfunctional, and people are getting what they want from trades. Where's the broken part in this? Being sub-optimal isn't the same as being inoperable.

"

strill wrote:

"Can't be undercut?!" It's the barter system where prices can't be undercut! Tell me, how would you undercut an Alchemy orb?

I may not have explained correctly: In a system with 1 currency and set exchange rates via NPC's, you won't get a better profit than what the vendor will offer. No one is going to trade with a player when they can get it cheaper at the vendor. This dictates trades and removes freedom of choice from the players, along with the social interaction involved in bartering and negotiating a price.

Can we please keep things on topic? You're constantly over and over again bringing in things that are not intrinsic components of either a barter system or a uniform currency system.

Price ceilings are irrelevant to the discussion.

Price floors are irrelevant to the discussion.

"

"

strill wrote:

The problems you're describing are #1. Price floors, and #2. a lack of ability to haggle, neither of which have anything to do with the lack of currency.

I'm not arguing anything dealing with lack of currency. I'm arguing that having a uniform currency and dictated exchange rates via vendors removes freedom from the players to make their own decisions.

Huh? Wait, so you're referring to the person who said that gold should drop and players buy currency items from vendors? The system you're criticizing is no different from the current system since you can already exchange currency items with the vendors.

That's even assuming that gold needs to be exchangable for currency items in the first place which is not necessary at all. In spite of what the devs say about utility being an integral aspect of currency, that's absolutely untrue.

"

"

"

sickness wrote:

If I know that 1 orb X is worth more than 1 orb Y, the only reason I would trade 1 orb X for 1 orb Y is because trading is consuming and complicated.

STILL MISSING THE POINT. THERE ARE NO SET EXCHANGE RATES, SO YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW FOR SURE THAT X IS ALWAYS WORTH MORE THAN Y. All of your arguments are based on there being set exchange rates, but they simply don't exist. There are relative drop rates, but they still leave a lot of flexibility in supply. There are individually-chosen utility values for each player. You can't possibly have set exchange rates with such a system, and that's the entire point.

Please consider that all of the arguments you're making for why set exchange rates cannot exist apply to real life goods. Some people are lactose intolerant and could care less for milk. Some people love milk and would be willing to pay large sums of money for it if there were a shortage. The fact that people are willing to pay vastly different prices does not change the fact that the price of goods can and will stabilize if people are allowed to trade sufficiently. That's no different for a barter system.

Economics 101:
Diverse opinions on price encourage middle-men to buy the items from people who value them little then sell them to people who value them a lot and don't want to spend time price hunting. Everyone wins.

1. The people who value the items little get money which they value more than the items.
2. The people who value the item a lot got an item they value more than their money, and convenience they value more than their time.
3. The middle-men get money which they value more than the time, effort, and risk they spent to find these bargains.

The catch is that the people who value items little eventually get wind of this and increase what they charge to the middle-men. This continues until the price reaches an amount that everyone can agree upon. This price is called the "equilibrium" price.

This process can and will occur regardless of whether there is currency or barter. The price may fluctuate around the equilibrium more in a barter system than in a uniform currency system, but it will approach the equilibrium.

So yes, it is reasonable to think of prices in relation to a single equilibrium price.

"

"

sickness wrote:

The only reason why even call the orbs currency is because the devs labeled them as such.

Not true. If the devs had said "PoE doesn't have currency," and the orbs functioned just as they currently do, what would happen? Players would use orbs as currency because of their stacking property, their relative rarities, and their inherent utility. Just like what happened in D2 and other games where the main currency was useless, players will always use similar items as currency.

Inherent utility causes players to value the items, but it has nothing to do with their effectiveness as a currency. Fiat currency works just fine as long as there aren't artificial restrictions on its use as there were in Diablo 2 and Guild Wars.

If you add gold to Path of Exile, -I- will be done. Nothing will make me quit this game faster than if you add gold. I will laugh at GGG for a few days for going from my most respected company to a company who's made the most stupid choice in the industry. After that I'll proactively tell everyone and anyone to keep clear of this game and never return to it myself.

Make the right choice, keep this game gold free.

"

hesmen wrote:

If you add gold to Path of Exile, -I- will be done. Nothing will make me quit this game faster than if you add gold. I will laugh at GGG for a few days for going from my most respected company to a company who's made the most stupid choice in the industry. After that I'll proactively tell everyone and anyone to keep clear of this game and never return to it myself.

Make the right choice, keep this game gold free.

Which of the intended benefits of the current system do you like? Lack of ability to know how much money you have? Lack of ability to gauge the value of other peoples' items?

"

Strill wrote:

Which of the intended benefits of the current system do you like? Lack of ability to know how much money you have? Lack of ability to gauge the value of other peoples' items?

Both actually. You see back in the day of real lives people had a system they called bartering. Items only had value if you created it or had need of the item in question. When it came to creation of value for items, there were many ways to emulate this. Most importantly was advertisement. The better you made the merchandise sound, the higher it's value. In this same process you could create demand for the item, which directly inflates it's value.

In the second part of the bartering system you have personal value. The item is worth more depending on your personal desire or need for the item. In many ways this value mattered the most for individual transactions, but when combined with the value it's got from advertisement, it's value then goes up or down.

Mostly merchants could rely on advertisement to get their overall value out of merchandise. Though, a keen seller will be able to recognize the person's individual value. If it seems they aren't very interested in your advertised value, you could lower it to something closer to their expectations, just to get your product moving. At the same time if you can tell the person wants or needs the item no matter the cost, you have the potential to either make a lot of profit off one item or sell in bulk.

As a more direct answer to your questions. Do I really not know how much money I have? I suppose that's true, I can't just give a numerical value to my stash and ask if somebody else has more or less. Even still, I have something called intuition. I know how long and hard I've worked for the items I have and by that I can judge how much I'm wiling to give or keep for something else of personal value.

Once I've established how much of my personal inventory I'm willing to sacrifice for the item I'm buying, I can now make an offer to the seller. It's now up to the seller to look at their stash and determine how much of value that is to them. If it's not enough they'll ask for more, if it's too much then they'll accept. Once they've made up their mind they can give me their choice and I can then further review if this trade is right for me. Now this process can be a one step finish or become a multiple back and forth.

I hope I've explained to you in enough detail what bartering is and how it works. If you have any more questions please feel free to ask.

"

hesmen wrote:

"

Strill wrote:

Which of the intended benefits of the current system do you like? Lack of ability to know how much money you have? Lack of ability to gauge the value of other peoples' items?

Both actually. You see back in the day of real lives people had a system they called bartering. Items only had value if you created it or had need of the item in question. When it came to creation of value for items, there were many ways to emulate this. Most importantly was advertisement. The better you made the merchandise sound, the higher it's value. In this same process you could create demand for the item, which directly inflates it's value.

In the second part of the bartering system you have personal value. The item is worth more depending on your personal desire or need for the item. In many ways this value mattered the most for individual transactions, but when combined with the value it's got from advertisement, it's value then goes up or down.

Mostly merchants could rely on advertisement to get their overall value out of merchandise. Though, a keen seller will be able to recognize the person's individual value. If it seems they aren't very interested in your advertised value, you could lower it to something closer to their expectations, just to get your product moving. At the same time if you can tell the person wants or needs the item no matter the cost, you have the potential to either make a lot of profit off one item or sell in bulk.

As a more direct answer to your questions. Do I really not know how much money I have? I suppose that's true, I can't just give a numerical value to my stash and ask if somebody else has more or less. Even still, I have something called intuition. I know how long and hard I've worked for the items I have and by that I can judge how much I'm wiling to give or keep for something else of personal value.

Once I've established how much of my personal inventory I'm willing to sacrifice for the item I'm buying, I can now make an offer to the seller. It's now up to the seller to look at their stash and determine how much of value that is to them. If it's not enough they'll ask for more, if it's too much then they'll accept. Once they've made up their mind they can give me their choice and I can then further review if this trade is right for me. Now this process can be a one step finish or become a multiple back and forth.

I hope I've explained to you in enough detail what bartering is and how it works. If you have any more questions please feel free to ask.

"

Both actually. You see back in the day of real lives people had a system they called bartering. Items only had value if you created it or had need of the item in question.

Barter doesn't make items only have value if you created them or need them. Personal value is omnipresent regardless of any currency or economic system. The reason items have other value than those factors is because middle-men take the time to buy up cheap items and sell them to people who want them a lot and don't want to look for them themselves. That stabilizes prices.

It doesn't sound to me like you want barter, it sounds to me like you want a trade system that discourages resellers and encourages haggling.

Hmm... I like haggling and not knowing if I made profit or lost it, but instead being satisfied I got what I needed without feeling raped.

It seems to me though all you want to do is sit in the middle, look at numerical values and just exchange lower for higher to make profit. Numbers seem to mean everything to you and I'm sorry to see that it has embedded itself so deep into your brain that you can't stop pinching every penny.

In my opinion, monetary value was created entirely to dumb down the idea of value so that any moron who can count can turn profit.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

Items will always be worth what the player who has them thinks they are worth and what the player who she is trying to trade with thinks they are worth.

Adding gold does nothing to change this.

You can tell me the "market value" of a Zod rune pre-patch in D2. But that assumes that both the trader (with the Zod) and the tradee (without the Zod) are basing what is valuable to their play style off of calculations based on drop chance and that they also have the ideal items for trade at all times. doesn't happen, which is what leads to things like gold farmers and the like.

....

Player A: I need a new axe.. posts in global.
Player B: Like this axe?
Player A: sure, what do you need?
Player B: A fusion orb.
Player A: Oh sure, no problem.. normal flats.

Are you trying to make a point with that post?

If your point is that it doesn't happen in other universal currency games (or other games with currency in general) then you're terribly mistaken. People will oftentimes sell stuff for less or more than it's worth, even if the currency is in gold. The fact that this game is new just causes this to happen more frequently, because only a minority people have a solid understanding of the value of different currencies, and even those people don't have a firm/solid grasp on it yet.

Also, because it's beta, most people don't seem to care what they trade for. I personally think that is silly (but it doesn't stop them from believing it), since a game is a game whether there's going to be a wipe or not. Just because there's a wipe doesn't mean the economy should be senseless anarchy.

Having gold has advantages over multiple items: namely auction house, inventory space, and more accurate/fair market values.

"

Interesting wrote:

The current system is far from being functional or fun for release.
We need all the feedback we can TO KILL THIS MONSTER.

This is something I quite strongly disagree with. A universal currency like gold would be ideal, but the current system does work, and is not a terrible system. The developers just have an unjust/undeserving opinion on gold, just because gold has had problems in many games.
Stuff like "gold has no intrinsic value" BS. Gold can buy random uniques, rares, and magics, to name one example in Diablo 2. In other games like Guild Wars, gold gets you crafting materials, dyes, drinks, runes or other stuff (mostly thanks to an automated supply and demand value calculation system on NPCs). The only problem is that gold is limited in the storage and trade which is the only reason globs of ectoplasm and armbraces of truth are used — high value trade items to bypass the stupid trade and storage caps — they have very solid values tied directly to gold, you are just not allowed to trade or carry too much gold. THAT is the problem

Either gold or a real bartering system.

Not that hybrid stuff with orbs as currency.

"

hesmen wrote:

Hmm... I like haggling and not knowing if I made profit or lost it, but instead being satisfied I got what I needed without feeling raped.

It seems to me though all you want to do is sit in the middle, look at numerical values and just exchange lower for higher to make profit. Numbers seem to mean everything to you and I'm sorry to see that it has embedded itself so deep into your brain that you can't stop pinching every penny.

In my opinion, monetary value was created entirely to dumb down the idea of value so that any moron who can count can turn profit.

hesmen, i love u :) to many people arround who seem to have studied whats known as "economics" and worship efficency and whats known as "money " above all other. and cant overcome it in a game that should be fun. prolly theyr the same who are longing for imba builds and any sort of easy-accesible e-peens. Because thats what a static currency-system serves most: comparability. Mines longest.

FIGHT CAPITALISM! ITS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!!! :D

(Not 100% but:)

/troll

(Fyi: im a studied philosopher ;)