How to "fix" trading in a way which should please most people

So, we have a few things going on in trade right now:

The vast majority of people who are trading are doing so through 3rd-party apps/sites which are basically a marketplace.

That method leads to new users being completely left out in the cold and think the only ways to trade are in-game trade chat (which is almost unusable) and the trade forums (which basically are unusable with the playerbase we have at this point). It also leads to price-fixing, random outages/issues we saw last week where items aren't updating properly, and frustrated users who are trying to message people who no longer have an item, aren't online, are receiving messages long after an item is sold, and everyone having to stop what they're doing to do a trade.

At the same time, GGG doesn't want to automate things too much for fear of bots and things getting TOO easy to get gear as well as wanting to keep some real player interaction involved.

So, here's my idea on a "happy medium" which should hopefully solve a lot of the problems without going too far into territory GGG doesn't want to tread:

1) People post things for sale just like now (I've seen arguments about premium tabs vs non-premium tabs, the method people are posting items doesn't really matter for this suggestion).

2) I know this is not as simple as 1 line, but basically implement the poe.trade interface in-game. It needs to be robust like that search to be usable. It also needs to have real-time searching and all the fun bits that sites like that offer.

3) Someone can choose to "buy" the posted item. The buyer's funds get tied up in the "buy" (unless the buyer chooses to cancel the offer before the seller responds, in which case they get the offered funds back and the item is still up for sale as if no offer was ever made) and the seller gets a system message that someone has offered to buy the item you have listed. If the item had a buyout/fixed price listed, the seller gets a message that they listed it for X and are being offered Y (so they know the listed price without checking their stash). They have 3 options (which can be selected from anywhere, not just places with a stash): Accept, Decline, or Decline with Counter Offer (all 3 with options to include a message).

3a) If the seller chooses "Accept," all items/currency are moved to remove-only tabs (edit: per arthursgf on reddit, another idea here would be to have "trade stash space" you designate for trades and if that space isn't clear enough to do the trade, you cannot do the trade. This would fix the issue of people possibly trying to abuse remove-only tabs) and the people each get a message that the trade is completed and the items are in remove-only tabs (with a check-box to say, "don't give me this pop-up on future trades." We want to tell people what just happened in a trade so they know where their stuff went, but we don't want to force that to keep showing up).

3b) If the seller chooses "Decline," if the offer was for at least as much as the buyout/fixed price (if one was listed), the item is delisted from search results until the seller puts it back up there. That way, if someone accidentally drops a Shavs in their 1C tab and starts doing a Lab run, they don't get wrecked on messages. Additionally, if someone is trying to price-fix an item, it'll take a lot more work to keep relisting it.

3c) If the seller chooses "Decline with Counter Offer," the buyer will receive a message with the counter-offer (and any included message) and has the option to accept, counter again, or decline (all with the option to include a message).

4) If the seller has a pending offer for an item of at least the buyout/fixed price, the item no longer shows up in searches for other buyers. If the seller declines an offer of at least the buyout/fixed price, the item is delisted and needs to be relisted again manually from town/the seller's hideout before it'll show up in searches again.

5) If someone is repeatedly listing an item, getting a buyout offer, declining, and relisting for the same price (thus trying to price fix), there will be an obvious paper trail and actions can be taken as GGG sees fit. And even if GGG doesn't see the reason to stop people from trying to scam noobies, at least it makes for a LOT of work for price fixers to keep relisting their crap when it's immediately unlisted as others try to take them up on their 1C offers.


So, all told, we have a system there which:

a) Doesn't require someone to be sitting in their hideout/town to make a trade
b) Isn't completely automated so we still have player interaction
c) Doesn't have auto-buyout so when someone lists an item for the wrong price, they don't immediately lose it.
d) Is more difficult for scammers/botters to control the market than our current system
e) Is more reliable than the current system since we're not relying on 3rd-party sites for trading
And f) If a lot cleaner than what we currently have.

For bonus points, they can release an IOS/Android app to do all of this while afk. Again, I know that's a lot tougher than just saying it, but it's a pipe dream at least :)


So, please, poke holes, let me know where I screwed up. I understand some people want trading to be more difficult and some want it completely automated. Please understand that neither is really going to happen, so something in the middle is our best bet.


edit 1: Added in the possibility of "trade stash space" to help combat people abusing remove-only tabs

edit 2: Forgot to add a clause for the buyer cancelling. Threw that in as well.

All they really need to do to make 99% of people happy is make the api actually display AFK/DND/offline accurately. This is the most common complaint, and I think would be a pretty big change.

This doesn't solve the biggest problem, besides the incorrect online status listing, of the current system: People manipulating poe.trade / Poe.Price with lowball listing that they never intend to sell.

All this does is bother them a little more.

All we really need is the poe.price interface put in game with listings being automatically fetched from Sales tabs. Once people are forced to sell that Bino's for 20c (hypothetical listing) we'll see an end of them and the system will largely clean itself up.

(Yes, we'll have a problem with buy bots, but it's not like they don't exist now. And it will bring the logs of stuff within easy range of GGG to do something about them and RMT operations.)

"

BerryP wrote:

This doesn't solve the biggest problem, besides the incorrect online status listing, of the current system: People manipulating poe.trade / Poe.Price with lowball listing that they never intend to sell.

All this does is bother them a little more.

All we really need is the poe.price interface put in game with listings being automatically fetched from Sales tabs. Once people are forced to sell that Bino's for 20c (hypothetical listing) we'll see an end of them and the system will largely clean itself up.

(Yes, we'll have a problem with buy bots, but it's not like they don't exist now. And it will bring the logs of stuff within easy range of GGG to do something about them and RMT operations.)

So, my feeling about "price manipulation" is that it is pretty easy to spot 99% of the time. If you fall for it, then its your own fault.

"

sybrwookie wrote:

So, we have a few things going on in trade right now:

The vast majority of people who are trading are doing so through 3rd-party apps/sites which are basically a marketplace.

That method leads to new users being completely left out in the cold and think the only ways to trade are in-game trade chat (which is almost unusable) and the trade forums (which basically are unusable with the playerbase we have at this point).

Stopped reading here. Wrong.

That method just makes new people visit poe.trade and use their premium tab. Your entire suggestion(s) are wonkers and bologna.

"

Docbp87 wrote:

"

BerryP wrote:

This doesn't solve the biggest problem, besides the incorrect online status listing, of the current system: People manipulating poe.trade / Poe.Price with lowball listing that they never intend to sell.

All this does is bother them a little more.

All we really need is the poe.price interface put in game with listings being automatically fetched from Sales tabs. Once people are forced to sell that Bino's for 20c (hypothetical listing) we'll see an end of them and the system will largely clean itself up.

(Yes, we'll have a problem with buy bots, but it's not like they don't exist now. And it will bring the logs of stuff within easy range of GGG to do something about them and RMT operations.)

So, my feeling about "price manipulation" is that it is pretty easy to spot 99% of the time. If you fall for it, then its your own fault.

Maybe to an experienced player, but newer players are much more vulnerable to this kind of thing and it could really cause them considerable grief, not to mention some might just quit the game over something like this.

I agree with the OP. His suggestion would be a big improvement over what we have now and address most major shortcomings. Price manipulators would definitely have a really hard time keeping their items listed under this system, especially if you have to interact with their stash or a forum post to do it. I've priced a few items lower than I needed to and it's always obvious because I get flooded with whispers every time and have to tell 3+ people the item is already sold. I'm sure people putting up bogus prices get a constant bombardment of offers. I also really like the idea of delisting in the case of an accidental listing because it happens automatically and you don't need to leave a map to do it.

and if someone relist their item 3 times in a row, like shav for 1 C cause they want to manipulate the price, then that item is banned for selling through that system for 48 hours or something like that

"

BerryP wrote:

This doesn't solve the biggest problem, besides the incorrect online status listing, of the current system: People manipulating poe.trade / Poe.Price with lowball listing that they never intend to sell.

All this does is bother them a little more.

Well, it bothers them a lot more and creates a pretty clear trail of them declining to sell for their listed price over and over (far more clear than not answering/lying in a PM like they do now) so it's far easier to punish.

Thanks for the responses so far. After reading through them (and the ones on reddit), I made a couple of edits above. Keep em coming!