When are we getting better trading tools?

I don't get why people just zero in on D3's AH and say that it is what destroyed the game so no other game should even attempt it. Gear progression and character builds were a big let down.. you rarely found anything useful and there weren't any builds to try out. If you grouped with other ppl of the same class, you'd often find everyone using the same skills. There was also no endgame so there really wasn't much to do when D3 first came out except the RMAH which ppl banked on.

Also poe.trade is very similar to D3s AH in the ability to just play with search functions to find gear you need. The only difference is how you actually buy the items. Despite this, the game is still functioning just fine for most people. I don't buy that making it faster will destroy PoE as we know it.

You can't have the best of both worlds.. you either design the game around trade and implement a trading system into the game, add more currency sinks, add more vendor recipes, add more vaal orb type concepts. These are what are sorely lacking, create reasons to pick up loot that isn't being picked up atm.

Or design a game around finding loot, where you have the ability to farm for items you need at a rate that is reasonable in a 3-4 month league. Divination cards where a great concept for this.. its hit and miss in some areas but a solid foundation. Prophecy is also nice on paper but needs some work and could use some more additions as well.

Lastly.. when you change the game so much from its initial release that everyone runs around one shotting screens of mobs and the game is all about density and blowing things up. Leagues like breach and beyond creating absolute chaos and carnage, a mapping sextant system that encourages slotting in 5-10 extra modifiers... the game gets to a point where ppl just want to grab items, try out builds and go back to blowing stuff up, that's how you designed this game.

Chris can talk all he wants about trade but the actions poe have taken or not taken over the years don't line up with his belief.

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Phrazz wrote:

And "pow!", this debate suddenly turned into a "black or white" debate, where it's all or nothing. What is this? As long as we can't buy or sell what we want, when we want it, we're better off with turning the whole shit self found?

This game needs trading. But the efficiency of poe.trade was never "intended", it was a compromise at best. Who's to blame? GGG. This is what happens when they let traders take the wheel, instead of game developers. And now we're at a point where that efficiency isn't enough anymore?

Well, sure, you're right, the game was built with the intention of allowing trade. But you know it was based (to the extent they thought it out) on the D2 system. It was possible to trade, but there wasn't any dev facilitation of that. But we're going back a long way now, when the internet wasn't quite the behemoth it is now.

Yes, poe.trade is what happens when 3rd parties take over. But what's the alternative? The GGG devs didn't want to increase trade efficiency. They got it anyway, but what would you have them do? I don't see a solution. I don't think there's a way to put the genie back in the bottle (unless they do push towards an SSF only system).

I don't personally care if there's trading, I care when it starts to undermine core game play. Like you said: When drop rates change, when encounters and bosses start getting redesigned, etc. If there were SSF only servers (including an SSF only version of Standard) and it wasn't possible to transfer off of those, I'd go play there and never look back. But that's obviously never going to happen.

If trading was going to be built into the game in a way that was strong enough to force the obsolescence of poe.trade (and at the same time maintain a trading balance where the devs wanted it to be) you'd have some pretty pissed off players. Because there'd have to be some serious, hard coded limits on how much trading there could be.

Poe.trade survives by being a message board where the actual trade interface remains in-game. So if the GGG devs were going to build an in-game system that forced trading to the place where they wanted it to be and which wasn't just ignored by the player base (continuing to use the existing poe.trade) then they'd have to actually change how trade worked. A limit of the number of trades per day at a minimum I suspect. Possibly some artificial obsolescence to take items out of circulation as well. That's all pretty heavy handed, and I'm sure they'd rather avoid all that.

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e1337donkey wrote:

I don't get why people just zero in on D3's AH and say that it is what destroyed the game so no other game should even attempt it.

No one is actually saying that. We're saying that the AH was one of many flaws, but that by its nature, it undermined core game play. That doesn't dismiss any of the (vast number of) other flaws that D3 had.

Or more to the point: We're pointing out that Blizzard said that it undermined core game play.

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x1z1 wrote:

PoE already has a convenient trading system. So if you believe that trading undermines core gameplay, then, well, it’s already undermined. I don’t know by how much that would change if an AH is implemented, but neither do you, and I have no interest in your speculation.

Excellent, because I'm not speculating. I'm reporting on (and linking to) historically relevant professional opinions on what happens when a group of devs attempts to put and AH in an ARPG environment.

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x1z1 wrote:

You keep ignoring the facts.

No, I'm not ignoring the facts at all. You're welcome to go check, but I've said repeatedly that I think trading is already too easy in PoE. I'm well aware of how prevalent such trading is, I'm well aware of what the player base thinks they want.

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x1z1 wrote:

Blizzard switched to SF instead of trying to make AH work. We don’t know what would have happened if they stuck with the AH and fixed all of the issues that were affecting it. You can speculate as much as you want, but you don’t know.

I'm not speculating. I'm pointing out that Blizzard said that the AH undermined core game play and that that was why they took it out. Again, industry professionals making a public statement as to why they took what they knew would be an unpopular action.

You're the one who's speculating, not me. You're insisting that your various ideas for secondary markets and currency sinks would provide adequate controls to keep (a built in) trading system from getting out of hand. And you're not an industry professional.

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x1z1 wrote:

Blizzard also didn’t just drop the AH. They dropped trade entirely. If they had replaced AH with a less convenient system, and if that system ended up working better than a full blown AH, then you’d have a point against AH. But that never happened, so you don’t know.

Yes, but I do know why they took it out, because it undermined core game play. I can link Lylirra's comment again if you like. There were a lot of things they could have done, and you're right, they didn't. Instead, they took out the AH, and specifically pointed to it as a fundamental problem that they couldn't fix, which they felt undermined core game play.

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x1z1 wrote:

The only similarity between PoE and old D3 is that they are both ARPGs. PoE’s mechanics are very different. The situations are very different. You can’t assume that an AH will fail in one ARPG just because it failed in another ARPG, when the only similarity is that they are both ARPGS. It makes no sense.

Again, you're trying to compartmentalize this too much.

D3: ARPG, POE: ARPG. Both have specs, both have levels, both have loot. Both are structured progression curves designed to offer (more or less) consistent challenge across the designed curve, while providing incremental rewards which allow players to progress to higher level challenges (rinse and repeat). The minutia you're insisting make it different aren't relevant because the core concept remains the same.

Do you think a built in AH would make trading easier, or harder?

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Unquietheart wrote:

Yes, poe.trade is what happens when 3rd parties take over. But what's the alternative? The GGG devs didn't want to increase trade efficiency. They got it anyway, but what would you have them do? I don't see a solution. I don't think there's a way to put the genie back in the bottle (unless they do push towards an SSF only system).

I don't personally care if there's trading, I care when it starts to undermine core game play.

I totally agree with everything you are saying. In my eyes, GGG shot themselves in the foot several times regarding decisions around trade. I wouldn't say they got pressured, but the load on the forums and other things forced them to certain compromises. And yes, it's sadly more or less impossible to "go back", or restrict trade more than it is today. Not because it's not the right thing to do (in my eyes), but players are used to it, spoiled by it and have made their entire playstyle around the current accessibility.

Yeah people are saying this.. everyone keeps talking about D3's AH and how it shouldn't be implemented into the game. But they don't talk about the whole game and how all the features in the game effect each other.

An no offense to blizzard but I don't think I am going to trust the opinion of D3 devs when they had ample time to develop that game, had the blue prints to 2 of the best ARPGs and thats what they came out with. Even today, D3 still isn't much better then it was when it first came out.

So what.. Diablo 3 failed in their attempt to put in an AH system. We have poe.trade and its nearly 1 step away from instant buying items and we are doing just fine. With some additions to the game and changes, it could potentially thrive.. but we'll never know because people are stuck in the past. Blizzard isn't what they used to be, and they certainly aren't the end all be all when it comes to game design. Game developers can be wrong, even with their own games.

Just like we won't see what would have happened if PoE never had these 3rd party tools to trade with. Would the game have been where it is today? Would we even have 3.0 right now or would GGG be doing something else.

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e1337donkey wrote:

Yeah people are saying this.. everyone keeps talking about D3's AH and how it shouldn't be implemented into the game. But they don't talk about the whole game and how all the features in the game effect each other.

An no offense to blizzard but I don't think I am going to trust the opinion of D3 devs when they had ample time to develop that game, had the blue prints to 2 of the best ARPGs and thats what they came out with. Even today, D3 still isn't much better then it was when it first came out.

So what.. Diablo 3 failed in their attempt to put in an AH system. We have poe.trade and its nearly 1 step away from instant buying items and we are doing just fine. With some additions to the game and changes, it could potentially thrive.. but we'll never know because people are stuck in the past. Blizzard isn't what they used to be, and they certainly aren't the end all be all when it comes to game design. Game developers can be wrong, even with their own games.

Just like we won't see what would have happened if PoE never had these 3rd party tools to trade with. Would the game have been where it is today? Would we even have 3.0 right now or would GGG be doing something else.

We have data aswell though. My experience of the last years has been that every small trading improvement has actually worsened trade in poE. The main arguments for an AH are arguments that exist because of trade improvements.

Before they put in the stashtabs to link to Poe.trade we didn't have such a messy market as we have now. The amount of AFK, price fixers and in general bad trading experiences has multiplied greatly, because they took away barriers. Pretty hilarious that they are now being used as an argument to make it even easier to trade.

AFK: This problem needs to be solved without ruining the game. A mail system would do wonders. Asynchronous trade would be fine here... no need for an auction house.

Flippers: This isn't bad. It's people who spend time to make currency by providing a service. They buy low, sell high. That's how a market is supposed to work. Again, no need for an AH here either. It wouldn't stop flippers and it wouldn't necessarily help them. So pretty much a non-issue.

Price Fixers: This is just people who look to spread disinformation and profit from it. Defend against them by spreading information. Quit telling people to check prices for stuff on the trade site. Again... adding an AH isn't going to help this. They'll still spread disinformation through other means and still profit from it.

You people think that adding instant trades will solve all your woes with trade. It wont. It would ruin the game and GGG is smart enough to see that. What they do need to do is put in a way for people to trade that doesn't interrupt the play of the game, but still requires active participation by both parties in the trade.

D3's AH had nothing to do with it's "fail" (although something like 20 million units sold is hard to call a fail) D3 sucked because the game sucked. Very sparse itemization. CC CD and weapon DPS were everything. Unique worse than blue items on release. etc. Plus the snowflakes thought it was too hard on release so they left.

AH has it's issues like bots but that was because Blizz allowed them for profit. More items sold more 15% rake they got. That issue is easily fixed with limited searches say 50 a day by same IP as just an example. Otherwise AH was ahead of it's time. Prevents nearly all this issues this game has with trade. Price scammers. Time to look up values of items instead of open auction it and keep playing. AFK. DND. Leaving computer on all day afraid to miss a sale, etc.