Trade Manifesto

"
Cyzax wrote:
"
enol13 wrote:
I just want to be able to buy a map without whispering 50 people. I burn out every league due to this, and never get to complete my atlas.

Use poe.ninja (like poe.trade, only better) and bulk buy maps. Problem solved.


I think you mean a third dirty patch to kinda alleviate a problem but not a real solution.
"
RonY_Warrior wrote:
I'm playing this game since open beta in 2012.

This manifesto is a huge mistake now. This game need a Trade House for maps and currencies. We don't need an auction house, just a trade interface in which we could buyout maps and currencies.


so basically an auction house...


my opinion on this is i would love a grand exchange/auction house where you can just put up an item and the price you want to sell it at, if someone wants to negotiate can message you about it and go from there otherwise they can just click a "buy" button or whatever and the transaction is made.

It will be hard to stop the currency bots but that is the price for a free to play game that has a vast market such as path of exile. I would love to see better trade as it's probably the hardest part of the game a month into a new league (I don't really play standard so can't speak for them) its horrible with people not responding and if someone wants to buy your stuff and don't respond fast enough you lost the trade...making it easier to get the items we want and move on to actually play the game is more beneficial overall imo.

I am on board with less item drops as well because the majority of the player base just filters out about 90% of all items dropped while stacking quant bonus anyways. As long as the chased after item bases aren't super scarce where we would need that quantity bonus just to make it worth investing in endgame play then I will be all for it.


My only gripe for this league is the limits/caps on stuff just puts me off from playing content and exploring different things. Regardless, keep up the great work guys!
我是一个中国区玩家

中国区的内置集市存在太大问题。
你体验过没有~~~翻了几千页面去找装备。结果这里面最中意的最符合你意愿的几个装备都不是一口价~~甚至是未标价状态。这里问题来了。这未标价本来是国际服网页市集的标配。。然后这个功能在嫁接到了中国区内嵌市集后。。问题就大了!!!

我们并列出来大家对比

1、国际服---你花了1分钟输入各项参数,找到装备,私聊。等待1分钟后发现对方不回复,确认对方无心交易。。离开。。。你浪费了人生的2分钟,你很生气,也仅仅是生气。生气对象大体是卖家。。

2、中国服---因为没有筛选,所有物品全部显示给你。只是把你设定关键词的装备高亮显示而已。当你翻找了几千页,花了整整一个晚上时间来翻找,翻到了唯一一个你中意的标价5EX的某装备(非一口价)。这里我们默认是只找的在线玩家(勾选)。然后你放上5EX点提交。。。等待几分钟后对方无反应。
这时候你只有2个结论
①对方可能不在电脑旁,我等等吧------结果等了48小时直到系统自动取消。。。
②对方可能无意交易,继续翻找。。。。

你浪费了一个通宵,甚至还要加上48小时。以上无论哪一个结果。我估计你都不仅仅是生气。你会愤怒,对卖家的,但更大的是对游戏机制的!!对,我的朋友有几个都是忍受不了退出了游戏。

在中国区,大部分人其实把普通集市页当成了一个小仓库,上面丢的东西都是不卖的。而运营的方针又是这个集市页免费送。所以才导致你搜索东西出现的几千页情况出现。

希望GGG能对中国区做出改革,如果不能让中国区也用国际服一样的市集系统,那么也希望能单独隔离出一口价集市页。也就是我查找集市可以选择只找一口价集市页。这样就算有几百页,我花上2个小时去找也都是明码标价的,最后不会浪费我这2个小时最后还一肚子的气!!
"
Kulze wrote:
Well, when the Trade Manifesto came out I was mildly surprised, though I didn't think much about it. After all, we got a proper API working around the existing system, so what could go wrong? Also we can search via specific Affixes there, right?

Well.. sadly not quite so, the existing system is adding insult to injury.

So let's go through the reasoning on the Manifesto itself, seen from the standpoint of 'now'.

"
Chris wrote:

Items Matter. Trade is Important.


Yes... yes I do agree, especially in an hack'n'slash ARPG in 2019 which offers a similar framework as some MMO's. Which makes the following important statements all the more baffling.

"
Chris wrote:

Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.


Let's take a closer look, when does the amount of trades fall?

1.) Acquiring an item directly is easier/cheaper then crafting it. This solution is already counter-acted with the behavior by the majority of people. Since crafting is a gamble, the sure-fire way is more comfortable for many.
2.) The acquisition of weak compared to strong items is shifted, hence allowing for people to upgrade less often as viable items for their build become more common.
3.) Changes in the game-mechanics, for instance the introduction of overly strong affixes and crafting options compared to before, with a relative ease of acquisition.

At the moment the biggest issue is Nr. 3, GGG worked actively against the goals in their Trade Manifesto... at the first point presented. And they even did so without even touching any sort of trading system. So this point isn't important anymore by now.

The common player 'used' to a league upgrades a character in the following ways:

Act 1-10: rushing, at most buying leveling uniques. This isn't affected by any trading-mechanics.
White mapping: First actual 'upgrades', maxing res, survivability, taking a bit more damage.
Yellow mapping: Another wave of upgrades, often not even needed, more damage usually, life/ES if you're lacking, res should be maxed already.
Red mapping: Preparation for shaper/uber-elder, upgrading to 'good' items, multi-modding well rolled bases.

Done, that's the whole progression, afterwards it's only min-max, those steps can't be skipped, if you're too weak you need something better, hence you buy something, hence the trading system is used. Making it more convenient only saves the frustration aligned with it in this regard.

Counterargument:

Not implementing a trading-system of some kind actually hurts the number of trades rather then helping them. The frustration felt by players which have to wait several minutes of their precious time to get a reply, often not receiving an item they need while showcased for them, or having to write towards several people to buy some currency is frustrating. This hurts the flow of a healthy economy, decent items are skipped until the last moment as trading is a hassle, upgrades are minimized to the biggest degree to avoid using the existing makeshift system.

"
Chris wrote:

Easy trade means reducing drop rates


Just.. Why? I know the concept behind what Chris wants to say, though... aren't we already massively limited with what we're selling?

Stash-Tab limitation. We simply lack the space to hoard tons of items, we already have to vendor the majority, keeping only the most expensive ones.

Also, has anyone here ever thrown away items which are worth 1 exa + without investing anything 'big' into them? Not the majority of people. Most struggle to find/produce items in the 10c range, that's the majority of the player-base. Upgrades above that are rare because the amount of characters able to run the respective content sharply declines.

Counterargument:

If trading shows a need to reduce drop rates, then why doesn't league-progression do the same? Also, why is anything in standard still worth more compared to a league if there is - based on the sheer amount of items dropped over time - a bigger base of items available compared to a league?
These effects come from limited storage-space, automatically balancing demand vs. supply in a visible way. Trading won't change that.

"
Chris wrote:

Easy trade would make the disparity between different players too great


This one is literally insulting, not simply wrong in itself. It's a slap to the face for both beginners - which probably don't know as to why - as well as veterans.
The disparity of players inside a game is supposed to be based on skill, skill to use each respective system available to their usage. That's the big argument part 1 here.
Part 2 is even more important though: Beginners struggle strongly with the trading-system implemented 'as is'. Understanding the trading-site in itself is a huge feat, knowing which mods you need for your own build is an even bigger feat, and knowing which ones exist another step further. This actually causes the disparity to go THE OTHER WAY AROUND then Chris said. Someone able to use the site is at a major advantage because that person will be the first to find a good deal, get the cheapest price and won't have to interrupt progression for several minutes to even hours figuring out how the darn site works to find the right items one needs.

Counterargument:

This one leads itself ad-absurdum. Implementing a proper trading system would rather lessen the disparity between different players, at the moment it's so convoluted and hard to learn that a beginner will rather stay away from using the system at all. An experienced player on the other hand will easily sell and receive items at a much quicker rate. Price-checking is more precise and finding proper equipment a common task for them.

"
Chris wrote:

Easy trade allows for greater abuse by automation


The only point I have to agree to! To a degree at least.
Yes: Bots would be harder to handle, that's a clear issue. It would be even easier to make a bot, as those hundreds which trade currency day in and out and already present.

Though... GGG makes it really easy for bots to work. Presenting a whole API based on trading, which sites work with to generate automated messages and showing to exact item? It's a literal gold-mine for someone creating a bot.
It can check if it's the right item in the trade-window, he can check if the amount of currency given is the proper value, he can message people automatically, he can trade autonomously. What else would anyone making a bot want? We already have the worst-case scenario for information flow towards a bot.

Counterargument:

Actually implementing a proper, fully fledged out and intuitive quick option for trading inside the game would alleviate the bot-problem to a degree. At the moment a bot gets the whole meta-data from the API, able to handle it easily. Without this information present the feat of programming one able to handle the trade in-game would be harder.

Further comments regarding Trade which are an issue in the Trade Manifesto by now:

"
Chris wrote:

We had seen what happened in other Action RPGs when characters could be upgraded trivially.


That's up to creating a proper framework based on the game-mechanic. If your System is based to reach levels of 95 swiftly, but your progression of items ends at 86 then there's a clear disparity there. That's the main issue regarding trivialization in PoE at the moment.

Also Act 1-10 are trivial, as is reaching yellow maps for any experienced player. Afterward it becomes a little bit of RNG, nothing all too hard to handle though. More trivial would mean PoE finally looses as the last bastion of 'mildly challenging' ARPG's and goes the same way as those others.

"
Chris wrote:

It's easy to list items for trade, easy to search for items, and is often quite frustrating to complete a trade. This remaining frustration is the only thing standing in the way of trades being basically instant. While we understand that this sounds like a positive thing, we are very concerned regarding what will happen if that does eventuate. We have to prioritise the long-term health of Path of Exile.


Yes, having PoE existing for a long time, growing and evolving along the way is something probably the majority of the player-base wants to see. Were will the journey take us?

Though as with every journey, the end isn't what's the goal, the way is just as important. Overshadowing the progress with actively littering it with frustration rather then reward is definitely not the way to go. There are many options to implement new solutions similar to those existing ones, better solutions, less frustration solutions. Solutions which also keep bots at bay, solutions which make a Trade-API... useless, putting an end to data-mining. This could all be done, instead 2017 is showing us that we don't need any trade-mechanism implemented to screw up most above-mentioned points. Updates implemented without proper foresight is what have done the same.

"
Chris wrote:

The Trade Market


That one is the same half-baked solution compared to PC.

Choose:
Want a functioning system which lists all items, but you don't have any choice to find one specifically, ending up to be more then frustrating as your friend sitting beside you just found this awesome, cheap, powerful ring by pure RNG. While you're stuck with scrolling for 15 minutes and finding only attack rings as a caster.
Or... want to have the ability to find items properly? Or at least... decently? But as a downside you'll have to alt + tab out of your game, handle a convoluted website, know the specific details if the item you want to buy and then hope and pray so the player on the other side answers.

Well... shit... and shit with a hat basically. The hat won't fix the issue that shit is underneath.



So, how could the System be fixed and not ruin the existing goals of GGG then?

Issue 1: Auction houses usually show items from offline-players.

This could be easily fixed, if a player is offline, their offer automatically is removed from the search-list. And unlike at the moment there wouldn't be a way to know it even exists then, actually enticing to look more often into it and upgrading sporadically.. in the hopes a cheaper and better item is present.

Issue 2: Full automation makes it easier for bots.

Only to a degree. If a bot has to search for specific items without a live-search, as well as decide which one is the best offer, then it's harder to make a working one then now. Without the information from the API a bot won't be able to see an item beforehand, making a decision based on picture recognition is fairly hard still, it would lower the amount of actual bots available.


The suggestion for a working auction house would therefore be the following:


A trading-board.

Input choices are everything present at the trade API right now, in steps though to ease the use for newer players and reducing the clutter. As an extra one, the actual Tiers of Pre- and Suffixes could be shown, making a search for specific combinations viable, rather then purely on provided effects.

Then a list of all items for sale, with respective pricing and an easy way to sort by different criteria. Which mod should be the highest, which the second highest. Thresholds for minimum and maximum amounts of mods.

It only shows items from players currently online.

Buying an item is the same system as buying one from an NPC in town, you pick it up, the person selling it gets the currency into an inbox, one they have to take out the full amount before being able to use the trading board again.

Also this could include services: Mirror-service, bossing service (with proper checks), Achievement hunting, aura-/cuse-bot service, pulling a character through Act 1-10 for secondary ones (a first one can't afford it anyway), and so on. This removes the chance to scam people, which is a detriment to the game. People are here so they can clobber mobs, not to have to worry about someone stealing their stuff.



THIS.

The Manifesto is quite irritating.
1)If a human can acces at Poe.Trade data, why the hell do you think that a bot won't be able to do the same? They will, faster. Affixes are available, if someone make a wrong price, bots can detect immediately.
Faster that a player.
2) We do not have a crafting system, we have a gamble crafting system
GGG cannot push player to craft, not with this system.
3) Without a crafting system a little more decent and a ingame market, no one can play the game as a merchant or a crafter, carachters that can be considered of good value for a game and enjoing to be played.
I'm quite bored to do the same stuff every league. I play since 2013 , I quitted several time due to boredom.
More. At the moment we have a good platform of players that inundate poe.trade with fake offers. Text page of same item, never nobody will answer.
Bot already play on poe trade. Wake up.

I'll throw my 2 cents in here as well.

Auction Houses basically already exist via the main site trade page and third party services (poe.trade, poe.ninja, etc). There would be no harm in bringing it into the game itself.

Pretending that it'd make bots in any way worse is ridiculous. Having everything in-house would make bot detection actually easier since you could watch for faster-than-human actions (trading, login/logout, messages, etc.)

What it would do is a lot of good for the players and the performance of the system itself:
- It would reduce the API load (how many sites are pulling the data manually to make a pseudo-AH)?
- It would help with low value and/or bulk purchases (maps, essence, fossils, etc) that every player dreads
- It would help reduce scamming which GGG basically encourages with the current system
-- Yes, players should be able to detect this on there own, but players shouldnt have to count the links and colors. Players shouldn't have to verify that two uniques that look alike but are vastly different in value is the right thing. etc.
I saw some posts here and in some cases, I agree with them and in other cases, I don't.

I will start to explain how to implement an easy trade without BOT problems and without "Price abusers"(people online that spam fake low prices that are close to those on the market) being able to inflict pain on the economy.

The first thing is the BOT problem that we will have with easy trade. To solve this issue make inside the Hideout a trade area in order to sell your items.
So for example:
-I want to trade something
-I search for the item on trade hubs
-I find what I want to buy
-In order to trade, I must go to the player's hideout and then select it and buy it in a similar way we take items from the standard vendor. To solve the lag issues for a lot of players in one hideout we simply create an annex area for each hideout, where traders won't be able to come in your main hideout.

Here is a representation of the trade spot:

Decorations of the trade hideout annex area must not block the player's movement!

Now the remaining issue for this Annex area of trade in your hideout is the Auto Trade Boots. We just make a "CAPTCHA test" for each item and currency we want to buy.
A. In the case of items:
-We select the item we want to buy,
-A captcha test will appear
-We solve the captcha test
-After solving we can buy that item.
B. In the case of currency.
-We select the currency type we want to buy
-We select how many
-A captcha test will appear
-We solve the captcha test
-After solving we can buy that item.

A few other improvements for this trading system that I explained here will be the: Offline/Online trading. Make this option player choice specific so everybody will choose if they want to sell their stuff while offline.

So with this system that I mentioned here, we solve the "BOT" problem and also the "Price abusers" problem. Price abusers when putting currencies or items on the trade won't have the chance to block or ignore the trade and spam at the same time.

As for the dev-ops here you guys can make premium stash tabs to be directly linked to the trade annex area of your hideout vendor :).

We can, of course, improve the annex hideout trade area by making a special stash tab that won't have currency limits (in case you have tons of items to trade and it will surpass the 5000 limits). In other words, you will only be able to remove currency from that stash tab but not add currency on it (similar like a "remove only" stash tab).

Another good expansion of this trade is to make a special character vendor in a city (probably a new league expansion) that will give you a similar interface when buying decorations for your characters but, instead of decorations you will have lists of items and stuff the similar way you have on trade sites or Poe trade. In other words, we just make the trade forums inside the game using a vendor found in cities.

For the CAPTCHA test, we can put veiled symbols for the players to select so we won't break the game immersion.
After selecting what item we want to buy/Currency we want to buy an image like this will show

A message will appear that will tell us to select the third/second/first/etc symbol from the veiled group. We can also put players to select from a range of symbols to correspond with the first/second/third/ etc symbol in that veiled area. If the CAPTCHA fails a trade block of 10-15 minutes countdown starts.
If we press and select the correct veiled symbols the trade will end and we will get our currency or item.

I have other ideas on how to improve the game and make it more enjoyable but I will start a new thread conversation for that if GGG gives me permission. There I will retype what I wrote here in a more understandable matter and also other suggestions.

Now I am going to comment on what @Chris told us regarding the "Trade Manifesto"

"Easy trade means reducing drop rates"
I don't agree on this, because most of the items you find you barely sell them and only the valuable ones (that are worth more than 5 chaos) can sell better.
You can of course sell the non valuable items with low price but that brakes the trade system!

"Easy trade would make the disparity between different players too great"

I don't agree on that because this is a reality that happens when people spend a lot of time on this game. For example previous league I made a character that was worth between 20-30 exalts the most. This league with tons of hours of playing I managed to get between 90-130 exalts worth of items.
So the disparity between players regarding currency and items is related to time spent on the game itself and the skill of your gameplay !


"Easy trade allows for greater abuse by automation"

I agree here but if you apply an annex hideout with veiled trade CAPTCHA this situation will disappear. Just read what I posted above

Another thing that I want to mention here is that We trade because CRAFTING IS TO EXPENSIVE. Please remember that and tons of players will agree on this last statement I wrote.

Last edited by foreversense on Apr 30, 2019, 4:02:44 AM
hecc I can't tell what the third symbol is in that mess, guess I am too dumb to be a bot.

*hands the captcha to Jun who unveils and offers me 3 totally trash options that all fail and get locked out of trade forever*
[19:36]#Mirror_stacking_clown: try smoke ganja every day for 10 years and do memory game
"
foreversense wrote:

...


The base idea sounds very nice indeed. I would recommend a few alterations though:

The 'Annex' area can't be decorated at all, also there is only a single Annex area available, no different layouts. This solves loading issues and lag for players with bad connections, also it's supposed to be fully functional, not tidy.

The CAPTCHA:
That's a bad idea, it has been proven that CAPTCHA tests are only a minor nuisance for automated software. The majority of those is highly non-functional, while some of them actually impede the use by real people.

This is the same with your system as the underlying symbols are easily detected by a system, the movement around them isn't an issue, just takes a small change in coding for the program (bot) to 'see' which it actually is. Shape detection rather then going by a clear picture of it.


Otherwise, such a trading 'HUB'/'Annex'/whatever is a good solution for many issues and can definitely be build upon.
GGG balance is like getting a pizza which is burnt on the sides, raw in the middle and misses the most of the toppings.
Then upon sending it back you get a raw side, burnt middle and enough toppings to drench everything in grease.
Everything fixed but still broken.
Putting some blur lines or italic font on the veiled words will make boots to detect the information harder. But using a different language that is newly invented with a lot of symbols will present problems for the AI :) in my opinion
Last edited by foreversense on Apr 30, 2019, 9:17:30 AM
Just want to say again what a mess of horseshit and lies this manifesto is.

I'm almost 40 years old, I'm never going to spend 12 hours logged in and not playing the game in order to trade.

The last 4 people I 'bought' something from, the interaction was exactly the same down to the timing. I wouldn't be surprised if there is already some kind of bot program the upper traders are using that does exactly what the rest of the player base is wanting, an easy way to list and buyout things. I don't care what MTX they have I honestly didn't even notice. There was never any interaction besides the "hey I want this", party, trade invite, bye. I find it hilarious and sad that they can't see how stupid this entire system is, and the ironic part is they gate and gut drop rates everywhere based on this flawed premise which ends up driving people away and costing them money and fans.

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info