Trade API Delays

When are the new mtx coming out my dude?

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Chris wrote:

Whitelisting
The community needs to decide who we're going to whitelist. So far we've been turning down small tools and private tools so that people can't use the data for private sniping. The theory is that a small unpopular tool can use the delayed data until it's substantially complete/useful and then with the community's support, can ask to be whitelisted.

But what about public tools that aim to be faster than the existing trade sites? No one (publicly) likes sniping, but everyone likes a better trade experience and faster data. What if the tool has to be run on your computer, encouraging people to install arbitrary executables? There are pros and cons to each that we need to discuss, because they have a large impact on the fairness of trade.

My two cents.

Having a tool "prove itself" will become a catch 22. There's nobody who will use tools that have an inherent disadvantage, and thus will not be able to prove itself.

Nobody wants to put down countless hours of effort, and they have no idea if GGG will reject them because of whatever unknown factor. I think it's important to have clear guidelines for people who want to contribute to the community tools ecosystem.

Consumers of existing tools say "we're fine with poe.trade, we don't need anything else". Xyz probably agrees. Competition and choice drive innovation. Up to you if you want that or not.

My suggestion is: Be fair, open and transparent. Clear guidelines.

What I'm really hoping for is implementation of an in-client interface so we don't have to navigate out of the game in order to search for desired items.

This would obviate the need for GGG to maintain external APIs in order for 3rd parties to be able to provide a service that really should be in-house and in-client to mitigate risk and 'fairness' concerns. Closing down the APIs would also reduce bandwidth and limit exposure to risk of penetration from external agencies.

The proposed plan is fine. Large sites get Whitelisted, newer tools/sites can become whitelisted once they've built up the trust of the community. A 60s delay isn't the end of the world, except to snipers.

The Trade API is a privilege, not a right.

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Chris wrote:

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enemymigs wrote:

:/ favoritism favoritism favoritism favoritism favoritism

What would you suggest we do?

I've gotten the same feeling, and it's discouraging to put in effort into alternative tools in the ecosystem. I mean... even if you'd produce something better, you have no idea if you'll be able to provide the same functionality due to just this.

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Strained wrote:

The proposed plan is fine. Large sites get Whitelisted, newer tools/sites can become whitelisted once they've built up the trust of the community. A 60s delay isn't the end of the world, except to snipers.

The Trade API is a privilege, not a right.

Sure, but your thinking could potentially stifle innovation which will long-term affect the PoE community, and that is also bad for GGG.

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Chris wrote:

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enemymigs wrote:

:/ favoritism favoritism favoritism favoritism favoritism

What would you suggest we do?

I think each issues needs to be address separately. There are 3 concerned parties from what I can tell.

1. GGG - you guys care about stress on your servers and being able to provide quality service to customers. Overloading the public API makes this difficult. There have been many suggestions by brilliant people in discord as to ways to make the API more efficient and faster (ie. removing item descriptions from the API). Can we have a discussiono about these sort of changes that make sense for both GGG and tool developers?

2. Sellers - People associate sniping with scammers or simple taking advantage of people. However, this will always happen and is unavoidable. It is part of learning the game and isn't inherantly a bad thing. People often ignore the benefit of being able to sell something quickly. There are many times that people knowingly underprice and item because they want to sell it quickly. Snipers facilitate that very efficiently. Even in the worst case, getting spammed with messages is a flag letting people know their item is mispriced. One possible solution to help with is is providing a better way of filtering the spam. Most people will go on /dnd but this prevents them from receiving any messages at all. This could be helped my allowing people to put filters for messages by right clicking an item that reads "Ignore messages about this item for 5 minutes".

3. Buyers - By far, the people the most against sniping are other snipers who feel they can't compete. This is either because they can't compete or aren't motivated enough. Since they can't be 1st, they assume the solution is to make nobody first. This is a flawed argument because, by definition, there will always be someone first. The reality is that if the API is delayed, people will find other ways to snipe faster than a human watching poe.trade live search and pasting text as fast as they can. Any half-decent programmer can write something that leverages poe.trade, poeapp, or pathofexile.com/trade in a way that is faster than the lay-person trying to snipe using a browser. The point here is you won't make this group happy and any attempts to do so will degrade the experience of everyone else.

In summary, it's impossible to make everyone happy but I personally think the changes to the API are a step in the wrong direction. I'm personally a tool developer and I've played this game for years specifically because of the oportunity it gave me to improve my programming skills while playing a game I enjoyed.

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thezensei wrote:

Sure, but your thinking could potentially stifle innovation which will long-term affect the PoE community, and that is also bad for GGG.

As a developer, I don't see how it stifles innovation at all. It's just giving premium service to proven tools. If your tool is well received, then you can get added to the whitelist without any problem.

I think it's a completely rational response to try and curb sniping tools (which most people apparently agree is an issue that needs to be addressed), while allowing newer and better tools to rise to the top.

Add a longer 5 minute delay.
Most people bitching about the API change are just mad they can't scam as easily.

Improve the official trading site to be streamlined like poetrade. The official trade site is clunky in comparison. An in-game interface would also be nice. Let us search for specific mods in-game like poetrademacro.

I'm actually surprised you guys allow all these 3rd party tools in the first place.