GGG's argument about AH/state of trade that is grinding my gears - 2018 edition

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Perq wrote:

So, it is this time in the year again - lets complain about trade. Thats something nobody came with recently, right?!

Jokes aside, I want to (once more) debunk an argument that GGG is using against implementation of AH. I'm not going to focus on AH itself, or whenever the AH is good for the game, but only this one argument against it used by GGG. They argument is:

There is already a disparity between 1% and more casual players. AH would be more efficient therefore making the disparity even worse.

I find this argument flawed on many levels. Lets begin:

The legendary Trade Chat and lack of information for new players

So, GGG is saying that the efficiency is the main factor which makes the 1% wealthy, and casuals poor. Well then, lets look at the game from new player perspective, who doesn't know anything, or knows very little about the game.
He logs into the game, levels up a little bit. Hits level 40, finds exalted orb. He doesn't know what it does, but notices that there is trade channel in the game. Looks it up, notices people are selling powerful (it his eyes) items, and they only want ONE of this orb he just found. Wowzerz! Lets get it!
The point is: there is literally zero information IN-GAME about the existence of poe.trade. Scammers flooding the trade chat with useless 1c junk priced in exalts know about it. The outcome is obvious: people who scam newbs get extra income, news get shafted.

The 3rd part trading software and premium tabs

New players not only don't have much information about how much they can buy with their currency, but they also have little information about how to SELL their items. They've already seen the trade chat and they may try learning prices from there. What might happen is that they start wasting time trying to sell worthless items on trade chat, instead of actually getting currency/items by playing the game.
But there is more - even if they happen to hear about poe.trade from somewhere, finding information about how to post items there isn't very obvious, neither.
While premium tabs exist, not all new players (and ESPECIALLY new players, who just got into the game) will make the decision to buy them. GGG argues that there are 3rd part programs that can be used, but do new players really know about that? Of course they don't - how would they?

The price fixers, afks and scammers

So lets assume our new player got through scam-chat, managed to somehow find information about 3rd part software to post his items on forums (this includes convoluted process of making shop thread, finding thread ID, SESSIONID from the browser... you get the idea) and now he start selling his items.
Great! He is now probably one in ten new players that managed to get through all that stuff.
But he is still a new player, so he doesn't know the prices. He bothers some streamers about the prices, and they tell him to check poe.trade for similar items. Of course!, he thinks to himself, thats obvious. He looks up the price, and posts his item. 5 seconds later someone PMs him to buy the item - hello, its your friend, Price Fixer making some more currency.

Trade is bothersome - only determined stay

Lastly, the point I've made multiple times now. The very fact of trade being bothersome means that many people will not want to take part in it. And as we all know, trading gives huge advantage, because you can get rid of what you don't need, and get what you need. Making (and leaving) it bothersome means that some people will simply pass on it, while other determined enough will milk it till the end of the world. Who is who in this scenario is pretty obvious, I think.
That said, this is funny how GGG is so stubborn about flask macros, but yet allows all sort of different trade macros that make trading way more EFFICIENT. Wasn't that the problem we started with, by the way? Efficiency being too high?

In conclusion:

To make it clear - I'm not arguing about adding AH here. In my opinion AH isn't even necessary. But what GGG has failed multiple times at is giving new players tool and information to get into trading without being burned and leaving. I personally find GGG's move of creating their own trade site worthless, because while it sits proudly on the main site, there is absolutely zero information about it in the game. The trade being as bothersome as it is means that unless you are determined to use it optimally, you won't get much from it, which is the very reason the disparity exists.
In other words: inefficient trade is the reason why disparity exists - not the other way around.

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Boem wrote:

That post where you claim GGG doesn't implement in-game trading because it would make trading efficient by some "X value" marging after they themselves increased the efficiency of the trade system by a huge margin in the past two years.

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Boem wrote:

While excluding the possibility there is no relation between trade efficiency and trading not being in the core game yet?

While at the same time telling me i need to move myself into GGG's position to contemplate this.

Yeah, i read that.

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Boem wrote:

Reading stuff like this is cringy at best, i hope you are aware of that.

1) you don't explain "the mechanics at work" that i am misunderstanding(convenient stuff)
2) you claim i don't see the downsides without questioning me about that fact(convenient stuff)

On the other hand, you obviously know all of the mechanics at work and are 100% correct in your assumption about the downsides.

A stellar position for discourse man.

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Boem wrote:

edit : and to be clear i understand your position quite perfectly.

Your echoing the sentiment that GGG fears the effects efficient trading could have on loot distribution between players.

But, it's just an echo. Hell you didn't even explore if their actions enforce that statement.

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Thraellic wrote:

Back to the OP for just a moment here: 9000% agree, this point in GGG's anti-trade arsenal is completely illogical.

Difficult trade exacerbates player disparity. AH would reduce that disparity. Reduce, not increase, as GGG seems to believe. For all the points the OP laid out so well.

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Boem wrote:

A player only crafts when his gear progression has stopped and the market can no longer provide upgrades.

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Boem wrote:

Your saying that people somehow craft before that point in the current game state because a "random X%" of people are marginalized and excluded from trading due to barriers of entry.
There is no redeeming factor to this.

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Boem wrote:

And your fundamental stance on the mater is "GGG wants this therefore it's ok".

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Boem wrote:

As a community member i disagree and as a person i want everybody to enjoy and have fun in PoE. I don't want everybody to succeed automatically, but they should be given the tools to enjoy the game fundamentally, trade being one of those tools.

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Boem wrote:

This assumes efficient crafting and not random lottery players throwing some chaos on a ring.(which is not "crafting" but just a crap-shoot hoping you get the 1/1000 odds of being lucky)

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Sickness wrote:

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Boem wrote:

A player only crafts when his gear progression has stopped and the market can no longer provide upgrades.

That is laughably incorrect.

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Sickness wrote:

And again you are comming back to your false premise that people are either trading all the time or none of the time. It's simply not true.
Here is what you need to understand: The easier it is to trade the more frequently a player will trade. That means for example buying gear upgrades more often during the acts, making the game easier and reducing the reliance and usage of self-found/crafted gear.

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sickness wrote:

Why even bother with semantics? It's crafting.

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Sickness wrote:

The easier it is to trade the more frequently a player will trade. That means for example buying gear upgrades more often during the acts, making the game easier and reducing the reliance and usage of self-found/crafted gear.

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Boem wrote:

No i am stating that people that know of trading, will utilize trading when the parameters i used are met.
(power relevant to content is insufficient)

While people that don't know of trading will not utilize it and have a bad-player experience.(since the game is balanced with trading in mind as a form of progression)

For people that know of trading, trading is currently NOT a big hurdle to overcome, they visit Poe.trade and have their desired item five minutes later.(if the parameters of trading are met and the market can provide their desired item => if not, the crafting parameters are met and the player is forced to do that)