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

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Sickness wrote:

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Boem wrote:

And here i am, still waiting for roughly eight of my post's with questions to be answered by you.

But all i see is ignoring questions and moving the goal post every time you can't reply or can't defend your position.

I ignore your strawmen and derailment and keep sticking to a very specific point. There is no moving of goal posts.

[Removed by Support]

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Boem wrote:

I think your mind is stuck in some four year old version of PoE, where trading was actually restricted to a point where it effected drop-rates.

The version of PoE is completely independent to my argument. [Removed by Support] the more convienient trading is the more will people do it, and if people trade more they rely less on self-found/crafted less.
[Removed by Support] completely illogical claim that everyone who currently trades are trading as much as they possibly can. That's so incredibly stupid. It's possible to ONLY trade, but that is not what people are doing and thus it is logically proven without any uncertainty that your claim is wrong.

Now look, it can still be true that your other argument is true, that it's overall worse for the game if to exclude some players from trading by the externallity of the trade sites.
This is a seperate argument! Please can you just understand this now?

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Boem wrote:

Not really, my argument is that people that play PoE efficiently within a trade-league already utilize that method when it is the most optimal answer to their problem.

And that drop rates are balanced around the most optimal strategy's of game-play the game offers.

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Boem wrote:

Now you can go on and on about a "random X%" of the community not utilizing trade in that fashion, but then they are not playing PoE efficiently, having a rough time and potentially leave the game.
The fact that they are having a rough time in comparison to people that do play efficiently is because the game is balanced with trading in mind as an option to advance character power.

And for people that actually "desire" to play inefficiently as one of their goals, SSF exist's.
And even there, no balance changes are performed because the game is explicitly balanced around a "trade-league" and not partaking in trading is a self-inflicted inefficiency.

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Boem wrote:

And for people that actually "desire" to play inefficiently as one of their goals, SSF exist's.
And even there, no balance changes are performed because the game is explicitly balanced around a "trade-league" and not partaking in trading is a self-inflicted inefficiency.

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Sickness wrote:

Two problems with that.
1. Changing the trade system would change the optimal strategy.
2. PoE is clearly not balanced around the most optimal strategy, as that would mean only the top 0.0001% of players would play a balanced game. And if you look around on the forums it's pretty common that these playes claim that the game is too easy.
In fact, it's pretty stupid to assume that the game is balanced around players doing nothing but trading, which is the logical conclusion of your claims.

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Boem wrote:

edit : your basically refuting the notion that GGG balances drop/loot tables around people that do trade whenever they can or it is the most optimal strategy.

In your eyes, GGG balances drop/loot around people that trade 50%(arbitrary number) of the times when it's the most efficient route. Which gives the balance/drop rates another margin to be reduced any further.

I believe they are incapable of doing so. Similar to how they balance div cards around the most optimal way of obtaining them.

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Perq wrote:

1. No. Trading would still be optimal strategy.
2. It is balanced around trading. It doesn't mean it is balanced around 0,001% level of top players trading, but it is still balanced with trade being an option.

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Perq wrote:

Bold part:
1. No, it isn't balanced around players only trading.
2. No, it isn't logical conclusion to his claims. You just want it to be so that you can make your argument look good.

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Zaludoz wrote:

Spoiler

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robmafia wrote:

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Perq wrote:

And of course it isn't binary - at this time we're at the point in which casual players simply don't want/know how take part in trade, so they don't. And because of that they lose out, which creates the disparity.
You can claim all day that if you make the trade less-annoying, it will be worse for the game, but the fact of the matter is that inconvenient trade CAUSES the disparity and not the way around. At least this makes more sense compared to what GGG is proposing.

lolz @ the thought that easier trade (AH or otherwise) would somehow magically make the casuals poeconomics-savvy... and blaming the state of trade for the disparity of knowledge.

more casuals trading = more fodder for flippers.

Depends on the tools provided.
In other online games where one can go kill stuff and find items and later list them for sale to other players for a price, there are generally tools to facilitate this in the game. One, is the "price history" feature. This lets people see a list of completed trades of that item. PoE's "Price History" would have to be fundamentally different from other listings, because most just use gold, and most items have fixed stats. (note these two facts make a PoE "auction house" or simply in-game browse-to-find-listed-items features far less impactful on the economy than other games with similar features)

In this case, the items listed would likely have to be based on the chosen item base the search is founded upon, or sum of affix values, and the pool of potential "history" cases would be more diverse, and would still require a player to build some knowledge of why different pieces went for the different prices in such a system. In such a system, I think Uniques would be the easiest to price, due to their mostly static values.

As to casuals becoming some sort of fodder for flippers: (first off, that's a very dim view of people who don't participate in this game's mockery of trade)

If a player lists an item for way less than they should based on a manipulated price history (a clan deciding to list a bunch of items for sale and sell back to other members), they'd say to themselves, self, that sold REALLY fast. Maybe I should raise my price next time... until they reach a point when it takes way too long to sell, and they say self, that took too long to sell, maybe you priced it too high, and they lower their price.

SOOOOO advanced. Can't expect players to get poeconomicly savvy with easy trade, now can we?

But right now, you don't just have non-traders who have NEVER used an Auction House before, we have (at least) one prolific trader in other games, who while in Path of Exile, simply refuses to take part in PoE's version of trade, using 3rd party websites and non-integrated trade features to do any trades. These sorts of people already know HOW to trade, but don't.

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I posted about this in their Trade Manifesto thread a long time back... I came to exactly the OPPOSITE conclusions on each and every point that they used to say "Easy Trade" was bad.

The only reasons I can see for them wanting "hard trade" is that they do not want every single player taking part in trade, one of the core pillars of PoE's game design. Thus, they cannot balance the game around trade, because only a few dedicated players (compared to the masses of players who simply don't bother with the mess we have here) are engaging in trade.

This essentially makes PoE a SSF experience, even for people playing in trade leagues, and we have players on two very different tiers of power. You can't balance around both, so you have people who trade and can steamroll content, claiming the game is too easy, while you have people who don't trade, and struggle to kill bosses in multi-minute battles claiming the bosses have to be toned down a notch. (dial this up to the max when you then compare a SSF melee player with a trading ranged or caster character and how do you balance this exactly? - and having a good build can be hamstrung by not having good gear - ssf I rarely find good Health on gear... so people saying you need absurdly high numbers of health to survive (over 4k health has been absurd to me, even going 200% life on tree, for instance - while I COULD in a trade league, just go buy gear with good health rolls on it, because apparently that stuff drops for the other 100,000 players, but not me.))

That's where your disparity comes from - and hard trade doesn't make this situation any better for the non-traders, it just leads to frustration.

GGG NEEDS to decide if they want the game balanced around trade or not, and then make trading either a core element of progression, or just a failsafe if your own drops don't give you what you need. Otherwise, the game will always be in an unbalanced state, and the disparity between traders and non-traders will be a huge gulf.

Putting an in-game interface for listing and searching for items for sale is an INTEGRAL part of a game with trade. Simple as that. (Whether there are buy-outs or not is not part of that point.)

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Putting an in-game interface for listing and searching for items for sale is an INTEGRAL part of a game with trade. Simple as that. (Whether there are buy-outs or not is not part of that point.)

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Sickness wrote:

1. The optimal frequency of trading would change.
2. Don't you see that "balanced around trading" means nothing on it's own? The efficiency and convenience of the trading system must be considered.

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Sickness wrote:

Yes that is the logical concluson to his claims. He has litterally said that players that trade are trading as much as they possibly can, which is all the time.
The problem is not with my conclusion, but with the original claim.
I am happy ot accept that the claim isn't that people are trading as much as they possibly can. That proves me right, as if people are not trading as much as they possibly can, they can be trading more, which would happen with a more efficient and convenient trading system.

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robmafia wrote:

well, now that everything's censored (i just had a post removed... because "it was responding to comments that have since been removed" )

there's no point to even posting here*. no response from ggg, aside from censorship.

see you all in 3.3, i guess.


*stating reason, aside. ie: censorship

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Sickness wrote:

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Perq wrote:

Bold part:
1. No, it isn't balanced around players only trading.
2. No, it isn't logical conclusion to his claims. You just want it to be so that you can make your argument look good.

Yes that is the logical concluson to his claims. He has litterally said that players that trade are trading as much as they possibly can, which is all the time.
The problem is not with my conclusion, but with the original claim.
I am happy ot accept that the claim isn't that people are trading as much as they possibly can. That proves me right, as if people are not trading as much as they possibly can, they can be trading more, which would happen with a more efficient and convenient trading system.