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

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Boem wrote:

The method of trading is only relevant when contemplating the efficiency of various routes to power.
And trading could take five hours to complete and then it "might" be on par with grinding in therms of efficiency. And i say might, cause in an RNG drop system there is no guarantee of this.
Similar with crafting.

Right. So when a player is deciding whether or not to trade for a new weapon in act 4 the decision would be the same regardless of the trade taking 5 hours or 30 seconds.

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Sickness wrote:

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Boem wrote:

The method of trading is only relevant when contemplating the efficiency of various routes to power.
And trading could take five hours to complete and then it "might" be on par with grinding in therms of efficiency. And i say might, cause in an RNG drop system there is no guarantee of this.
Similar with crafting.

Right. So when a player is deciding whether or not to trade for a new weapon in act 4 the decision would be the same regardless of the trade taking 5 hours or 30 seconds.

If the decision is made by the player that trade is the most efficient way to gain character power, then yes, he will opt to trade.

GGG currently enforces the efficiency ratio's of trade vs crafting vs grinding.
Players just "deal" with them and implement them in strategy's.

You haven't answered my question though.

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How many times do you trade on a character from act1 to act10 kitava?

Peace,

-Boem-

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Perq wrote:

On the other hand, you have common items, like 1c uniques. EVEN if you manage to buy all of the currently posted ones with some fancy AH/bot tactics, you will not be able to maintain this domination for long because there will be dozens of people posting those items all the time.

uniques, yes. but give me the whealth the richest 3 players in a temp league and i could increase the price of, for example the bog map(which is quite important), to 50c.

the higher the map, the better.

---

uniques have a different problem, if ggg thinks a nearly 500dps 1h weapon for 1 jeweler is a good idea, like this ...

not talking about dyadus (550dps for 2c)

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Boem wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

Right. So when a player is deciding whether or not to trade for a new weapon in act 4 the decision would be the same regardless of the trade taking 5 hours or 30 seconds.

If the decision is made by the player that trade is the most efficient way to gain character power, then yes, he will opt to trade.

The decision that trade is the most efficient way to progress depends greatly on whether trading takes 30 seconds or 5 hours in this case.
All you have to do to refute your argument is to imagine a realistic scenario where a player would not do the trade if it took 5 hours but would do the trade if it took 30 seconds. And that is not hard to do.

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Boem wrote:

How many times do you trade on a character from act1 to act10 kitava?

Far more than I did before poe.trade.

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Sickness wrote:

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Boem wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

Right. So when a player is deciding whether or not to trade for a new weapon in act 4 the decision would be the same regardless of the trade taking 5 hours or 30 seconds.

If the decision is made by the player that trade is the most efficient way to gain character power, then yes, he will opt to trade.

The decision that trade is the most efficient way to progress depends greatly on whether trading takes 30 seconds or 5 hours in this case.
All you have to do to refute your argument is to imagine a realistic scenario where a player would not do the trade if it took 5 hours but would do the trade if it took 30 seconds. And that is not hard to do.

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Boem wrote:

How many times do you trade on a character from act1 to act10 kitava?

Far more than I did before poe.trade.

it's not.

If trade is the most efficient route to character power, he will utilize that method.

He will not refuse to utilize this option because of time requirements, since he already established it is the most efficient route.

Your arguing that a player with skill/game-knowledge will intentionally struggle to progress when he is aware of a method to not struggle.
Which i already mentioned is option 3) a masochistic player that purposefully gimps himself and derives joy from that experience.
That's a very minor group in the player-base.

And you didn't answer my question.

Trading did become more efficient then five years ago, GGG made that happen, obviously you will now trade more when comparing it to five years ago, that's a meaningless answer.

It holds no relevance to today's game state.

It's like me saying "why are exalts not 1:17 chaos".

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

it's not.

If trade is the most efficient route to character power, he will utilize that method.

He will not refuse to utilize this option because of time requirements, since he already established it is the most efficient route.

I'm sorry but you are failing the logic check here. You are using a circular argument of "if you save more time from doing X rather than Y, then time requirements will not make you do Y instead of X".

What you specifically are missing here is that when you evaluate if trade is the most efficient route in any specific situation the time investment is considered, so ofcourse the time investment will not stop you from doing it if you have already factored that in when making the decision in the first place.


The decision that trade is the most efficient way to progress depends greatly on whether trading takes 30 seconds or 5 hours in this case.
All you have to do to refute your argument is to imagine a realistic scenario where a player would not do the trade if it took 5 hours but would do the trade if it took 30 seconds. And that is not hard to do.

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Boem wrote:

Trading did become more efficient then five years ago, GGG made that happen, obviously you will now trade more when comparing it to five years ago, that's a meaningless answer.

It holds no relevance to today's game state.

It's a meaningful answer because you are insisting that making trade more efficient does not increase the rate players trade. I agree that it's obvious that I am trading more now, but for some reason you have argued against exactly that for 20 pages.

If it doesn't matter if it's 5 hours or 30 seconds, then how come it's obvious that I trade more now after the rise of poe.trade?

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Sickness wrote:

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Boem wrote:

it's not.

If trade is the most efficient route to character power, he will utilize that method.

He will not refuse to utilize this option because of time requirements, since he already established it is the most efficient route.

I'm sorry but you are failing the logic check here. You are using a circular argument of "if you save more time from doing X rather than Y, then time requirements will not make you do Y instead of X".

What you specifically are missing here is that when you evaluate if trade is the most efficient route in any specific situation the time investment is considered, so ofcourse the time investment will not stop you from doing it if you have already factored that in when making the decision in the first place.


The decision that trade is the most efficient way to progress depends greatly on whether trading takes 30 seconds or 5 hours in this case.
All you have to do to refute your argument is to imagine a realistic scenario where a player would not do the trade if it took 5 hours but would do the trade if it took 30 seconds. And that is not hard to do.

"

Boem wrote:

Trading did become more efficient then five years ago, GGG made that happen, obviously you will now trade more when comparing it to five years ago, that's a meaningless answer.

It holds no relevance to today's game state.

It's a meaningful answer because you are insisting that making trade more efficient does not increase the rate players trade. I agree that it's obvious that I am trading more now, but for some reason you have argued against exactly that for 20 pages.

If it doesn't matter if it's 5 hours or 30 seconds, then how come it's obvious that I trade more now after the rise of poe.trade?

Because trade has replaced grind/crafting in power optimization because of it's efficiency increase.

So players trade more when compared to five years ago, when trading was a lot less efficient, pushing grinding and crafting as more favorable.

What's so hard to understand about this concept?

Who is responsible for that increase in efficiency = GGG

With the current efficiency of trading in place, would it make a difference for a player using the current system opposed to an instant buy-out function? Nope it would not.

Efficiency is already so high that instant is irrelevant when contemplating efficiency vs crafting/grinding.

Nobody argued that trading has not become more efficient in the past five years, in fact it's exactly my point as to why increasing the efficiency today holds no relevance anymore.
It held relevance five years back, considering the games pace and overall place of trading in that context.

It has no relevance today.

Stop going back in time and deal with the PoE we are playing today.
It's like your using dota 1 to argue balance issue's in dota 2. It is completely pointless and wastes the time of the people involved.

Though perhaps at this point, that is your aim.

I'm not failing any logic check your imagining either. It doesn't mater if it's 30 seconds, five hours, a day, two months, most efficient route is relative to other options available to a player.
If that player makes the judgement call for himself that trade is the best course of action, he will use it.

Your position is that increased time spend trading creates discomfort/a barrier and that this will deter a player from participating in it.
If it's the most efficient way to reach a goal however, this simply doesn't hold up.

Since the discomfort/barrier of the other potential methods is deemed higher then the action to trade.

- skilled players no longer grind story zones
- skilled players no longer craft gear to progress the story zones
- skilled players no longer use trade to progress the story zones
(softcore perspective, i imagine in hardcore some of these still occur, specifically on the "initial push")

That's the current state of the game.(due to power-creeping)

Trading usually comes into play when progressing maps, crafting comes into play at min-max end-game and grinding is just a way to gain experience(loot is a byproduct now)

Peace,

-Boem-

Having come back to the game for the first time in a couple of years just a few weeks ago I thought I would chime in.

I think this game would benefit from an AH type system.

Having played both PoE and Diablo 3 since their Beta's I am pretty familiar with both and I think it is important for people who point to why the AH failed on Diablo 3 as a reason for not implementing it here.

Diablo 3's AH failed for one overarching reason, they balanced game drops around a real money system. In that system it was in Blizzard's best interest to keep items as rare as possible and make the drops as random as possible in order to drive people to the AH in hopes of them spending real world money and adding an additional revenue stream to the game. Balancing drops with real money concerns almost always ends in a negative experience for players (look at current loot box systems now and how rates are manipulated in hopes of pushing you to spend cash as opposed to grind).

Diablo 3 of course went on to fix this problem with loot 2.0 and the game became a pretty good success and was fun to play, although it has basically gone into a dormant state at this point.

PoE is lucky in the sense that loot isn't tied to real money, so they do not face the same incentive challenges that Diablo did if they were to implement an AH.

So far all the trading interactions I have had so far since coming back have been pleasant, however I don't feel they add/subtract from my gaming experience. Everyone I have traded with just wants to trade as fast as possible, say thanks, and then move on.

To me an AH would add the following advantages in no particular order:

1) Less time trading, more time playing. This is the obvious first benefit. You could get something, post it for sale, and then someone could pay whatever the price you set for it. You don't have to spend time inviting them to your hideout and going through the motions of trading. Although trading is fast, the time adds up.

2) Easier to see what an item is "worth". Currently the best way to do this in game is use the PoE Trade macro to check prices without alt+tabbing or looking at a second monitor if you have it up. Having an AH in game would allow you to check similar items without having to go to a third party site. To me reducing the amount of time having to check third party sites for things is always a benefit.

3) Wouldn't have to be on to exchange items. Not everyone has the ability to play multiple hours a day, and being able to buy/sell when it is convenient for you would be a great addition in my opinion.

Now that is not to say there are not some disadvantages as well:

1) AH could/probably would be botted. This would be probably the greatest concern in my eyes. I am not sure how GGG would prevent this or control this. You could do checks for usage thresholds. That is what we do where I develop in order to limit activity that would not be possible by a human, no matter how fast they were lol!

2) Wealthy players could more easily control the market. Still an issue, however I think that is one we would have to see how it would play out. Obviously someone could go in, buy all X items, then re-list them at an inflated price as to what they were before. You could limit this by only allowing X items to be listed by a player at one time making it more cumbersome to horde lots of items and sell them over X days

So those are my thoughts anyway. The majority of players will always go the path of least resistance and will do whatever they feel will be fastest way to get to the top, whether that be trading, AH, etc. I think the idea of an AH should be looked at from a broader perspective of what would be most convenient and easy to use for the player base at large. I already feel like I have an advantage over some by doing my own research and knowing what tools to use to make sure I am getting an item at a fair price. I think an AH would put that information 1) in game where it belongs, and 2) easier to understand for newer players coming into the game for the first time.

Haha this is getting more and more ridiculous. Now we are at "it doesn't matter if it takes 30 seconds or 2 months".

Dude you are not making sense.


Here is a realistic scenario that completely refutes your argument:
A player in act 4 thinking "I'll keep going with my current gear a little while longer and hope for some upgrades instead of alt-tab, search, contact seller, hope he is not afk and in the right league and still got the item".

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Sickness wrote:

Haha this is getting more and more ridiculous. Now we are at "it doesn't matter if it takes 30 seconds or 2 months".

Dude you are not making sense.


Here is a realistic scenario that completely refutes your argument:
A player in act 4 thinking "I'll keep going with my current gear a little while longer and hope for some upgrades instead of alt-tab, search, contact seller, hope he is not afk and in the right league and still got the item".

There is nothing realistic about that scenario.

If that player deemed a five hour trade as more efficient to get that upgrade, he would then proceed to wait for five hours to do that trade.

And if he is searching for a trade while he could push further with his current set-up, how is he "skilled" or efficiently using trade as a tool to begin with? It refutes the entire logic of the argument made.
Since clearly in that case he is not yet uncomfortable with progressing further.

Comfortably ignoring power-creep is so high you don't need to craft/grind/trade to push to maps to begin with in the current game-state.

Personally i make it to maps in around 8-10 hours at the start of a new league, no crafting, no grinding zones for additional loot, no trading.
Basically just walking true the content and slaughtering packs as i go.

I'd say if you need any of the methods(craft/trade/grind) to attain character power in the story mode you are not very skilled at the game yet.
But if you need them they will be pre-warned by a feeling of discomfort relative to content.
And this trigger will initiate the "what are my options?" question. And if the answer to that question is trade relative to the other answers, then it doesn't mater how trade is happening since it assumes it is accounted for when contemplating the best course of action.

Peace,

-Boem-