A Community Almost Completely Devoid of Sympathy and Empathy

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

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jtggm1985 wrote:

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Imaginaerum wrote:

I do have a hard time feeling sorry for people falling for 100% preventable "scams" when the game is designed to make scamming literally impossible since you have to drag your mouse over an item before you can click accept

telling you to learn how to add 2 + 2 doesn't sound like a lack of empathy to me

(gender neutral use of the word son incoming)

Son, you couldn't be more wrong on that statement. The game is designed to encourage scams with lookalike items and the fact that there is no secure way to do services.

Services aren't guaranteed and the players accept the risk, however quite a few complain despite knowing this.

Lookalike items aren't surprising when you consider how many items there are. What isn't surprising is how common it is for people to blame others when all they had to do was slow down for a moment and review the trade window. It's like people getting a letter from a self-proclaimed Nigerian Prince and complying with his request for your account information. So eager for that promised wealth, it doesn't occur to them that something is off.

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jtggm1985 wrote:

This is partly my fault and I should have been more clear in what I meant by services, I was referring to crafting services, which SHOULD have a safe way to be utilized as a trade mechanism.

Lookalike items shouldn't be a thing like starforge and voidforge in terms of lookalike though. They are supposed to be unique items, so make them unique. The game itself also should make it clearer with links, so that a 4+2 versus a 6 is more obvious.

As to your nigerian prince comment, think about how those scams work for a moment. They spam email as many people as possible so that they can get that one person who is tired or medicated or not thinking clearly. A very large portion of PoE scams are done exactly the same way because if you get caught on you lose nothing but a fraction of your time but you gain far more when you're successful.

If GGG really wanted to properly execute their stated vision, they should enforce bans when there is sufficient evidence of an actual scam, and should state as such in the ToS. They don't, because they want to cover their own butts and because they don't have the manpower, through their own fault. You want everything to have a value that includes crafting services, Bosses, each item, etc, then you as the developer need to make it so.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

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jtggm1985 wrote:

This is partly my fault and I should have been more clear in what I meant by services, I was referring to crafting services, which SHOULD have a safe way to be utilized as a trade mechanism.

Lookalike items shouldn't be a thing like starforge and voidforge in terms of lookalike though. They are supposed to be unique items, so make them unique. The game itself also should make it clearer with links, so that a 4+2 versus a 6 is more obvious.

As to your nigerian prince comment, think about how those scams work for a moment. They spam email as many people as possible so that they can get that one person who is tired or medicated or not thinking clearly. A very large portion of PoE scams are done exactly the same way because if you get caught on you lose nothing but a fraction of your time but you gain far more when you're successful.

If GGG really wanted to properly execute their stated vision, they should enforce bans when there is sufficient evidence of an actual scam, and should state as such in the ToS. They don't, because they want to cover their own butts and because they don't have the manpower, through their own fault. You want everything to have a value that includes crafting services, Bosses, each item, etc, then you as the developer need to make it so.

1. Services aren't guaranteed. If you could just pay someone, then why not pay an npc? Why bother having to unlock crafts at all... etc etc etc. I don't enjoy the game enough to bother unlocking tons of crafts every league let alone starting from scratch anymore. Anything I'd be willing to pay extra to craft would be to valuable to risk giving it freely....

2. After so many uniques, you can't be surprised - there are hundreds. If you can see the difference between the shaper and elder background, your eyesight is poor -- or weren't responsible enough to take a FEW SECONDS to look.

3. I STILL remember getting scammed in DIABLO 2 over 10 years ago. A completely different game a long time ago, yet the lesson is still the same, take a few moments to verify or pay the price.

But seriously, complaining about the lack of manpower just goes to show you seriously underestimate the pettiness of players, despite the title of the thread. It's like expecting police to always be ready just when you need them completely disregarding the reality of logistics.

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jtggm1985 wrote:

I agree they aren't guaranteed, even crafting services. However, the point I was making is that GGG has stated that they wanted crafts to have value and that they want them to be able to be traded. They haven't made a user option for that like the trade window, though and that results in scams that no matter how much looking you do you can't prevent.

2: The fact that they have the same base model and the only difference is some slight shading on the sides is problematic for color blind people, not to mention people with any sort of visual impairment. This is solved by reading the name on the items, yes, but it doesn't absolve GGG of criticism for making 2 identical looking items with vastly different functions.

3. I still remember getting scammed back in old original diablo Bnet days, doesn't absolve GGG of being criticized for not matching their efforts to their stated visions and acting accordingly. The lack of manpower is a common argument that people who criticize others' posts seeking trade improvements frequently make, which is why I included it. It's also GGG's fault that they have so little, they started making money and didn't hire/train more staff, they got bought out by Tencent and didn't hire/train more staff, that's on them that they lack support staff and coding staff etc.

Finally, your police analogy falls flat because they train people to be ready to deploy at a single radio call, they have units actively patrolling and assessing neighborhoods. So the odds are quite high unless you live on a remote mountain that there will be police available when you need them.

As to the pettiness of players that is also on GGG. They have encouraged it, and in fact frequently reward it. What they should have done from the start is have a readable cache of player messages that go back a certain number of hours and actively stated in their ToS that scamming was against the rules. They don't for obvious reasons, one being that they designed their game in a slipshod manner that has little to no security in it. Another reason being they still haven't bothered to staff adequately, and yet a third being that Chris is a metaphorical sadist who enjoys the suffering of the players of the game he won't play.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

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jtggm1985 wrote:

I agree they aren't guaranteed, even crafting services. However, the point I was making is that GGG has stated that they wanted crafts to have value and that they want them to be able to be traded. They haven't made a user option for that like the trade window, though and that results in scams that no matter how much looking you do you can't prevent.

2: The fact that they have the same base model and the only difference is some slight shading on the sides is problematic for color blind people, not to mention people with any sort of visual impairment. This is solved by reading the name on the items, yes, but it doesn't absolve GGG of criticism for making 2 identical looking items with vastly different functions.

3. I still remember getting scammed back in old original diablo Bnet days, doesn't absolve GGG of being criticized for not matching their efforts to their stated visions and acting accordingly. The lack of manpower is a common argument that people who criticize others' posts seeking trade improvements frequently make, which is why I included it. It's also GGG's fault that they have so little, they started making money and didn't hire/train more staff, they got bought out by Tencent and didn't hire/train more staff, that's on them that they lack support staff and coding staff etc.

Finally, your police analogy falls flat because they train people to be ready to deploy at a single radio call, they have units actively patrolling and assessing neighborhoods. So the odds are quite high unless you live on a remote mountain that there will be police available when you need them.

As to the pettiness of players that is also on GGG. They have encouraged it, and in fact frequently reward it. What they should have done from the start is have a readable cache of player messages that go back a certain number of hours and actively stated in their ToS that scamming was against the rules. They don't for obvious reasons, one being that they designed their game in a slipshod manner that has little to no security in it. Another reason being they still haven't bothered to staff adequately, and yet a third being that Chris is a metaphorical sadist who enjoys the suffering of the players of the game he won't play.

As far as crafting services or rotations go, there are limitations. As far back as D2 (the origin) there was a time where it could be exploited and was not secure. The more complex the coding the greater the chance of a system to be exploited. Could trade have been implemented to be more efficient? Sure, but that inefficiency is intentional to help regulate the economy by having players decide if it's worth the effort or not to bother to sell. I'm still slowly cleaning out several leagues worth of items and plenty folk won't even look at the abyss that is their standard stash. Even now I still find myself reluctant to dump stuff I bothered to store in the first place.

Color blind folk are going to have a harder time gaming period, as would anyone suffering from some form of visual impairment. People who fall for "scams" because they fail to verify, that's it. People are human so that's bound to happen. But the problem is people typically have a hard time accepting responsibility for their own mistake, especially gaming.

When I dropped several exalts to pick up a starforge during Legion, there was at least one thread a week complaining about a "scam". The first one I bought as a six link had no issue - yet I still took a moment to mouse over and check the links and match the numbers to what I saw listed. The reason I brought up getting scammed in D2 is because it took just once to learn that lesson and it stuck with me since all these years later. If players were smarter, they would be so diligent that almost no one would bother trying to deceive in a trade because it be almost guaranteed to just waste their time.

Policing thousands of users means you can't be wasting time on petty complaints. Having worked on the support end for an MMO years ago, I was amazed at how much of the traffic was over the most basic of things. Given the option of taking 5 minutes (or less) to look for an answer or waiting over half an hour on hold on busy days - it's frightening how easily so many people would rather endure the wait over fixing it themselves.

If you can't trust folks to be responsible enough to protect themselves in the most basic way, you can't really trust them to be earnest when reporting people either. They be the same kind of people that would rather wait and hope someone fixes it instead of realizing to restart or actually plug the damn thing in the first place.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

There is one basic ground rule - you're guaranteed to exchange the items within the trade window. Outside of that, it's up to the players to decide and honor their agreements. As convenient as it would be to run chayula rotas or whatever is in heavy rotation I accept that doing so isn't worth the risk.

Let's take a game with an AH. In SWTOR, meaningful gear is almost exclusively restricted to drops within 8 man operations groups. While there can be others items of note (typically decorations) the primary rewards are the gear tokens that drop from every major boss. These drops can only be distributed amongst the party participating for a limited window before permanently binding to an account.

There are generally more people involved than actual rewards - it's natural for a few of the participants to leave empty-handed despite their contributions. There are maybe 3 options for loot distribution. Most often, master looter is used for convenience. This grants one person sole control over the loot. Despite the potential that said person can effectively take everything, most players are trustworthy enough to distribute fairly.

One of the factors that helps to keep people honest is actually skill level. Teamwork is essential to completing the harder difficulties, and higher proficiency becomes a major factor. In other words, it's usually not worth screwing folks over when you may need to work together again later.

PoE is single player. Sure there are guilds, but the focus is on the individual. There's nothing really to prevent someone from using an alternate name or account to protect their main account from a notorious reputation.

As for coding issues - I would say it's less the team size and much more the deadlines. New leagues are basically new code merged with existing code. Given the size of the current build, it's no surprise that bugs aren't caught before each new release. But, given the nature of the community, 3 month leagues were the best compromise. I would rather they take some down time to clean up the code a bit, but it's extremely unlikely that's feasible from a financial perspective.