GDC Talk - "Cursed Problems in Game Design"

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Nubatron wrote:

The results of this thread, and every other thread that was directly about or eluded to a AH spirals into two teams with very little overlap in ideas or outcomes.

They can be distilled into arguments and counterarguments that neither side ever hears; or pretends to not hear.

Its funny you state this, but then dive immediately into your own arguments anyways.

It works both ways obviously

Argument: AH would cause item devaluation OR power creep, or both.
Counter: Leagues already cause power creep, and this clearly isnt a problem to GGG. There is a set amount of currency dropping, which wouldnt change, so the same relative amount would spent to acquire items, hence devaluation would only happen at an individual item level, not the whole economy. Its absurdist to say there would be more or less chaos due to an AH, the drop rate and therefore the size of the overall market is the same with or without an AH.


And on and on... but I agree, each side has a position and won't listen.


" And everyone feels like they didn't win...."

Really? But...

"I'm personally happy" Ok then.

People who are happy with current system - SSF, people who are willing to sell and monopolize the crappy market system, high end crafters, people using trade bots.

Unhappy - just go read the trade manifesto. Count how many are happy, how many are not.

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Nidal wrote:

It is not that simple. wherever you put that middleground it will either be prohibitly expensive to put up cheap 1 chaos items or so cheap that its a drop in the ocean for the expensive one. the game cant tell your mace is 15 ex

Which is why the many games with a functioning AH, including WoW which had 20 times the paying subscribers that GGG has free players, charged a percent of listing cost.

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Nidal wrote:

everything will lose value and droprates will have to be adjusted accordingly

So, if I have, say, 20ex to gear a character, and I spend 5ex on my endgame weapon and 1-2ex on minor slots, then I am going to spend that with or without an AH. Now, with increased supply, I am going to spend the same currency on (likely) better items with an AH than without. So there will be powercreep yes, but thats a different argument. Currency drop rates are (relatively) static, or at least unrelated to whether there is an AH. Total currency flowing into trade will be completely unchanged. Or explain why you think differently.

The powercreep from an AH would be a tiny fraction of the general game powercreep. Do you remember when you could buy stat stick offhands giving (in a SINGLE piece of gear) 120% of physical damage as extra elemental? And you think an AH boosting stats on your gear by 20 to 30% is going to break the game?

That makes zero sense.

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Nidal wrote:

If you do really want an AH, at least understand that youre arguing that for you the easy trading is worth these tradeoffs and understand why it isnt for the rest of us, alot of us like PoE because of the existing economy, everything have some value

I dont really get this one. If you dont like an AH, dont use it. Your argument is like saying you dont like minion builds so no one should play a summoner and they shouldnt exist in PoE.

You might be right if drop rates were changed, but see above.

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Nidal wrote:

instead of trying to change a game fundamentally where alot of people like how it works, if you really hate the trading so much you should find a game that suits you instead of ruining the existing experience for others

You could make this false argument to say no one should ever complain about anything whatsoever. Also, we already have a terrible AH, some of us just want Chris' arbitrary "screw the playerbase and make the game annoying because I was scarred by D3" mentality removed.

If there was zero trade, and we were arguing for trade, then you might have a point.

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trixxar wrote:

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Nubatron wrote:

The results of this thread, and every other thread that was directly about or eluded to a AH spirals into two teams with very little overlap in ideas or outcomes.

They can be distilled into arguments and counterarguments that neither side ever hears; or pretends to not hear.

Its funny you state this, but then dive immediately into your own arguments anyways.

It works both ways obviously

Argument: AH would cause item devaluation OR power creep, or both.
Counter: Leagues already cause power creep, and this clearly isnt a problem to GGG. There is a set amount of currency dropping, which wouldnt change, so the same relative amount would spent to acquire items, hence devaluation would only happen at an individual item level, not the whole economy. Its absurdist to say there would be more or less chaos due to an AH, the drop rate and therefore the size of the overall market is the same with or without an AH.


And on and on... but I agree, each side has a position and won't listen.


" And everyone feels like they didn't win...."

Really? But...

"I'm personally happy" Ok then.

People who are happy with current system - SSF, people who are willing to sell and monopolize the crappy market system, high end crafters, people using trade bots.

Unhappy - just go read the trade manifesto. Count how many are happy, how many are not.

I think it's hilarious that you somehow think that the arguments and counterarguments I put lend themselves to an opinion. I literally flipped which side was which in the arguments/counterarguments halfway through and just mirrored many arguments being made.

I feel like you've proven my point nicely.

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Nubatron wrote:

I think it's hilarious that you somehow think that the arguments and counterarguments I put lend themselves to an opinion. I literally flipped which side was which in the arguments/counterarguments halfway through and just mirrored many arguments being made.

I feel like you've proven my point nicely.

You use straw man for pro-AH arguments, was my point. Our own implicit bias is almost to see, it colors our view the issue from the beginning.

Your points make it obvious which side you come down on.

"I feel like you've proven my point nicely" - And I totally agree with your point.

All in all, pro or anti trade threads are pointless, they are just people venting frustration.

Only player numbers slipping will force any serious reconsideration of the issue.

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trixxar wrote:

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Nubatron wrote:

I think it's hilarious that you somehow think that the arguments and counterarguments I put lend themselves to an opinion. I literally flipped which side was which in the arguments/counterarguments halfway through and just mirrored many arguments being made.

I feel like you've proven my point nicely.

You use straw man for pro-AH arguments, was my point. Our own implicit bias is almost to see, it colors our view the issue from the beginning.

Your points make it obvious which side you come down on.

"I feel like you've proven my point nicely" - And I totally agree with your point.

All in all, pro or anti trade threads are pointless, they are just people venting frustration.

Only player numbers slipping will force any serious reconsideration of the issue.

Even if that were true, it only further proves my point that we can only see our side and are blind to the other side.

Putting the AH debate to the side, itemization in PoE(in trade leagues) is divided in three moments:

1- You don`t have any money, so you use what you find;

2- You have some money and is already level 70 so you buy all your slots with the best gear you can afford. (usually you buy everything at the same time because resistances and etc);

3- You grinded a lot and is ready to start buying or crafting your BIS pieces.



What this means is that itemization in this games ends at level 70 (as long as you have currency), so as long we have any form of trade, the only itemization constraint is the currency you have and nothing else.

A way to improve this a little bit would be:

1- Removing ilvl from the game;

2- Item bases now range from level requirement 1-100, in intervals of 5 for example;

3- The tier of the rolls is based on the level requirement, for example life rolls would range from t1 to t20, where level 100 requirement items would be able to roll between t1-t6 whereas level 5 requirement would only be able to roll between t19-t20.

4- If GGG wants for dropped items to have more value the "minimum tier" would only apply to raw drops and not crafting, otherwise it would be true for both.

This would give more incentive on changing your gear more frequently while making so high level items are better than lower level ones. For a better journey they could even move some of the exp required for level 95-100 and put it into level 70-95 to make leveling more "smooth" instead of leveling to 80 in two days and taking two months to get to 100.

In the spirit of "you can't make everyone happy, all the time", I'd just like to mention something.

I don't know how this seems to get lost on people...but there are MANY other ARPG options out there with varying degrees of difficulty, trading, online functions...

I just don't know why Path of Exile seems to infect people with faux-Stockholm Syndrome. People hate core aspects of the game, but keep playing because they "love the core game".

Maybe I've never spent as much time on other games' forums...but the obvious divide between players that like how POE works and those that don't is hilarious to me.

Is it psychological? Like putting money into a free game forces you to play it for at least "x" amount of time, even if you're miserable?

I know this is a bit of a side-step from the OP's purpose, but it still follows the fact that it's impossible to please both sides...but in this case, both sides will fight forever...knowing that they'll never both be happy.

Kinda sad, really.

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Redthorne82 wrote:

I know this is a bit of a side-step from the OP's purpose, but it still follows the fact that it's impossible to please both sides...but in this case, both sides will fight forever...knowing that they'll never both be happy.

Kinda sad, really.

That's actually key to the OPs point. It's not just an impossible decision because of the implications to the game. It's also impossible because of the entrenched thoughts on the matter.

As for the both sides being happy; I'm not sure that's true. I'm happy with the status quo of trading in this game. :)

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Sol_Starving wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

They made an entire patch dedicated to PvP a long time ago, and likely were planning to flesh it out even more. The community collectively thumbed it down. And by 'thumbed it down' I don't mean that it told GGG the patch and its implemented PvP improvements weren't good enough, I mean it told them we were mostly not interested in PvP to begin with. And that mostly hasn't changed. Everytime someone makes a thread suggesting they put more focus on PvP, it quickly gets people making it clear they've no interest in the idea and would rather GGG work on other things. GGG simply got the message the community sent.

On the other hand, trade is something virtually everyone and their dog seems to have some kind of interest in, one way or another.

yeah problem is the community thumbed it down because players interested in pvp left this game many years ago since patch after patch we strayed further and further from that.
another point is, who thumbed it down? the whole population playing the game? or some streamer and it's fanbase? people playing fantaPoe on reddit?
also i follow this game on & off to see if there is some improvment or change at heart in game design, and i never heard of a pvp patch.

also a pvp patch should come sided with a league/event related to it. THEN the real community who is playing this game can thumbs it down, and not the people playing fantaPoE on reddit

First off, those players didn't leave this game "many years ago", because that patch itself came out many years ago i.e. very early in this game's history. It was patch 1.3 - only the third major patch to come out since the game itself was released. That was in 2014. Pretty sure we've seen way more players come into the game since then than have moved on.

Secondly, it was pretty much the whole population. On the forums, people have consistently made it clear they're not here for PvP. On Reddit, same thing. But most of all, the new PvP options that the game got were also barely used. A tiny handful of people formed a small community around PvP, and even organized small tournaments. But the vast majority of people only ever engaged with PvP to complete Leo master missions each day, and many even chose to forego that. Even those insular tournaments got barely any viewership. And yes even some streamers did participate in and promote them, but it still didn't go anywhere. So people were neither doing much PvP, nor were they watching it. And finally, when Betrayal released and Leo was removed as a Forsaken Master, no one shed a tear. We got a vastly expanded crafting system, so that part of his role was unaffected. But it did remove the only incentive the game gave players to actually engage with its PvP options. And no one cared.

Thirdly, they will NEVER release a league entirely centered around PvP. Why would they, when the vast majority of the playerbase doesn't even engage with PvP as is? That'd be a pretty sure shot at launching a league as dead on arrival. Go ahead and suggest they make a PvP-centered league on any forum you want - here, Reddit or even in global chat in game - and see how people respond to the idea. We did get a PvP event awhile ago though - the Battle Royale mode they released for April Fools 2018. And while people had a blast with it for that one day, there hasn't been all that large of a community outcry for it to return. And most importantly, it had no real effect on stimulating interest in the permanent PvP modes the game already has.

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trixxar wrote:

I dont really get this one. If you dont like an AH, dont use it. Your argument is like saying you dont like minion builds so no one should play a summoner and they shouldnt exist in PoE.

For God's sake, don't make this debate stupidly black/white. You'll look like a fool and the debate takes a couple of steps down in quality. It's like saying "if you don't like the current iteration of trade, play SSF", like you're some kind of Shags-copy. You don't want to be that. He's kinda an original, a copy wouldn't be.

As we've established - several times in this thread - there HAS to be room for several "play styles" within the same trade system.

- Players trading a tiny bit, when they really need upgrades
- Players only selling
- Players only buying
- Players trading a lot

And so on...

The fact of the matter is that an AH would make gearing a character faster and easier. Will it break the game? No, no one says it will, even though you so elegantly put those words into the mouth of the person you were quoting. Will it AFFECT the game? Of course it will. GGG have said, repeatedly, that they have a certain... "Threshold" for how easy/fast it should be to gear your character. That "threshold" will be lowered with an AH. Will it break the economy? No. The game? No. But it will force GGG to make changes to drop rates.

You can repeat yourself countless of times, saying "it doesn't have to", while GGG can repeat themselves as many times saying "yes, it would have to".

I've read several of your post regarding this subject in the past, as you probably read mine. And I know you're "fan" of certain restrictions/limits to trade, but you want it to be more automatic... Or streamlined, if you like. And I've told you before, that some of the restrictions you've posted in the past would piss off more people than the current system. Do I know this? No. But if we could invite Sexcalibure into the debate, and let him run a poll or two, asking "Do you want account bound items, if an AH would be implemented" or "do you want limits to how many trades or how many items you can list if an AH would be implemented", I'm sure you would be surprised... Or disappointed.

But now we're turning this into the same, old "AH" debate, which was probably inevitable, yet not the OP's intention. We can debate this all we want, but looking at history - and the OP's sources, we would see that:

No game in this genre has EVER managed to implement a SUCCESSFUL trading system into their game. Ever. Not once. At all. There are SEVERAL reasons for that, the biggest one being: "It's close to - if not completely - impossible", because of all the different players.