GDC Talk - "Cursed Problems in Game Design"

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trixxar wrote:

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1453R wrote:

When your game is ABOUT loot the way path of Exile is ABOUT loot, auction-house and free item trade systems go against the core of your game.

Fair enough, but then we (or, I) am not asking for trade to more or less free.

I just want them to choose a mechanic that is not intentionally based on frustration and annoyance.

Its weird to me that we are arguing that it is good game design to limit something, anything, by making it unpleasant and frustrating in a non-challenging way.

There was a good open letter on trade on reddit recently - it was longish but the gist was that trade, by any metric, is a bad user experience in PoE. And that there are different solutions, many with their own flaws, but doing nothing over it is literally the worst solution.




Again, many other games have solved this riddle with larger player bases than this one.



If the AH is a stupid idea, then do something else, or at least try.

I don't think any game in the same genre where loot is the primary objective has solved this issue, as 1453R stated. All the examples given do not compare well with POE because they have some sort of binding, or other mechanism that limits the amount of available items to trade. To go on the record, I hate bind on [anything] from previous experience in other games.

For me the quote "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms" fits nicely here. The situation might not be great for everyone, but all suggestions to date look worse from my optic.

Just blindly trying things is never a great idea; especially on something so polarizing because you'll likely lose the group that was against the change and not satisfy the group that wanted the change.

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Nubatron wrote:

I don't think any game in the same genre where loot is the primary objective has solved this issue, as 1453R stated. All the examples given do not compare well with POE because they have some sort of binding, or other mechanism that limits the amount of available items to trade. To go on the record, I hate bind on [anything] from previous experience in other games.

For me the quote "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms" fits nicely here. The situation might not be great for everyone, but all suggestions to date look worse from my optic.

Just blindly trying things is never a great idea; especially on something so polarizing because you'll likely lose the group that was against the change and not satisfy the group that wanted the change.

Nubatron, could not any player make the same response to literally every other players suggestions or ideas?

"I personally do not like it. No game is exactly like PoE, hence we can have no exact proof of a positive result with few downsides, so barring that proof we should do nothing."

I appreciate that you make coherent thoughtful points without trolling, by the way.

But I dont see how your answer could not be applied to literally any problem with the game.

No game is exactly like PoE. D3 has much weaker itemization. I would argue that the depth and scope of itemization is fairly unique, but that the size alone makes WOW a closer example than D3. No point arguing those, its not conclusive.

But if your stance is something should be proven in another game that is exactly like PoE, then there is no point discussing any change to this or any other problem. You can just repeat this argument infinitely.

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trixxar wrote:

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Nubatron wrote:

I don't think any game in the same genre where loot is the primary objective has solved this issue, as 1453R stated. All the examples given do not compare well with POE because they have some sort of binding, or other mechanism that limits the amount of available items to trade. To go on the record, I hate bind on [anything] from previous experience in other games.

For me the quote "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms" fits nicely here. The situation might not be great for everyone, but all suggestions to date look worse from my optic.

Just blindly trying things is never a great idea; especially on something so polarizing because you'll likely lose the group that was against the change and not satisfy the group that wanted the change.

Nubatron, could not any player make the same response to literally every other players suggestions or ideas?

"I personally do not like it. No game is exactly like PoE, hence we can have no exact proof of a positive result with few downsides, so barring that proof we should do nothing."

I appreciate that you make coherent thoughtful points without trolling, by the way.

But I dont see how your answer could not be applied to literally any problem with the game.

No game is exactly like PoE. D3 has much weaker itemization. I would argue that the depth and scope of itemization is fairly unique, but that the size alone makes WOW a closer example than D3. No point arguing those, its not conclusive.

But if your stance is something should be proven in another game that is exactly like PoE, then there is no point discussing any change to this or any other problem. You can just repeat this argument infinitely.

I get your point; though "show another game that was able to do it" wasn't my proposition. It's just not a fair proposition from the start because few games (if any) have had to deal with the itemization with focus on loot (among other things) since perhaps D2?

So we're left with hypothesis of what would happen by trying to extrapolate what has occurred in other games that are similar but not the same and applying it against POE.

I should walk back one comment though. I have seen ideas that had merit. One example was the low currency AH. Anything like 1C and below is automated. There are issues with that as well, but who cares with such low currency trades. Bots will snipe items that are priced at 1C that are worth more, but again....low currency trades. Who cares?

Well, in most cases trying to think what would happen is a good way to evaluate something. So let's do a little exercise.

Let's pretend GGG is in a mad mood and don't want the trade API to exist anymore, so they decide to remove it and add an automatic AH inside the game with only the following restrictions: Only items from online players are listed and only unidentified, mirrored and corrupted gear can be traded. This makes so the price to list a gear for sale is 1 vaal orb(with the risk of losing your item) or 1 mirror (without that risk) and either way that gear will not be able to be changed anymore.

What people think would happen with most of the debatable issues concerning trade in such hypothetical scenario?

I am in favor of a better trade so my view is is skewed, if someone that is against can also share their views towards each topic i would appreciate it.

1-Itemization (gear progress): Would be slowed down a little since it would be harder to find the pieces of gear with the the best stats for you readily available. Players would still be able to find the key unique items for their builds and would still be able buy the bases or try to gamble their gear.

2- Gear value: Rare items would lose a lot of their value since only "bricked" rares would be able to be sold, while cheap uniques would probably have a small increase in price because of people trying to get ones with good rolls.

3- Consumables value: The demand for them would rise since finding good gear in the market would be harder and trading for the materials would be "easy", vaal orbs would probably also raise in price lol.

4- Flipping: Everyone would be in equal ground to flip, so there would be more people flipping, which in turn reduces the "average profit" of flippers which in turn should reduce the amount of people flipping, repeat.

5- Botting: Is always an issue and will always be an issue as long there is real money to be made, and outside of banwaves there is nothing that can be done unless GGG can somehow bankrupt RMT sites (unlikely lol).

6- RMT players: Probably would remain the same situation as now.

7- Maps/Content access: If GGG don`t wants too many maps in the market, they could follow the same rule as gear, making so only unidentified, corrupted or mirrored maps can be traded. Other content access means (splinters, fragments, etc) would be easier to trade, but i don`t see any downside on allowing people to do the content they want to do.

8- Crafting for profit: Would be a lot less profitable because of the vaal bricking chance.

9- False listings: Would cease to exist.

10- Trade "scams": Would cease to exist. "Service scams" would remain the same.

12- Price fixing: As long the number of players remain high it would affect only the most rare items (that are already price fixed right now).

Lol again with this wow example where every single worthy item is not tradable and time gated. Nether of these things are true in poe making this a horrible example. Wow tradable itemization is pretty much does not exist.

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Deathfairy wrote:

Lol again with this wow example where every single worthy item is not tradable and time gated. Nether of these things are true in poe making this a horrible example. Wow tradable itemization is pretty much does not exist.

Ok, the seven others I named?

As I mention to Nubatron, no game is EXACTLY poe... except poe.

The fact that the game in China hasnt hard failed suggests the AH fears are overblown by itself. Is that not a hard counter to the "no other game" argument?


But really Death, you and I have argued this ad nauseum, do we need to again?

Nubatron put it perfectly, each person has their position, wont be swayed, based on their own preferences for the game they want to play.

You will try to say "Well then it should stay as is", but as GGG has made thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of changes to the game, staying with the status quo is not a real argument.

The entire point of PoE is that it changes every 3 months.

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trixxar wrote:

As to the BoE questions - the leagues wipe gear to zero every 3 months, that takes more out of the economy than any other game because you also lose all crafting materials, etc.

Do we really care if a tabula is 1c on standard? Is that game breaking? Is it a good reason to send 30 messages to get an item late in the league?

Dont play standard, my concerncs are only for league. but of course i do no wish to ruin the experience of people that do. economy is a big part of PoE

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True, you're right about low end items and common uniques. But do you (or anyone) really make money there anyway? Honestly question.

dunno, people sell them. not everybody is up there playing with exalts

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For me, the crafted gear that makes up endgame will still be sold at roughly the same price.

i know im sitting on stashes full of bases my lootfilter thinks i should pick up and quite alot of items i consider to be potentially valuable. but im not a crafter and im not really good at telling the value of rares (but not clueless). and alot of people are like me. everything, not just tabulas will devalue when this all hits the AH and people dont need to make a buyout price. that item you think will maintain its value, will only do so because 99% of players will never find anything like it while playing.
im even sitting on some gear i know are worth exalts (because i bought it when i needed it) and havent relisted

even if i dont trade in 4-c uniques, some people do and i think its important that we can find stuff and sell it. not just everything being worthless but the super rares

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Your experience may vary from mine, maybe you sell hundreds of 4c items and you are right they will now be 1-2c.

nah theyll be so cheap that the only reason theyll have any value is because they wont be worth listing for players even when its easy

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A 20 ex item will still be 20 ex. A 1 ex item, what do you think, 3/4 of that?

while this is guess work. but 20ex items sounds hard enough to come by that o agree, maybe it would stay 20 ex. that 1ex item i dont agree with, there is tons of that stuff laying about in people stashes. we just dont know how to price it and itll stay there until league end. and thats good (and rewards players who put the time in to learn whats valuable)

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So, Ill concede, anyone who makes a living selling low end items would be hit. Do you honestly play that way or is it academic?

the people that do (and they do since these items gets listed and traded) enjoy it. a healthy economy at all stages of the game is important (how are you going to buy your 20ex mace when you cant find stuff that sells at 1ex anymore)

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Why would you intitute an AH without limits? Again, an AN wtih a 1ex fee to list would get far less use than current trade, so can we stop pretending its impossible to limit trade?

so, im putting up my item with no buyout and it costs an exalt? thats a no go for any casual players. and if its a buyout its just the normal price +1 exalt. not limited.
if its cheaper to be accessable to a large part of the player base, its not limiting anything either.

i think one of PoE best features is its complicated living economy (hard to price alot of stuff, currencies fluctuate in value) and free market
i do not want BoE, BoP, time gates or any other limiters put in place so we can have an AH (Some people do, and the game would not end, there are successfull games out there using AHs like this but its not what i want in PoE, again i enjoy that everything has value and can be retraded unlimited times)

rmt website is most successfull for league starter

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Nidal wrote:

... i do no wish to ruin the experience of people that do. economy is a big part of PoE..


...even if i dont trade in 4-c uniques, some people do ...

Im not trying to misquote your argument or boil it down past your intent, but it seems you think there are large groups of people out there making a living off these small trades and thats how they have fun with the game.

And for their sake, we should all suffer an intentionally obtuse, unpleasant system.

Have I characterized that wrong? Not trying to put words in your mouth.

I think its a small supplement to a few people willing to put up with the awful system, and they will sell more volume so it wont impact them.

Im more open to the argument that more people who dont even visit the forums would skip gearing up in favor the AH and somehow that makes the game less fun. But I suspect mostly these people either quit when they hit maps, based off questions in the Help and Gameplay forum. I mean, it takes a fair amount of skill to succeed in a SSF environment.

Do you really believe tons of people are succeeding deep into endgame on their first or second character, so new they cant even trade? They need trade more than anyone.

If not, then who is it we are protecting with all this? We have imagined up two gamers, one who someone loves trading low c items, and another who succeeds at PoE while too ignorant to even try trading.

Both or either are necessary to somehow justify the system, and both seem unlikely to even exist in my opinion.

This is all guesswork, not pretending to know more than anyone else. But I suspect Chris' post has more to do with his personal experience with Diablo 3 than it does serious statistical work on who an AH would really harm.

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trixxar wrote:

The fact that the game in China hasnt hard failed suggests the AH fears are overblown by itself. Is that not a hard counter to the "no other game" argument?

What "fear"?

Very few people "fear" an AH. Very few people think an AH will doom this game. Hell, there are PLENTY players out there that are - and will be - OK with the idea of trading for 99% of the items they wear, and will be OK with the idea of an AH being the center of all balance.

Make no mistake; the game will probably survive no matter what they'll do to trade. The eastern client may be proof of this. I really don't know how trading works over there. Hell, I don't know the numbers, but SSF is probably an example that the game would survive even if they went the Diablo 3 route.

Will an AH make MY (personal) experience worse? Probably. Most likely. And I'm not alone. I don't think about trade when debating trade, I think about the game - and how trade will affect the game. I couldn't care less what they did to trade, as long as the requirements of being online, and the fact that you, personally, would be accepting or declining the trade. Within those perimeters, go ahead - change whatever you like. As I've said; it will never be about trade, but how it affects the game.

So this "fear"? Well. It's about a worse experience for a lot of players. Not for the game. Hell, automated trade through an AH will probably draw in a certain crowd of players to. The game will survive. The experience WILL change, on more areas than "trade" itself.

But heading off to work now.