Better Trading - The Vendor System

This has been discussed time and again, but I wanted to bring up a middle ground solution that may not have been thought of or not given much attention.

GGG and Chris are against an AH, got it, but most people would agree the state of trading is not great. Just for context on some of the problems we face:

- Making money via trading often requires staying in your hideout for a long time.
- If you're actually playing the game and someone messages you, you have to stop your map or lab run, etc, and come back to your hideout.
- Need to stop playing and return to real life? Can't make money. People live in different time zones or work different hours, etc.

A common problem here is the need for both people to be online and together at the same time and place in order to do the transaction. Let's fix this through a middle man: an NPC vendor

The vendor system I imagine would work best in PoE is the kind that exist in an old game called Ultima Online. Some of you old enough may know what I'm talking about. It was more popular 20 years ago, but the system was good IMO. Player housing was strong and to trade, it was very popular to use your house as a shop. You would place an NPC vendor in your house and put items on them for sale and other players could come to your house, browse the vendors items, and buy at their leisure.

Although PoE doesn't have a world map and fixed housing like that, we can still visit each other's hideouts and we already have NPC vendors like Kirac, Lilly, Niko, etc. Let's introduce a new type of vendor that acts as an extension of our premium stash tabs (or the vendor itself can be another type of stash tab).

Items exposed through the vendor are still discoverable via the PoE trade site, however, a new 'travel link' would need to be added so that players can visit the hideout without forming a party with the hideout owner. In essence, a player's hideout can become like towns in the campaign, free for people to come and go so long as you have a public vendor placed in the hideout.

This opens up so much QoL improvements in trading and really feel this is the North Star in terms of trading that GGG and Chris would be willing to go without implementing an AH.

In addition, GGG could make more money via MTX because players may want to dress up their hideouts more to appeal to customers (or for vanity). There can even be MTX for the vendor itself (clothing, auras, etc).

We can even put restrictions on these vendors like, max price of 1 EX per item so that higher priced items are still requiring that 1:1 trade like today.

There's many ways to tweak this. Thoughts?

Its not new idea. Answer is still no.

Yep, this idea, and many variations on it, has been proposed before many many times. Each time there is a lot of support for it, and a lot of opposition to it, and GGG ignores it.

"This has been discussed time and again, but I wanted to bring up a middle ground solution that may not have been thought of or not given much attention."


It has. Yours is not a new thought. It's been said to death, things stay the way they are.

Lock and delete this thread.

This game thrives on you wanting stuff that's hard to find. Put up NPC vendors and NOTHING will be hard to find.

If I would get a chaos orb for every "better trading idea" in here I would already run around in mirror-tier gear.

GGG has stated explicitly many times they want us to have to be online and to have to interact. Trade is intentionally made difficult to extend the life of leagues and the game. The fact most people cant "beat the game" is not a flaw it is how GGG want POE to be and part of that relies on harsh RNG and difficult trading. I personal think GGG should make MORE stuff rarer so we can have more meaningful drops....cant wait to try hard mode!

chris isn't against an auction house, he even suggested implementing one: you put up an auction for a cost, people can bid for some days and the winner gets the item.

i also see no harm in such a system.

for the disadvantage of having to interrupt your game to sell items: that's intended to counter the pay to win effect of stash tabs.

a.k.a: you would be crazy if you sold alot of items cause you wouldn't be able to play the game...

did the moderator kick you into the feedback forum? welcome to your new home lol.

We have some similar ideas and motives, You may find this thread to be of interest: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3226841/page/1

I like your overall concept and having people join your hideout to go buy your items could be a cool experience especially if you are a prolific trader.

I can also imagine some epic trollery like having to navigate a maze to get to the npc to buy the great deal you found that you only just now realise why its not sold yet.