Combine PC and Console Markets

This suggestion is aimed to fix the console trade market although pc will benefit too.

The biggest problem with console is its trade prices. For example, if you want a Sublime Vision Jewel they are ~40c on pc but ~4div on console (PS and Xbox).

The reason for this difference is because of a lack of supply on console. Using the previous example, there are 2500 trades listed for a Sublime Vision on pc but only 20 on console (which also makes it easier to price gouge).

And since pc and console have the same drop rates, the console version of the game becomes much more grindy than it is on pc.

The way to fix this problem is by combining the three markets into one. This change would unify prices across all versions of the game. Console players would be able to experience more of the endgame and pc players would experience a slight decrease in the price of their items too.

This would be easy to implement on console since there is already a trade board in game, but for pc I can see it being harder.

This is a feature I've been looking forward to for a long time and I hope it can be implemented eventually.

This is impossible. The PC and console versions of the game aren't always on the same patch due to the annoying restrictions *certain* consoles place on update deployment. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you look into this because it's an issue many games have had for a very long time, and it's a big part of why cross-platform play between PC and console is so uncommon.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

This is impossible. The PC and console versions of the game aren't always on the same patch due to the annoying restrictions *certain* consoles place on update deployment. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you look into this because it's an issue many games have had for a very long time, and it's a big part of why cross-platform play between PC and console is so uncommon.

Nope. Many games have the versions the same. The issue with GGG is the timing of the release date (which is totally on them) and the MANY immediate patches during the first days of every release (again, totally on them). Have you noticed that console doesn’t get the patches now individually in most cases, we get a bundle and usually well after. MS and PS require patch validation and that kind of patching would be an issue.

If GGG wanted to do this, they could. However, every console player knows we are the red-headed stepchildren of POE.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

This is impossible. The PC and console versions of the game aren't always on the same patch due to the annoying restrictions *certain* consoles place on update deployment. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you look into this because it's an issue many games have had for a very long time, and it's a big part of why cross-platform play between PC and console is so uncommon.

The version of the game shouldn't affect the market of items all too much. On pc you have to join another player's group in order to trade and in that case it would matter, but if they add a trade board like how console has it then all that would need to happen is for the items to be transferred. Plus, GGG usually doesn't balance items mid league either.

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JoeUtopia wrote:

Nope. Many games have the versions the same. The issue with GGG is the timing of the release date (which is totally on them) and the MANY immediate patches during the first days of every release (again, totally on them). Have you noticed that console doesn’t get the patches now individually in most cases, we get a bundle and usually well after. MS and PS require patch validation and that kind of patching would be an issue.

If GGG wanted to do this, they could. However, every console player knows we are the red-headed stepchildren of POE.

No, they can't. Please take a few minutes to google this and educate yourself on the subject matter, because this is an issue which goes back many years to games older than PoE. It's honestly the reason I abandoned console gaming completely more than a decade ago: console manufacturers do not allow game developers to control their own patch timelines, which is why game-breaking bugs and exploits will often take WEEKS to fix on consoles, even in huge first party flagship games. Last fall there were some such issues in OverWatch 2 which were literally fixed within 24 hours on PC, but console players had characters locked for nearly a month while they waited on Sony and MS to validate these crucial changes that the game needed to function. And you're absolutely right: it's not fair, and you DO deserve to be treated better, but it's the console companies you keep supporting who are doing this to you, not the developers of the games you are playing.

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BA Icicle wrote:

The version of the game shouldn't affect the market of items all too much. On pc you have to join another player's group in order to trade and in that case it would matter, but if they add a trade board like how console has it then all that would need to happen is for the items to be transferred. Plus, GGG usually doesn't balance items mid league either.

Well that's another issue entirely, because at present trading requires players to be simultaneously connected to the same league and that's the way GGG wants it. So suffice it to say that so long as there is no cross-platform partying up (which I genuinely hope there never will be, for all of the above reasons) there won't be any cross-platform trading either.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

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JoeUtopia wrote:

Nope. Many games have the versions the same. The issue with GGG is the timing of the release date (which is totally on them) and the MANY immediate patches during the first days of every release (again, totally on them). Have you noticed that console doesn’t get the patches now individually in most cases, we get a bundle and usually well after. MS and PS require patch validation and that kind of patching would be an issue.

If GGG wanted to do this, they could. However, every console player knows we are the red-headed stepchildren of POE.

No, they can't. Please take a few minutes to google this and educate yourself on the subject matter, because this is an issue which goes back many years to games older than PoE. It's honestly the reason I abandoned console gaming completely more than a decade ago: console manufacturers do not allow game developers to control their own patch timelines, which is why game-breaking bugs and exploits will often take WEEKS to fix on consoles, even in huge first party flagship games. Last fall there were some such issues in OverWatch 2 which were literally fixed within 24 hours on PC, but console players had characters locked for nearly a month while they waited on Sony and MS to validate these crucial changes that the game needed to function. And you're absolutely right: it's not fair, and you DO deserve to be treated better, but it's the console companies you keep supporting who are doing this to you, not the developers of the games you are playing.

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BA Icicle wrote:

The version of the game shouldn't affect the market of items all too much. On pc you have to join another player's group in order to trade and in that case it would matter, but if they add a trade board like how console has it then all that would need to happen is for the items to be transferred. Plus, GGG usually doesn't balance items mid league either.

Well that's another issue entirely, because at present trading requires players to be simultaneously connected to the same league and that's the way GGG wants it. So suffice it to say that so long as there is no cross-platform partying up (which I genuinely hope there never will be, for all of the above reasons) there won't be any cross-platform trading either.

The timing to get certification on the console platforms should be part of their overall release plans - again, that is on GGG. They DONT CARE about console, just read a bit in those forums. Your argument is because GGG releases a product that is full of bugs at every launch, they cannot sequence the different platforms. Odd way to look at a company that has a horrible track record for QA. And stop going back years…. Yes, way back when there were issues, it is 2023, let’s live in the present.

They release a version on PC and can patch as they want - the real question is, shouldnt they spend some time in QA?

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JoeUtopia wrote:

The timing to get certification on the console platforms should be part of their overall release plans - again, that is on GGG. They DONT CARE about console, just read a bit in those forums. Your argument is because GGG releases a product that is full of bugs at every launch, they cannot sequence the different platforms. Odd way to look at a company that has a horrible track record for QA. And stop going back years…. Yes, way back when there were issues, it is 2023, let’s live in the present.

They release a version on PC and can patch as they want - the real question is, shouldnt they spend some time in QA?

I literally cited an example from 3 months ago in the post you quoted, my dude. This is very much still a problem, and it will continue to be a problem until console companies give developers control over their own games.

Yes, of course GGG can always spend more time on QA, but that is an entirely separate issue and not relevant to this discussion because it's unreasonable to assume that ANY major update will launch 100% perfect with zero bugs.

Let's say next league has a bug which, for example, is causing PC players to crash constantly while running Delves if they use a specific new skill. GGG can get a patch out which fixes that sort of thing within 12 hours... why would they force PC players to wait 1-2 weeks for the console verification when they could instantly fix their game for SOME players?

I once heard one of the Clever Endeavor devs talking about patching Ultimate Chicken Horse, which was a PC-only release which later had cross-platform added when it came to consoles. The dev specifically mentioned how annoying it is to leave bugs in the game which they could have fixed in MINUTES if the game were still PC-exclusive. It's been a while but I believe the quoted turnaround time from "someone finds and reports a bug" to "Steam has a game update which fixes that bug" was under 3 hours. I know Factorio is often celebrated for this sort of thing as well: it's become a meme in their subreddit that by the time you post a bug it's already been fixed in the game.

I really am sorry that console companies don't treat their customers better, but that really has nothing to do with game developers.

The plan is to combine the markets, but it will take a long time to occur eg POE 2. Adding website trade search into console is part of the steps towards that.