Settlers of Kalguur - Currency Exchange UX Improvements

Hi GGG!

Very nice league so far!

I have a UX suggestion for the currency exchange.

I'm an old poe player, but testing out the system to sell a couple of stuffs, I realized a flaw that could end up "scamming" newcomers or people that are not really aware of values.

If it take a very specific case like Hinekora's lock for divines, you get those ratio in one way:



And those the other way around:



Current price is generally between 13/14d

So both upgrades would be to:

1: look up the market and find an average ratios and at most use a low 30/40% of that ratio as the lowest recommend price. Anything lower than that would be flagged with an exclamation mark on the ratio window, like this:



2: for people wanting to be able to check more thoroughly (or simply ease comparison for everyone), adding a "flip" button below the ratio between the two input fields, like this:




Besides the flip button which would be really useful, I think that could greatly help people who haven't played poe for years to understand the market and values.

This kind of currency market QoL is great and benefits most new players. Focusing the effort on helping them not being scammed for an item like hinekora's lock, they don't realize how worth it is is, imho, very important.


Cheers!

Yeah something is NQR with the ratio input. The whole UI for this trading system is excellent, excepted for adding quantity values. Maybe it's me doing it wrong, but it feels finicky, you're trying to write the number then it over writes it with a ratio and sometimes a trade gets entered that you are not intending. Everything else great. Selecting the currencies feels very clean. Viewing the trades and cancelling/collected works great. Typing in the ratio feels buggy though. Viewing the ratio is fine I think, it's the automation of it entering something you didn't choose and updating while you are writing the numbers in that's the problem. There's a real time aspect to the ratio changing, I understand that, but it's annoying having it interfere with the value you are setting.

I would also add a "separation" from those currencies I posted to sell from those which I want to buy and which I bought.

So it would be divided by 3.
- Left - I want to sell - with a name for that column
- Middle - I want to buy - with a name for that column
- Right - I bought - with a name for that column

Something like this in the image.

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Belegur85 wrote:

Yeah something is NQR with the ratio input. The whole UI for this trading system is excellent, excepted for adding quantity values. Maybe it's me doing it wrong, but it feels finicky, you're trying to write the number then it over writes it with a ratio and sometimes a trade gets entered that you are not intending. Everything else great.

Yeah i agree, very nice work overall, but I have some weird behaviors sometimes too.

@sowus So you mean both in/out exchanges in the same screen? Yeap why not, not a bad idea. But that's gonna be way more condensed and will need a scroll.

Jumping on this thread to suggest if you open the exchange and start typing it auto focus the search box rather than uses you hotkeys or whatever.

Some of these suggestions are just a bit....pointless (imo).

The exclamation point for example: we already have the percentages shown, so we know what is unreliable already.

Both-way pricing: how does this matter at all? You aren't putting an item up for trade both ways. You are putting a very specific trade: item x for item y. The UI does the calculations of pricing for you, based on trades for that exact scenario. Information from the reverse trade doesn't help you in the least....it only makes the results LESS clear. Furthermore, the market itself is already taking into account the reverse trade otherwise it wouldn't function. If "x to y" is 25% less than "y to x", then there would be no one to fulfill one side of the trades. The market automatically corrects for this as much as possible. One direction of trade is always going to be slightly more valuable than the other though.
In fact, the automated market actually makes this LESS of a problem because it has to match ratios on both sides for it to even work. Which means the ratios shown to US for the one-way trade automatically have to be close to or equal to the reverse side.

Look at how you interact with NORMAL trade: you put in the item you have, the item you want, and select the appropriate ratio. There is no instance where you have two windows open, one with the reverse transaction, so you can "match up" your trades because....that is a pointless waste.


What WOULD be great (but potentially problematic in rare cases) is if your trades shift dynamically in real time AFTER you post them. For example, if I put up my divine for 118C because that's what 90% of the trades are doing, but it isn't filled right away....that ratio is going to change. But my trade ratio is now locked. Rather: if you select "Trade for the 90% most recommended ratio", then it should dynamically adjust even after you put the item up for sale until it is filled.
Given that the market is meant to be an afk way to trade...this only makes sense. Even a half a day could mean a huge difference in ratio (potentially 10-20% or more), and you are left with wasted gold and no trade...it almost penalizes you for using the CE for large non-instant trades, which is backward from why the system is needed in the first place.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Some of these suggestions are just a bit....pointless (imo).

The exclamation point for example: we already have the percentages shown, so we know what is unreliable already.

It is not. You are way over-estimating the ability of newcomers (or even players in general) to understand a free pricing system. You and I understand those AND we know poe's market. People launching the game for their first league have a massive sum of information to understand. Being in gamedev, trust me, people have a hard time grasping basic concepts.

You're also assuming that you have references. It's not the case everytime. I even had situations were the system said their was no offer, and after posting the request it was immediately fullfiled. This could be probably more a bug... but you could have only one entry with a 1:1 ratio and any players not used to the economy would get an "incorrect information".

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Both-way pricing: how does this matter at all? You aren't putting an item up for trade both ways.

Honestly, I wonder if you're serious there? :)

You have the shots in the initial post. Locks are "advertised being worth" at max in the three first results 9 to 11d one way and 12 to 15 the other way.

You know exactly what's going on there, the system fullfills requests immediately and this is a way for people to make a bunch of money on people who do not know better. I know there's a difference depending on the transaction ( buy <> sell ), but we're talking of a 40% difference here, on very rare currencies ( that are gonna be sold without a doubt at their proper price ).

And I'm not saying it needs to compare both cases for the requests fullfilment, I'm just saying having a flip button can help the player gather more information and make a proper decision. It is also a UX QoL.

And no, the automated market does not make this go away. It is a "one way" system. If someone is willing to buy a mirror 1d and he is the only one having a market offer, the other way does not matter at all. The first guy putting a buy order will be instantly matched, even if the reverse side/ratio is at the normal rate.

And for the automatic market shift, I don't think it's ever gonna happen. Prices change because of the evolution of currencies, items availability and exchanges. If your order was shifting dynamically, this would induce unwanted changes in both ways and could lead to insane inflation.
And honestly, even tho PoE is a trading based arpg, I would love to NOT see the "stock exchange" non-sense we have in real life (most of the very bad mistakes in the world economy have been induced for some of them by trading automations or "high frequency trading").