Floored by the power spike of TRADING. This will ruin the game.

"

himenoinu#2580 wrote:

"

Drazharm#0966 wrote:

It will never stop being funny seeing people with non-issues saying that a certain thing ruins the experience when it doesn't have to affect them in the slightest if they don't want it to bother them.

Literally there's a button that explicitly allows you to play SSF.

If you want a more unforgiving experience, there's an HC button.

Hell, you can even play HCSSF if you want the ultimate virtual-dick-measure-trading-tool for you and your fellow true gamers.

That said, maybe you should stop projecting onto other people, or you're just crying because you lack the force of will for committing to a playstyle.

But now imagine you'd have the trade system allowing for only gear exchange, with no currency. That would make it a bit better, I guess. When your warrior could trade the minion gear he doesn't use to a minion master for the armor pieces they don't use, but both dropped. That would, maybe, alleviate both the power-creep and the issue of the devs balancing the game around the market instead of SSF.

Ngl but it would be best experiment to see how good drops and crafting actually is if they made currency untradeable for 1 month for the whole community to experience.

Exchanging item to item for most players would these days be an immposible system, especially here. Most want a transaction happen in milisecond, non verbally and if it takes 10 secs too slow they kick you from trade. No one has time for anything in poe cus time costs chaos/divines and zooming through maps all day long. Most flood market with cheap items they never are willing to sell anyway because its not worth their map time, but they won't take those items off market anyway.

Trading is just bandaid to base self progression issue of the game. If PoE 2 would only be SSF right now I think forum would overflood their office.

"

crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

You can trade here:

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard

1 fairly common orb per gear slot and you can max all resists, with crazy dps that will get you to level 8+ maps no sweat, you'll smash through the campaign like it was easy mode to the very end, but once you see this power spike, you will no longer enjoy the thrill of drops in the game.

I was expecting a big power spike from trade, but GOOD LORD, the game just breaks into easy mode and progression becomes COMMPLETELY predictable and stale. You can get a full kit in about 40 minutes that will outperform anything you can get in game from drops by a huge margin by tweaking and tuning the search settings.

Just search 2 resists at a time, a few stat settings, and energy shield, melee skills, whatever fuels your build and you don't even have to play the game again. Just mindlessly pick up orbs and waltz through end game till you hit a wall.

For the sake of readability I shortened your quote.

Now for the content: Could you simply stop telling other people, how they ought to enjoy the game? You can totally refrain from trading, if you like. There is even a mode where trade is impossible. I know, I played SSF for a long time in POE1. So you can have the game the way you enjoy it.

And others can have the game the way, THEY enjoy it. It doesn't affect you. So stop telling them, they do it wrong. Play the game, enjoy the game your way, and leave others to do the same.

"

crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

It makes the experience less fun, for the vast majority of players.

Hey, stop telling other people what they find fun, and stop caring what they do in the game, you play your way.

So tired of people wanting to police how others have fun and play games.

Just a legit question:

• Isn't this (trading and engagement with other people/economy) the whole point of game having a constant internet connection and online/coop features and quite punishing and indeterministic loot drops in the first place? Otherwise, it could be just turned into an offline game with an optional couch coop mode.


Another things to consider:

• With player crafting effectively being a miniature version of a slot machine, where everything is 99,9% RNG, and there is little to no way to somehow invest time and effort into chasing specifically items relevant for your build (especially before you reach late end-game) - there is effectively no other valid way to gear-up, and time investment and luck required to do anything meaningful in the game will be too punishing for a lot of players.

• Modes like Solo Self-Found exist as an optional gameplay feature to address specifically players, who are willing to engage with such restrictive and challenging environments. And it is important to keep in mind, that not everyone is even actually and physically able to allocate significantly higher amounts of play time, which is the only way to have a sustainable progress with modes like SSF.

• When game has too many punishing mechanics - players will always go the way of least resistance. Experience penalties, progress roll-backs, effective single death system at the end-game activities, very high costs of respec - all these things are creating a situation when players are afraid to make any mistakes or to experiment, because mistakes and experimentation will cost players hours of lost progress and lots of lost currencies/gold.

• Environments, where deliberate and questionable punishment is being used as a way to make game "fun" - they are destined to end-up with meta-gaming, meta-builds, over-optimizations, everyone copying one another, everyone doing everything they can to avoid punishment. This is just a natural human instinct, and this is the reason why in every game there is significantly higher number of regular SC players, when compared to SSF or HC players - far less number of people are willing to deal with it or willing to invest time into it, it is seen by vast majority of people as a just-for-fun thing to do when you don't have anything else on your list.


Important points:

• I totally understand and share the OP's concern that trading is the way of making a character very strong very fast. I totally understand that it removes the excitement of chasing new items, or getting a lucky craft or drop - but there is really no other way around it. And I totally understand that it trivialises a lot of game aspects and mechanics.

• Alternative to trading would be powerful and deterministic crafting system, but for whatever reason this game does not want to focus on crafting at all - this is currently just a mindless slot machine where you can test your luck, but in 9 case out of 10 you will do better just by spending those currencies and mats on trading for actual good items.

• But even if you will have powerful crafting system - it will be exactly 1:1 situation, but the opposite way. Instead of trading for completed items - players will be trading for crafting mats.

• And if you will have both trading and powerful crafting at same time - it will just tremendously trivialize everything.

• The only way of making it without both trading and crafting is the Diablo 3 way. When on launch this game had crazy RNG drops and trading, but later on removed the system completely and buffed gear drops. So in that game 90% of trash items were completely removed from loot tables, all good/relevant items have very high chance to drop, and you just get any build online by simply playing the game for a few hours. Of course, there is still a chase for those better stat rolls, Primal/Ancestral versions of items - but the skeleton of any build can be collected by anyone super easily with no effort. Because when you don't have trading, and you don't have powerful crafting - you have to give players better drop chances and less trash drops in order to keep majority of people engaged with the game.

• And if you will have powerful drops mixed with both or any of two others (trading and crafting) - this will make everything you do in the game even more boring and pointless.


So this is just an endless debate with no correct answer, and every single approach will have downsides. Developers and game designers are running the same hamster wheel over and over again in a search for holy grail - but it is just not there. It is impossible to make a system that will satisfy everyone, that is the reason why the game is divided into SC SSF and HC segments - to give people a freedom of choice, of how they want to approach the game. So rise of complaints that SC players are having an easier time gearing than SSF players - this is just like if HC players would be complaining that SC characters are not completely gone on death. These are just different game modes, and everyone is completely free to choose whatever fits oneself better, and there will never be one-size-fits-all solution, because it is just impossible to do so. And trying to enforce something onto everybody with no choice options left - this will just lead to significant loss of player base.


So without turning it into enforced SSF mode for everyone, there are just three things you can really do:

1. Powerful trading,
2. Powerful crafting,
3. Powerful drops.

So developers are just constantly taking a little bit of each one of those three and trying to shift things around. But when you have trading at all - it just always effectively nullifies other two, because it becomes the most efficient way to do things. So the real question is - how many players would be still playing this game (including PoE 1) if trading was completely removed from the game, or had been significantly cut-down into allowing only very specific and insignificant things to be tradable? - and to answer that question is very easy - you just look into SSF number of players, and that's it - that is your maximum player base. And - would you play this game exclusively in SSF mode every league from now on and onwards for the next 10 years or so? And - how many more players will be burned-out and lost on the long run?

"

Drazharm#0966 wrote:

Oh no, I'm well aware it does.

Yet using trade or not is a personal choice. You may abide to the games' rules or you may bypass them with extra effort. You just cannot seriously think about making other people go through your personal choices and bias.

"I've chosen to eat spoiled food, so others must do that as well"

Nah homie, that's not how things work.

The issue is not forcing anyone, but as of now, crafting and drops are SO much SO MUCH weaker compared to both market and PEO1 that feels it can be surely improved.

"

crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

You can trade here:

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard

[...]

"Why am I playing this again?"

And then you will log out until there is more content to burn through with overpowered trade items in another day.

It depends on what your priorities are. Want to min/max to farm endgame for rare drops: Trade! Want to feel some accomplishment with stuff you find? Don't trade. I usually play PoE1 in a trade league but with an SSF mindset.

I only sell stuff for currency and I use currency to buy other currency. With this currency I then craft/upgrade equipment I found/bought from vendors.

This has worked out well for me. I tried buying stuff once and it did feel ... unsatisfying. Going only SSF will hard lock you if you don't play 4+ hours a day as you will never make enough currency. So being in a trade league and selling stuff but never buying equipment has been my compromise that has worked well for me over time.

I assume I'll do the same in PoE2 once I am in endgame. Currently shortly before switching to cruel.

I’m playing SSF because Imo trading in a ARPG is a cheat code.

But that said, I’m facing these challenges on SSF:
1. Having no meaningful gear upgrades sometimes 10+ levels.
2. Not enough exalt and regal orb drops
3. Wasting all my excess rares to craft regals instead of selling them because of #2
4. Not enough gold left to gamble for gear or reset skills because of #3
5. Only got 1 spirit gem in the last 20 levels, so my build is bricked

Don’t get me wrong, I love challenge and that’s why I’ve decided to stick to SSF to begin with. But challenge that is not rewarding is just a chore.

"

Urza_Mechwalker#7393 wrote:

"

Drazharm#0966 wrote:

Oh no, I'm well aware it does.

Yet using trade or not is a personal choice. You may abide to the games' rules or you may bypass them with extra effort. You just cannot seriously think about making other people go through your personal choices and bias.

"I've chosen to eat spoiled food, so others must do that as well"

Nah homie, that's not how things work.

The issue is not forcing anyone, but as of now, crafting and drops are SO much SO MUCH weaker compared to both market and PEO1 that feels it can be surely improved.

The solution would be improve the drops, not remove trade. Improving drops or crafting are things I totally can get behind. What I find problematic is, when people ask for trading to be removed, because it helps people get better gear.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

"

Unik0rnu#9262 wrote:

A lot of people mentioned "Diablo 2 also has trade."

Let me elaborate here a bit on it:

First of all in Diablo 2 when it came out, trading was feeling more like an opportunity and wasn't a straight out buy/sell transaction like here.

To trade in a first place you actually had to have decent items to show for first. Players mostly exchanged for items and sometimes runes/jewels on higher tier but all in all trade there was more complex. And trading actually felt rewarding and social like, because it was mostly an opportunity, not a grind for "trade gold". You would show everything you have found so far and hope a seller picks some items that he finds useful for the item he has. Sometimes it was even 3 items for 1 item exchange.

In Path of Exile trading feels like a failure of not being able to get good rolls on your crafting, not getting enough currency and overall being stuck in your progress. Its made of just "grinding popular trade currency" and browsing for items like on Amazon for cheapeast price. You know you can get what you need in a matter of "search on website" feature. And reason why it feels bad as oppose to Diablo 2 is exactly that feeling of failure on not being able to progress any other way.

SSF exist but not every build can make it there. It's made for a specific builds that can work with minimal or no investment mostly and require huge knowledge of "metas" and where to exactly put your points. Not everyone likes it anymore. Players want to be able to progress any build they decided on as long as points and stats they put on, made sense to their build, but a lot of times its just never enough. We end up min/max stats just to see that progress.

So all in all:

Diablo 2 trading at its release was an opportunity for a player to exchange the loot one doesn't need, with someone who might actually find it useful. There was no universal currency. It was haggling with your finds. It felt good, rewarding and social. And game itself didn't require you to min/max in order to make it through base game. Reruning maps, bosses was something normal and any decent item might have had way to end up in exchange.

Path of Exile trading is an aftermath of being extremely unlucky with your drops, crafting rolls, game rng, pushing most of us to the website just to not be stuck in same grind over and over again. Some like it because its an easy way to gear up. You just grind some currency, its universal, find cheapeast price, get stats you desire in one click and done. Efortless.

But for some of us ending up with a thought: "I can't find anything and I'm stuck. I need to trade" feels just bad and unrewarding. Trading should be something optional, not necessary. The only reason why trading is so big here is because crafting drains in the end more resources than giving away those reasources for the item. It should always be the other way around.

In the end Trading itself won't ruin the game. What will ruin the game is a struggle of the player on trying to get his own gear together, failing and being forced to trade in order to progress.

PoE 2 received much bigger community, made of all types of players. Its no longer just your usual poe vets and people who are just used with how gearing up goes. Needing to trade feels like "only way out".

well written post but imo poe trading is like using cheat codes. it is so efficient that if your goal is to acquire anything at all (that is tradable), trading is the only logical choice. and i mean anything, currency included. once I figured how to profit from it, I felt like playing the game was a waste of time. this wasn't the problem when we had to use forums to do it. now i play SSF exclusively, because that's the only way my brain will actually play the game

d2 trading: a race to type 'wug' in chat

Fine then I need to use cheatcodes to enjoy the game. You are 100% correct - now let me enjoy my game with cheatcodes, I am not gonna force you to use em

Bro now doesn't like trade league and wants it removed for everyone instead of creating a new character in Solo Self Found mode.


gotta be kidding me.


https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Version_2.6.0#Solo_Self-Found_Mode

This is for POE1 but it applies for POE2 SSF.

"

Solo Self-Found Mode
Solo Self-Found (SSF) is common self-enforced playstyle where trading and partying are not allowed. This means that your character's progress is entirely based on your own efforts and cannot be influenced by other players.
In Content Update 2.6.0, there are SSF versions of the existing leagues, where you can create characters by ticking a checkbox on the character creation screen.
This mode is available once you have rescued the Scion on your account (which can be done in a previous league, so almost all existing players will already have fulfilled this).
While playing an SSF character, you can't trade or party up with other players.
You're able to convert your SSF characters into regular characters, moving them back to the equivalent non-SSF league. This is a one-way process and can be done by clicking the buttons to the left of the character on the character selection screen. One button moves just a single character, and the other one moves all your SSF characters in that league including your stashes, hideout, masters and Atlas progress.
Ladders on the website record what level you reached in SSF before moving back to the regular leagues. Characters that have moved back to the regular leagues are marked as "retired".
SSF leagues share their global chat channels with their non-SSF equivalent. They have no access to trade chat channels.