What killed D3? The auction house. What will kill PoE2? The trade system

Trading in PoE, where to start. I know some people love it due to being a heavy part of PoE 1 but the idea with PoE 2 was to be different. To fix some of the elements that hurt it. To slow down combat and make it require some type of skill. We are missing all of that so far in the end game and I was able to start clearing screens of mobs by the time I was ending act 3.

If any one here tried D3 when it had an auction house, you would know it destroyed the game. The entire system was built around the stupid auction house. They reduced drop rates since they assumed people would use it. Mean while anyone that actually wants to play the game and receive items in the itemization game was stuck playing auction house simulator. I commonly see people complaining about this. The time they spend in the dumb trade system instead of playing the game. People are missing the core issue here.

This is legit the whole issue. Why in the world would you think people want to trade for items instead of earn them in a video game. This is no different than buying a supporters pack that gives you end game gear. Even mid tier gear is still buying into the game instead of playing through it. It removes an entire function of the game and then the devs change the drop rates due to the trade system which in turn forces players to either use trade, or get no where.

So, its a trade simulator with eye bleeding combat speeds. D3 was a bad game but I give them credit for at least removing the auction house. Some how GGG decided to double down on this?

Play SSF if you don't want to trade. Other people want to trade.

People are complaining, because they have to refresh website in a browser and message random people who never answer, instead of clicking 'buy' inside the game, as it should be. Don't spin a simple issue into something completely different.

The Auction House didn't kill D3. Blizzard catering to the casuals did. By casuals, I mean people from outside the genre. More specifically in this case, WoW players enticed to play the game with free keys and discounted prices. D4 expanded on that, and now no longer represents it's own franchise and it could be argued if it's even an ARPG anymore.

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mikeab79#3627 wrote:

The Auction House didn't kill D3. Blizzard catering to the casuals did. By casuals, I mean people from outside the genre. More specifically in this case, WoW players enticed to play the game with free keys and discounted prices. D4 expanded on that, and now no longer represents it's own franchise and it could be argued if it's even an ARPG anymore.

Exactly. RoS removed trade completely and it only made game much worse.

They didn't even remove the auction house because of the players. Most players absolutely loved the auction house over there because it meant easy access to gear powerful enough to skip progression.

The reason why they took it down were the exploits that came with it and legal trouble with chargebacks and incomplete orders.

I wonder if anyone remembers the local clock exploit to cancel auctions?

Bad itemization and character progression killed D3, actually had nothing to do with the state of its trade.

people obviously have very different opinions on what exactly killed d3.


what can be said for sure tho is that poe1 lasted 12 years and was amazingly successful with this trade system, not despite it but because of it. who would want to trade in a game like this? a significant minority of players who disproportionately make up the core loyal playerbase that play for 1000s of hours, spend $100s and keep coming back every league.


the success of poe is deeply tied to the social aspect. the economy resets, item trade is both cooperation and competition, so are builds, guilds, meta strategies, game knowledge. some are shared, some are hidden. items, builds and ingame goals are given a heightened sense of value from being social competitive/cooperative elements. the core of this is the game being designed around a trade economy.


that doesnt mean all drop rates are tuned for trade and that trade is necessary, that is a fallacy. but the ability to trade and interact with other players even if you dont engage with it is fundamental to the intended experience.

I do play SSF and its terrible. Many item types either don't drop at all or when they do, its for other classes and even if it rolls for your class, the stats are so off the wall that the item almost never has value or even function. I understand it is RNG. This is not my first rodeo with ARPG nor POE.

You can often find blue magic items that roll higher than yellow rare. That is already a broken mechanic that was addressed in three other ARPG. Its different when you craft a blue item into a rare but when it spawns as a rare...think of it... you have items that drop commonly, magic items are less common but drop often and then you hit rare which is already better than most unique and yet the rare item rolls so badly that a magic item can out pace it. That means some magic items are rolling better than unique items. If magic rolls better than unique, shouldn't the blue items be the unique ones? The uniques all come out almost identical to each other so a magic item in many ways is more unique and rolls better. That is completely insane for any itemization game to be structured like this.

I am level 82 on tier 10+ maps. The drops never change. They are always bad. Making SSF a goofy trip. I still do not use the trade system and never will since it is not my game style for an ARPG but I know when I played D3 they specially said they lowered drop rates to prevent flooding the market.

If you listen closely, they have already hinted that they kept drops low to prevent market impact. Interviews specifically go over the trade market instead of the base game fundamentals during early access. The trade system should not even be a consideration when the base items dont exist in the game yet. They have yet to add three acts, dozens of boss types, weapon types and they are changing systems for the trade market in my opinion. This is EXACTLY what Acti-Blizzard did in D3 and it killed the game for over a year as it was oriented around the idea of the auction house. The same is happening so far in PoE 2. How can you explain running a campaign and finding little to no items in the entire thing worth mentioning. By the time you got an item, your levels out paced its need. You can remove all items during a campaign and have little to no impact. Im not joking, try it. Once you get enough skills, the gear is barely impacting the result due to poor mechanics around defenses and bad rolls being the norm.

Uniques are complete trash all the way through which they have admitted. They are not even worth mentioning. That is not just poor itemization, there is a disconnect and its the same one I recognize from D3. Exactly the same. This was fixed after they removed the auction house and redid the entire drop system.

It is my opinion but I think we are seeing the same mistake being repeated. I hope not but I cant describe it any other way. Im experiencing the exact same game issues and it all came down to the auction house in D3. I am recognizing a pattern but if you disagree, that is fair. Thank you for sharing your opinion

i hear what ur saying, i understand the frustration im playing self found too.


i just think the game is really badly balanced right now, the crafting system is a bit dysfunctional, they just havent got it right.


almost 0 uniques are for lvl40+ in the game, they just havent put the endgame uniques in the game yet and they are probably waiting until they understand what endgame builds look like without them before they design and tune them.



i think it feels really bad when they lower drop rates and take things away, it feels awful when they nerf a unique you are using. so they probably want to lean on the side of not enough loot ad not having things in the game at first and then when they add/buff them it feels good and everyones happy. if they gave us too much stuff and then took some away it would feel really bad and people would be outraged.




they know the majority of players never trade or only trade a couple of items which is the same as not trading. they know the game has to work well for people who dont trade so dont worry too much, they will make sure the balance works for us. i agree its not there yet.






witht he items for class and item rarities not always being better than others, its just not that kind of game. theres a different mindset to how it works. you might be casting spells on your mercenary and if the blue wand u found is better thats fine.

PoE1 isnt dead yet and it NEVER had an auction house so your theory is flawed.