I enjoy the trading system, economy is FINE (NOT A TRADER), I enjoy the crafting system

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Here's how Path of Exile economy works. Should be obvious, strangely isn't.



The center of the graph shows the average level of gear progression for the league. As a league ages, the average level of gear progression increases in absolute terms, but in relative terms, the overall population still conforms to a bell curve like this one.

Now if you're all the way to the right, you're considered rich. You have extremely good gear, and you're pretty happy with the economy. You don't get gear upgrades from drops or trades very often, but when you do happen to get an upgrade, you have a very good hand-me-down to trade away... and there is a massive horde of people who want it. So you get top dollar in currency, and then you can use your mountains of currency to craft even more ridiculous items, possibly getting an upgrade in the process. When it comes to receiving currency in exchange for gear, you feel amazingly badass. Life is good.

If you're all the way to the left, you're considered poor, but you're still pretty darn happy with the economy. You might not have much, but there is an entire mountain of people trying to sell gear which is considered an upgrade for you. Because there's so damn much of it, it's all considered junk, regardless of how rarely it actually drops in absolute terms. You're able to snag it almost for free, if not literally for free, and you're able to progress very rapidly using trade in this way, quickly catching up with the majority. When it comes to receiving gear in exchange for currency, you feel amazingly badass. Life is good.

The problem is in the middle. Generally speaking, people don't want to buy your items (there are too few buyers), and people don't want to sell you the items you desire (there are too few sellers). There are basically two ways things can work out for people in that group:
1. You can be a renegade. Instead of copying what the popular builds are, you can make your own builds which make a very specific point of using a different set of items than those which are conventionally desired. By seeking different items from everyone else, you can avoid intense competition over limited resources. However, this is very challenging, because it requires a certain degree of true originality, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other players who are also out there, trying to think original thoughts and create original builds, and if you're not careful you'll end up competing with them, too. Plus, if you're too creative the people who do find the items you want will just vendor them because they believe they are "worthless." You have a chance, but most likely you will fail and have a bad time. And you will blame it on yourself.
2. You can be a copycat. You can be one of a giant herd who are all trying to trade for the exact same gear as everyone else, by trading away the exact same gear as everyone else. The things this horde wants to buy, the next step on their gear progression, will always be insanely overcosted, due to the intense demand; the stuff this horde wants to sell will always be ridiculously undercosted, due to the intense supply. Without deviating from the apparent path of least resistance, you doom yourself to get lost in a sea of thousands of other players seeking the exact same goals as you. You do not have a chance, you will fail, and you will have a bad time. And you will blame it on others.

The people who QQ about Path of Exile's economy are those in the Middle 2 group who lack self-awareness. Which means: almost all of them.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well I will say this as a criticism of the Path of Exile economy:

At its core is the difference between currency and gear. By general ARPG design, gear flows down to the poor; by GGG design, Path of Exile's currency flows up to the rich. The thing is that the bell curve would have developed anyway, so it doesn't really make sense for currency to flow to the rich as much as it does; in designing currency the particular way that they did, the extreme poles are favored. The design heavily incentivizes currency to be used exclusively by the very rich, which takes the bell curve economy problem and exacerbates it for those in the middle (while improving things at the poles).

What would do Path of Exile a world of good is some kind of economic mechanic specifically designed to make things better for those in the middle. They are essentially left to fend for themselves, and I didn't lie and give them good news in their prognosis. It's important to understand that the bell curve itself isn't going anywhere; you can't fight that part. But this doesn't mean things need to be mercilessly competitive for those in the middle.

If I had to give a suggestion, it would be to encourage more viable variety in rare affixes for gear, especially chest pieces. As it stands now, with some gear there's very little room for creativity, which makes it extremely hard to be a renegade. I mean, outside of using a unique chest — which is already a risky proposition, because uniques are generally more scarce than rare affixes — how can you be a "renegade" in terms of chest itemization? Your options are pretty much Life and resists, or ES and resists; there's even a keystone to ensure that the two flavors of "Life and resists" are actually boiled down into a single flavor.

So what then? Go for flat regen? Or thorns? Bitch please.

I feel this is also the core error Diablo 3 made, at least pre-expansion. It was all about stacking your primary stat, crit, attack speed, vitality. That was it, for 99% of the builds out there. This meant gear really only came in 3 flavors: Str, Dex, Int. Monks and Demon Hunters used also exactly the same stuff.

How many gear slots in Path of Exile can you think of four or more distinct affix builds for? Because if it's 3 or less, it's the same Str/Dex/Int problem.

But to be honest, I'm not sure exactly what mechanic should be used. I'm just saying that you need tools for those in the middle, with scarcity to both the left and the right, to actually enjoy their economic experiences.

The main thing which makes the economic QQers a foolish minority is not that they're pissed off; if you objectively analyze their situation (easy when I provide a visual aid), they have good cause to be pissed off. It's that their awareness of their own problems is found lacking, and their suggestions for fixes are often laughable.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

@Nero:

The Path of Exile economy has a huge middle something. It's a definitive majority and it's observable. If you observe someone who is truly poor in Standard — for example, they have nothing, because they just started a new character — you see exactly what I described — trade is easy, effective, and fun, and they are able to upgrade rapidly using it. Until, eventually (and rather quickly), they catch up with that middle group, and then hit the same wall of frustration I was talking about earlier... but the older the league is, the more absolute gains can be made this way. So if you have at least three tiers, and the top and bottom ones are doing okay and the middle one is full of angry people, I mean, I don't know what else you'd call it. Maybe you'd prefer "economic tier" to "class," because I'm not trying to call up any sort of allusion to the concepts of middle class or upper class as they exist in real life.

Now if you take that basic structure I just described, and you close off the ability for new players to join the league, you have this rapidly advancing lower, a stagnant middle, and an advancing upper, right? So after a while, those lower advance to middle (like I was describing), and you have a larger stagnant middle vs an advancing upper. Which is actually agreeing with, not disagreeing with, your Pareto distribution. The bell curve is the "before" picture (and better describes temp leagues in their infancy), and the Pareto curve is the "after" picture (and better describes very old leagues like Standard). I'm just trying to explain how it goes from bell curve to Pareto. It makes sense if you think about it.

This middle tier is definitely not definable in terms of any absolute metric, such as any of the options you described. For example, if you're about a day into a brand new temporary league, a pretty good estimation of this middle group actually would be "has completed Normal." However, they aren't going to stay there very long. If you look at Standard now, I'd say "access to non-uber Atziri" easily, perhaps "access to all of the maps." But the point is that the average is always increasing in absolute terms. The defining characteristic of this middle group is not the particular level of content which they've cleared, but instead the competition for the same resources, not having enough buyers and getting low sales, and not getting enough sellers and having to overpay for upgrades. You need to understand it as a PvP concept, because it isn't a PvE concept at all.

Also, scams and RMT are equal-opportunity scumbag moves. You can be rich, poor, or in the middle of the PoE economy and scam people, and you can be at any PoE wealth level after a RMT transaction (you shouldn't assume everyone who does this spends a lot of money on it). It's very misleading to put these things in the same list as "monopolies" because you make these things sound like tools of the rich exclusively. No, they're tools of scumbags of all economic tiers.