Trade Manifesto

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G0tchas wrote:

Trading doesn't exist. Period. Going to an external website/application to trade isn't part of the game emergence, so it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

I'm with all those that are against an Auction House. In POE that simply won't work because by the time the auction is over, you've already out-leveled the gear you wanted.

I'm all for an in-game Market, though. Back in January I sent a detailed email to GGG outlining how a market could work ingame, complete with a quest to unlock the market and examples of how other MMO's have successfully implemented a market (not an AH). Some good examples of how it was done right is the Galactic Market in StarWars The Old Republic and the Exchange in Star Trek Online.

I agree completely. I never thought immersion mattered to me at all until I encountered this "external trade system" and decided to pass on it. Too easy? Too hard? Too fast? Too time consuming? It is none of these things to me as it is not in the game.

Star wars galaxies was amazing. I liked being able to search for items, travel to people's houses and then shop. It was time consuming (Fast travel to the planet, just a loading screen, but then ride a speeder all the way to the house, always varied on real estate location). But then I would be checking out their decorations and browsing other vendors to make impulse purchases.

And of course, the seller did not need to be online, let alone present. Did it spoil the economy? Not at all. It was not "easy" as in quick (neither gaining currency to spend nor the actual shopping), but it was fun. Time-consuming is never a bad thing if it is fun!

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Saevan wrote:

What I said was the opposite of what he said, correct. What he said though was complete BS. The top traders that he is protecting can't get any more powerful. They are already maxed out. A real trading system would allow the masses to catch up, and he doesn't want that.

completely disagree. No one outside of standard league is maxed out, and even there its less than 0.001% of players. Easier trade wont make the masses catch up, it will enable super easy flipping, it will enable insanely efficient bot sniping and the market will be even more pushed towards the tiny minority who really play the markets. Normal people will not catch up, the masses can easily trade right now by using poe.trade, its easy anyone can do it. Most people who dont trade will not trade under any circumstances, easier trade will not allow them to catch up because they will simply never ever trade. It will however make the very top fraction of a % super rich by allowing them to flip and bot 50x more items per day, and everyone who trades will have a power boost, leaving the crowd who will never trade no matter what left even further behind.

I think youre seeing what u want to see, not whats really there.

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completely disagree.

No one outside of standard league is maxed out, and even there its less than 0.001% of players.

This depends on what you mean by maxed out. I have gathered more than 10k c this temp league easily in stuff (i used like 15 exa (2500+ fuses) to 6l just because i wanted an achievment done, let that sink, yes a lot more than 1500 vorici bench, i was pissed but could afford it.. easily), and i am not even remotely close to the big times. My friend has 200 exa worth items on 100 lvl char with 40 challenges completed on harb and is currently 40exa short for a mirror he wants and he is still far from the big times. While most folks do not see an exalt for whole league, maybe ending with few exas worth of items counting everything. If you write it like this no one is really "maxed out". There is pretty much no max out in PoE. Lets refer to simple numbers. if your wealth in non perma league is below 10 exa that's tier 4, 10-50exa, tier 3, 50-300exa, tier 2, 300-1000 tier 1, and gods are above 1000exa in non perma league. There are probably gods in PoE and probably 90% is tier 4. This is the disparity we are talking.

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Easier trade wont make the masses catch up, it will enable super easy flipping, it will enable insanely efficient bot sniping and the market will be even more pushed towards the tiny minority who really play the markets. Normal people will not catch up, the masses can easily trade right now by using poe.trade, its easy anyone can do it. Most people who dont trade will not trade under any circumstances, easier trade will not allow them to catch up because they will simply never ever trade. It will however make the very top fraction of a % super rich by allowing them to flip and bot 50x more items per day, and everyone who trades will have a power boost, leaving the crowd who will never trade no matter what left even further behind.

1. Is there a place in PoE where you have an actual ranking? a dick - comparison table when there are names and who has so much mirrors they can swim in them? I for once do not care if someone has 1000 mirrors or 10000 mirrors or gazylion mirrors. Is he happy? Yes, than its marvelous. No, than its bad. Its not a competetive game, the PvP is dead, challenges are tied to your own progression, no one can really hurt you. So existance of god tier players means absolutely nothing. I usually end up giving few exas here and there, those are pixels in a non competitive game, they do not matter.

2. You know why there is flipping ? Cause no one right now can stop it. No one has any control over the market. Devs don't have any tools to stop it and not get rid of the trading as a whole. Let us imagine a simple market like vendor that was posted here. You put your item to vendor. Everyone can see it in that vendor stash, if they buy you get the orbs minus the fee. Simple, nothing to fancy. Now it doesn't solve flipping you might think.. Well the devs can add simple box showing the change in that item price that occured during, lets say, last 4 days. For unis only. Its so simple code i can write it. Does it make flipping incredibly difficult to pull off? Yes. See - simplest of the markets possible in game, devs can have simple tools to fight misplay.

3. From what you wrote, auction houses, markets that would be in game would "enable" all those misplays. Well "Here's Johnny!", they are already here for a long time and no one can do shyt about that cause devs have no way to control the market. You might think it will get worse. How on earth is devs getting any control over trading means there will be more abuse? They will bribe GGG with exalts to allow flipping? Any system that has no control over it is prone to abuse. Once you have even a bit of control many of the bad stuff would be gone instantly. Bots and scripts that look for items and insta buy them. Now you can't do shyt, there is no way GGG can cross check PMs and trades for specific items, it would be a horendous effort. With any market you just allow for charlvl/2 buys per day, and enabling trading starts after first kitava. You kill external aggregation and allow ingame for 100 inquires per day .. bots and scripts for item buying solved (they would have little to no influence if any would still linger). For some not apparent reason for me just any ingame trading system is put here as the devil. The devs will write it, not abusers, so it will be probably shytty and will lack a lot of options and will probably have more bugs than a stray cat, but i can assure you whatever they would decide to put in poe, there will be less misplays than there are now.

4. "Players won't trade under any circumstances". Well.. based on what do you make that assumption? Cause i do not agree on that. I traded excatly 7 times during this league, zero in the one before. I basically do not touch standard items and i have tons of them. My good friend and guildy sold all my drops cause i hate poe.trade to the very bone of it. If i got a system ingame i would use it, and don't get it wrong, during some other leagues i made so many trades i still have nightmares, i am just constantly trying to limit that glorious experience as much as i can. I got a lot of friends that don't trade - sell at all, cause its a hassle if you don't have premium tabs, and rarely buy, cause they play games for a reason maybe not obvious to many people here - for fun. They go with 60life, double res gloves cause it is enough to not have to deal with possible shyt they can find with poe.trade and they just play the game and hang around speaking with people they want to speak. If they had the option to make trades in game without that stupid external and PM interaction they would trade and probably a lot. Some of the stuff they have is wonderful and worth a lot. I am not speaking about new players. i am speaking about beta veterans, with stuff like legacy kaom's heart in their stashes on standard. They do not trade, cause if they do not need to do that, they chose to not do that. And them being veterans means they do not have to buy shyt to complete what they want.

So all your points are invalid in my opinion.

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I think youre seeing what u want to see, not whats really there.

I do not care if i can mail you my account number and you will mail me back your item id and we can than go drink a coffee in Madrid and trade items - this should not be done like that. I play Poe because this game allows me to turn in "the relax and have fun" mode or "get some fun and challenge" mode and just dive deep in the world and kill some mobs.

The best possible market for me would a booth with a golem or maybe even Lilly in your hideot. You put items there and someone comes to your hideout, greets you with "morning exile", apparently you are at the last phase of izaro, so you use a TradeGolemPm chat to write through your vendor golem "evening exile, how can i spoil the day for you?" He can than begin to post his meaningless orbs for the glorious item that fall from that beast you have slain with so much effort so you stop at the gates to izaro and write him to piss of and go up doedre's ass. He quickly realises his effort to scam is not going to work so he finishes the trade with the golem at the original not fixed meaningful price. You than part your ways by saying "let piety pierce your ass with all of her frost bolts" and he concludes the trade with "let uber izaro caches always drop 1%quality gems for you". Like Nessa shop, with some tiny human interaction if you don't use buyouts. I click i post an item, i click i buy an item. And how the devs will pack it, how they will balance it to get rid of the bots, scammers, scripts, any of that "easy trading" i could not care less. I will never ever believe that it is not doable, we have rockets mate, that have reached moon, with people aboard.

Simple, in game, in line with the lore. Just get it done GGG.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

The easier trade is the more powerful the 10% of players who trade get, while the 90% who dont trade remain at the same power level.

You are making an unwarranted assumption that the number of players who don't trade is fixed and unaffected by the way the trade system is implemented. This is manifestly false. We've seen many players in this thread note that either they or players they know don't trade precisely because the current system sucks. I'm also one of them.

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That is incorrect, trading adds massive value to items you find, in a game about finding items this is extremely important.

Again, you are wrong. The value of an item is determined by its usefulness for the purpose of progressing through content or enabling different builds. Shav's is valuable because it enables low-life builds. Its suitability for this purpose is unaffected by whether or not it can be traded. By your logic, a hat with +7 life is worth more if it can be traded, when this is clearly not the case.

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Traders miss out on the thrill of natural progression, well Im gonna strike the word natural from that statement because its a weighted word that has no place in there, its not less natural to trade in a trade centered arpg than to find items, even trade itself can only occur once youve found items to trade.

aRPGs are about killing monsters and finding loot that enables you to kill tougher monsters or to kill them in a different way. We call this "gameplay". Trading is not gameplay, but the circumvention of it. Notice how in all the promotional videos GGG puts out for the game--new expansions, new content, etc--they never show trading, because again, it's not gameplay. Trading is a shortcut. In that sense, the only difference between trading for a Shav's and using a hypothetical console command to materialize one in my inventory is the degree of efficiency and the degree of removal from gameplay. Sure, the trader has to play a little bit to obtain some capital, but then they can flip and scam their way to any conceivable level of wealth without ever leaving town again.

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But for endgame grinders trade is an essential part of the game that doesnt remove time, it adds time, vast vast amounts of time because GGG have managed to make such a high variance rare item pool that even with 10k hours invested 95% of those people probably dont have a single perfect rare item.

You said trading was the cliff, trading is simply faster item acquisition, its the same thing as looting just faster, so if trade is the cliff then so is looting, its just a faster way of jumping over it. Thats an indisputable piece of logic, its obvious.

Of course trading removes time. Do you think it's faster to obtain a perfect rare through trading, or by playing SSF? We're not talking about time in terms of your willingness to play, but the rate of progression. I'll also note that, even if you think item acquisition is the cliff, it doesn't follow that the SSF player will reach it, because GGG generally adds new content at a rate faster than they progress. Only the trader can theoretically obtain "everything".

Look, here's my broader assessment of PoE: There are, with rare exceptions, two different reasons people play this game. One group enjoys the natural progression inherent to the core mechanics of the genre--killing monsters and finding loot. These are the SSF players. Then you have players who don't care very much about natural progression and simply want to maximize the power of their characters or try out crazy builds that don't work without gear that is impractical to naturally acquire. These are the traders.

There's a bit of crossover, sure--SSF players will try out new builds with the stuff they find, and the trader isn't going to be unhappy if he finds the Kaom's he wanted instead of having to trade for it--but these two motivations are largely distinct. SSF players implicitly understand that there are builds, and potentially content (Uber Atziri, Shaper) they will not be able to play or complete, because it's impractical for them to play for long enough to naturally progress to that point. Likewise, the trader knows he's often going to miss out on the excitement of finding an upgrade for his character, instead incrementally accumulating wealth to then obtain an upgrade from someone else.

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What Chris is saying is that if he makes trade easier the 10% who trade become vastly more powerful, while no adding any power to the 90% who don't trade.

While this observation is technically true, it's laughably irrelevant. If someone never trades, it makes absolutely no difference to their gameplay experience if PoE has an AH or if trading is outright disallowed. GGG have at least recognized the distinction between SSF players and traders with the creation of the SSF league. The issue is then how to maximize the enjoyment for these two camps. Some have suggested increasing the drop rates for the SSF league. I'm ambivalent about that, because it's hard to pinpoint what the "correct" level of SSF progression is, and it's always going to be modulated by how much a given player plays. But it's disingenuous to pretend that there's no way to help non-traders from a power standpoint.

Concurrently, if we want to maximize the enjoyment for traders, then the obvious best way to do that is to have a trade system that is maximally efficient and enjoyable to use. You speculated that only 10% of players trade. You also acknowledged that PoE's design is centered around trade. As others have pointed out, the only logical way to reconcile these two statements is to conclude that the game is a massive failure. If the game is trade-centered, then GGG should want 100% of players to trade, or as close to it as possible. There are underhanded ways of incentivizing this, which GGG has used to varying degrees--shitty drop rates, item gated access to content, unsustainable map pools--which only makes the current garbage trade system more baffling. How many players have hit a wall in progression, tried to trade to overcome it, got frustrated by how annoying and difficult it is to trade, and then quit? As I said earlier, how does that make any sense? GGG is literally working against their own stated interests.

I completely agree with you decision however I believe it would be nice to put GUI for searching items into the actual game.

I can imagine something like store/auction in the Sarn and Oriath where people would gather every now and then. It's now necessary easier than alt+tab but it has its spell.

Also It would be nice if you would give at least 1 premium stash tab to all players to begin with. I believe everyone who fall in love with POE will buy more of them anyway especially if they get chance to actually try it.

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G0tchas wrote:

You talk to a Vendor in town and 'give' your item to them to sell on your behalf and how much of what currency you want for it...

Having vendors selling on behalf of characters would be a decent compromise IMO. That or a reputation system, or aggressive anti-manipulation coding. But... do you guys really want to spend time making a better eBay for use inside PoE any more than we want to spend time using it?

Reading the thread I was thinking "no, the current trade system creates an opportunity for people willing to exchange time and skill in the trade system for currency". We pay their prices because it's more fun to pay them than to try to trade ourselves. But the current system deliberately makes it hard to find those traders, so we either waste precious gaming time in the trade setup, or we live without trading in a game balanced around traders. I play for fun, anyway. The goal is more fun, not more engagement with an economic system.

I initially played SSF (before the official version) because I didn't realise trading was a thing. Then the initial hurdle of grinding forums and websites to find out how 3rd party trading worked, that the tools were largely obsolete because poe.trade existed, and how the actual mechanic works... that was bad enough. But then actual in-game trades suck. I do it because the alternative is way more grinding than I can be bothered with. The options are grind the game and struggle to progress much into maps, or grind the trade system and waste hours waiting to sell stuff or trying to buy it.

I also wasted a lot of currency initially before I realised that crafting is bad-odds gambling. You're 99% better off trading currency rather than spending it, because the poe.trade value is hugely higher than the odds of getting something useful by crafting. Until something costs more than 10 exalts or so, crafting doesn't work. Sure, its worth alt-spamming or alch-spamming for low-end levelling gear, but if you're trading or faux-SSF you can buy better uniques for that alch if you don't get them as drops from your higher-level characters.

What I would like is a genuine SSF option. Not "all of my non-trading characters in a pool and making porter characters to carry items back to standard" silliness, the actual, genuine, no trading, not even between my own characters version. Like the races are and the Oriath Beta was. It would probably mean some re-balancing, but right now the balance is off for my play style anyway.

For people who have time budgets the analysis goes like this: spend time watching videos on how to play, spend time researching trade options, spend time grinding the trade shambles, or maybe, just maybe, spend time playing the game. Not the meta-game of trading time vs in-game time, the actual hack'n'slash run round killing things that some of us actually like doing.

On that note: one of the high points of the recent beta for me was getting an exalt drop and actually using it to craft with. It wasn't worth anything in trade, so it made sense to actually use it. I have no idea what I got out of it, I just remember using it.

I'd never been able to bring myself to do that before because exalts are worth so much more as trade goods than they can ever be as crafting currency. Spend an exalt, get on average a T3 or T4 affix. Or trade that exalt and get something with several specific, guaranteed, affixes? Gee, I wonder which one makes more sense? I know, I'll roll the dice and... oh look, "5% extra flask charges gained", yippee ki yay. At the bumbling incompetent level I play at 1 exalt buys most of a set of gear. 5 exalts buys the 6 link bow of extreme doom that I've coveted but could barely afford (and then it was made legacy, so now it's like 20 exalt... even more yippee).

In-game auction house is still the best imo. And it's easy to filter out bots by implementing a a captcha code whenever a player would buy an item or place an offer to an item, or simply post new items to the auction house. Bots then wouldn't be able to auto-trade. And speaking of captcha, it could also work for eliminating automation in-game altogether by periodically and somewhat randomly verifying players in-game, after completing every map or at key points that don't affect gameplay, something like that.

This is not a solution. Not even close. Incredibly disappointed GGG could not evolve on the concept over a year of development.

I could have developed this for you in 1 week