Trade Manifesto

If an auction house trade system would make trade too easy, why not go the 'path of exile' way of doing it:

Create a currency item, that allows the seller to put an item with a fixed price into the auction house. By auction house I mean basically a system where a seller can store an item with a given price tag. Then the buyer can easily search for these items and purchase them without direct interaction with the seller. The currency is transferred directly into the stash of the seller. This allows a transaction without requiring both parties to be online.

This currency item should not be too cheap so that transactions won't be too easy.
I could imagine a level like the Beacon in Act 6. The exile has to protect an object, which moves at a certain speed, to ensure the level takes a set amount of time and effort. Let's say: 10 - 15 minutes. After the exile has completed the level, he is awarded with a currency item that allows him to use the auction house once. This level should be at the end of the campaign at level 68-70. This is still reachable by most players, even if they are not perfectly geared up. However, the content should be hard enough, so it can't be easily exploited and the 10-15 minutes are the same amount of effort for everyone. When the exile is of higher level or better equipped, he can deviate from the path of the object to kill more monsters, but the exile still has to watch that the object is not destroyed.
One could fine tune, if the buyer of an item also has to use a currency item, or if the currency item is refundable when no one wants your item in the auction house.

A story behind this level could be:
Protect the trade - the moving object is a trade caravan or single camel that is attacked by waves of monsters. The exile takes the role of a hired guard, protects the camel and gets as payment a bronze coin. This coin can in turn be used to send one item with another camel to the market place aka the auction house.
Currency mining - Get a raw gem out of the mines of Act 4. This gem is carried in a wagon out of the mountain, which is again attacked by monsters.

Increase player’s interaction - in the actual game
You could also increase player’s interaction by letting players join a caravan instance that is already filled with other players. You force players into the same instance like you do with towns. The more camels reach the market, the better for all the players in that instance (maybe by dropping additional shard of 'bronze coins' for every other player that manages to let his camel reach the end during your time in the instance). After all, creating an auction house will decrease player’s interaction. I actually like to play the game with others more then just writing to them for a trade. Therefore, each trade in an auction house should require the players to play in a party. This is a good way of counteracting the anonymity of the auction house.
Players that prefer solo play do not need to use the system, as the reward is also community oriented.


The effect on prices
The effect on prices of this auction house depends on the relative price of the currency item. Let's assume the currency item has a price roughly equal to 3 chaos orbs. Items that are currently on a trading site for 1 chaos should cost at least 4 chaos in the auction house. A buyer has to be willing to pay that higher price for instantly getting this item.
This makes no sense for common uniques, as there are already many players online that offer one of them. So there will still be plenty of trades going on with the current looking-for-an-item-writing-someone-travel-to-the-hideout-trading-system.
High value items (1 exalt +, rare uniques, 6 -links etc.) won’t be much affected by the extra price of the currency item. However, they will still be really rare and the effort of getting one is still to accumulate enough currency to buy it. The drop chances of these items will still regulate the amount of them, even if they are easier to exchange.
The largest impact will be on jewels and jewelry and on the very good rolled, very special rare items: There will be a higher supply at any given time of these items, which will lower prices.

Pros and Cons
Pro
Let’s the player decide when to invest the time to trade
Quality of life improvement (makes the actual trade process easier)
Increases player interaction while playing
Introduces a way of controlling the speed of transactions (by adjusting the time of acquiring the currency item)

Con
Decreases randomness (a stable in action RPG game)
Introduces a way of making currency for sure – Incentives to just grind that level
Exploitable by automated auction house pickers

PS:
Different Approach:

A way to tackle the Con points would be to make the auction house a room at the end of the level mentioned above. This way there is no currency item to grant access but there is still considerable effort involved in making one trade over the auction house.
This room could be similar to the end of the labyrinth. Players could only make one action per instance, either put an item with a certain price tag into the auction house or buy one item out of the auction house with a given price.
The auction house does not update after the exile reaches the final room. This is intended to prevent players from just watching the lists of items update. Say the player X reaches the auction house at time 19:00 and at this time there are items A and B in the auction house. At time 19:05 player Y reaches the auction house and inserts item C. Player X will still only see items A and B. When Player Z reaches the auction house at 19:07, he will see items A, B and C. If he buys item B, then player X will see the auction house only containing item A.
This should prevent players or bots from just sniping certain items once the show up. A bot would have to constantly go through the level, which is much harder to automate and then would only have a certain point in time to snipe a specific item.

I'm fairly certain that Chris is still mad at the idea of players wanting loot allocation options... that's why they implemented it in a way that was more than nothing, but was everything the players didn't want, and have hated for more than 4 years (June 2013, 0.11.0).

I never asked for trade to be easy/easier. Dammit, make it harder, man. More time-consuming. Slower. I don't mind. What I do mind is that it isn't fun, nor practical. I don't want to get better items faster, I want to get them with convenience, even if in a longer time. I don't mind waiting, I mind not having fun. The system is inconvenient. I don't necessarily want an automatic process. I don't want to upgrade characters trivially.

I loved to trade in some MMO games I played in the past, and I was very poor in those games, had bad items, but I had fun.

Trade channels are useless here, a waste of time, they are inconvenient as well and people only sell rip-offs there. It's just a noob trap. I don't even know why they still exist. Everything there is chaos, there is no order and those many trade channels are pointless, they just make everything more inconvenient.

I am not a speed runner and I don't like to speed run path of exile. I hate how we're making everything faster. So fast we barely have time to look at the game art. I play to have fun. Winning is secondary, sometimes even undesirable. Sometimes I want to spend a long time in a map and other times I want to finish a map as soon as possible (there are maps I don't enjoy the "atmosphere" and art and there are others I enjoy a lot). But I have to keep running to the end of the game at a constant speed or I will feel weaker and weaker if I spend too long grinding in a place. That's why I think the endgame is where the game truly starts, everything before that is a drag because it totally feels like obligation, I'm forced to do a lot of things I don't like, just because I hate to feel weak and feel like I am wasting time (it's just the psychological subjective sensation, not what is really happening).

Also, trade should be made all in-game, we shouldn't have to rely on sites or softwares. Or, at least, we should be able to trade only using the trade site alone. Switching from one to another is a dull experience.

"

Chris wrote:

Consequences of Easy Trade

Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.
...Simply put, their character progression is more about trading than it is about getting items from monsters. We believe that it is more fun to slowly and iteratively upgrade a character over time and to have a longer journey to gear a character up. Knowing that a monster could drop something that improves your character is a great motivator for playing one more level!

Actually, i can't remember when was last time something dropped for me. Almost everything i got was traded for currency. Anything of value dropped (has life/ress)? --> sell. Get enough currency ---> upgrade some item slot.
I cant remember list time i used chrom/jew/link orb either. Thank you for implementing masters.

About that bold part i can just laugh. It's way easier to trade something you really need for 3-4 ex's then it is to socked/link it.

"

Trumbettoo wrote:

"

Chris wrote:

Consequences of Easy Trade

Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.
...Simply put, their character progression is more about trading than it is about getting items from monsters. We believe that it is more fun to slowly and iteratively upgrade a character over time and to have a longer journey to gear a character up. Knowing that a monster could drop something that improves your character is a great motivator for playing one more level!

Actually, i can't remember when was last time something dropped for me. Almost everything i got was traded for currency. Anything of value dropped (has life/ress)? --> sell. Get enough currency ---> upgrade some item slot.
I cant remember list time i used chrom/jew/link orb either. Thank you for implementing masters.

About that bold part i can just laugh. It's way easier to trade something you really need for 3-4 ex's then it is to socked/link it.

That´s what it all comes down to isn´t it?

I find an exalt early in the game, this race at Act three. But that item that could buy me BIS for my build, is completely useless as I don´t trade.

GGG has to fix the drop rates of items and not give us currency all the time, so that we can buy them. I don´t need currency, I need loot for my builds :D

Trading is all or nothing already, adding an AH would at least make it accessible and available for everyone.

This site is nice especially when poe.trade is down but it doesn't fix people ignoring my whispers.

Why its slower than poe.trade?

"

Chris wrote:

Most players who play Path of Exile never trade. Out of the players who do trade, most only complete a few trades in a league.

This is really one of the pillars of the game? Imagine if most players never used the passive tree or socketed a skill gem.

bump for visibility

While it's obvious GGG put a lot of thought into it, it seems they didn't try outside the box.
They could for instance have a system where you put items for sale with a price, which would put it in a "trade center/shop" where people could browse items (pretty much what already exists in web version + the possibility to attach a price in currencies/items to your sale) and people could send offers that the sellers accept/decline/negociate by modifying the sent offer(this kills the bot).
Obviously such trades should only work in town/hideout to prevent quick inventory-space-costless gear respec within instances + this gives the current system a reason to keep existing.

And if you want that bad to keep the experience frustrating, make seller's items be listed only when he's online. See, not an """AH""".