Trade Manifesto

the game should offer an easier path of the same content so most people can finaly see and experience all of the end game once in their lifetime otherwise u make content for a minority only example easy normal hard can even add bonus to like xp/drop minus or plus per diff so its good for player that want it easier or harder

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Ashriel wrote:

Okay, I just re-read this, and I have to say, I don't agree with a single word you've said. I'm sorry, you want to good items drop LESS than they do now? Are you serious?

You seriously think that trading is too easy and so you'd consider things dropping less?

I think you read it wrong. He didnt say he wants good items to drop less than they do now, and they didnt say trade was too easy so they would drop less loot.

He said IF trade was easier than it is now, then they would have to reduce drop rates. The implication here is that they dont not want to reduce the drop rates, and this is why they dont want to make trade easier than it is now.

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Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.
People who are heavily engaged in trade perform fewer item upgrades to achieve their final build. They get there in fewer steps, because they can easily buy items that are close to what they need. 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!

I think it's the opposite. First, trade-engaged players craft a lot of items just for sell. As I agree with slow and constant process of upgrading a character being nice experience, there comes a time when you need some specific items and a chance you get just the one you need from monster is often close to zero. Counting on dropping specific items from monsters would be motivating only if you are farming some exclusive drops like Vinktar's.

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Easy trade means reducing drop rates
Compare two hypothetical games. In the first game, trade is very difficult. The majority of items that can't be used by your character are not traded to other people. In the second game, trade is very easy. Many of the items that you can't use are traded to other people for items that you can. In the second game, because of trade, you have a much higher acquisition rate of useful items. While that sounds great if you want instant gratification, in reality it means that the second game either receives reduced drop rates relative to the first, or ends up being a whole lot easier and less challenging to achieve goals in.

In the first game when you don't trade but need some specific items in most cases it won't be a challenge to get them - it would be RNG. In the second game when you trade the possibility of buying items doesn't lower the challenge because farming currency for them is also a challenge itself.

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Easy trade allows for greater abuse by automation
Another topic is automation. While we work hard to stamp out bots and abusive behaviour, it would be hard to completely eliminate the damage caused by a few trade bots with access to a fast trade system. If they have the ability to search out and buy items without having to talk to another player, then there would be some very large-scale economic consequences that would not be good for regular players.

I have some simple ideas how to make it work. Items posted for sale would be available for direct purchase only as it works now but only for a 2 hours let's say. After that time they would become obtainable by auto-buy option in order to prevent scammers from putting underpriced items for sell as well as allow people to buy items from eternaly-afk players (mostly on standard). Let's say I'm a smart scammer and I re-post my underpriced item each 2 hours to prevent it from being bought by someone. Game then remembers that item and makes it available for auto-buy for let's say next 24 hours.

I would really prefer such a solution. When 3.0 came out I came up with a build idea and wanted to test it on one of my Standard chars. I relocated all passives and went for buying a few items. Buying 3 rare items matching my needs took me 2 days because everyone was playing on a league. If I was able to buy them automaticly I would spend these 2 days by just playing and enjoying the game instead of coming into PoE a few times a day only to check if one of the sellers will finally respond to my whisper.

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DrDraids wrote:

"Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.
People who are heavily engaged in trade perform fewer item upgrades to achieve their final build. They get there in fewer steps, because they can easily buy items that are close to what they need. 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!"

Cmon guys, you don't find upgrades in poe, you buy them and you anyone who plays the game knows it

u run maps pick currency, pick items, sell items, currency for others
buy items for self

Thank you for your thoughts on trading GGG.

My biggest problem with trading however has not been addressed, pricefixers.

Would it be possible for the api to track how many times a listed item at a set price has had requested trades for and display this number in the listing?

This could alert players that some one was not actually selling it and thus keep others from listing the items at that price.

Thank you for a good read. Looking forward to see how this will pan out.
One thing though: Items matter - well yeah currently it's way to easy to farm for really good endgame gear setups because of the numerous all-round great uniques in the game. I don't have to craft a good bow. I buy a Lioneye's / Death's Opus / Windripper / Chin-Sol / etc. I don't craft or buy a good rare that someone put an effort into to crafting. I buy Belly of the beast / Queen of the Forest / etc. Aside from amulet, belt, rings and jewels mostly I can wear uniques in more or less any item slot these days.

With the upcoming trading changes making things even easier you should really look into making Uniques less desirable as all-round items that goes with any build and let rares take back the spot of BiS. This would bring some longevity to the game now that trading becomes even easier.

Took a year to just add languages to something that already existed? :D Gj

really good manifesto. Tbh I knew all this anyway, anyone whos been paying attention, reading the interviews, listening to the podcasts, being a student of the game over the last 4 years and actually listens to what the devs say without putting it through the "I only hear what I want to hear" filter should really have heard every argument and intention posted here already 5x over. But good that its all in 1 place for those who are still very opinionated on trade but obviously havent taken the time to listen to what the devs have been telling us all this time or simply havent been around for long enough to remember all the ziggy and zeno shows, the various reddit and forum injections from GGG etc.





Chris if ur reading the replies here, first off cheers for the manifesto, much love to big chris I know we chew ur ears off from time to time and your always a good sport about it.

Second, any chance of you guys considering an automated currency/fragment/essence auction house? Ok, all the things ur saying I completely agree with, but all ur reasoning is based around gear upgrades. Me swapping 140 chroms for some random dudes 10 chaos orbs is not instant item upgrading. This is where big agro can happen trying to buy a lot of essences or fragments or make some currency switches, most of which result in you losing a ton of random currency for like 300 fusing, and you spam them all on an item and it doesnt 6 link, and then u go back to farming, its not actually pressing a button and instantly getting a 6 link, even if u instantly get the fusing the simple act of using them takes as long or longer than making a normal player to player hideout trade for an already linked item.

Reason its so frustrating, and a big concern in its own right, price manipulation. The vast majority of manipulation abuse revolves around currency to currency trades, fake listings, market swinging by organised goons, I feel like 95% of this behaviour happens in the currency to currency world. Is it worth attempting to police this area when its a battle ull always lose, its a battle that will bring innocent casualties, and its not actually effecting instant item upgrades which are the core of the "trade should be suffering" mentality, which I absolutely agree with in regards to item upgrades as you have stated it.

Obvious this opens up bot currency trading, which will be viciously fast. Is that a big worry? You guys will have to come to an opinion on that. I feel like if things all have a decent relative value that makes sense then currency flipping has no profit, only under priced stuff can be flipped and it can only be flipped to the standard ratio because u cant make people overpay. So people who want a quick sale can udnercut, and the bots will flip their currency instantly to the currency accepted ratio, but might this process even ebenefit in some ways in terms of allowing people to get instant movement for less return and actually bringing about a more stable ratio in a lot of situations that can only move gradually when large parts of the market agree on the shift rather than 10 guys and their alt accounts being able to masively shift ratios with fake listing the way they can now in a system where u can list without selling?

Food for thought.





Please never give in on the instant item trading though, haters gonna hate, they dont get it, a lot of us do get exactly what ur saying and we fully support it. Keep the interaction, keep that time and effort sink, keep instaflip bots making dozens of trades a minute out of the item game.

cheers again for all the hard work guys, much love.


ps. item value matters, dont void mayhem!!!! :D

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The Trade Market

The version of Path of Exile published by Tencent in Mainland China uses the "Trade Market" rather than a system of exposing items via public stash tabs and forum posts for searching on web pages. This system is also in use on the Xbox One version of Path of Exile - as you can imagine, web page searches and textual trade conversations aren't well suited to the controller input of a console.

Since it doesn't seem that anyone from Xbox one has commented here yet... I would like to point out that everyone I have played with and talked to hate the current trade system. While in general it works great and is even better than it now sends a 2-second message on the bottom of the screen... it still has some glaring holes that if filled would make it WAY better. Knowing that you are limited in the things you can do with a controller layout and the fact you don't want it to become as easy as the PC version for finding items...

1.) Give us some kind of basic filter or sort by categories. I can understand you don't want us to get granular with our searches as that would be a nightmare to work with from a UI perspective. Just give the ability to search and/or filter based on something simplistic such as stat type. i.e. search rings and then hit a button for a filter (left thumb click or something) and select the property like an increase to health. Increase to elemental damage, etc. Just one filter per search would do wonders for the rings and jewels section which are currently un-navigatable. I think the current way has resulted in many players price fixing the market and overall extraordinary high item prices for popular items.

2.) Gives a recent trade notification in the pause menu and a little mail letter next to the health globe with offers we've recently received during the current play session. Sometimes things are happening on screen and a miss out on this half second pop-ups. This is far less important than item number one above.

Lastly, thank you for fixing shaper. I know many of us were frustrated that he was basically unplayable due to performance issues. I look forward to playing your game for many years as long as the trade market situation gets resolved soon.

Today is a historic day.