Deep and awesome thoughts on trade market
" This provoked my reply. :) I started with "Neverwinter Nights" on... AOL. :) (Not one-upping, just that I'm an old fart.) For UO, it was never "player concerns" that initiated the PK Purge. It was... real-life news articles. It was parents being outraged that Little Johnny got pwned online, in a game. He was "killed" by "another person." This was A Very Big Deal ™ in "Real Life" for a time. Hordes of child-psychologists trained the morning news shows, newspapers created endless Public Interest articles, top-shelf magazines even covered "The Story." If there had been someone actively stomping in the heads of kittens outside of everyone's house, parents would have still screamed their lungs out about Ultima Online and "PK'ers" with as much fervor as some did when that "Devil Worshiping Dungeons and Dragons" game hit the presses and the election cycles. We could have only have hoped to get Dee Snider addressing the U.S. Congress to try to convince them to stfu... But, PK'ers were a bit of a problem for new players. My first evening's experience was dodging PK'ers. But, it was also the best - I watched one kill a horde of people, wearing some weird hat and nothing else, then pulling out a chair and plopping it down in the middle of the street, only rising to repeatedly kill guards that tried to respond... Glorious. My first "loot" was from defending myself against a PK'er. :) Anywho... It wasn't the player's outcry they cared that much about. It was the fact that Little Johnny was getting his game taken away and Little Sally was not allowed to buy it because... "They kill children, there." " I agree in the respect that some customers have dumb ideas. Not every customer is always right, but they do have to be treated like a customer. That being said, developers do have to pay attention to the complaints of their customers. They just don't have to implement their suggestions unless they're particular inspired and will be seen as a good addition to the experience. (Plenty of customers have made suggestions for games that have been implemented as permanent additions with suitable fanfare from both sides of the table.) The Marketplace has two significant issues, in terms of importance: 1) A lower player-count than what the game was designed to support. 2) Price-Fixing for chase items by both market "Hideout Heroes" and savvy players who have good methods to "rush" and get to prime-time slots for making big money with top-tier gear, giving them the funds necessary to fix certain markets fairly early. Neither one of these problems is actually... solvable. At least, they're not solvable using any simple suggestions that wouldn't require GGG doing something it has stated it will never do - Create different release versions for different platforms. The "Best Solution" is very simple - More players. That's it. More players participating in the Market, which will be a natural occurrence if they are playing anything other than SSF, is akin to a "throw money at it" solution. It will work. It may not always be the best solution and doesn't always have to be implemented well, but with enough money (players) you can reach the Moon... |
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" Interesting. Are u sure it was the "outside" of the game to push the change with the creation of Trammel? I mean we already had DOOM where your only purpose was to kill other people (in a much more gore way actually). I remeber clearly when people started this crusade against Pks (I never played as a Pk, I've always been a Pkk, I liked to kill Pks to protect Noobs lol) that slowly and steady changed the game. I agree with what u said about the market. The only things I'd like implemented are bein able to see the name of the seller/buyer and a Web index page like they have on pc. With those 2 things market would be in a good spot. Last edited by Asra101010#9694 on Oct 6, 2020, 7:06:04 PM
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" What nonsense. The console trade Market already works *vastly* differently than the PC trade market. And Problem 2 (Price Fixing) could be solved in about 5 minutes of coding and a few hours of testing... by simply allowing transactions to auto-complete if the offered amount exactly matches the set price. You can't false-list a bunch of Doctor cards for half (or less) of their actual value if the game will automatically complete the sale if someone meets your price. The issue is that Chris Wilson, and therefore GGG, *like* the idea that there are bad actors on the trade market. They basically boil it down to roleplaying. We're all supposed to be exiled criminals, so why *wouldn't* we try to steal from one another? Well, Chris, because this isn't actually a Role-Playing game, no matter what "ARPG" stands for. People actually roleplaying account for a *tiny* fraction players. The rest of us just want to smash monsters to get loot. Trading makes a larger percentage of loot we find meaningful/valuable, so it makes the game more fun. Except, oh wait, a small fraction of uber-jerks monopolize the high end market, making it extremely difficult to either buy OR sell anything of actual value at a fair price. I already live in a world with an incredibly unfair power balance, where the economy is controlled by the 0.1%. I don't want my games to be that way too. | |
" There was an outcry in the playerbase, but players are often made to think they're more influential than they actually are in terms of a game's development. The actual "bad press" for one of the first popular "MMO" games was probably more influential in my opinion. Even then, the design philosophy persisted (AFAIK) and it was never totally removed. It was important to the Lord British that players could be "evil" if they wanted to. " Things are weird on consoles, especially when it comes down to player-id and that kind of thing. I think Micro$oft keeps a pretty hard lock on that boundary. I'm actually surprised we have an in-game "chat" because of that very reason. (Is there a multiquote feature around here, somewhere?) |
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" "It's different, therefore your opinion is nonsense." That's surely a winning argument. When there are only five of a chase-item unique available in the market, metered into it in twos-and-fews, that small supply easily forces prices to be at the very least 1.5 times the listed price on console according to latest scrapers. For highly desirable items... the price can be virtually whatever the seller wants it to be. The limits there are NOT the top-end of the pricing schedule, but what currency has likely been generated by the game for players to be able to spend. You'll see high prices the first couple of days, but then they'll get even higher for while because sellers are adjusting prices upwards because there's now more currency to be had. The lack of competition in a smaller market means there's no intrinsic mechanism to help force prices down and little reason for sellers to do so. And, it greatly magnifies the possible impact of a player that wants to influence the market and has the means to do so. This is basic stuff. No market mechanics exclusive to console act to correct any of this. If you have inside information such a thing exists, post proof of it. " That would fix one form of the mechanics used by some "fixers." But, it doesn't address the supply problem encouraging higher prices than some players are able to pay for build-necessary items. If you've got three Kaom's in stock and there are ten players relying on one for their build... five of them will be peeing up a rope with two of them getting very lucky with drops/crafts. " If that is true and Wilson and GGG are intentionally perpetuating an environment that rewards bad actors for that sake alone... Well, that needs a Kotaku article, immediately. I'm not joking. If you have evidence that is the case, drop them an email. They love that sort of stuff. :) " I agree with you. I don't necessarily want everything handed to me on a silver platter, but every single league I am faced with choosing a build I THINK I might actually be able to eventually get the needed items for... or not. And, I have never, ever, been able to max equip a build with all the items the build-designer recommends. Never. As a result, I fill-in where I can and am forced to accept there are some things the build is intended to be able to do that I will never be able to do with it. This league is no different - I highly doubt I will ever get one piece of the "end-game" equipment. Not one. I may get enough of the needed gear to be able to squeeze through to the end-game as long as I'm willing to accept plenty of deaths. I might, might, get a chance to down Sirrus... While, the end-game build can put him on "farm mode." This is one piece of "top end" Uniques recommended for my build: https://poe.ninja/challenge/unique-armours?name=hy It's 5 ex for a six-link on PC. I checked last night and there was one six-link available on console for 17 Ex... In the builder's opinion, it's cheaper for "us" (PC users, obviously) to buy a six link rather than trying to craft it. Cheaper. Yeah, that word doesn't work on console and the market controls what builds I can enjoy playing and what I can accomplish in the game. We... are the dirtier part of a different 1% on console in the PoE world. PS: IMO, GGG wants you online with access to their marketplace for as long as it is possible for you to be online. That's why they don't want to make certain sorts of things any easier, like "progression" or "getting gear through trading." |
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" No, your statement that they won't make different releases is nonsense. There is zero reason for them not to modify the way the trade market on console works, because it's already hugely different from the PC market. You'll need to make a different argument as to why they can't do it. " That would fix one form of the mechanics used by some "fixers." But, it doesn't address the supply problem encouraging higher prices than some players are able to pay for build-necessary items. If you've got three Kaom's in stock and there are ten players relying on one for their build... five of them will be peeing up a rope with two of them getting very lucky with drops/crafts.[/quote] We have a much, much smaller economy. That will be very different than the huge PC economy. Since there will be no cross-play, you just have to accept that. I would argue that the smallness of the console economy warrants GGG taking extra steps to make it as non-awful for us as possible, which should include things like autocompleting trades. " It's something I've heard from Twitch streamers on multiple occasions, as something Chris said in an interview. I have not been able to personally locate said interview. Chris has done a *lot* of interviews over the years, and not all of them are still publicly available. " Plenty of console players, and/or SSF players will put Sirus on Farm. Being in a limited trade (or trade free) environment limits your choices of which builds you can use to reach that power level. But it is still completely viable. There is nothing GGG could do to make console prices like PC prices that wouldn't ruin the game in some way. BTW, even on PC they have people (or groups of people) who manipulate the market by buying up as close to "all" of something available as they can. It is much more difficult on PC, due to the size of the market, but market savvy players can also get ridiculously wealthy on PC (literally thousands of Exalts), which gives them the power to manipulate the market like that. The best move they can do to improve the console trade market is to allow instant completion of trades where the exact price is met. Yes, this introduces a few downsides, but I believe it be a large net benefit. The second best thing they could do, and the best if they are unwilling to implement instant trade completion is to show the listing player's account name on the trade listing. This would make it easy to see when one player has 27 copies of something all listed for similar prices. (Of course, the really dedicated scammers would then create multiple accounts to list the items under, but anything we can do to make it harder to scam means fewer people will go to the effort of doing it). | |
" That's their official position on the subject. Given the exception for certain mechanical necessities, like predictive pathing, and the QoL features they have implemented so that, for instance, looking for items doesn't involve the use of a web browser and web apps on a console, their position is to keep the game as close to possible as the PC release in as many aspects as possible. For instance, the issues that we have in finding specific affixes on items and the amount of time it takes for us to page through scores of pages and hundreds of potential items (Jewels and Jewelry, for instance) is ENTIRELY intentional. That "inconvenience" is purposeful. It is done because they feel the need to counter our ability to easily list and then to sell items. Why? Because the PC market has its own inconvenience which is, btw, intentional as well. So, console players MUST have something as close to an equitable inconvenience as possible. If you don't believe this is true, go look at the stickied Market/Economy/plans info-thread and you'll find direct quotes from Chris et al on this subject. These inconveniences are entirely purposeful and intentional and not a produce of anything other than purposeful design. Where PC and Console differs, equitable "inconveniences" must be established. And... the market system we have right now is ours. (I'd link it for you, but... half the time I try to open multiple pages while actively creating a post, the auto-backup-crap for active windows ends up crapping up my post... :) It's stickied at the top of one of the mainline forums. If you can't find it, let me know and I will find it for you.) " I have to accept it not because we have a smaller economy, but because I have to accept it because I have no other choice if I want to play PoE on console. A small, but substantive difference in perspective. :) (ie: The devs could make it so I didn't have to accept that, but they won't. :)) " I am not against that at all. Really, I'm not. But, I don't think they're ever going to do that. It's part of the "inconvenience" factor they believe they must maintain. And, the believe this because of one obvious fact - Their main goal in gameplay development is to encourage the player to stay within reach of their RMT marketplace for as long as possible. That means using "artificial" means to add value to their content's development costs. Chris's "excuse" and gobbity-goop about the necessity of inconvenience is, IMO, a load of hooey. The fact is that "GGG" is essentially how players are empowered to progress through the content of the game. That content costs money to make. To increase it's value to the company, extending the amount of time players must spend in that content in order to achieve their desired goal is the most effective way for them to leverage not only that content's value, but its influence in keeping the player connected to the in-game RMT. That's it. That is it in its entirety. The people who make games that are purposefully difficult to play and that require what is basically the overwhelming "game skill" of a player to... spend time playing the game are the exact sort of developers making "mobile games" that prey on their customers and "whales." That doesn't mean GGG is morally or ethically like those devs, though. They don't put in "speed-ups" and "pay to win" mechanics. It's practically all just "skins" with some relatively small stash-tab requirements for a full experience. That's good. That's a good thing and separates GGG from Zynga... But, it's exactly the same sort of thing where content development is concerned or, rather, "should be" concerned in a boardroom meeting where planning for the continued existence of the company is paramount. " That's fine. If you do come across it, I'd love to read/see it! " That is true, but it's... sad. For one, the top-end guys are generally playing the game pretty "hardcore." I'm generally a pretty slow player. I like to relax and experience the content as I play. And... that's exactly the wrong way to rush to maps and get the gear fast to sell so you can establish a good foundation of currency early. It's also the least efficient way to get items/currency so one can buy the gear from other players that is needed for the player to... progress through the game. (In multiplayer leagues) " There most assuredly is, but you may not like the suggestion. For myself, I don't care - Out of sight, out of mind. GGG run "Robot Sellers" It's pretty simple, really - You simply establish what is a healthy market for a general PoE league and institute automated sellers for that market to... keep it healthy. Robot-Sellers would autogenerate certain items based on current supply in the market. They would never, ever, ever, acknowledge this as something they do... On Console, there is absolutely no reason to even have to get close to admitting that's being done. (IF they adopted this "fix") That's it. It's simple, elegant, requires little effort other than a daily analysis conducted +/- off-peak hours and some random minutes/hours of listing/delisting items. Done. The players would never know. Fix't. :) It would likely fall short of supplying certain top-tier items, of course, on purpose. But, the analysis would be based upon "standard" sorts of gear that are useful for the chase-builds for the league as well as generally common builds. With listing/delisting behavior based on current "real player supply" it's an easy-peasy-done kind of solution that can be easily "balanced" at any time. They could even turn it off if they wished. Note: But, as the lifetime of the game winds down, it would of course become obvious. At that point, though, nobody would care. " I don't have an issue with that at all. It would certainly help. It would also help keep me from having to wait until the timer runs out on the bot that I'm having to wait to approve my bid... I logged off last night with a fair bid on a piece of gear that I am sure I'm having to wait for a bot to decide on when its trade timer runs out. :/ (Some are sellers trying to min/max, but most are bots IMO. IF I get the item, I guarantee I'm going to get one of those canned "b/o xx_currency" messages along with it. Nobody friggin' does that on console since there is no friggin' point for a human to do that. (Assumption) " That's a touchy subject as it broaches into a third-party's domain. For XBox, that's telling XBox that GGG should have the free ability to list their customer's private account information without their intervention or controls in place for that purpose. And, it's automating such a thing, placing the processing for that data on a third-party. Not terrible and not unusual, but you are talking about a customer's personal, third-party, info being listed as part of an automated application. Touchy subject. (As it is, you can click/request that info for individual chatters and it will display if they have not hidden their profiles. BUT, that's not an "automated" process and requires direct user activation. It likely defaults out to the console owner's own apps for that info and is controlled entirely at that end. " Most "price fixers" are probably doing it for chuckles or just really enjoy "playing the market" in online games. I doubt many would opt to run multiple characters/accounts using spoofed and jailbroken boxes or apps like the professional botters do. PS: I'm in agreement with you that a "buy-out" feature in some form would be wonderful. I don't think it will ever happen, but I'd like it to. :) |
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" I'm 99% sure that's not a message typed in by someone. You can't actually send a message directly with an Acceptance, unless it sends the "reply" you type before accepting (in the spot where you would message with a rejection), which I don't think it does. The "b/o ~price" message, when present, *always* contains the listed price of the item (even if the list price was different from the offer), and I think it relates to the stash tab API somehow. It could be that this occurs with items that are listed on the official trade forum (in addition the the marketplace) or something else. But that text is actually generated by the game -- it's the official "phrasing" of the type of pricing we have on console (and one of several choices on PC). " I'm not suggesting *real* names, just account names (i.e. "gamertag" on XBox, or PSN name on PS4), which are already visible in *many* places in the game. Adding them to the trade market would not make them available to anyone who can't already see them. The only thing would be that it *might* allow some automated scraping of large quantities... for someone using console Dev Tools or with a hacked console. Even that can't really be an issue... you can already find everyone's (or at least vast quantities of) usernames on the leaderboards. Which, being a website, is *much* easier to scrape. | |
" It's not constant and it's usually on "commodity items," but not always. For higher price items, it's usually not present. AFAIK, there is no tracking between any "official" markets outside of the console environment. If there was one introduced in the last couple of leagues, I wouldn't know since I just didn't bother much with them and didn't visit the forums often. PS: It's been this way since I started during Abyss League a few months after PoE hit XBox. (4-6mo?) " It's still a point of interest for people in suits who write stuff on paper to talk about, though... :) I don't play any FPS games or competitive games that might use "gamertag" as a common NIC for players for tracking performance/etc, but console account control options will have a toggle for that display. (Referring to XBox, can't remember PS4's atm.) So, it'd have to override/switch that. At least for Xbox, the whole userbase's gamertags can be scraped... (More or less) and there are plenty listed in social forums for group gaming/etc. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that GGG actually wants to make it even more difficult for players to acquire/find specific gear/affixes... Somewhere in the next few Leagues, I bet they'll come up with - "We had to do this very disastrous thing that may make it just only a little tiny bit more difficult to search for a very limited set of very specific thingies in the marketplace. But, don't worry, here's a League that dumps out Exaults like candy..." And, the next League will be yet another "Not running a minion build? Do you even PoE?" :) Last edited by Morkonan#5844 on Oct 12, 2020, 10:22:16 AM
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