Having now experienced Last Epoch's trade system, I think PoE does it right, actually.

Surprised? Yeah, I was too.

Sure, the Last Epoch system of instant buyouts 24/7 and never interacting with other humans is convenient, but it isn't... fun. It feels like a single-player game.

PoE's trade, while inconvenient and sometimes frustrating, builds a sense of community. You're messaging real people, seeing their hideouts, some of their accomplishments (level, class, totem of achievements etc) and I often have little chats with them about their builds etc. There's something not quite tangible that I can't put my finger on about this that makes PoE feel a lot more satisfying.

In Last Epoch, it felt like a single player game where I wait for NPC vendors to get better gear for me to buy, and when I find an amazing item to sell, no one knows that it belonged to me, diminishing the satisfaction/pride of having a gg item. They just pick it up from an NPC and that's that.

So yeah, I was expecting Last Epoch's system to make PoE's obsolete, but surprisingly nope. As a compromise, I'd probably be okay with a currency exchange with instant buyout, but not for items.

edit: I play HC... that community has virtually no bots (except some currency traders), and people in general are far more responsive and less toxic than SC.

I would still appreciate PoE getting an AH for currency - spending 20 minutes PMing bots to change a pile of chaos into divines has nothing satisfying in it.

yeah this whole instant buyout with gold stuff, i think this could improve the currency side, everything in the 'bulk item exchange' side of the trade system.


but if i was them i would not implement this for gear items. i think the current system, as problematic as it can be, is good. most of the bad trade experiences people have are from the bulk item exchange, thats where the price fixing and the 50 ppl dont respond bullshit is happening.


actual gear trades, i think theyre alright, i think poe has the best gear trade system of any arpg ever.




dont want to take anything away from last epoch, those guys work hard, ive played their game, its a great game. but its not got the community feel of poe, i dont think it ever will. poe is a true mmoarpg and i feel like LE is in the same camp as grim dawn, torchlight 2, wolcen etc, its a great single player game with some co-op, you can kind of trade... yeah but its a side game, its not the mmo big arpg experience.




no game competes with poe on this score, the closest thing is the diablo games and even then, the community feel of this game is second to none in the genre.

I find it weird that people will praise POE’s “community” while simultaneously telling us it would immediately evaporate without trading items. If a sense of community is entirely dependent on transactional commerce then it’s clearly pretty superficial.

I mean if people won’t chat with you without item trading, doesn’t that indicate they don’t actually want to chat? Couldn’t you go visit people’s hideouts without trading, if you actually found value in that?

Except LE trading system can be easily made 10 times better with some added filters to AH.
LE doesnt show that "having AH is even worse". It shows that it CAN be worse if game devs decide to make it shit on purpose, to balance trading this way.

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KZA wrote:

PoE's trade, while inconvenient and sometimes frustrating, builds a sense of community.

You are entitled to your opinion, but strong disagree.

If you feel a sense of community with 20 unanswered messages, 2 people trying to rip you off, one trade and "tyft" automessage, then thats your ... experience.

But I dont think you mistaking friction from trade as community should damn every other play to awful trade.


How about this, you can opt in to a system where you have to use current trade if its so fun, and others get an option for instant trade?

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

I find it weird that people will praise POE’s “community” while simultaneously telling us it would immediately evaporate without trading items. If a sense of community is entirely dependent on transactional commerce then it’s clearly pretty superficial.

I mean if people won’t chat with you without item trading, doesn’t that indicate they don’t actually want to chat? Couldn’t you go visit people’s hideouts without trading, if you actually found value in that?

no.



a lot of the people we meet in our lives are through work for example, its just a thing that we engage in for financial gain but it puts you in contact with human beings. that doesnt make relationships you form at work superficial, and you wouldnt have met those people had it not been for work.


60 million people own skyrim. how many of them have any of us had a conversation with during our time playing skyrim?



we make friends at school, at work, doing things we do in life. this is how human interaction works, you come into contact with people through systems that essentially force you to interact and we form meaningful relationships that make life better from those interactions.




how many friends do you have who you didnt meet through work or school etc, through some kind of chance meeting while going about the routine of your life, how many friends do you have where you literally just turned up at a persons house and said hi im a new person you have never met and i want to share meaningful human experiences with you moving forward in our lives?

thats not how life works.

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trixxar wrote:

How about this, you can opt in to a system where you have to use current trade if its so fun, and others get an option for instant trade?

Wouldn't work, unfortunately, because the instant trade is a direct power advantage, and to quote Sid Meier, "Players will optimize the fun out of a game."

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

60 million people own skyrim. how many of them have any of us had a conversation with during our time playing skyrim?

You will note that Skyrim is a single-player game without a trading system, demonstrating that it is in fact normal for human contact to occur without buying and selling, yes? Cool, I agree.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

how many friends do you have who you didnt meet through work or school etc, through some kind of chance meeting while going about the routine of your life, how many friends do you have where you literally just turned up at a persons house and said hi im a new person you have never met and i want to share meaningful human experiences with you moving forward in our lives?

thats not how life works.

The thing about friends is that you choose to see them when you're not trying to sell them things. That's how life works.

I'm not against meeting people through shared experiences. But playing Path of Exile is already a shared experience, with or without item trading. If people were actually interested in chatting and visiting hideouts they are entirely capable of doing so either way.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

60 million people own skyrim. how many of them have any of us had a conversation with during our time playing skyrim?

You will note that Skyrim is a single-player game without a trading system, demonstrating that it is in fact normal for human contact to occur without buying and selling, yes? Cool, I agree.

how many real people have you met in skyrim?

yes, its a single player game without trading, thats why i havent met a single person in skyrim. ive had a 6 year relationship irl with a woman i was engaged to who i met in path of exile in a guild i was in because i met my old guild leader through offering to buy a caster sceptre from him in ambush league.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

The thing about friends is that you choose to see them when you're not trying to sell them things. That's how life works.

I'm not against meeting people through shared experiences. But playing Path of Exile is already a shared experience, with or without item trading. If people were actually interested in chatting and visiting hideouts they are entirely capable of doing so either way.

how did you make those friends? yeah you chose to see them when ur not selling them something, great. i have friends in life and yes i chose to meet them when we are not working together, but i first met a lot of them at work. how can you meet someone to become their friend in the first place? its obviously not by already being friends, its by some kind of logistical thing in your life that forces you into contact with them like work or education and then you become friends.


playing poe is not inherently a shared experience. ive played games that millions of other people play and have shared no experiences with any of them because there are no mechanics in those games where you interact with these other players.