What happened to console trading?

Is this back to the old system of having to go to a hideout to hopefully find someone to trade with successfully? The UI on this new market panel is so bad I can't believe it isn't intentional. Yes, I know it wasn't a great system before, but this is just terrible trying to filter and sort using a controller. Since we no longer have actual premium stash tabs why can't we just port our tabs to PC since console is on a continual downward performance trend? At least for me. What am I missing? How is this better? Am I correct that you can no longer sort by an item name (IE Onyx amulet) and that you can now only trade with someone that is currently online in their hideout? I guess my feedback would be the new trade system makes little to no sense and the help option for trade was removed entirely instead of being updated to explain how to use the panel with a controller.

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Darth Bell#8462 wrote:

and that you can now only trade with someone that is currently online in their hideout?

There is a whole new system called Async Trade that allows buying (and selling) items while offline.

Selling via Async requires Merchant tabs (once you have some, you can interact with them through Faustus). You can convert old individual Premium tabs into Merchant tabs on the website (provided they were purchased before Merchant tabs became available). Be aware that converting to Merchant tabs effectively removes them from the SSF game mode, and also that they can't be converted back.

Buying from Async doesn't require any special purchases or anything. You just search for items and choose the "instant buyout" method in the top right. This will restrict your search to items available by this method. You can still use the old whisper-trade method as well, if you want to search for both types. In that case choose "any" in the dropdown in the upper right.

Async trade is only for non-stackable items (gear, maps, beasts, etc). For stackables (like currency or scarabs), you use the Currency Exchange, which also works for both buyer and seller even when offline. The currency exchange is also accessed through Faustus.

Yep, one step forward, two steps back.

The old trade, while not perfect, worked well with a controller and for the size of the economy/player base.

If you have access to a PC, laptop the new instant-buyout trade is not terrible. You're already here posting, so going to assume you've logged into the poe.com site with your xbox or psn account.

Then you just go to trade and search for stuff, when you find something can click "travel to hideout" and on your PS5/xbox you will be teleported to the other hideout and the item has white box around it so you know which thing you wanted to buy.

Currency/Scarab/Essence/Fossil .... trade in stackables has taken a big hit, we only have faustus now and due to the small player base on console, with only 10 slots max allowed, the economy there is dead dead.

I'm on a no more buying supporter packs protest until they do something for console trade.

Thank you both for you your help. To be honest I'm still confused. The wiki says I can't use asynchronous trade until after act 6 but maybe that is just to sell items. Not sure. I don't know what the white box is that you are referring to that I see once I travel to another hideout. Does it just pop up or do I have to interact with Faustus or something else? I just don't understand why this became so very much more convoluted to do a simple trade. I would rather just change to PC but I already spent so much money on console that I cannot justify buying tabs I already purchased. I also looked at the microtransactions but have now changed my mind on spending more money on GGG again.

This is what The "about trade" info says:

While searching is easy, you will still have to contact the player selling the item in order to complete the trade. The easiest way to contact a player is to use the "Direct Whisper" feature. It requires that both you and the seller are online and in-game to use.
Please note: The whisper message will be translated into the seller's local language.

So this says that you must whisper the player then travel to their hideout so this appears to just be the old whisper system brought back. I don't know that I have ever had a positive experience with the whisper system.

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Mirage

You have to use the Trading-Plattform, requires a laptop or mobile phone. If Faustus is in your hideout it should work (after talking to him in act 6). You are teleported automatically in the seller´s hideout.

And don´t have to whisper anyone ever again :)