The trade system is so BROKEN!

The trade system as it is currently implemented allows for scams (as well as price fixing which is a topic for another post).

Scenario: someone lists item X on the trade site that is worth 50 divine. Other variations of this same item as worth as little as 1 chaos. You message the seller to buy. You meet up for the trade. They pull the bait and switch and you are duped out of your hard earned divines.

I will acknowledge that this is preventable if the buyer carefully looks over the item before accepting the trade. I fully acknowledge that. The problem with this is two fold. First, there is a culture of hurry, Hurry, HURRY! The people on the other side of the keyboard often act like when a trade is not instantaneous, they are being inconvenienced. Which sucks! Second, the simple fact that this type of activity is even possible is unacceptable.

These "items" being bought and sold in game are just digital data. Other games have a system that the item is pt up for sale, and when a person chooses to purchase, the EXACT item is transferred from the sellers account to the buyers account without any further interaction from the buyer or seller. No more time required to link up and no opportunity to switch the original item for a lesser item.

It's ridiculous that this is even a thing. If this game was in alpha or even beta stage of development, then ok...but this game has been out for a decade, and the issue has been going on that long. It's high time it gets fixed!

nice to have a fresh take on this

Perhaps you should play these "other games" then instead.
Oh, and you don't have to trade. It's your own decision to do it.

Totally agree and so many posts have been made about this topic but I have no hope that ggg is ever going to do anything about it

GGG didn't really want trade in their game to begin with, they're not incentivizing more than they have to.

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darciaz wrote:

GGG didn't really want trade in their game to begin with, they're not incentivizing more than they have to.

what makes you say that?

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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darciaz wrote:

GGG didn't really want trade in their game to begin with, they're not incentivizing more than they have to.

what makes you say that?

Their trading manifesto makes it pretty clear:

"From the start, we knew that Path of Exile needed the ability to trade items and that we had to be careful not to make it too easy. We had seen what happened in other Action RPGs when characters could be upgraded trivially. We added trade chat and a secure player-to-player trade screen so that people could negotiate transactions and complete them without counterparty risk."

The whole thing feels like its thinly veiled to say "we want trade, but why make it easy? complication makes people play longer" when I feel its the opposite. A balance has to be struck to get anything done in 6this game, and making the trading tedious is part of their design philosophy at this point.

on this website theres an overview page where the devs give a description of the game for people coming here. this is the opening statement

"Path of Exile is an online Action RPG set in the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast. It is designed around a strong online item economy..."


so the vision right from the start was a game designed around having an economy.


trading having friction is part of the design philosophy, of course, but the want the game to have trading. they only ever allowed the ssf mode if it came with an option to migrate to trade because they think the ability to trade is fundamental to the success of the game.


the easier trade is the wider the gap between people who trade a lot and people who dont trade a lot. the easier trade is the less times people upgrade their gear, the less progression there is, and yes the less time they play the game because trading has bypassed the rewards from playing.

number 1 complaint diablo 3 and 4 have is that players dont have a reason to keep playing, theres nothing to do, they start, get everything really quickly and then the entire kill monsters drop loot get more powerful game loop of an arpg falls apart. i think having reasons to keep playing is a good thing, if we dont want to play any more we can just close the game we dont need an easier trading system if what we want to do is quit playing sooner.

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darciaz wrote:

Their trading manifesto makes it pretty clear:

"From the start, we knew that Path of Exile needed the ability to trade items and that we had to be careful not to make it too easy. We had seen what happened in other Action RPGs when characters could be upgraded trivially. We added trade chat and a secure player-to-player trade screen so that people could negotiate transactions and complete them without counterparty risk."

The whole thing feels like its thinly veiled to say "we want trade, but why make it easy? complication makes people play longer" when I feel its the opposite. A balance has to be struck to get anything done in 6this game, and making the trading tedious is part of their design philosophy at this point.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. So you say that GGG "didn't really want trade to begin with" and then quote a passage where they LITERALLY SAY "from the start, we knew that PoE needed trade".

That's a good one!

"Their trade manifesto makes it pretty clear".....yes, it certainly does.

Not looking to engage other than to say it's not broken since it's working as intended.

Also the obligatory Trade Manifesto link for reference to inform the conversation:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2025870