Thoughts on Trading

Well Scrotie you're just a fountain of ideas.

I'm not sure how exactly you're envisioning items be made more specialized to encourage trade, but there is a cautionary tale from Diablo 3 on that subject. Blizzard attempted this by giving each class a prime attribute: Strength, Int, or Dex. Items which rolled one of those were "not for me" if the class did not match the prime attribute. In practice, this division was pretty annoying. Blizzard even took pains to make the divisions as broad as possible- each primary attribute was good for about 1/3 of the player base. And still it was not enough. Players would rather have items with +damage instead of +primary even though they are functionally the same when your class matches. Rationally speaking, the power level is the same, but the degree of specialization has increased. Pretty much the same qualities you are advertising.

The lesson is that there is an emotional aspect to items which is only fulfilled when the item is universal. That "feeling" of an awesome item. Diablo 2 nailed this. A good item was often useful no matter what class or build you were playing. Then specialized items were built on top of the core, not in place of the core.

I'm not sure how one can focus the economy around trading specialized items without removing the core items that "feel" awesome. As long as the core exists, trade is going to focus there because that's where the largest market is-- particularly for disposable leveling items. But giving up that core is really harmful in terms of player investment. Look how much complaining there is about D3 itemization. Look how much less with POE, where specialization is not forced upon the players, but instead offered as an option (like in D2).

Overall, the risk is widening the gap between traders and non-traders even more. It conscripts build diversity into an economic censor. In terms of marketplace management, it ultimately relies on inefficiencies in negotiating trades and connecting traders to balance it against farming.

My first goal in economic analysis is to shape the gap between farming and trading. Making trading an exciting and fun activity is a secondary task after the first one is solved. IMO, your idea falls more into the latter category and less into the former category.

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tmaciak wrote:

Homogeneity is IMO key for good currency and although I agree that maps can/will be currency, I'm convinced, that it will be white maps, because those are homogenous. With the same in mind, I don't think that ever items with random affixes will became currency.

I think that's at least slightly dependent on the map affix pool. If players are capable of rolling maps that are great, but something their build obviously cannot support, they will trade them away. If a map is okay for others but something they can't handle themselves, they will either trade it away or reroll it.

Unfortunately, I think your key point -- that white maps would be the primary trade -- would still be accurate.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

League of Legends does not have a large open world, and is unquestionably an MMO.

I would question that. LoL is not more of an MMO than BF3 or SC2, for example.


PoE is definetly an MMO though, as it relies on interacting with the playbase in general, and there is a persistant world (your characters and stash).

The best example to prove that you don't need an open world ala WoW to be an MMO is Dungeons and Dragons Online.

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Sickness wrote:

PoE is definetly an MMO though, as it relies on interacting with the playbase in general, and there is a persistant world (your characters and stash).

It also has towns that show other players, and two cross instance chats (Global and trade, of which there are multiple channels of each)

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

Well Scrotie you're just a fountain of ideas.

:)

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

I'm not sure how exactly you're envisioning items be made more specialized to encourage trade, but there is a cautionary tale from Diablo 3 on that subject. Blizzard attempted this by giving each class a prime attribute: Strength, Int, or Dex. Items which rolled one of those were "not for me" if the class did not match the prime attribute. In practice, this division was pretty annoying. Blizzard even took pains to make the divisions as broad as possible- each primary attribute was good for about 1/3 of the player base. And still it was not enough. Players would rather have items with +damage instead of +primary even though they are functionally the same when your class matches. Rationally speaking, the power level is the same, but the degree of specialization has increased. Pretty much the same qualities you are advertising.

The lesson is that there is an emotional aspect to items which is only fulfilled when the item is universal.

This type of thing is entirely relative. What you're dropping here is the context of what you're comparing Diablo 3's item system to: a blanket +x% damage, +x% defense modifier (and even then, they made armour and resistance systems virtually identical, blurring that line slightly). So yes, D3 does manage to be more specialized than the single most boring OP affix I can possibly think of; that doesn't make it good, nor an exemplar of the concept.

The other important thing here is affix balance. You can't simply make specialized mods and general mods, give them equal power level, and call it a day; if the general mod matches (or surpasses) the power of a specific mod, even on a character who fits the intended specificity, then the general mod is just better than the specific mod. It's important that the build-specific mod be the primary. Damage scaling specific to a single element should be much stronger than general damage scaling; increased critical chance for a specific skill type (spell or attack) should be much stronger than global increased critical chance. In its "pains to make divisions as broad as possible," D3's itemization made weapon damage always the primary concern, relegating specificity to secondary or tertiary status as a deciding factor in itemization. This meant those mods weren't what people were really looking for, but instead those annoying little extra mods that propel an item from good to great status; it should be the other way around.

If I was using Diablo 3 logic, I wouldn't be saying we need stronger % fire/cold/lightning damage mods. I'd be saying those mods are exemplars of build-specific affixes, and what we need is more like them, with the same specificity and power level. But that's not what I'm saying, because that is stupid, as is the idea that a lack of specialness is what's needed to make a good item feel special.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

That "feeling" of an awesome item. Diablo 2 nailed this. A good item was often useful no matter what class or build you were playing. Then specialized items were built on top of the core, not in place of the core.

What I'm envisioning here is a Sorceress looking at Enigma, and suddenly feeling rather strongly that Enigma isn't a good item at all. (In PoE, Shavronne's stirs up some similar hatred from CI users, although I think it's not as bad in PoE.)

Don't get me wrong, though. Enigma was phenomenal at delivering that "awesome item" feeling to everyone who wasn't a Sorceress, which meant a vast majority of the playerbase. Shavronne's does some really cool "awesome item" things for many players as well. So this isn't a bad design space when it comes to uniques.

In regards to rare affixes, however? Not really applicable.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

I'm not sure how one can focus the economy around trading specialized items without removing the core items that "feel" awesome. As long as the core exists, trade is going to focus there because that's where the largest market is-- particularly for disposable leveling items. But giving up that core is really harmful in terms of player investment. Look how much complaining there is about D3 itemization. Look how much less with POE, where specialization is not forced upon the players, but instead offered as an option (like in D2).

Overall, the risk is widening the gap between traders and non-traders even more. It conscripts build diversity into an economic censor. In terms of marketplace management, it ultimately relies on inefficiencies in negotiating trades and connecting traders to balance it against farming.

Even if you disagree with my analysis of D3's itemization, excessive not-for-me trades can be safely eliminated as a legitimate cause for complaint. The game has a near-perfect-efficiency auction house system to quickly and easily unload items you can't use yourself; the problem had to have been something else.

That said, your have a point here: making items more build-specific does make not-for-me items a more pervasive element of a solo player's life, which would encourage more trading and discourage self-found. However, it's worth noting that rerolling would likely increase among players who are inspired by a not-for-me item they find, which would remove some of that pressure. That lone would likely be insufficient, so some general magic find buff -- IIR, currency IIQ, and/or non-currency IIQ -- would likely be appropriate. I'm thinking IIR, since trading white maps is more boring.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

My first goal in economic analysis is to shape the gap between farming and trading. Making trading an exciting and fun activity is a secondary task after the first one is solved. IMO, your idea falls more into the latter category and less into the former category.

Original problem -> solution to original problem -> predictable side effects to that solution -> solutions to said side effects

Although I think there's still relevance here, I admit I'm getting distant from the original problem, and relying on several assumptions, including accurate prediction. Some more discussion on the OP would probably be prudent.