On ARPG economies from a game design perspective

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HellGauss wrote:

....I think that you explain well your argument. I only disagree with one of your assumption: the role of flippers (if i understand well you are referring to people who buy only for selling at higher price).

I think they should not exists in an A-RPG. Skill must be only in killing monster and build design. [However this is only my opinion]

It is impossible to say you disagree with one of the core premises of my entire piece, and then claim you only disagree with one thing. Several of my points build upon that premise, and it's clear in your 1-to-3 list that you have additional disagreements stemming from the core disagreement.

Why do you believe flippers should not exist in an ARPG? Do you disagree with the symbiotic relationship I outlined? What motivates you to make their function impossible?

It's worth noting that your point #1 and point #2 directly contradict each other. You can't make selling simultaneously convenient and inconvenient.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Traders being nice like that — giving a noob a fair shake on his unique — is pleasant from a community perspective. However, from a design point of view, it's probably best to assume such generosity never occurs. Plus, you said it yourself, you still profited from the deal, by your own standards if no one else's.

Trading, especially flipping, is best conceived as a PvP activity, but in a positive context — it's a type of PvP we want to see thrive. There should be winners and losers and moments of mercy and bad-beat stories and fish-this-big stories and stories like yours. You don't get that kind of entertainment unless you work to increase the skill factor in trading to make bad-beats and huge profits possible.

I suppose that makes sense, but as per the PvP example I also wouldn't think it would be fair for a level 80 character to enter a level 20 characters match, and that seems like it would be important to the analogy.

Added Section 4 (one paragraph of which was previously in Section 1).

I mean that you reach good conclusions IF you want flippers to be part of the trading system.

I do not want flippers because i never bought an item for selling it for higher price (althoug i admit that i did it with orbs, because it requires less spamming). Since flippers exist, the game has to be tuned also for them. I play PoE because it is claimed as an arpg, not as an rpg (or a trade-rpg).

With #1 I mean that the trade should be easy and fast in the sense that i do not want to do silly things to trade: it should be like go to vendor in terms of time spent for trading. For buying it should be search-click and return fighting (this do not mean that i get the item immediately).

With point #2 i mean unconvenient in terms of wealth accumulation (maybe the correct term is far-less-convenient than it is now). The trade system should be just a vendor++ where i gamble the chance to get a decent reward for my items (if i sell) or where (as a buyer) i can gamble the chance to find an upgrade for my build in which the more I gamble, the likely i get the item.

If you link point #1 and point #2 with point #3, it is clear that i'm looking for an AH with taxes, hidden bids and no b/o (we already discussed that).

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HellGauss wrote:

Since flippers exist, the game has to be tuned also for them.

In terms of trading, yes. In terms of farming, no. The assumption that PoE is currently tuned "assuming trading" is at best correct from a farmer (production/consumer) standpoint, not from a flipper (middleman) standpoint. After all, the function of the middleman is only possible by spending large amounts of time not farming, and is entirely dependent on farmers for profit.

By now ive given up any hope that GGG actually cares about how severe the currency problems are in this game,

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The key skill in trading is item valuation, the ability to look at an item and determine its worth; the best way to make trading harder is to make item valuation harder. Adding more build diversity so that a multitude builds are considered top-tier, giving all of those builds different desires in terms of itemization, and balancing various rare affixes against each other so that the "perfect 3 prefixes" for any one build is a hotly debated subject... these are all proper means of balancing trading, making it more skill-intensive. The harder it is to determine the value of items, the better.

If trade is skill-based on the basis of every build having different affixes they want, that is a proxy for balancing the farming side to provide those options in builds. In other words, this is another skill-tester on the farming / build-design side of the game. The skill of trade continues to be subordinate to the skill of farming.

You brought up the orb exchange in regards to a separate subject, but I think where the topic best applies is on the subject of trade skill. The trade ratios are constantly in flux as recipes are added or discovered, players evolve their gear to where certain orbs become less useful than others, or simply market forces. I would liken it to a commodity market (or even the stock market), which seems so simple when you know the rules but is still complex enough that no formula has been discovered that describes how to always win. Commodity markets exist in the real world and there are people whose jobs are to maximize returns. I think it's very dismissive to say this doesn't add anything just because you thoroughly understand it. Simplicity is elegance, not weakness.

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In regards to your overall argument that everyone should just want different things-
We already have it to a fair degree. It could be increased, but to have variety to such a degree that game development could be predicated on the notion that there are no (or very few) "universally good" items/maps/etc. is very idealistic. The degree of precision needed to obtain that kind of quality is astronomical. Every time GGG adds something they're going to nudge the balance a little bit and they add stuff all the time! I don't think it's practical to maintain that criterion unless they stop adding content and just focus on balancing for a couple years. How many years of patches did it take for Starcraft to get to the point where every unit had a role to fill that it filled better than anything else, and even after all that time there's still a few which are questionable. That's a game which stands out for having extraordinarily good balance among video games, but it sounds to me like you want POE to have that level of balance as a pre-requisite before your solutions become applicable.

I'll get to points 3 and 4 later, I wrote this up before these thoughts flitted from mind reading 1 and 2. Nevermind, I don't actually have anything to say about 3 and 4.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

In regards to your overall argument that everyone should just want different things-
We already have it to a fair degree. It could be increased, but to have variety to such a degree that game development could be predicated on the notion that there are no (or very few) "universally good" items/maps/etc. is very idealistic. The degree of precision needed to obtain that kind of quality is astronomical. Every time GGG adds something they're going to nudge the balance a little bit and they add stuff all the time! I don't think it's practical to maintain that criterion unless they stop adding content and just focus on balancing for a couple years. How many years of patches did it take for Starcraft to get to the point where every unit had a role to fill that it filled better than anything else, and even after all that time there's still a few which are questionable. That's a game which stands out for having extraordinarily good balance among video games, but it sounds to me like you want POE to have that level of balance as a pre-requisite before your solutions become applicable.

If I had to submit one game as being perfect — the best computer game of all time — I would nominate the first Starcraft.

You're right that holding PoE's balance to a standard of that kind is due to cause disappointment when such a standard is not met. However, as the saying goes, "the good thing about being a pessimist is, when things go right, you're always pleasantly surprised." Setting the highest of expectations is the right move here, because even though we might not meet them, at least we might get close. And who knows? We might be pleasantly surprised.

Regarding valuation, you're mistaking a thing for the perception of a thing. It's not so much about what builds are most effective, but about which are perceived to be most effective, and the ability to foresee one does not equatee to foreseeing the other, at least not until an economy has reached a high degree of maturity (and perhaps not even then).

You idea of skill based trading seems to be nothing more then an attempt to narrow the number of buyers for certain sets of mods. I don't think I am for that.

The only thing that is needed is for GGG to implement an unattended shop interface with buyout prices attached. Not an AH where there are bids but that you pay the asking price or move on. Doing it this way will set a natural price range for items eventually.

The problem with sites like the indexers is that you still have to arrange a meet up time which for an international game like this one is a pain in the ass.

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Mr_Bill wrote:

The only thing that is needed is for GGG to implement an unattended shop interface with buyout prices attached. Not an AH where there are bids but that you pay the asking price or move on. Doing it this way will set a natural price range for items eventually.

This is a horrible idea, and the single thing that destroyed Diablo 3.