We players want an Auction House.

"

AceNightfire wrote:

1. With an auction house you can EXACTLY see how many items of which type are on sale. This is not possible with a manual-trade-system.

2. With an auction house, people start to underprice each other to sell their stuff fast (especially if there are many items of one type on sale). After some weeks, all items have no worth anymore (like in GW2) and it's more efficient to sell the stuff directly to an NPC instead to an player. This can't happen with a manual-trade-system.

3. In PoE, you can make much currency with shitty items or lose much currency with items that would be normally much worth. This happens fast if the buyer or seller doesn't know the real worth of an item. With an auction house you can just take a look how much the item is worth. So haggling wouldn't work anymore.

1) What you're referring to is searchable buyouts and price comparisons. Auction houses don't necessarily entail buyouts and price comparisons. And let's not forget that price comparisons already sort of exist in POE, anyway, via indexed forum posts.

2) Prices are where supply meets demand. Yes, easy price comparison makes for more precise pricing but it alone doesn't fuel item value depreciation. I'd encourage you to read this thread on the subject.

3) I think you're trying to say auction houses result in easier price comparison and that results in price precision and somehow that is bad. Why is precise pricing bad?

All in all it sounds like you have 1 point, not 3: auction houses allow for easier price comparison. Yet, auction houses don't necessarily need to have searchable pricing. Further, you haven't explained why that is bad which was the crux of my original question.

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ephetat wrote:

Searchable buyouts is the most overblown issue about trading this side of Self-Found League, to be honest.

I'm not sure, on the other hand, that people are really opposed to what you're saying. In popular parlance, an auction house really means one thing: A marketplace where items can be bought and sold automatically and without delay. And you can thank, well before D3, WoW for that.

An auction house without automated buying and selling is not an auction house, not in the way the most reflexive opponents percieve it. If you're willing to accept this humorous state of matters, then we can re-draw our dictionaries and resume our battle for a proper trading system terminology.

Fair point. Let me start us off. I don't like set auction durations, sniping or anything that encourages arbitrage. Why? Because it takes incentive away from actually playing the game. When the best way to gear out your character is accumulating wealth and the optimal way to do that is arbitrage you have a problem of incentive.

I'd like mechanics, either through the design of the trade system or itemization, that encourage playing the game over trading. That doesn't necessarily mean BoA/BoP items and I don't want that for POE but that is one way to do it.

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Veta321 wrote:

1) What you're referring to is searchable buyouts and price comparisons. Auction houses don't necessarily entail buyouts and price comparisons. And let's not forget that price comparisons already sort of exist in POE, anyway, via indexed forum posts.

The forum posts are mostly outdated or on a different legue. So you can't really tell the price of an item, especially because the worth of currency is changing weekly and the prices for gems too.

And I'm not talking about buyouts. In Guild Wars 2 you could look for a specific item and you can see exactly how many items are sold at which price. And to make an auction house work effeciently, you must implement such a feature. Otherwise you would only have a list of shops (or auctions) and still have to browse them all.

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Veta321 wrote:

2) Prices are where supply meets demand. Yes, easy price comparison makes for more precise pricing but it alone doesn't fuel item value depreciation. I'd encourage you to read this thread on the subject.

Ofc this does fuel value depreciation. If I know the accurate price for an item, I have just to underprice that avarage price to sell my item fast. If some people do that the next players have to underprice again and again. And most people want to sell their items fast. In PoE, you can sell stuff fast even at high price, because there are mostly not many items of the same type avaiable at the same time.

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Veta321 wrote:

3) I think you're trying to say auction houses result in easier price comparison and that results in price precision and somehow that is bad. Why is precise pricing bad?

Answered in 2 already.

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Veta321 wrote:

All in all it sounds like you have 1 point, not 3: auction houses allow for easier price comparison. Yet, auction houses don't necessarily need to have searchable pricing. Further, you haven't explained why that is bad which was the crux of my original question.

My answers lead directly to one thing: It ruins the economy. I have seen it in many games with auction houses and all economies were badly influenced by it... It was nearly impossible to sell your stuff for a good price, because 1000 others already have that item at the lowest possible price on sale already...

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Veta321 wrote:

I'd like mechanics, either through the design of the trade system or itemization, that encourage playing the game over trading. That doesn't necessarily mean BoA/BoP items and I don't want that for POE but that is one way to do it.

Well, then my filter-suggestion is the right thing for you. You can play your game and still keep an eye on the trade-chat. ;)

"

Veta321 wrote:

Fair point. Let me start us off. I don't like set auction durations, sniping or anything that encourages arbitrage. Why? Because it takes incentive away from actually playing the game. When the best way to gear out your character is accumulating wealth and the optimal way to do that is arbitrage you have a problem of incentive.

I'd like mechanics, either through the design of the trade system or itemization, that encourage playing the game over trading. That doesn't necessarily mean BoA/BoP items and I don't want that for POE but that is one way to do it.

I echo your sentiments on the issue of encouraging actual gameplay rather than trading. I don't actually have a problem with the accumulation of wealth, but I do feel that orbs' dual role of currency and "crafting" are skewed too much towards the currency side at the moment, essentially invoking a sense of wealth accumulation whenever an alch/chaos/exalt drops. Therefore I'm an advocate of dropping less equipment, dropping *many* more orbs, and having more craft-like recipes added like the latest batch of four.

Why many more orbs? Because there's essentially an upper bound on the value of some properties (such as a six-link or six-socket, demanding ~1000 and ~250 orbs respectively), and at the current drop rate of orbs, trading offers a way to short-circuit that relatively cost-effectively. Therefore, dropping many more orbs, with the additional crafting recipes (and I'm definitely not talking about some Qarl-cautious 5-10% increase here) will 1) initally encourage hoarding 2) then open up actual crafting when people start to wake to the fact that it might be worth it to take a gamble on their orbs and/or craft using actual recipes.

Edit: Meh, too early. Under such a system, a trade system would be particularly useful for unique items (which at the top-end can command their unique premiums, given that they can't be crafted, and GGG can simply up the ceiling for Orbs of Chance-crafting odds if they feel uncomfortable with more orbs dropping), and the very best rare items which would ideally not be possible to obtain through "reliable crafting" (again, like the recent recipes) or even any sort of crafting if GGG wants it their way.

"

AceNightfire wrote:

1. With an auction house you can EXACTLY see how many items of which type are on sale. This is not possible with a manual-trade-system.

2. With an auction house, people start to underprice each other to sell their stuff fast (especially if there are many items of one type on sale). After some weeks, all items have no worth anymore (like in GW2) and it's more efficient to sell the stuff directly to an NPC instead to an player. This can't happen with a manual-trade-system.

3. In PoE, you can make much currency with shitty items or lose much currency with items that would be normally much worth. This happens fast if the buyer or seller doesn't know the real worth of an item. With an auction house you can just take a look how much the item is worth. So haggling wouldn't work anymore.

1. First, I type poe.xyz.is in my browser, then initiate a search for "Cast When Damage Taken". I now see every copy of that gem listed on the forums.

2. After that, I realize I forgot to check "buyout only." So now I'm only seeing the buyouts, and I can see that the lowest price currently available is 3 Chaos. Better list mine for 2.5.

3. Later, I decide I made a mistake and shouldn't have sold it, so I know I should start with 2 Chaos offer and mosey up to 3 Chaos max, because I'll eventually find a seller that way (although I should be prepared for people saying it's worth 7 or 8 Chaos).

"

ephetat wrote:

I echo your sentiments on the issue of encouraging actual gameplay rather than trading. I don't actually have a problem with the accumulation of wealth, but I do feel that orbs' dual role of currency and "crafting" are skewed too much towards the currency side at the moment, essentially invoking a sense of wealth accumulation whenever an alch/chaos/exalt drops. Therefore I'm an advocate of dropping less equipment, dropping *many* more orbs, and having more craft-like recipes added like the latest batch of four.

Why many more orbs? Because there's essentially an upper bound on the value of some properties (such as a six-link or six-socket, demanding ~1000 and ~250 orbs respectively), and at the current drop rate of orbs, trading offers a way to short-circuit that relatively cost-effectively. Therefore, dropping many more orbs, with the additional crafting recipes (and I'm definitely not talking about some Qarl-cautious 5-10% increase here) will 1) initally encourage hoarding 2) then open up actual crafting when people start to wake to the fact that it might be worth it to take a gamble on their orbs and/or craft using actual recipes.

Yes, nice suggestion. Also solo-players have it easier then to craft their own stuff and being more indipendant from other players.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

1. First, I type poe.xyz.is in my browser, then initiate a search for "Cast When Damage Taken". I now see every copy of that gem listed on the forums.

Easy solution: Remove trade-forum. No way to compare or check prices anymore via forum.

External forums will never have the linking-possibility and there won't be many players active.

Also it is fact, that even when you post poe.xyz, you still not know how many of those gems are available for sale, how much they cost or if they are still for sale. And if the posts are some days/weeks old, it's not accurate anymore.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

2. After that, I realize I forgot to check "buyout only." So now I'm only seeing the buyouts, and I can see that the lowest price currently available is 3 Chaos. Better list mine for 2.5.

Are you talking about the forum here again? Then still: Remove the trade-forum.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

3. Later, I decide I made a mistake and shouldn't have sold it, so I know I should start with 2 Chaos offer and mosey up to 3 Chaos max, because I'll eventually find a seller that way (although I should be prepared for people saying it's worth 7 or 8 Chaos).

If you can check out prices, no one sells the item for 7-8 chaos anymore, because there are 1000 on sale for 2-3 chaos orbs... And after some days it's 1.5 chaos orbs. And some days later only 1 chaos orb and so on and so on... This is never good for the economy.

I just hope they will NEVER add auction house/reel money into the game. That will kill the game.

Something needs to change, I can't believe any of you think it's acceptable that 40k+ players need to scan through 50-100 trade chat windows and only being able to see 10 people selling at a time.. It's a major issue and is similar to D3 in the fact that people need to trade to get better gear, it is near impossible to play by finding stuff on your self, which is the reason we play ARPG's..