Grand Exchange for POE - GGG Respond?

If any one has played runescape you would recognize the great success the grand exchange plays in runescape. It solved many of the problems in the game, many of which are common complaints against an auction house in this game. Here are the simple facts.

GGG wants player to player interaction in trading as a social aspect. This allows people to haggle or have the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately trading in POE is against haggling. People set a set price. Very few will negotiate a lower price, everything is pretty much final and set in stone. All the items that players are unaware of the price for are generally posted in the forums with a buy out (maybe less with the new premium tab functionality). One thing is for sure. I have never played a game that forced me to find people to trade with outside of the game. That is saying a lot as I am a game reviewer and write my own reviews on my own website. I have been playing games of all kinds for the last 20 years, especially mmo's. I truly believe this game needs an auction house.

Currently the trading system has These problems.

1. You have to find a buyer or seller at the time you are online. There is no guarantee that the buyer or seller is online when you are. There is no guarantee a seller will actually sell the item you seek to you even if they are online and you offer the exact requested price. I should not have to go through the hassle of messaging people who are not actually online, or not willing to stop what they are doing to make a sell.

2. Most uniques, rares, ect are worthless. Anything worth 2 chaos and under is unlikely to sell unless a popular build uses it. If it is worth less than 1 chaos good luck even selling it because time is money and who wants to stop running a map just to sell it to you.

3. Finding the item you want can be difficult. With the wording on items changing for affixes or prefixes without an update in patch notes, certain items will not show up at all on poe.trade. This is because GGG does nothing to ensure that website has accurate data.

4. People don't truly know currency exchange rates. People are always asking for conversions. As such many people everyday get scammed by people spamming trade with values which always result in the seller gaining a minimum of 1 chaos more than the items they are trading for are worth. The current exchange rates should be visible in game somewhere, it can pull the rates from a history based on trade averages over the past few days or weeks, or from poe.trade (which can be manipulated). This has to be in game though. It will stop the scams over night and get the large portion of the community who doesn't trade into it.

Those are just a few examples, but how would runescapes grand exchange benefit POE if something similar was implemented in game, free of 3rd party websites or applications?

1. Runescapes grand exchange uses charts to show price drops and increases, it also shows any period of time up to a year ago if you wanted. GGG can use this internally to find bot users by simply viewing trends and looking for large amounts of items being dumped on the market. This also allows people to play the flipping game. Waiting for items to drop in price, buy them, and sell them when price goes back up.

2. Auction Houses solve problems 1-3 for current problems with trading. Adding currency values in a window of the Auction House currently would allow people to trade intelligently solving all the current trading problems at once.

3. An auction house can have set prices with a ceiling and floor to prevent an item from tanking in value tremendously, or being inflated tremendously. The set price can be the average and floors and ceilings can be changed over time as changes in the game effect item values. This kills bots and prevents people from undercutting or tanking an items value to manipulate and control the market. Theres some wiggle room for flipping, but not enough to say buy an item for half its value and sell it for twice as much. Items can haventhe same ceiling and floor values meaning some items will have 1 price and it cant be changed, perfect for items like most uniques which only have a major price difference with 5 or 6 links.

The AH has to be in game, the currency exchange rates have to be in game, and people need the ability to trade without having to stop playing the game.

But GGG of course will still want people to have the option of haggling. I think the AH needs set prices only, quick or easy trading that requires people take time out of their gameplay to go to a specific location to get to the AH and buy the things they seek. Likewise this area would allow people to sell stuff through chat with people in their instance of the AH area or the ability to list stuff for sell if they don't have premium tabs. You can even mame it so you can only sell items on auction house through premium stash tabs, this would kill botting almost entirely. It can be a location in any act, or every act that you need to use a waypoint to get to, which is unlocked after you meet some requirement. Completion of normal difficulty sounds reasonable to me. People can list items for sell through the premium stash tab, or the AH. You can also add the ability for players to set up a stall in the position they are standing in the AH area specifically. Players get a pop up window like a single stash tab. And can list items that fit in that slot, they put a title click a button and a chest pops up in fron5 of them with the items they are selling or listing with a buyout. The players npc sits down and they are unable to do anything while their shop is open. This is an in game mechanic of selling stuff for non fixed prices that people don't know the value of.

Having third party websites handling trading for your game is sloppy and poor. If poe trade goes down the games entire trading economy will be destroyed. GGG needs to get a real trading system in game like every other mmo out there with trading. Just an AH implementation will draw many new players. Making item listing premium stash tab only will bring in profit and makes this an implementation for convenience that can be paid for if one desires, and the people who want to be entirely free to play can use poe trade.

GGG I am asking you to seriously consider the benefits of doing this. If implemented correctly in the same manner Runescape has, there are very little downsides, and significant benefits that will please the larger majority of the community. This will get most of the in game community who does not trade at all to get into it.

In the end there are 2 choic3s, add the AH to fix the trading situation and gives us what you promised, or make certain items account bound and boost drop rates significantly. This would make the game about trying to get the best prefix and affix rolls and less about just getting the item in general with decent rolls.

From the heart,
Chronic Complainer Reviews

I'd prefer they bring back closed beta trading, get out of town, meet up and drop your items on the ground.

your points:

"

1. You have to find a buyer or seller at the time you are online.

artificially narrows the range of offers and so fights item price deflation. also slows down trading which is good because it encourages people actually playing the game instead of just buying the stuff needed which is no real achievement.

"

2. Most uniques, rares, ect are worthless.

will be worse with an auction house where players openly underbid each other to get the sale.

"

3. Finding the item you want can be difficult.

i don't think it's bad for any game if there mechanics that force the player to do something. and which needs a different time dependent on skill. to be precise, that's what games are all about?

"

4. People don't truly know currency exchange rates.

currency.poe.trade could show the average exchange price based on previous trades, but why? people will always go for the best exchange rate they can get. this can be looked up easily based on the current offers...

---

trade in poe is it's own game, it needs time, experience and skill to succeed and make a good deal.
it's not perfect as it currently is but it's sufficiently good.

"

vio wrote:

your points:

"

1. You have to find a buyer or seller at the time you are online.

artificially narrows the range of offers and so fights item price deflation. also slows down trading which is good because it encourages people actually playing the game instead of just buying the stuff needed which is no real achievement.

"

2. Most uniques, rares, ect are worthless.

will be worse with an auction house where players openly underbid each other to get the sale.

"

3. Finding the item you want can be difficult.

i don't think it's bad for any game if there mechanics that force the player to do something. and which needs a different time dependent on skill. to be precise, that's what games are all about?

"

4. People don't truly know currency exchange rates.

currency.poe.trade could show the average exchange price based on previous trades, but why? people will always go for the best exchange rate they can get. this can be looked up easily based on the current offers...

---

trade in poe is it's own game, it needs time, experience and skill to succeed and make a good deal.
it's not perfect as it currently is but it's sufficiently good.

Point 1 - this is not D3. You cant buy BIS items unless you have the currency. Unlike gold in D3 currency of high value in this game doesn't drop often. By that I mean chaos, exalts, and mirrors. As such you are already limited by drop rates. People being offline when you are online doesn't change how many items are available, just whether or not you jave access to them, which is stupid. The main problem here is poe trade saying people are online when they are not and the sloppy necesity of going to a 3rd party site just to find these sellers. Everything should be in game, no one should be defending GGG's poor trading system just because it works as is.

Point 2 - floors and ceilings keep items within a price range so an item can never deflate below a set value or rise above a set value by GGG. If an item sells for 2 chaos its floor can be set to 1 chaos, its default set price 2 chaos, and its ceiling 3 chaos which prevents over deflation and inflation. Items that always sell for 1 chaos can have set price of 1 chaos with floor and ceiling both being 1 chaos preventing deflation and inflation while ensuring every seller gets the value the item is worth. Floors and ceilings prevent deflation and inflation as well as major market manipulation, or botting to tank price values. What tanks prices these days are things that effect currency drop rates, and divination cards. Shavrones wrappings went from 80ex to 1ex when the div card was introduced into the game. Thats hardcore deflation unrelated to market manipulation.

Point 3 - the finding of items stated in point 3 is related to poe trade. When GGG changes wording in an affix or prefix if no one notices the change it makes items being sold not appear in searches on poe trade. This happened recently with several affixes and prefixes which made finding a large portion of items for sell impossible if the item had one of these stats with wording changed. This is poor on GGG not just because they integrate a 3rd party website with the game because of their inability to provide us with a real AH as promised in 2014 (that it was in the making, by Chris himself), as well as their inability to provide that 3rd party website with their changes.

Point 4 - I dislike exchange rates on 3rd party websites as they are often incorrect. Typically their values result in a seller of the currency gaining more currency from the buyer than their currency is worth. Usually gaining at least 1 chaos profit. More importantly the false values are used in RMT. Especially on poe trade, the exchange rates can easily be manipulated to fool the entire community who uses it.

I played Runescape a lot but a Grand Exchange won't work. Almost all items have different rolls and if you are suggesting price ceilings and floors then you are also suggesting that GGG sets the prices on items. The game economy prices are controlled by the players. No reason for GGG to dedicate people to dictate item prices. If people think Crown of Eyes is worth 10c at this moment, it isn't fair to force people to sell it at 10c with a 15c ceiling when it becomes part of a build of the month. If GGG changes prices alongside build of the month flow it still isn't fair for GGG to dictate the price change.

Relatedly, ratios are set by what you can get at act vendors, masters 1 time purchases and the players. Enough said. Stop trying to have somebody dictate how the entire market operates.

Uniques, divination cards, flasks, ect should have set prices. 5l and 6l sell for a consistent avg, which can easily be found. Unique flasks are set in stone prices that rarely fluctuate at all. Divination cards have minimal ranges. All these can have set prices with floors and ceilings with no problem at all.

Rares values are mostly based off of tier rolls. It would not be difficult to put a set price for every roll, and have a total of the rolls themselves result in a set or recomended final price for rares.

So everything but rare equipment and jewels can have set prices with floors and ceilings while rares / jewels have recomended prices based on the tier rolls and their combined value. With 1 mathematical equation and some background pricing of affixes and prefixes, rare values can be determined automatically.

The glory of the GE is charts. Charts that can be used to determine what items are worth, something GGG can use to price rares based off of sale history. Likewise the beuty is that any player can see these charts, see prices rise and fall, and so on.