Why is there no auction house in POE?

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Unquietheart wrote:

Just because I’m ignorant of (the specific details of) your play-style doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of how Auction Houses function, or how they’d impact the game.

It less that youre ignorant of any auction house than you are of what its like to trade in the game you are currently talking about. You also dont trade, so talking with you about trade improvements .. itd be like me commenting on crafting. I dont craft, I dont care about it, my only goal in talking about it would be a non-negative impact on my game, not improving the situation for crafters.

If I laid out the most perfect AH or trade setup, it still wouldnt help you, because you dont trade. And although I dont buy the zero sum argument, in theory it would take dev resources from building content you want.

So, sure, you're opposed to any changes in the same way someone who only plays summoners doesnt want dev time or resources put into bows, or melee, or whatever. Thats fine, but its not particularly useful to talk through.

It can be summed with a simple statement that you dont trade, dont care if trade is improved, dont want resources to go to things you dont really do. Therefore, there's no benefit to you. Or, if you want to claim straw man, describe your position. So far from this thread its exactly what I lay out above. Your position is unless something is proven 100% to be perfect with no negatives, status quo is preferrable.

Id argue theres no real downside either as I dont buy Chris's argument and havent seen other games work that way, but that actually doesnt matter to you, since GGGs dev time would go to it (you even pull out the resource argument above) so even with a perfect system, you are still net negative.



As for people like me being a minority, you can twist any statistic. Free to play models attract a lot of people who try it for half an hour, then quit. Not knocking PoE, thats just how F2P works. The is supported when the devs at exilecon said a large number of people who quit hadnt even figured out basic sockets or supports. Saying they also dont trade isn't really a useful metric. If GGG can tell us that only 5% of people who... say, beat the campaign trade, then I'd resign my arguments and say we are too small a minority to worry about, financially. Fine, have a horrible trade setup, almost no one is doing it anyway.

Lastly, using "this is how it was designed, so its working", is a a completely illogical argument. Yes, trade is probably working as Chris wants it to. Possible, but unpleasant, discouraging and frustrating to use. I would agree, that fits his vision from the manifesto. You use that as a logical argument that it is good, but thats not a logical conclusion. Designers are not infallible, their vision for individual aspects of games is just as biased and flawed as anyone. They also thought everyone would use 4L for main skills. Thank god Diablo didnt use sockets or we'd have a broken system for that, which we'd refuse to change for the same fear of turning out like Diablo III, and you'd be defending as working as intended and the lesser evil.

PoEs time will come and go and the next gen games will have better features, gameplay, and accessibility. Do you really think they will make you alt tab, send 20 messages, awkwardly trade in person? I dont think so. Maybe no trade, maybe balance around SSF, maybe easy trade. But they wont use this, so we are we settling for it.

The only you and I have truly agreed on I think is that the current system sucks. So maybe Im wrong about the solution, but throwing up your hands with the 'lesser evil' excuse is really weak. if something is broken, try different things, be imaginative, you dont have to change everything but try something. Dont give up and settle for mediocrity.

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Deathfairy wrote:

I am developer IRL, it is literally part of my job to consider the consequences of any sort of changes and how they would affect the existing and/or future use cases. I keep pointing out blant issues with common use cases now which get a lot worse and your main argument is "i don't think it will be a problem".

Because the only reason Chris thinks it will be a problem appears to be a single game, which had a bad itemization system which is nothing like PoEs.

I would argue PoE has a more robust itemization than even most full MMOs (meaning, its item base has less in common with Diablo than with MMOs), which is why its hilariously sad you alt tab to search for stuff.

Boiling down the trade manifesto into a couple sentences, I would say Chris thinks its more fun for gamers to find or craft items than buy, and then secondarily there are longevity problems with buying gear instead of working towards it.

The problem is his base desires dont appear to match the game reality already. And he admits he built the game so that a trade system is needed. Its like he wanted some other game, but built this one, then shackled this game with the limitations he wanted for some other system.

Id honestly be perfectly happy if they rebalanced this game around SSF. But the didnt.


So, as a developer, you would build the current system for trade DeathFairy? That would be your idea? If not, then what are you arguing against?

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trixxar wrote:

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Deathfairy wrote:

I am developer IRL, it is literally part of my job to consider the consequences of any sort of changes and how they would affect the existing and/or future use cases. I keep pointing out blant issues with common use cases now which get a lot worse and your main argument is "i don't think it will be a problem".

Because the only reason Chris thinks it will be a problem appears to be a single game, which had a bad itemization system which is nothing like PoEs.

I would argue PoE has a more robust itemization than even most full MMOs (meaning, its item base has less in common with Diablo than with MMOs), which is why its hilariously sad you alt tab to search for stuff.

Boiling down the trade manifesto into a couple sentences, I would say Chris thinks its more fun for gamers to find or craft items than buy, and then secondarily there are longevity problems with buying gear instead of working towards it.

The problem is his base desires dont appear to match the game reality already. And he admits he built the game so that a trade system is needed. Its like he wanted some other game, but built this one, then shackled this game with the limitations he wanted for some other system.

Id honestly be perfectly happy if they rebalanced this game around SSF. But the didnt.


So, as a developer, you would build the current system for trade DeathFairy? That would be your idea? If not, then what are you arguing against?

First of i just want to make sure we clear your entire argument is still "i don't think they you and Criss are right it will be fine".

Other then that i provided few examples of what could be the improvements. But i do not full data that ggg has, nor did i think them through as much as they did as a team, and might be missing possible issues it will create.

But honestly i think trade is fine as is. I do craft a lot , i do think crafting my gear is a lot more fun then just buying it. Sometimes i have to because rng is rng. So because of that i trade a lot. I buy and sell mats, and crafted gear, i make currency with some minor flipping. So i make 40-100 trades a day easy and i think it is fine... I do not see 40 messages bs you talking about since i switched to official site. Might have to whisper 10 times, that is extra 60 seconds if you expect it to happen like buying 4 catalysts i did today.
So IMHO majority of trade horror stories are combination of natural human exaggeration, misusing the system and yes some really unlucky real examples mixed in. But hey this game has steep learning curve, learning trade is just one of those things you need to learn. Which some some people including me actually do enjoy learning.

While i think trade is fine, i can see and understand why people have issues and i am not against improving some of the more frustrating aspects of it as long as it does not negatively affect other aspects of the game. And Ah most definitely will.

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Deathfairy wrote:

First of i just want to make sure we clear your entire argument is still "i don't think they you and Criss are right it will be fine".

My argument is that there are hundreds of solutions, with a full, customary AH being one, the current system being another, and many others.

The current one sucks, lets change it. Thats my argument.

I have not seen, from other games, any problems from an AH, and I do not think Diablo III is a good comparison for PoE due to types and depth of itemization and the process of item finding or creation. PoEs trade system and high end items have as little to do with D3s boss farming as I could imagine.

I also think that even if you and Chris are 100% right, there are dozens of ways to create trade barriers without resorting to the worst one - intentionally annoying the playerbase into not using a feature. Each option has things to figure out, but questions and experimenting by themselves are not arguments against trying them.

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Mortyx wrote:

1- A trade that has actual mechanic restrictions instead of frustration restrictions;

Yeah, I get that. But that's not what the developers want. The developers want trade to exist, but to be limited. They've chosen to build a mechanic that pushes the decision on when to stop trying to trade down to the level of the individual player. If an individual player chooses to push against that limit, the developers let them. But they've included a negative feedback loop to let the player know they're pushing against the limits of the system.

The underlying core of the system (as per what Chris Wilson has said in the Trade Manifesto) is to allow limited trade. He explains his thinking in considerable depth and I won't try to reiterate it here. He explains it better than I can. However, briefly:

1: Trade exists.
2: Trade has to be limited (or it undermines core game-play).
3: The developers have chosen a "soft" limitation system which allows for individual choice.

If you want to avoid the frustration, come up with a system that meets the requirements.

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Mortyx wrote:

2- All players that play trade league

That's all players.

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Mortyx wrote:

3- 0 impact upon any other group; (there is literal 0 necessity to change drop rates)

You're wrong. Chris has told you you're wrong. Bashiok has told you you're wrong. The impact on the non-trading majority would be substantial. This isn't a point you get to contest.

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Mortyx wrote:

4,5,6- Plenty of suggestion have already been done here and reddit (more than hundreds in the past 7 years), if you own a bakery and there is a demand for a different type of bread, where the money will come from development of the bread? Which people will be tasked to make this new bread?

Writing code and building a major, automated digital financial system (and then implementing it) has very little to do with running a Bakery. Yes, there have been "plenty of suggestions", most (all) of them are unusable (for a variety of reasons). Volume does not equate directly to value.

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Mortyx wrote:

7- I want to craft a wand with +1 to minions, +1 to spells and minion damage/speed and Cast socket spells. To do this i need the base (easy to get) and then i can choose to alt spam regal it and/or beastcraft (so i need thousands of alts and hundreds of regals and beasts which requires hundreds of trades) OR i can fossill craft it (in which case i will require hundreds of fossils(bound and, santified and the level one) and ressonators that i will also have to trade because the ammount i get by myself is nowhere near the number required), and i still need to find/ buy veiled weapons to get the "cast socket spells". So i ask you, how i craft this wand without doing multiple trades?

By playing the game instead of trading. Yes, that does put you at the mercy of the RNG. If you want the best <item> then be prepared to grind for it. It's right there in the name: Grinding Gear Games. Yes, the developers are trying to slow you down. It's part of their business model. I'm not telling you that you have to like it, but meeting the goals of GGG's business model is another condition which you cannot avoid.

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Mortyx wrote:

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I don’t NEED data. I have Chris Wilson’s official statement right here:

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Chris wrote:

Most players who play Path of Exile never trade. Out of the players who do trade, most only complete a few trades in a league.

Chris also stated PoE should be slow as diablo 2 was and a game that caters hardcore players, but look where we are now xD.

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Chris wrote:

Most players who play Path of Exile never trade. Out of the players who do trade, most only complete a few trades in a league.

I wonder why they don`t trade? Is it maybe because they don`t even know they can trade? Or might it be because there is no way to now trade even exists unless you search for it outside the game, and even then as a new player all you will see is the search parameters that you will probably don`t even understand. If there was a mini tutorial and a NPC that works exactly as https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Metamorph, do you think more or less people would trade?

I have no idea why they don't trade, nor do I care to speculate. However, I'll refer you again to the base considerations regarding trade:
It should exist (because it creates the impression of value).
It shouldn't be easy (because that undermines core-game play).

I'm pretty sure the developers have zero interest in encouraging people to trade when frequent trading isn't a base design goal, but that's just a guess on my part.

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Mortyx wrote:

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“Working as intended” is exactly what’s going on there. You (and those like you) are trying to overuse the trade system and the feedback loop is providing painful friction letting you know you’re pushing too hard against it. That is the argument, why would it not be?

Dude, if we didn`t wanted to "overuse" the trade system we would be playing SSF, have you ever thought of that? I am all in if they want to make the game completely SSF or make trade EVEN SLOWER than it is now, as long it`s slowed equally for everyone(not requiring using third party apps to circumvent it`s flaws) and actually achieves the objective of slowing down progression, otherwise what`s the point?

For example would you agree with a system where you can trade everything quick, but gear is completely untradable? i would accept this, would you? Remember this would actually achieve the halting of gear progression that you defend so avidly.

No, I wouldn't accept that (at least not without considerable further consideration). "Progression" isn't just gear. Consumables (maps and currency) are also part of progression. You're asking to speed up an aspect of the game. Now, I don't particularly care how fast you choose to play the game, but that's only provided that it doesn't impact me. And therein lies the rub: It would impact me, Chris has said it would. And the fact remains: GGG does care how fast you play the game (even if I don't).

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Mortyx wrote:

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You and Mortyx are both still wrong: You, and those who play the way you do, are a minority of the player base. That’s an official stated base condition of this discussion. In mathematical terms, it’s a “given”. You don’t get to argue with that statement. Chris Wilson can change it if he chooses to, but until such time as he does, that’s the basic fact that you have to live with.

Everyone is right unless proved of the contrary, when they were forced to introduce our shit AH (poe.trade) did the game imploded? Nope, it actually had a boon in number of players.
When they added a slight better AH in console, did the console game imploded? Nope.
So i wonder what would happen with an actual AH in PC, will it implode the game? Will it raise the playerbase? Who knows, i don`t nor does you. If they implement one and the game implodes then you can say you were right, before that all we can do is think about the potential consequences that might or not come true.

What is a fact is that more than me and trixxar have been complaining about the trading system for years, there are thousand of topics about it that date back 2013, if the system was "working as intended" there would not be so many complaints from many different people at all times in the game history. Chris blushs any time a streamer talks about how shit trade is, do you think he does that because he is proud or ashamed?

Chris is the guy in charge. He gets to decide who his player base is. He has indeed made that decision, and chosen to explain it. (See the Trade Manifesto). He's made a ruling. You and Trixxar are part of a small minority of players, a subset of the whole. That's a fact. It's not something you get to contest.

Yes, lots of people complain. Most of them don't understand the design criteria, most of them don't understand the system. Most of those complaints are founded on an incomplete understanding of the game. Just because there's a lot of volume of complaints doesn't mean any of them have actionable substance.

The existing system is considered the lesser of multiple evils.

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Unquietheart wrote:

Yeah, I get that. But that's not what the developers want.
..

Chris is the guy in charge.

This is not a logical argument, it doesnt support the current system, it doesnt mean its not an awful idea.

Yes we can all agree, Chris wants trade to work this way, he is the designer. That doesnt make this a good design, and it doesnt make him right. Proven by the hundreds of things PoE has had to change over the years, which would not be needed if they got everything right the first time.

There is no logic or reason backing the statement "Someone has chosen something to be a certain way, so it is good that it is a certain way."

That makes zero sense. Surely even you can see that. Not that you'll admit it.

Imagine for a moment it changed, and there was an AH and your worst fears were realized and the game sucked, all around sucked. Would you still say "Oh, its fine, its how Chris wanted it".

If so, that makes you.. I dont know, a follower with no personal opinion of their own.

I don't know if anyone suggested, but what about AH with MAXIMUM buyout of 1-2 chaos. That way everyone is happy... you give AH to ppl that are crying for it since they don't want o waste time on "low profit" trades and you still have to do trade old fashioned way for anything more then that.

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Wartodust wrote:

With all due respect to the community websites that makes trading possible in a descent way, it still feel clunky alt tabbing all the time to search for items/creating my own markets. Also i cannot sell anything when i am not online and when people whisper me, i need to halt my current activities.

Is there any specific reason for this?

Because keeping you "in-game" for a longer period of time, rather than make your time spent in-game efficient, is in GGG's best interests.

Your progress may be measured in Map Tiers and boss-kills.

Their progress is measured in your "hours played" no matter if you're standing in your Hideout for an hour trying to make a trade or leaving corpses on Maps...

There are two honest and valid reasons GGG has put forth why they will not implement an "Auction House."

Good loot should be hard to get.

An Auction House would attract bots.

<sic>

All the other reasons put forth in their "Trade Manifesto" are just rambling misunderstandings of how a healthy economy with broad access enjoyed by its participants effects a society, be that in a game or in real life.

The two reasons listed above both serve GGG's best interests. They keep players in the game longer and reduce the labor necessary to monitor the game's overall health. Keep in mind that though this is an "MMO-Like" (lol) game, there is very little oversight needed compared to traditional multiplayer and MMO games. Hacks, exploits and bots exist. But, they have a much smaller impact than they would in a game with a large interactive player base, like an MMO. Thus, "monitoriing" and stewarding costs are much lower and, with PoE's "always phone home" design for every action in-game, there's little need for more oversight than that.

I'd imagine department monitoring PoE for cheats, hacks, and exploits is one guy sitting in a closet waiting for a red-light to turn on because someone is trying to send malformed packets to the servers... Then again, they're probably an intern, making next-to-nothing in terms of wages.

The point being - Adding an Auction House would defeat two "Prime Directives" on GGG's end - Keeping you in-game for longer, reducing operating costs.

Disclaimer: I play on XBox. We have a "Marketplace." It's nice for some things, terrible for others. It won't get any improvements because to do so would make finding something "too easy." The problem is... the player-base is so small that we HAVE to have a Marketplace. As it is, most of the builds PC Players enjoy are not as possible to be run on consoles due to the lack of players and the subsequent lack of the "good loot" that GGG say's should be in the game...somewhere.

You don't want our Marketplace. Believe me. It would "break" on Day 1 on PC. Someone suggested that GGG doesn't have the skill to create one. I'd tend to agree to a point. One big reason they can't develop a good, usable, one for consoles is that, due to how the game is set up to always talk to their servers on any "action", any design that kept to that format for security/data reasons would... have so many operations run on it that required server interaction they'd have to rent a whole other farm just to run the "Auction House." It won't happen because they've used the simplest, yet most data-costly, means to combat hack/cheat/exploit issues in their game.

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Deathfairy wrote:

But honestly i think trade is fine as is. I do craft a lot , i do think crafting my gear is a lot more fun then just buying it. Sometimes i have to because rng is rng. So because of that i trade a lot. I buy and sell mats, and crafted gear, i make currency with some minor flipping. So i make 40-100 trades a day easy and i think it is fine... I do not see 40 messages bs you talking about since i switched to official site. Might have to whisper 10 times, that is extra 60 seconds if you expect it to happen like buying 4 catalysts i did today.
So IMHO majority of trade horror stories are combination of natural human exaggeration, misusing the system and yes some really unlucky real examples mixed in. But hey this game has steep learning curve, learning trade is just one of those things you need to learn. Which some some people including me actually do enjoy learning.

While i think trade is fine, i can see and understand why people have issues and i am not against improving some of the more frustrating aspects of it as long as it does not negatively affect other aspects of the game. And Ah most definitely will.

Just out of curiosity since you are someone that trade a lot and occasionally flip. Do you use any of the followings: trade-macro, mercury-trade, any other of the multiple 3rd party apps that "automate trade"?

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trixxar wrote:

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Unquietheart wrote:

Yeah, I get that. But that's not what the developers want.
..

Chris is the guy in charge.

This is not a logical argument, it doesnt support the current system, it doesnt mean its not an awful idea.

Yes we can all agree, Chris wants trade to work this way, he is the designer. That doesnt make this a good design, and it doesnt make him right. Proven by the hundreds of things PoE has had to change over the years, which would not be needed if they got everything right the first time.

There is no logic or reason backing the statement "Someone has chosen something to be a certain way, so it is good that it is a certain way."

That makes zero sense. Surely even you can see that. Not that you'll admit it.

Imagine for a moment it changed, and there was an AH and your worst fears were realized and the game sucked, all around sucked. Would you still say "Oh, its fine, its how Chris wanted it".

If so, that makes you.. I dont know, a follower with no personal opinion of their own.

The part you missing in this whole situation is that YOU saying some arbitrary idea or other horde of forums trolls does not make it a good idea either does it? And yet this is consistently your one and only argument.