The Plague that is GGG's "Trade" system. & the Predatory dance feeding its lowkey P2W mechanism.

"

Phrazz wrote:

Yet another lost soul thinking AH is the way to go, yet no succesful ARPG Hack'n Slash game has ever implemented an AH without serious controversy. Well, fuck history, right? Right. You know better. You know better than Blizzard. GGG. Schaefer #1 and #2, Brevik, Runic, Crate (I could go on).

You're right about one thing; the reason GGG haven't implemented an AH, isn't because it would take to long or that they aren't capable. The reason they haven't done it, is because an AH is a bad idea.

Now, is the current system perfect? FAR from. But still better than an AH.

And you know what you wrote about time zones? Well, that's the whole idea behind an online-only trading system; to limit the market, so everyone doesn't have access to everything all the time. And that's a GOOD thing.

Edit: I do understand that people find premium stash tabs P2W. I don't agree, but I respect the view. But to go as far as calling GGG's business model "predatory", when we all know the real bad examples out there, is just strange to me.

"

allionus wrote:

"

Phrazz wrote:

Yet another lost soul thinking AH is the way to go, yet no succesful ARPG Hack'n Slash game has ever implemented an AH without serious controversy. Well, fuck history, right? Right. You know better. You know better than Blizzard. GGG. Schaefer #1 and #2, Brevik, Runic, Crate (I could go on).

You're right about one thing; the reason GGG haven't implemented an AH, isn't because it would take to long or that they aren't capable. The reason they haven't done it, is because an AH is a bad idea.

Now, is the current system perfect? FAR from. But still better than an AH.

And you know what you wrote about time zones? Well, that's the whole idea behind an online-only trading system; to limit the market, so everyone doesn't have access to everything all the time. And that's a GOOD thing.

Edit: I do understand that people find premium stash tabs P2W. I don't agree, but I respect the view. But to go as far as calling GGG's business model "predatory", when we all know the real bad examples out there, is just strange to me.

This is absurd. "making AH is too hard", are you kidding me? of course you think you are not, but you really are. "AH is a bad idea". You name dropped games, but didn't name drop the actual issue that "ingame Auction houses always cause".

"to limit the market, so everyone doesn't have access to everything all the time. And that's a GOOD thing." WTH is this dude lol? GOOD THING!! But HOW? You need to make a case, rather than just assumptions.

To your edit - I never said their WHOLE BUSINESS MODEL is predatory. I never criticized Vanity MTX. My ENTIRE FOCUS is the STORAGE, and the TRADE "system".

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Cheydinhal wrote:

Why is AH a bad idea?

Just stating the OP has invalid points, becuz its free to play makes no sense lol....

We are all here because we enjoy the game (sure some will claim they dont, but its nonsense, no1 posts on forums of games they dont enjoy to a degree).

I hate the fact people can list items they dont intend to sale....

Example: I quitted meta league, but I did log onto my standard character and get msgs ppl want to buy meta league stuff.....an AH would have returned those items long time ago. But I for 1 at least msg those people back.....and I know I'm like the 5% of ppl who does that....

I spend more time msging people who dont respond than msging people who do msg back.....

I think there should be some improvements that will make the whole trading an less HATEFUL manor to socialize...which is it is for sometimes....

1. Make it so people cant list items without price. This just SHOULDNT be a thing
2. Make it so if an item thats prized doesnt get sold it is removed for X period (probebly 72 hours or so, including offline time here).

This will not help the underprizing snipers.
But it will help with the garbage people who put stuff into the market without ever wanting to sell it.....
I know theres some flaws, but just putting an item without wanting to search the real worth...is just like having a store without prize tags, like what?!?

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Shagsbeard wrote:

They added premium tabs.

They added functional trade "API" what ever that means.

They added onsite trade listings.

You're wrong that they haven't changed trade in 5 years.

An AH is a bad idea because it makes items too available for people. They would no longer need to save items in stash tabs. They could sell it instead and later buy a similar or even better one of the AH. No more use for stash tabs.

Also, what players don't realize, is that the entire market would be flooded with items. You'd get "good enough" items for next to nothing. Only the best items would be priced... and you'd be priced out of them. You wouldn't be the rich person you think you would be. We can't all sell items and all become rich. It doesn't work. Someone has to be the base, and that base is you.

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Arrowneous wrote:

Always expect Shagsbeard to defend current trading system to the max. But I do understand why GGG isn't going to make any major changes. GGG has to be very careful to keep their financial gravy train running at top speed:



If GGG does anything to PoE trading that alters our gear chase, and thus our time spent grind playing PoE, then they could inadvertently crash their free-to-play business financial model and create a very serious disaster. Balancing the desires of players to get great builds that can destroy all content by acquiring great gear easier has to be carefully controlled so as to not allow a flood of more players easily racing into the upper 90s, getting bored, and quitting playing. GGG has to balance this very carefully to get us to play more hours. Doesn't work for many and I'm sure GGG has lost a shit ton of players over the years because of trade-chat mechanics but enough players do grind at least 1 build to 90+ each and every league and buy mtx along the way to keep them in the black and still be expanding (are they up to 140 employees now?).

So creating an arpg game that encourages saving lots of gear for our next build or just for hoarding in Standard (like my 23 Oni-Goroshi swords all self-farmed + 1 in Metamorph League) is just what GGG was hoping for to sell lots of stash tabs (that's why there is a Super Stash sale almost every 3 weeks). I'm sure the founders spent many hours debating/arguing over the best way to generate revenue before agreeing on making PoE free-to-play with stash tabs, supporter packs, pets, hideout decorations, other cosmetics, and mystery boxes (gambling) as purchases. And probably Chris had a few restless nights worrying over their decision to make PoE F2P as in "will there be enough players wanting/needing more stash space, wanting to bling out their exile to show off in town, and wanting to decorate their hideout" (hey GGG, aren't we due for another hideout decorating contest again?). The answer is a definite "YES" since Tencent was willing to buy 80% of GGG stock worth 100+ million NZD so the "how to make money with a free to play game" is a huge success for GGG, and we thank them for their efforts to give us such a huge arpg build sandbox to play in by buying mtx. And my Kiwi pet thanks GGG too (I make sure it gets plenty of Kiwi Chow).

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Llama8 wrote:

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Shagsbeard wrote:

They added premium tabs.

They added functional trade "API" what ever that means.

They added onsite trade listings.

You're wrong that they haven't changed trade in 5 years.

Yeah, you can polish a turd, but it's still a turd...

As I've always said, I get the existing set up for items & I don't disagree with it. The market would be flooded with items & it would devalue items in general though I doubt it would be as bad as the naysayers suggest. The large music/film/etc corporates have been saying for decades that piracy would gut their businesses but they seem to be doing just fine.

I still don't get why we can't have an AH for consumables (maps, currency, possibly fossils & essences).

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Because the game is a success because you value these things. Put them on an easy to access market and you'll stop valuing them... they'll just be points on a video game. The reason they're valuable is based on the difficulty finding them. Easy trade would remove that difficulty. It's pretty simple.

The game thrives because people enjoy overcoming difficulty. Removing difficulty is the last thing a game wants to do.

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Llama8 wrote:

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

The game thrives because people enjoy overcoming difficulty. Removing difficulty is the last thing a game wants to do.

That's not entirely true, GGG have added some QoL on some things like not having to net beasts, currency stacking ,etc. And using your logic, one could make the game more enjoyable by requiring the player to press a "left foot" & "right foot" button to move (I'm thinking of Track & Field on the NES I think).

You want to give the player challenges to overcome, but you don't necessarily want to make things difficult.

"

allionus wrote:

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Because the game is a success because you value these things. Put them on an easy to access market and you'll stop valuing them... they'll just be points on a video game. The reason they're valuable is based on the difficulty finding them. Easy trade would remove that difficulty. It's pretty simple.

The game thrives because people enjoy overcoming difficulty. Removing difficulty is the last thing a game wants to do.

No it wouldn't remove the difficulty.

Amazon (the company) is the rebuttal to your statement. Just because unlike real shops which close at night, and a "flooding of items", amazon doesn't seem to have the price of all products listed as "Free".

The prices are just slightly lower, and a MUCH higher number of items are available for purchase. The best items are sold MORE OFTEN, and have MORE demand. The slight reduction in price is corrected by being able to sell more items for a greater profit. Also, if you oversaw this point - a 24 hour available item has to compete against other items. Therefore, people can't just put up trash items and have them sold just because the buyer doesn't seem to have a better, more competitively priced item available for sale because that superior seller dude is offline.

And difficulty being attached to a better marketplace is absurd. I sadly have to say this- If you truly believe that, and didn't just throw it on there as an extra point, then you don't understand how this game works. Difficulty only exists for people who don't do any research on the game and how the numbers work (it's all numbers).

There exist thousands of "tutorials" on youtube, on how to exploit the living frick out of the current Trade abomination, and how to make over 1 mirror worth in currency, within ONE WEEK(or less) OF STARTING.

Players can increase the challenge by not doing this and not using the trade system to buy stuff, and just make their own things. People who do this will always do this. Regardless of how well the trade system works.

"

Nidal wrote:

One more time then. the hassle of trading that you describe and the difficulty of knowing the value of alot of items keep them off the market

alot of us currently have the lootfilter ping us when something good drops, we dont really know how much its worth but put it in the stash for later (never)
All my stashes are full at the end of the league, probably yours too

if its easy and quick, more items gets listed
if you can put your item up for auction with no b/o, it all hits the market

you increase supply, value goes down (and saturates demand). everything but the most rare items become worthless

other games gets around this with limits. they make items bind on pickup or equip. alternatively reducing droprates by alot
no game has pulled off free trade with an AH, there no reason to think PoE would be the first

PoE has free trade and its fantastic. you can buy, use and resell any item you find and even make profit when demand increases, almost everything you find has some value

its not good enough to say you dont believe it or lets try
all other game acknowledge the issue by limiting trade. the issue makes perfect sense. and the only similar game that tried it had exactly the expected problems and is a very good example (why they dont like hearing it)


All these people wanting an AH just wants it. they have no idea how and dont care, just GGG fix it

there is no conspiracy. they have created one of the best economies in any game. good for them if they sell some stash tabs and make money :)