Buying and selling items from/to other players in game from an objective perspective

Let me just come right out and say it. From the perspective of a person looking at trade with the view from outside looking in, trade is really bad.
Enough to turn many people away from the game and not play it and go to other video games and other game communities. In a free to play game its easy to just leave, you have invested nothing, purchased no MTX. Why stay? You have no investment. The trade is archaic and a remnant from the 1980's with 14.4k dialup bulletin boards.

POE is a game with a massive, massive amount of loot. Perhaps the most loot of any game ever made? And builds often times require very specific items to run them that cannot be crafted, and in many cases cannot be farmed.

So lets look at the procedure to obtain the items necessary to run the builds that the majority of the streamers post in their builds.

I want to buy an item from another player.

-I need ....a program tool designed, written, uploaded, hosted by a third party from another website (because from what everyone in game has told me everyone uses this to trade with) unless I want to spam the trade chat in game channel all of the day or spam the in game forums (which neither shows you how many different items of that type are for sale at any given time, who is currently online to make the sale, compare prices, compare item stats, sockets, colors, links ect.)

-I need to search for in game items to buy, outside of the game on the program from another person/company.

-I find the item I want.

-Then I need to verify that the seller is currently online and actually playing and not AFK or in a map, or fighting a boss, or engaged in content.

-I need to then send the person selling the item that I want to buy an in game whisper that says (from what I have seen from mistells in general chat)
-I want to buy X item
-Located in Y bag
-In that bag in slot Z
-For R number
-Of C type of currencies

-I need to type all of this out every single time for every single transaction, even for something which would seem simple like just to exchange a few currencies because the in game currency swap vendor value is completely different from the actual third person trade site currency transaction values.

-Then I need to wait for that person to respond
-Then I need to leave the map/zone/boss whatever I am doing and stop playing my game
-Then I need to form a party with the person I want to buy from
-Then I need to travel to the location of the seller
-Then open trade window with them
-Then verify that it is indeed the correct item that I want to buy and not a scam ol' switcheroo
-Then put my currency in the trade window
-Then both parties have to mouse over the items
-Then both parties accept trade.

Every single time, for every single transaction.

So why does this horrible method exist. Auction houses have been in video games for a looooong time now, especially with heavy loot games. And POE has to be the most heavy loot game ever made.

From doing searches the reason given by GGG is to "Build community" but I think the truth is it costs money to develop and maintain something as simple as an in game auction house to trade items. It takes bandwidth, servers, storage, coding.

I think the hardcore purists don't want the newer players or more casual players to be able to easily obtain the items they absolutely critically need to make their builds very powerful, they like to "flex on the poors" only its not flexing on poors, its flexing on people who don't have 4 extra hours to not actually play the video game, and to stand around spamming whispers and searching third part internet websites and programs to actually be able to buy and sell items.

I think there is a sense of elitism of "I have to deal with all of this pain in the butt, so should you".

An in game auction house already exists from what I have read in searches on consoles only, well close to one. You list and actually put up items for sale in your tabs and transfer them to a type of AH on a sales board, then you can check if the player is online, then the exchange happens just by hitting agree to whatever offer they make. You just hit yes without having to directly trade with the other person and you get the item/currency somewhat EZ. Its like an auction house with extra always online DRM steps.

So if it already partially exists on consoles, why not just go one step further and put an auction house on PC? Do they really think this will kill "community"? Maybe, maybe I just don't understand "the process" that brings people together here but all it really feels like is misery loves company.

Its probably the worst part of a new player coming here seeing the game and realizing the massive difficulty in engaging in trade to get the items you need to make the builds the streamers showcase. Most people just don't bother because its amazingly difficult to engage in. In a game with thousands of amazing items it feels bad man.

I believe that new players simply leave once they realize the real endgame is downloading third party tools and spamming whispers for items located in very specific bag slots.

An auction house is needed in POE probably more than any other loot game in history. Until it gets one, I imagine people just don't want to engage with this type of trading content. Its perhaps why so many people just play SSF to avoid this horrible mechanic and headache it provides which limits your build diversity even further. Or maybe I am wrong. IDK. I just know I want to sell or buy or swap currency with another player in game quickly and easily without the crazy amount of extra steps and third party programs required so I can quickly get back to actually trying out builds, trying out uniques, experimenting to learn the game mechanics, boss fights ect. There is so much to learn, even for returning players who have not played in a long time.

sadly GGG wont change trade any soon... so its 10000000 req for trade wont change much

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TreeOfDead wrote:

sadly GGG wont change trade any soon... so its 10000000 req for trade wont change much

Do you think that a newer more updated in game type of trade system would benefit everyone in the game from new to older players?
Even if the goal is to create more ingame community through trade, wouldn't an in game type of trade system instead of third party tools be more aligned with that goal?

I have very fond memories of trade in other games with ingame auction houses, certain people were the go to for bags, belts, shirts ect. Certain people were crafting masters of specific items or weapons, quest items, and you could watch the AH battles unfold over prices and controlling niches of the markets. Sometimes people tried to corner a market, sometimes they failed trying to do so. It felt like a strong community even with an in game AH. You had AH enemies you battled for control of a niche. Sometimes tanking the market to get them to stop selling, waiting them out on long term price lowering. Sometimes farming the mats to sell at a much lower price then your opponent who bought the mats and crafted. One time I bought all of the mats required to craft the item, and pushed my opponent out of the market for that niche completely.

Everything from WoW, to Star Wars galaxies, Eve Online has or had these types of community trade interactions. Star Wars Galaxies having housing with your own shop people could visit and buy from.

I remember people giving away free crafted bags, and everyone had bags made by this persons character.

But POE doesn't even list the name of the crafter/crafters who made an item. There is a piece of trade community absent. For a game with such deep rich crafting where the actual currency is used for crafting, where items can be so powerful from crafting you mirror them, you don't even get to see the name of the crafter, or crafters who made the item. One person makes the base, another does the rolls, yet you never see their names.

I just think if the goal is community through trade, then we are a long way from that in game feeling. So far away it is on a third party out of game website.

"

Let me just come right out and say it. From the perspective of a person looking at trade with the view from outside looking in, trade is really bad.

Just wanted to point out the obvious... Despite your labeling of the thread as "from an objective perspective", this assertion, and most of the rest of your post, is perfectly subjective.

Thanks for attending my Ted Talk.

So do you like the current method of trade in POE, do you dislike it? Do you think the current method of trade with third party programs on third party websites creates a strong sense of community more than an in game auction house would?

If you think anything could be improved, how would you like to see it happen?

I've literally never used 3rd party programs or websites for trading.

How do you trade then?

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade
Have you never heard of the official trade site?
If you don't have premium stash tabs you can post the items to forums and mark a price for them and they'll appear there. Not sure how you do the price though

But with premium tabs you just make the tab public and then you can set prices for them.

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Turk182 wrote:

So why does this horrible method exist. Auction houses have been in video games for a looooong time now, especially with heavy loot games. And POE has to be the most heavy loot game ever made.

The problem is simple, every item is tradable, there is a lot more supply than demand. What GGG wants, is basically discourage people from trading at all, or especially selling a lot of items. They are doing this to protect the market from collapsing.

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From doing searches the reason given by GGG is to "Build community" but I think the truth is it costs money to develop and maintain something as simple as an in game auction house to trade items. It takes bandwidth, servers, storage, coding.

Not really, with modern technology we are having available, the costs are very negligible.
The problem is market flood and complete devaluation of items. Automation and abuse is another problem, but that is unfortunately already evident.


At the moment GGG has not developed better method of protecting the market. That's very unfortunate and I am sure that eventually they will have to modernize and implement more sophisticated and convenient solution to the problem. But, for the time being we have what we have.

I have quit several leagues after 30 to 40 failed messages to trade for something simple.

(No, I was not choosing the cheapest. Yes, I checked for AFK / not-online.)

The current system is horrible and is the absolute opposite of immersive when you interact with it. It completely removes the feeling of playing a video game and is closer to doing taxes.

I know they don't want to trade to be easy, but making players stab themselves in the eye with a thumbtack is maybe not a great way to discourage it.