Trade System Issues in PoE 2 Exploits and Manipulation

Trade System Issues in PoE 2 Exploits and Manipulation

Issue Summary:
The current trade forum in Path of Exile 2 appears to use the same active search functionality as in PoE 1.

While this system was problematic in the first game, its reimplementation in PoE 2 has further exacerbated issues in the in-game economy. Specifically:

Unfair Advantages to Bots and Third-Party Tools:

Players using database search scanners or automated tools can buy desirable items faster than average players using the trade system manually.

These bots dominate the market, making fair and timely trades nearly impossible for legitimate players.

Economy Destabilization:

Bots and flippers exploit the trade forum, artificially inflating or manipulating prices.

This creates a cycle where the economy becomes hostile to casual and legitimate players, forcing them to engage with third-party sites to compete.

Incentive for Real-Money Trading (RMT):

The inefficiency and imbalance of the in-game trade system drive players to third-party platforms for cash transactions.

This undermines the integrity of the game and promotes a pay-to-win environment, which contradicts the core philosophy of fair gameplay.

Trade Forum Instability:

The trade forum crashes frequently, often on an hourly basis or more, as if the server is being overloaded or DDoS’ed by excessive actions.

These crashes appear to be caused by third-party sites and bots aggressively manipulating the database with active searches.

As a result, players spend more time refreshing pages than trying to buy or trade items, further diminishing the user experience.

Impact on Gameplay:

Players lose trust in the trade system as they feel outpaced by those exploiting automation.

The market disparity reduces accessibility to important gear, crafting materials, and other resources, particularly for newer or less-experienced players.

Frequent forum crashes disrupt trade entirely, leaving players frustrated and unable to participate in the economy.

The reliance on third-party sites creates an ecosystem that profits from unethical practices, harming the game’s reputation.

Recommendations:

Anti-Bot Measures:

Implement stronger detection and prevention systems to identify and ban bots that abuse the trade system.

Fairer Trade Mechanics:

Introduce cooldowns or limits on rapid item transactions to curb flipping and botting.

Add features that prioritize fair trades, such as randomizing listing visibility or requiring user confirmations.

Improve In-Game Trading Tools:

Build a user-friendly, secure trading platform integrated into the game to reduce reliance on third-party tools and sites.

Include features like price comparison and trend analysis, giving legitimate players more competitive tools.

Stabilize the Trade Forum:

Optimize the forum infrastructure to handle high activity levels without frequent crashes.

Investigate and mitigate potential abuses or overloads caused by third-party tools and excessive search queries.

Transparent Communication:

Clearly communicate to the community the steps being taken to address trade system abuses and forum instability.

Regularly update players on anti-bot measures, trading system improvements, and changes to the trading economy.

Conclusion:
The current trade system in PoE 2 is creating an uneven playing field, alienating the legitimate player base, and driving them toward unethical third-party markets.
The frequent crashes of the trade forum further amplify the frustration, making trading an unreliable and frustrating experience.
Addressing these issues promptly is crucial to restoring trust and fairness in the in-game economy.
A rework of the system, alongside enhanced anti-bot enforcement and forum stability improvements, is necessary to protect the integrity of the game and its community.

This is absolutely spot on, and GGG won't do a damned thing about it for *reasons.*

With a higher player base comes a higher demand for RMT, trading bots are one thing but farming bots need to be aggressively chased out of the game otherwise trade might as well not exist for normal players

This Post is Spot on. I would like to know the *reasons* why The Devs don't address this? Are they making money on the premium tabs from all the bots? Is it inflating actual true player numbers? IF this where the case, that would be very worrisome.

Why don't they build an in-game auction house tied to your premium stash tabs? Wouldn't that accomplish the goal of making money but also facilitate smoother transactions?

went from buying ruby of regen for 1 regal to 1 exault to 1 divine.certain folks buying them all up, within 24hrs

so folks run website scrapers on the trade forum because they get delayed messages from ggg's trade api interface?

who would have thought so.

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1!!!!!

Spot on,

This game is heading in a bad direction if it's run more by bots than actual players

Trade market/ Economy is absolute trash right now

i don't think poe2 is botted, it's much too difficult for that.

the problem is, that poe has no playtime restriction, folks playing it 20/7 who additionally know what they do get rich beyound the imagination of any casual player.

prices are defined by supply/demand and since supply is low while demand is huge due to the amount of players, prices quickly rise. it's normal.

players using tools requesting ggg's trade api get delayed responds so they don't have an advantage over users using the trade website.

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sooner or later ggg will move the trade website ingame but i doubt that will change anything for the better for players.

Just trying to buy a T15 way stone at a for 1E (ya i guess im cheap and broke).. Manny pop up on active search... but GL..the bots out class you with even sitting and waiting for a deal to show.. but nothings new.. the trading system has always sucked imho.

I don't think it belong to bug part of forums. But it's obvious that GGG doesn't care much about trade, they had years to fix obvious flaws and they didn't. It's still GGG, we shouldn't expect that they would start to care now.

They are fooling people with div/ex ratio and it takes ONE! script launch per day to adjust ratios. If they didn't do such simple thing, we can't really expect anything at all.

They presented that currency AH like it was innovation in industry, WoW had AH in 2004 lmao.