Trading in General

I'll preface this entire post with; I'm not an "ARPG player". I just play games I think look fun. I couldn't get into D3, I never played D4, I thought Last Epoch was pretty good but in the end felt kinda meh. Tried the first PoE but it felt... Off. Not sure why, just did. And now PoE2; I've played and loved the gameplay and vibe immediately.

So this isn't me whining about the game's quality. At all. I think it clears every ARPG I've ever seen or played by a mile. At least In terms of gameplay.

However, I've been told before that the way trade is implemented in PoE2 is to encourage a social aspect. I don't think it's good at it but alright I guess.

Wouldn't it make more sense for all of it to be in-game? Like if we're gonna stick with the current system, wouldn't a Bulletin Board or something like that with item listings where we can DM players from said listing be a "cleaner" experience? Not to mention I've seen a lot of people complain about postings still being listed on the website several minutes after being gone. I'd imagine that if it was all in-game, it'd update a lot faster.

Also I've personally wondered why guilds couldn't have their own personal "guild auction houses", where it works the same as other games' AH/MB systems, but encouraging players to join guilds, which in turn can encourage socializing more. Could even tie it to a system that rewards successfully trading within the guild. Maybe just guild points or something you can trade in for currencies or w/e. In this idea, only other members of said guild would see your listings.

As trading is currently implemented, I think it makes PoE and PoE2 worse games than they actually are. At least for the "public". Like it or not, PoE2 will probably reach "critical mass" on official release. I'd imagine the devs aren't unhappy with that, but to keep a big playerbase, you have to at least grant your players good QoL improvements.

And forcing your players to go outside of the game if they want to be even moderately competitive is an absolutely horrible idea.

I'll use myself and some of my friends as examples so take what I say with a grain of salt if you wish.

I play a LOT of games. Even in a game like this one; which isn't the type of game I play the most, I do very well in. Finished the story by dying probably around 10-20 times without really knowing what I was doing just because I've been playing games my whole life.

I'm in the minority. In fact I'd probably be considered in the mega minority of "gamers" because of how try-hard I get in games I love.

And I assure you I will absolutely never -ever- recommend a game that has the current implementation of trading. Because the very vast majority of my friends don't have as much free time for games as I do nor do they get as try-hard as I do. But they're what people would consider "normies". They're the majority of players. The majority of players won't take the time to go on a website outside of the game to trade, potentially spending hours for a couple items.

Not just because of that, but because I truly believe that the current implementation is boring, tedious, and an actual waste of the players' valuable time. And all that for something that's intentionally made inconvenient to make us believe there's a social aspect in a game about farming drops and playing multiple characters.

I'm not against encouraging social aspects, but a trading website is not the way to do it imo. People aren't socializing when they do that. They meet up, trade, then go their own ways. I believe both ideas I've mentioned would either streamline the whole trading system or actually encourage socializing.

I'm obviously open to criticism on what I've suggested, but please keep in mind that I didn't post this to bash the game. I -want- the game to be as good as it deserves to be. The more players partake in trading, the better it is for everyone.

I agree with you in that having to tab out of the game to hit the store is annoying at best, and inter-guild trading would be neat as I haven't personally found a reason to engage with the guild system at all. That being said, GGG has openly stated quite a few times that the tedium and clunkiness of trading is intentional to slow it down a bit.

That being said, I wish we had some sort of trade-log tab in the chat window or tied to the premium tab to keep track of incoming and completed trades. I try to be as responsive as possible when people message me, but if i'm mid-map i'm not going to portal out and lose momentum just to sell an item for 1 regal or exalt or whatever. I sell a lot of rings/amulets due to pricing stuff on the cheap side and selling a lot of bases for crafting, and there are times where i'll get 5 or 6 messages within one map, and its difficult to parse through my whispers and figure out who i've already completed a transaction with, or who I could follow up with to see if they're still interested in said item, etc.

The general consensus though seems to be that GGG will not implement an in-game auction house, and would like trading to be less stream-lined. I forget their exact reasoning, but it actually made a lot of sense after hearing it. An AH would be nice, but personally I don't buy much for myself unless i'm really struggling to plug a gap in my gear. My only real gripe with trading is all of the price-fixers trying to maximize profit. More often than not ill message someone about an item that seems reasonably priced in on the trade site, and then they'll either not respond because they're gauging interest, or they'll message me back with some absurd price far beyond their list price or what I would be willing to pay.

Is what it is I guess. \ :|

And see... I understand what you're saying, but to me it's still an unbelievably hard sell for anyone who's not a hardcore gamer. A LOT of people who play games don't have 3+ hours in a row to put into a game. How are these people supposed to do maps, do trading, crafting, etc.?

I can 'understand' the sentiment, but unless this

"

The general consensus though seems to be that GGG will not implement an in-game auction house, and would like trading to be less stream-lined. I forget their exact reasoning, but it actually made a lot of sense after hearing it.

is wrong, I fully expect the game to lose a LOT of players after the official launch.

Wanting something to be less stream-lined already sounds awful. Trading is part of the game. It should be a stream-lined experience.

That's inconvenience for the sake of inconvenience, and no good has ever come of this.

They have the trade website, but refuse to implement it in-game. It makes no logical sense. The game suffers from this decision.

Imagine if they had an official page for passives and skills, but in-game nothing had descriptions and every veteran was telling you "Just go on [insert website] for skill info" because that's how it was 10years ago. Everyone would agree that this sounds stupid, because it would be.

But now how do you think brand new players to PoE will feel when they start playing and find out that to trade items you need to use a website outside of the game?

New players are already at a disadvantage in every game. Due to experience, lack of currencies, lack of items, etc. But putting the only half-decent trading behind an extra layer of "Do you love the game enough to come here?" is absurd.

I wish someone was able to convince me that this isn't the worst trading implementation in any MMO-type game ever. I can't imagine how though.

GGG needs to be more open to the needs and concerns of the community if they want to appeal to the biggest audience possible. They also need to stop balancing the game around the top 1% of all players. Player retention is what will suffer in the end and hurt their bottom line. It's unavoidable unless they change course on a lot of things.