Okay, so because the devs said they will look at this thread and basically want input from the community, here are some of my thoughts about the whole situation and some alternatives to the proposed trade system. I have talked about this with some friends and as a collective we played most of the popular ARPG and MMORPG games so most of the stuff I’m about to say is already implemented in some games in one way or another. Of course this is fine, there is no need to invent the wheel again. Also, there is no perfect solution, it’s about making compromises!
First, let me start with a few of the worries of both sides. By both sides I mean the side that wants more freedom in trading and the side that wants more restricted trade. Of course it’s a spectrum, some people don’t want trade at all, but for simplicity I’m going to say there are only two sides in this discussion.
People who want relatively free and unrestricted trade:
These people usually say that free trade means players can freely choose whether or not they want to engage in trading or not, so more power to the players. Another argument is that drops are now more valuable, meaning that if an item drops that is sought after for a specific class or build, that item can be traded instead of rotting away in your stash or worse. It feels bad if something like an Orian’s Eye drops and you never plan on using it. It also feels bad if the item you want just isn’t dropping at all while with free trade you could trade that Orian’s Eye for the item you want. A lot of drops are already meaningless (of course this could change in the next versions, but I’m talking about current possibilites in the game right now), so even if a top tier item drops, if you’re never going to use it then what’s the point? Where is the excitement? There is no difference between an Orian’s Eye and a white hatchet for those players. They also say that to be able to trade you have to provide something with similar value, meaning you have to play the game anyway to be able to trade (excluding RMT in this scenario).
People who want more restricted trade:
These people usually say that free trade ruins the fun and creates an unfair economy. It also creates room for RMT and all of that stuff that we don’t want. They also say that drops get more valuable as you’re not able to just go and trade (or buy) any item you want but you actually have to play the game and find the item yourself which makes the drops more exciting. They also say that free trade means the game will be balanced around trading, both in difficulty as well as in droprates. Depending on the trade system, they also say that more restrictive trade encourages players to actually play in a party with other players, but I feel that part is debatable and depends a lot on the trade system and the boni you get from party play. They also say that the less restrictive a trading system is, the more likely people are going to use bots (and the higher the risk of RMT).
So, that’s roughly what both sides say. I’m pretty sure there are many more points on both sides, but I wanted to keep it simple. Okay, so the currently propsed trade system is pretty restrictive. That’s not a bad thing in general, but I feel like in the propsed form there are too many weaknesses! Let me list a couple of possible trade systems with their pros and cons.
1) Free trade:
As already mentioned, free trade means freedom for the players. They can decide themselves if they want to trade and how often they want to trade, etc. Unfortunately, this system would mean difficulty and drop rates need to be balanced around trade. It also is highly exploitable and botting and RMT are pretty much preprogrammed in such a system.
2) Proposed System:
The proposed system is very similar to the trading system in D3. In my opinion this systems biggest weakness is the fact that you can’t trade with someone you would usually trade with (member of your group) if they weren’t there when the item dropped (I think they need to be in the same zone?). This basically dictates when you should play and kind of forces you to create another character that you have to play if your group isn’t (fully) online. I am aware of the counter arguments, but I personally think this system is way to restrictive! Of course it’s pretty good in preventing botting and RMT, at least compared to free trade, but people will most likely still try to use bots to farm high corruption and claim all drops for themselves, basically quadrupeling their drops. Also, high corruption runs can be sold for real money, just without any guarantee that you will receive a specific item. In every system people will try to abuse it, so even in a system like the proposed one you will face botting and RMT problems.
Suggestions to extend this system have already been made, for example the trade tokens. These could be freely usable, or they could have restrictions aswell. Restrictions could be tiers (tokens for rare, exalted, unique, etc.) or they could be usable for specific persons (like if players A, B, C, D are playing and a token drops, it can only be used to trade with these players). They could also be gated behind some content like a dungeon. There are many possibilities to get rid of the “you have to be there when it drops” problem. Not everyone has the exact same amount of time to play but of course you like the game, you want to play the game, you want to play the game with your friends and if one of them is missing you’re getting penalized pretty hard imo.
3) Auction House:
A system using an auction house can give a lot of freedom to players while still keeping abuse pretty low. Of course there are a few prerequisites to make that work smoothly. One of them is the need of some sort of currency (or currencies). This can be gold but it can also be something else. Also, trades need to be anonymous. This means that the person “selling” the item in the AH mustn’t have any way to controll who buys the item. They can offer the item with a starting price and, if they want to, a buyout price. But they musn’t be allowed to choose who gets the item. Of course the system can still be abused, but as I already said, no system is perfect. Finally, if an AH in this form exists, P2P trading mustn’t be allowed! Of course you could limit the number of items one is allowed to offer, either by saying you can have X items simultaniously in the AH and/or saying you can trade up to Y items per week. EHG could also offer MTX which allow you to increase that number. Of course this would make some people scream P2W!!! but I wanted to mention this possibility anway. Another way would be to also have some kind of token which is needed to offer an item to the AH. Again, many possibilities here!
4) Guild Trading:
This system is similar to the proposed system, but trade would be free between guild members. Restrictions could be as follows: You have to be part of the guild for X days to be able to trade rares, Y days for exalts and Z days for uniques/sets. Something like that. Again, tokens could also be used in this system to support party play and engagement in the game.
These are some of the ideas we were talking about. I might add some more or give more details about the ones I already mentioned, but it’s kind of late and I’m getting sleepy lol.
Please feel free to add your feelings, hopes and worries. The devs said they monitor this thread, so if you want to have your voice heard as a member of this community, now is the time to do so!
Important Note: (This post will most likely be edited and extended a couple of times, not only to add more suggestions but also to keep things nice and clean and not clutter this thread with a million posts 
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