Does LE really need a conventional trading system?

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1

First, I want to clarify that I know there are enough topics discussing about trade, but I want to come to a conclusion whether the trading system should exist here or not and it didn’t seem appropriate to post it in any of these threads.

Why people wants a trade system

Because:

  • Wants to trade/gift stuff between friends
  • Wants to sell some of his unused stuff to get useful items.

If we talk about the trading/gifting part between friends, EHG already covered it with their “gifting system” which I think needs to be improved, like the thread with the idea of a ​​"Token" for example, so I will not touch this part. Only the other one that so many players (including myself) believe that it is necessary to exist.

We know that an open free trade system could give to EHG many problems: RMT, bots, balancing the game around trade and not solo-group gameplay, etc. So I’ll talk about it a bit, comparing it with PoE because YOU KNOW WHY, DON’T ASK.

What feels bad when you trade on Path of Exile

The developers of LE want the game to be focused on people finding their items through killing stuff and crafting equipment by themselves, instead of play an economy simulator like people call it here. Something that I agree. Everytime in Path of Exile I need specific modifiers to craft, it’s always better to buy it rather than doing it by myself because it’s more expensive unless I hit the RNG jackpot. That encourages me to try to not spend the few “coins” (Divine Orbs) I have in being lucky and in the end, I buy all my gear. The people who craft that equipment, it’s normally because they just take the risk or are the most “tryhards” (I don’t meant to be pejorative) people who kill the toughest bosses in the game in a few days in a starter league and juice their maps as much as they can to get the most currency possible in the shortest time. The majority of the people just buy their equipment except maybe a few items. I’m sure about saying the majority of people? Well, when you see the PoE market and a lot of the good stuff cost +20 Divine Orbs (and there aren’t many of them), you know that is not something every people have an easy access.

So, the point in this part, is that indeed finding your stuff and crafting by yourself is something fun rather than just buy the equipment already crafted, and I accept that point of view of EHG. BUT is not only that! There is something else, and I’ll mention it in “What feels nice when you trade on PoE”

Also, trading everyday in PoE is something like this:

Find some loot → go to your hideout → Put in a public stash and check the price on PoE trade website or using third party tool → Price it and go to do your business → As soon as a message arrives, quickly invite the guy and to avoid waste your time and time of your buyer, send trade as soon as he arrive in the Hideout → say “Thank you” → quickly leave the party and return as soon as you can to map. While maybe it doesn’t sounds bad at all, is in fact one of the most annoying things ever. Path of Exile for many people is a constant rush to “not waste time” being on the Hideout, so every action I describe, you do it as quickly as you can, no social interactions. If you take your time, the progress will be very slowly. Not for anything there is an expression that says “The Hideout is lava”.

What feels nice when you trade on PoE?

What feels nice like taking drugs (say NO to drugs!) is that sensation when you find something valuable that make people jump of their chair. I’ll do a comparison.

In Path of Exile, if you drop a worthless currency like an “Orb of Transmutation” (transforms a normal item into a magic one), you decide if pick it up or not. It have a distinctive brownish colour by the lootfilter and doesn’t make any sound when it drops. Buuuuut when it drops a valuable currency like the “Divine Orb”, with that distinctive sound and colour, you know you get a treasure that it opens your possibility to decide if using it to craft (exchanging it for currency) or buy your equipment. Here is an image when it drops on the ground: https://lr.mint.lgbt/img/ovoanbzrlmh91.png

This apply the same to top-chasing Uniques, valuable skill gems (Empower, Enlighten, Enhancer), valuable Divination cards, expensive specific maps, etc. PoE have a lot of items that makes the loot feel NICE after killing hundreds of enemies.

While Last Epoch have some of that, at the same time, you know that every Unique you get worth 500 Gold for the NPC and doesn’t matter if it’s the top number 1 of the Uniques, it will always be worthless for that NPC. What if the player didn’t really want that Unique? Just stash it if “one day” want to do something with it? Sell it for 500 worthless gold? This is the other point I wanted to reach.

When players say that want a better trade system here and try to give alternative options to avoid the problem that brings a free open trading system (RMT, bots, balancing the game around trading and not solo/group), it’s because people want their treasure to worth something! Where is the excitement if something that is so hard to drop, finally appears and doesn’t mean anything to you? That, that feels bad.

But if EHG doesn’t want the problems that brings an open trade system, it’s impossible to apply it then. None of the multiplayer RPGs with trading system are safe from this. Even if you limit the trade system, if will not feel good enough to make it viable and players will get mad anyway or the market will just be ignored. This is actually what the community is discussing so i’ll not say “i’m 100% sure that this is not possible and there is nothing else to say”. I expect people to be creative and see if there could be something good to replace an open free trade system. BUT, as I say before, I’ll continue the point that wanted to reach before.

And the point is?

The point is that maybe Last Epoch if want the existence of leagues like PoE, requires you to be connected to a LE server like PoE and want to offer you a multiplayer system like PoE, doesn’t mean it needs a trading system like PoE. A gift system will exist to try to satisfy the gifting between friends. And to satisfy the needing of a trading system so your loot worth something?

I think that’s what the game needs. Make it clear when you get something valuable. Make your drops valuable, like PoE does.

How make them valuable? If you can’t trade it with other players, trade it with a NPC that offer something worth of it!

When you interact with a NPC in any RPG, those programmed robotics scammers will just give you worthless amount of currency, whatever it is. Why the developers never try to make trading between NPC and players more interesting? Because always exist a trade system between players to cover that. But if here we don’t have a trade system for other reasons… Then make them valuable for the NPC! If you offer a top-unique, instead of 500 gold, why not offer x20 Runes (random example) if you want to craft? If you drop a valuable double T7 item, why the NPC doesn’t offer an immense amount of gold to try luck and spend it on the Lightless Arbor? Why there isn’t a NPC where he can haggle the prices of items you offer?

Maybe the answer is because it will hard to implement, right? If EHG wants this game to be different, I think it worth the try and with that, doing something different!

This is my idea that I already mentioned twice I think. Trade not with a player, but with differents special NPCs. You won’t have RMT, bots, you will never need to balance the game around a trading system and EHG will always have a control of the prices if they need to change something.

What do you think? I tried to cover all, I hope I didn’t forget something.

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Yes. Exactly this. Make it part of the game not something you do separate from the game in a separate popup window.

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Absolutely not. Next question.

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That was my conclusion but do you read what I propose to change? Because leave things as they currently work, doesn’t seem to be a good idea.

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Interesting post, but its weird that you are completely ingoring the other side of all trades: Buying.
The other benefits you mention are nice and all, but they are mostly an afterthought.

Trade is first and foremost a very significant consistency booster, it allows to guarantee that you are able to obtain certain items.
If your build requires a certain unique to function properly, with trade you can be sure to obtain it (with sufficient grinding), without it, there is no amount of grind that can guarantee you to drop certain uniques.
In the other thread I think that is was a mention of someone grinding for 100h just to drop exanguinous (this might be wrong, don’t quote me on this specific number). In PoE, there are very few items that you cannot obtain with 100h of grinding. When your game manages to be more of a grindfest than PoE, that is saying something.

For a lot of players this is fine, the lack of consistecy is fine. It encourages a playstyle where you see what you get, and you plan your build consequently.
However, there are players that like to plan their build in advance, and without trade, a lot of build require a significant amount of luck to pull off.

PS: Making the NPC prices very low was an intentional design decision to disincentivize players from doing vendor runs. Your suggestion would undo this.
There needs to be better drop sinks, but vendors are not desirable in my opinion.

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Thank you for mention it, I forgot that part. I’ll explain what I think.

Trading could harm the game in the way that drops will need to be balacing around, well, trades. If you eliminate trading between players from the equation, then the game should provide the solution to avoid that 100h grinding on that specific Unique you want, unless we are talking about a Headhunter/Mageblood equivalent in LE.

This doesn’t mean that EHG needs trade between players to fix it. The way to obtain that desired Unique/item could be through a rare NPC traveler, a boss drop, a zone drop, an in-game event like PoE have like: Abyss, Legion, Incursions, Heist, Delve or NPCs helping the player like Einhar, where you need to hunt differents beasts.

So lack of consistency as you say, it’s fine. But if there is a problem, EHG should provide an in-game solution. And I feel now that it could work without needing a trading system between players.

I understand that decision, and I agree. Town NPCs shouldn’t be rich and pay you crazy amounts of Gold, Runes or other valuable items. But the thread with the idea of “The Caravan” could be an option. The NPC who pay you more could be a bit rare, or could be guarded behind a Dungeon, or could be “Camps” of warriors that you find in your maps at random and they will have enough money to offering you something valuable for your Unique/crafted equipment/currency. Trading between NPC and players could perfectly replace trading between players if EHG look around it.

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An example that comes to mind is the enchanter in TL2 that would randomly spawn in certain areas. However if your build requires a 3-4lp rare unique I competely agree with EHG sticking with that never being tradeable.

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Absolutely.
Trade is dangerous, and could do more harm than good.
However, consistency is a very big reason of why people want trade.
And right now the game does provide very little means of target farming specific uniques.
Proposing an alternative to trade, as your post is advertized, and not address the consistency issue at all is not going to make for a good replacement of what trade offers.

That depends on what you mean when you say perfectly replace.
Do you mean something that people that want trade are going to be happy with?
Because, well, the broken part of trade is what a lot of players want.
In a lot of respects, EHG and the players are in direct opposition on the matter.
Those that want full unrestricted trade want it for its flexibility and power.
EHG does not want players to have full unrestricted trade also because of its negative consequences on the game (which are due to its flexibility and power).

PS. I should perhaps make my position clear on the matter of trade: I will play the game regardless, but I was disappointed in the announcement.
If gifting is what we will get, I will play SSF.
I realize that this is not an easy problem to solve (and perhaps even impossible), but I was hoping for something more than just gifting.

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I understand you, if you see my profile, you will notice that i’m one of these guys who are dissapointed with the cancellation of the Bazaar/Trading system.

Then I remember what I like and what I dislike of trading in PoE. And honestly, I almost hate everything except two things:

  1. If I need a specific common Unique and don’t want to spend time killing the same boss over and over (or farm Divination cards, or whatever), I just look on PoE Trade website and then work in the improvements of my rare items by myself (at least I try). As you clearly state, here actually there aren’t ways of get these Uniques like PoE have, but i’m confident that EHG will understand that they need to be more target-farmable, and do something with it in a future. Or I hope at least.
  2. Selling my valuable items. Lots of different prices. x10 Orb of Chaos, x20, x50, x1 Divine Orb, etc.

The first thing can be solved, the second can be try to be solved replacing it with NPCs who “know” to offer you a proper value, or where they will try to buy it by low amounts and you need to “haggle” to try to sell it for more, like an inversed Tujen (NPC of PoE who asks “X” amount of currency and you can try to lowballing his prices).

I’m not sure at all. As I say, I’m one of those who really want a trade system to exist, but for the reasons I mention before. Pulling that out, I don’t want to spend crazy amounts of currency crafting something by myself because I don’t have luck (PoE case). I want to craft my equipment with effort like LE try to do. In the end in PoE, I buy almost all my equipment and to be honest, I don’t want that here. I want to sell my treasures (it’s a loot game!) but I don’t want to get my gear effortlessly with just one click on the trade page of a website (or auction house, or whatever).

Maybe this last paragraph is just me, and people really want the broken part of trade. I feel anyway the game would work great if LE try to make some of your drops valuable close as PoE do, but without the trading between players part.

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What do you mean when you say consistency? Are you just using it as a synonym for easy/quick?

Some uniques (boss drops) can most definitely be target farmed (by killing the boss which is easier in empowered monos as you only need to get enough stability then do the 3rd quest echo. For any other unique, there are several methods to “target farm” them:

  • Run the base-specific reward echos (though obviously these aren’t one of the common rewards)
  • Use Rune of Ascendances (not sure if that’s the correct plural) on the relevant item slot

Not entirely sure how many more methods we need, though one or two more probably wouldn’t hurt.

There actually are, though not quite as specific as some div cards, I think the Rune of Ascendance is probably pretty close to PoE’s more generic div cards (ie, the unique belt/helm/etc ones).

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Not really, when I farmed a mageblood in PoE it was not quick or easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was predictable.
By following my plan (farming invitations and profit crafting) I could generate a predictable currency, which would allow me to ultimately buy the mageblood.
Many other item slots followed the same procedure, I knew what I wanted, and I accummulated currency until I was able to afford it. There was a bit of variance on the amount of currency generated but the ultimate outcome was completely certain.
This is what I mean when I say consistency.

LE has no such thing, while yes, you can increase your odds of getting something, and some drops can be trivially target farmed, I hope you will agree that we are not even in the same ballpark as the consistency afforded by trade.

While this consistency is desirable for some, it is exactly what many other have been escaping from, and is definitely not what EHG wants for the game.
I don’t think that unrestricted trade would be good for the game, I think that the particular nature of crafting in LE could spell disaster for an hypothetical open trade economy.
However, here I am argumenting for the benefits that trade offers and why some players might seek it.

The game cannot cater to all kinds of players at the same time, nor it should.
I will still play the game without trade (as I have done thus far, probably in SSF), this is not the only or the superior way to enjoy an ARPG, but it is a valid way.

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Very interesting. How many hours/days do you think it took to get to it, considering is the most expensive Unique in PoE?

This is what I would like to see in the future for Last Epoch, and with that, maybe will never miss a trading system between players. Trying to summarize:

  • To “buy” what you want:
    Lots of alternative ways of target-farm what you need (Boss/Zone/Dungeon farming, Divination cards equivalent, new creative ways/etc). So the time you spent farming currency to buy it to other player, you instead farm to get that specific thing you want.

  • To sell what you don’t want/need at that moment:
    Make the loot valuable like PoE does. Use new NPCs (in town, gated behind a Dungeon or at random in Echoes) who “knows” that you’re offering something worth of exchange and is willing to pay in Gold/Runes/Glyphs/other gear/new future currency/etc.

Also, I would like to see more variable loot than just Runes, Glyphs, Keys and Gear. We need our Oils, Fossils, Influenced Orbs, Incubators, Scarabs, Artifacts, etc. but in a LE way. We also need our own events like I said before (Legion, Breach, Heist, etc and NPC like Einhar, Jun, Niko, Alva).

With all this, I don’t see how will be need a trading system. Maybe now feels necessary because lacks of all that, but this should be the future of Last Epoch!

PS: I want my shiny loot like when it drops a Divine Orb! I need it!

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Build-enabling Uniques drop like candy. There is no reason to trade for them.

That only leaves power. i.e. better exalts, and uniques with LP + exalts.

That’s it. That’s all the “chase” there is in Last Epoch. Trading would just make that easier, which defeats the purpose of playing.

No thanks.

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Seems you don’t like to read. When you take the time to read what we discuss, i’ll appreciate any constructive comment. Meanwhile, what you say, doesn’t make any sense with what we are talking about.

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Personally this sickens me. The most fun I ever had in poe was Harvest league where I crafted this really cool lightning staff that I improved over time. I developed an emotional bond with it, very “This is my rifle, This is my gun” attachment. The thought of boiling everything down to dollar signs would be a tragedy.

(I understand your stance, I just this as an opportune moment to explain my opinion)

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Oh, so you’re saying we need an additional 9 years of content/development to give us the rich crafting/economic systems we want? Well, yeah, I guess…

Yes, I am being silly. And yes, I’m sure in 9 years ofter the devs have been adding more stuff LE will be a trillion % more awesome.

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That is a rather common stance, especially here in the forums.
I am well aware that the currency-centric approach of PoE is not desirable for many players.
I wanted to share my opinion because I think that here in the forums there is certain propensity to just prentend that PoE is an inherently bad game with no redeeming qualities.
From my point of view, I enjoy playing the market aspects of PoE.

The story I mentioned takes place during sentinel league.
During which I had a rather fun time, mostly because recombinators were a very fun addition to the game. I found a few very profitable niches that had consistent returns using recombinators and the game (and the market) rewarded a lot experimentation.

I should mention that I had a few self-crafted items (gloves amulet and boots).
That was because even in the currency-centric nature of PoE, if you know what you were doing, it is still much better to self craft some items than to ready-buy them from the market.
Usually, (mid- and late-game) items are wildly overpriced.
People who craft them are still trying to make a profit out of it, so they price them assuming zero luck, if you know what the procedure for crafting is, you can often get that or better outcome for the same amount of currency.
In the case of my gloves it paid off enormously, and I ended up with the best gloves I ever owned for very cheap.
In this respect, I would not say that everything is boiled down to JUST its currency value, as a lot of my items have stories attached to them. However, I think its very clear that the currency value is an important and almost totalizing factor in the items in PoE, especially for the players that are not willing to engage in the obtuse crafting system.

I unfortunately missed harvest league, but would have been very curious to play a more crafting oriented gameplay (and the stance of GGG suggests that that will never happen again).

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I’m sorry, I think I wasn’t clear that the stuff I ask will take years to be here. My point was: I hope will be here. I would love that LE take the PoE route (except the things that nobody likes of PoE, like the trading system in question) instead of the Grim Dawn route (that it results boring for me, there is nothing to grind except Legendary/Unique items).

Edit: I’ll correct my sentence here “Also, I would like to see more variable loot IN THE FUTURE than just Runes, Glyphs, Keys and Gear.”

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In my opinion?
Conventional trading - no. I think avoiding the “balance the economy” route is very smart and will make a good game.
Group trading - yes. and by that I mean that I need free and open trading with my friends, no limits. introduce some rule that you must know these people for X time to open trade, I don’t care. all I know is that Im gonna play LE with my brother and we’re gonna switch items with each other a lot.

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I agree that the gifting system needs to be improved, i’m sure they will find a way to reach that goal without players trying to exploit it.

I think it too of course, I understand the PoV of EHG. Since the problem is trading between players, that’s why I suggest the implement of NPC (when there is more content in the future) who could replace the need of trade with others players. NPCs who trade/buy your stuff for differents amounts depending of what you offer.