Free Trade Makes ARPGs Boring AF

General
1

Look I can understand that people would be mad that a feature originally promised has been reneged. The good news is that, in this case, the feature that was promised would have been a TERRIBLE mistake, and ditching it was absolutely the best move if EHG is trying to make a fun and satisfying ARPG.

I played D3 at launch, and it was boring AF. Why? The AH. It took the thrill of finding loot away. Instead of an exciting lottery-type rush every time you killed a boss or found a unique, it became essentially a numbers game. Thereā€™s no excitement when the perfect item drops, because I already have it. It makes the game too easy and takes the ā€œriskā€ and ā€œuse what youā€™ve gotā€ aspects out of it. Instead, everyone gets everything they want and itā€™s all sunshine and rainbows. But for some reason, your character feels empty.

This isnā€™t an MMO with a living economy where people are interacting all the time and there are a lot more variables. You kill monsters and grind for loot. Thatā€™s it. Having a mechanism by which you can exchange anything and everything you find for something of equal value that suits your specific playstyle trivializes the entire reason why ARPGs are interesting and challenging.

Min/maxers want a free trade system because it makes the game easier to get that perfect build with less effort. With a little time investment, you basically go to the market and choose the ideal items to match your wildest dream loadout. But the items you have arenā€™t yours. Someone else found them. I donā€™t know about you, but I remember the time and place where I found specific items I had been looking for just because itā€™s such a rush of excitement. Laissez faire trade takes feelings like this away.

Thereā€™s a reason D3 got rid of the AH in less than two years after launch. It made the game better, more rewarding, more difficult, and more fun. But I had long quit the game before then, because it was too easy, and basically just a bland free for all. Thereā€™s such a thing as too streamlined, too accessible, too convenient, and thatā€™s what a trade system does to a game like LE.

Thank you EHG for making this design choice, stay strong and donā€™t listen to the haters.

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An AH never was planned.

4

Well done!

Not entirely, you know the phenomenally bad drops you used to get in D3? That was because of the AH.

No, thatā€™d pretty much how it works. Heā€™s talking about how long it takes you to find the desired item on the AH (versus getting it as a drop), not how long it takes to get the currency (I would presume that heā€™s assumed youā€™ve already got the currency through playing up to that point).

Not really, Inferno was ridiculous on launch due to the difficulty (ā€œand then we doubled itā€) as well as the lack of loot.

Yes, that is generally how opinions work and is the case as much for the opposing views as his.

The idea behind it was sound, they knew that people indulged in RMT in D2 via various 3rd party sites and they were aware of the potential for scams so they wanted to provide a safe place for those RMT to happen where nobody could get scammed. It also happened that they could then charge a % fee on those RMT to help pay for the running costs so it was a win win situation.

Whatā€™s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, yes. If its OK for people who dislike trade/agree with the direction EHG have taken to be called white knights, it feels perfectly OK for the other side of the argument to be called haters.

Personally, I would like to have an AH 'cause trade in PoE is hideous (in my experience as someone who doesnā€™t indulge in the upper echelons of trading) unless thereā€™s a bot on the other side. Because Iā€™m not doing high(er) value trades people donā€™t want to break their mapping to trade (which I understand and appreciate) or, apparently, to even reply stating that theyā€™re mapping and will trade once theyā€™re finished (which is also fine), or that the item has sold already (again, also fine).

Do you honestly believe that that statement isnā€™t valid for the majority of posts on both sides of the argument?

To be fair, all that was promised was being able to trade with your friends (which is what most people seem to want and assume that that would have been free trade between their friends) and a car boot sale type form of trading with the wider community (before the feedback on that was apparently negative enough for the devs to scrap it). At no point have the devs ever said that there would be any form of unrestricted trade with the wider community and if people actually read the entirety of the trade section of the kickstarter then they would have noted the bit where the devs said that trade would never overshadow mobs as a source of loot. So when the devs come along with Gifting which is functionally equivalent to D3ā€™s trade (for anything that normal people would want to trade @Irrelevant!) a lot of people lost their #### because they didnā€™t think that that was going to be the case and the devs never said in their Gifting post that it was only an initial stab at it while they work on something more robust.

TLDR, they never promised what some/many think they promised (free trade), but thatā€™s still a far cry from what theyā€™ve delivered and how they messaged it.

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I only know of low drop rates and stupid item setups where weapons for str classes could roll with int for example. There is a reason why Blizz added smart loot with the drop rates. There was nothing bad about it and I had my gear in 200h while I donā€™t even getthe item I want in the same time frame in LE in at least one case ^^. So in my personal experience LEā€™s drops are far worse then vanilla diablos drops.

Thatā€™s a lot of assumptions from both of you. On his part: If he compares the whole part of item aquisation he have to do it in both ways. Take the PoE example farming 500CO vs dropping the desired item. If he compares klicking three buttons vs farming for 200h then the joke is even BIGGER.

Thatā€™s right but you knowā€¦ there are very healthy games out there with free trade so it looks like something is terribly wrong with his ā€œtruthā€ or I make all said games up and Iā€™m suffering from haluzinations.

The ammount of money I made was stupid and the taxes I payed even more. Was a good thing to be able to play 24/7 back then. I head some tears in my eyes when the removed it but I still think it was stupid. I look on RMT sites from time to and in the D3 days even more to see how the prices have been outside of the AH and in every case you got items cheaper outside of DĀ§ so it did nothing against RMT.

But someone who spreads no hate is hardly a hater ^^. If we had a heatet argument and someone started insulting and hating sure there is hate but atm there is discussion.

Heā€™s making up thread ā€œ#I donā€™t know how many there are nowā€ to put his oppinion out there in the blue like itā€™s something special without any substance outside his oppinion. I think this approves how little validation this topic has. Itā€™s just another ā€œI hate trade because I THINK it damages the game and I KNOW for a fact that it does because it did so for me in D3 but for the love of god I wont tell you why in any way shape or form!ā€. This is just putting fuel back into the fire shrug.

Thatā€™s the sauce for the goose but some people prefer to kill the patient with the cure ^^.

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The original plan for the Bazaar was an auction house. However, there would be limits to what could be sold at the Bazaar and friends could freely gift items to each other provided they were friends for a ā€œreasonable amount of timeā€.

The Bazaar that everyone usually references on this forum is the version that came much later in development. This version of the Bazaar changed at a conceptual level to be a more like browsing a random collection of individual player shops instead, with friends being able to gift items to each other, as long as the item dropped after both players joined the party. This is the version of the Bazaar that was removed from the forecast.

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ā€œJust donā€™t use the AHā€ isnā€™t valid. The possibility of pawning away items dilutes the process no matter what. I donā€™t want the option, and I donā€™t want anyone else to have the option. I hope you realize that if something like a full fledged market were introduced, they would have to adjust drop rates accordingly or there would be an over-saturation of valuable items. As such, any player not utilizing the system would be at an inherent disadvantage.

A free market AH system basically turns every item into $$$ signs without diminishing returns. Yeah thereā€™s still a grind, but itā€™s a predictable, linear grind. One word: BO-RING. I want to care about what drops. I want to be pissed when something I donā€™t want drops. Because it makes the good stuff even sweeter.

And I donā€™t really care what the ā€œotherā€ ARPGs are doing. LE is going for a more old school approach to the system - itā€™s perfectly valid, and in my opinion, totally superior design-wise.

You say being called a hater is offensive, yet you call me a feminist, and thatā€™s way more offensive than being called a hater. :wink:

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lol

Like I said in the enormus trade discussion that is ongoing and you might have seenā€¦ I donā€™t want unrestricted free trade. There are a lot of options to implement a trading system in a healthy way.
On top of that weā€™ll have most likely a oversaturation of valuable items in full party groups that play effective. According to your logic there shouldā€™nt be full groups and effective gameplay because of the advantage as such every player who isnā€™t playing effective or in a full group is in a disatvantage.

Unrestricted free trade does yes but regulated trade doesnt.

playing the game = playing the game = playing the game. There is no right or wrong approach unless someone makes one up. Oh btw for everyone who isnā€™t into tradingā€¦ ever heared of SSF? All problem solved for trade haters IF the devs have a brain.
The community came up with a load of suggestions and options to make SSF worthwhile without touching the droprates and have trade in the normal modeā€¦ then again you might not have read the trade discussion because you come up with the same old song that wasnā€™t an argument days ago.
Right now we need D3 ammounts of drops and I canā€™t think of many people I know who realy like it this wayā€¦ I can think of noone to be honest.

OLD SCHOOL WAS FREE TRADE! I use capital letters so it might catch your attention. ALL old school games worked that way and the only games that changed it came from blizzard. Old school = free trade ^^.

BTW Iā€™m done with this thread untill realism moves in and common sence has the upper hand lol.

So people should stop developing games because all systems in place are exploitable? Trade isnā€™t the only thing exploitable but nothing is done when people exploit in other ways and there are a lot of examples in the past where nothing was done.
LE wonā€™t have enough players to ban a lot of them when the game goes live because right now itā€™s getting obvious that this game is not made for regulars and noone cares about regulars or old school genre standarts or putting up something fresh for everyone but thatā€™s just my point of view.

I still think a middle ground is the best thing to aim for instead of making up stuff. I get the droprate problem but still there are plenty of ways to tackle those problems. Everything else is just a simple filling and playing boogyman with made up stuff. I realy hope the devs will be back soon and shed some light on the matter.

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You mean more items drop if thereā€™s trade? OR, is it that the exact same amount of items drop, only people can exchange them with one another to get the items they actually need? I know, I know, that would totally brake duh gaime!

You know what really introduces more items into the game? Multiplayer. Because now, when a boss dies, it must drop items for every member of the group. If it doesnā€™t, whatā€™s the point of grouping? Also, content is cleared more efficiently in groups (theoretically), so more loot drops in the same amount of time, compared to solo.

So just by having multiplayer functionality, drops have to be adjusted. Yeah, I know. It sucks when your own stupid logic is used against you.

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Yes, barely restricted access to all the items you ā€œneedā€ is game-breaking. Prima donnas act like the game isnā€™t playable unless you have maxxed top tier affixes on every last slot. Heaven forbid you use less than optimum gear until something better comes around.

How are multiplayer drop rates remotely comparable to the full-fledged D3 AH system people are demanding? Ofc if four people are playing, then the amount of loot should correspond to how much would otherwise be received if everyone was grinding individually. Sure, this is a considerable advantage and incentivizes multiplayer, but itā€™s still nothing compared to an unrestricted ā€œcapitalism simulationā€ (as someone else rightly put it.) And instanced loot solves this ā€œproblemā€ entirely.

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OK, letā€™s assume that there is a boss who is both solo-able and viable in group play. In that case, the boss drops twice the amount of loot for group of 2 players, 3 times as much for 3 ā€¦ this linear scaling does not introduce more loot (in absolute values) to the game than solo play. The sum of loot is the same for both cases: people group together and everybody plays solo.

If the loot scaling was exponential, like the boss would drop e.g. 4 times the amount of loot for 2-players group, 8 times for 3-player group etc., then it would introduce more loot into the game than solo play.

If a boss is not solo-able, then the amount of loot does not need to satisfy all players in the group, people would have incentive to fight the boss more times (which IMHO is a bad and lazy game design but very common in MMORPGs).

IMO (and I can be wrong) a really healthy in-game economy needs scarcity of items. Then they have value. What would be your incentive to pick up a common item, drag it to the ā€œtownā€ and auction it? You couldā€™ve spent your in-game time in a different way. What would be anybodyā€™s incentive to buy your item if it was easily obtainable in-game? The scarcer the item is, the more valuable it is, assuming it provides value to the buyers.

However, for the item to have any value, it has to provide an in-game advantage. Usually it means to make someoneā€™s character stronger to access harder content. Otherwise the item would not provide any value to anybody and there would be no reason to search for it or buy it.

Which means two things: best items need to be very scarce and have to provide an in-game advantage, like an access to a specific content. And this is my fear: if the game is balanced around market economy (which it has to be to make it viable) then it simply provides worse experience for players who want to play in SSF mode.

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That was just Blizzard messing things up. They set the drop rates too high, after removing teh AH, and later added stuff like Challenge Rift rewards and Haedrigā€™s gifts that sped up progression even more. Add in uncapped paragons and massive XP(Paragon) rewards for playing 4-man metas and you have a terribly designed endgame.

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You obviously do not understand loot:time ratios. Yes, a boss that drops 3x the loot, for 3 people, that is killed in 1/4th or 1/3rd the time, introduces more loot over a similar time period than 3 people doing it solo.

Let me just visualize it, dummy-style for you:

Fictional boss has 3 dropsā€¦ takes solo 3 minutes, takes group 1 minute

3 people kill boss in 1 minute = 9 loot/minute (or 3 loot/minute each)
3 people each kill boss solo in 3 minutes = 9 loot/3 minutes = 3 loot/minute (or 1 loot/minute each)

And, speaking of value of items, you know what the current value of all unique/legendary/set items is, at the momentā€¦ regardless of rarity? 500 gold. Thatā€™s it. Unless you actually need it, then it serves that need. If I donā€™t need a 4LP Salt of the Earth, you know how much itā€™s worth? 500 gold. Thatā€™s it. No more. I canā€™t do anything with it, unless I have a need for it.

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Good group will kill boss faster then solo player regardles scaling and it was like this in all MP games which I played.

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This is yet another ā€œI dont like something, so it must apply to everyone else alsoā€ posts. Yes, D3ā€™s AH was shit, we can all agree. It wasnt shit because you could get what items you wanted, it was shit because it was a whitelisted form of RMT.

This is so simple it almost is mind blowingā€¦dont trade if you dont like it! It makes as much sense as us ssf PoE players making reddit posts about the demon know as trade. Like, bitch, you chose to play ssf so you have no place to gripe!

Trade can cause player created werid spots in the economy, yes. Trade enables RMT. Trade can make obtaining certain items difficult, not for natural reasons, but because some idiot spends his life acquiring every existing item and then price fixes. Those are valid talking points.

Wearing gear you bought doesnt feel as good as wearing gear you found or madeā€¦this is weak.

Without proper trading, this game has no buisness being online all the time. Making me be online so I can partake in a leaderboard? LOL nah I will just keep my characters offline.

Grim Dawn thrives (relatively) speaking even today because the devs gave the players the tools needed to make the game whatever you want to be. EHG could learn a lesson from Crate.

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You are implying ā€œTrade works for me so it has to work for everyone else also.ā€ The same thing.

One possible solution could be different probability of loot drops for Trade/SSF modes. Question is how realistic it is to implement and maintain.

ā€œdont trade if you dont like itā€ ā€¦ this does not work, as I said previously. Any game balanced around trading crates worse experience for people who want to play SSF for wahtever reason.

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Im implying nothing, I have made it clear I am a ssf player, but it doesnt mean I think this decision benefits anybody. You, me, or anybody else here knows 0 about how EHG would have nerfed drops to compensate, if you looked thru the blogs you would have read that group play would not significantly increase quant like PoE. you are just playing a good game with some friends/randoms. You can imagine any fictional outcome you like.

There are a hell of a lot of us who play SSF PoE. we know damn well going into it we are at a disadvantage. Some of us like that, it makes putting something together that does well from literally nothing. Stop speaking for a group of us who like a mode, a mode you obviously know little about.

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It is obvious that you dont know what you are talking about. There will be always more skill synergies within party then solo or you can dedicate char to classic roles like tank/support/damage. You will see how many builds will be there in future which will be MP specific. It is absolutly normal in MP enviroment.

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I admire your stamina. I would have given up 2 or 3 posts ago I think lol.
Some people donā€™t want to learn or listen.
But at least itā€™s entertaining for me to read some of the lunacy of some people here. :slight_smile:

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What do you mean by ā€œshouldā€?

  1. The devs ā€œshouldā€ balance and reduce / remove synergies to limit the advantages?

or

  1. In theory there is no big advantage?

If itā€™s 2, youā€™re absolutely wrong. There are crazy possibilities to create op synergies, if they donā€™t get artificially limited. In SP you are limited in creating synergies between masteries. That restriction is gone in MP when you can buff your Lich friend with your Necroā€™s dread Shade (an example tha Lizard gave in one of his videos).

Also if you followed the MP posts, you know that enemies only scale with hp, not damage. That makes MP easier than SP. Enemy damage is distributed to several players (so the portion in general is lower) while player damage is more than doubled because of debuffs and skills that synergize.

If you mean 1, then whatā€™s the purpose of MP if not creating some nice synergies? Thatā€™s also something EHG stated during development. They want well coordinated groups to perform better than a bunch of strangers.

Whoā€™s demanding that? All the people discussing here have stated several times, that they want a form of restricted trading, similar to the Bazaar concept that EHG hat in the works.

There are also some threads suggesting other restrictive methods of trading. Thatā€™s all some people want. Maybe there still are people that want unrestricted trading. But these people are somewhere else and not participating in the current discussions.

Only every day somebody thinks to create a new thread and throw the same arguments around like others before. Same lame arguments, same lame answers. Everything is going in circles.

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The original bazaar or the later one?