Why not just have an in-game vendor where you can buy every unique and “build your own” customized exalted with every affix you want for the right price? If scaled correctly, it would accomplish the same thing as a virtual market, and it would mostly ward off cheaters, duplicators, and real world currency.
I’ll tell you why not, because it would be dumb and boring, just like exchanging $$$ for all your items is. If you want something, go be a man and farm for it until it drops.
I ‘ve read that items drop / affixes being more deterministic is on the devs’ radar and they are aware of the problem. Can’t give the link to the post but I definitely read it last year. I hope that was not Mandela effect lol 
I get farming but nothing should be so rare that you have to farm for hundreds of hours for it. Bastion of Honour and Ravenous Void along with a few others come to mind. I still have not found a Ravenous Void and FINALLY got a BoH after farming 350+ Echoes with 400+ corruption. This is even after farming for it on other characters with 250+ corruption. In all it was 700+ Echoes at over 250 corruption across three characters that got one for me.
I don’t mind playing the game, but it comes to a point to where rewards are not matching effort and that is where you lose people.
Your sarcasm towards people that buy items in a game is funny to me. Allow me to show you my line of thinking:
I give myself a gaming budget. Personal time is valued at 2 times my salary at my job. If I make $40 an hour, then ANYTHING on my personal time that I choose to do has a face value of $80 an hour on it. If farming for an item to play the game to enjoy it takes me 128 hours to get, then that item cost me $10,240 worth of personal time to get it. I would rather spend $20 on a market place to get it. If and when that item finally drops, I can give to a friend or try to recoup a little money for it. In the meantime I get to enjoy my items playing my character how I want.
Laugh or whatever but I see people spending $10,000+ restoring a car, $4,000+ on hunting equipment, $4,000+ on an ATV and more. You are concerned about people wanting to spend money on a game they enjoy? I can spend $4,000 a year on gaming and come out ahead compared to people I know that have hobbies. This is my hobby, along with numerous other people that have disposable income. My apologies for working hard in life to get to a point where I do not have to spend numerous hours on a game farming to enjoy it. You can’t put a numerical money value on everything in life, but for a hobby, I will.
Spending time with family, there is no numerical value for it. A coworker has a saying that a day of overtime is a day away from my family that I can’t get back.
Actual decent droprates on items and being able to acquire them is awesome. This is one of the reasons I actually VERY VERY much enjoy Diablo 3. After playing the Diablo 4 end game beta, I can’t wait for it either as the droprates were fine for the endgame beta for EVERYTHING. I can moderately grind and in 2-3 weeks have everything I need for my class to excel and then roll another character and that for them also. Season will be around for a few months, so I can enjoy different classes which is a major plus.
P.S. I have not mowed my yard in 25 years as it is cheaper to pay someone on my time off than doing it myself. I could be spending time doing something more productive like sleeping. As I get older I may buy myself a riding mower for $3,500 and do it as something to enjoy and relax while drinking a beer and listening to music.
No, because trading automatically removes the RNG locks. There are other systems like div cards, ancient orbs and shards (for Mirror), but PoE having free trade assures that if you play the game, you will get the items you want with absolute certainty. It would still take a long time, but having that certainty doesn’t make you feel you are wasting your time chasing a 1/420m drop rate.
Cool. You’ll be happy to know, LE doesn’t have any RNG locks then. So no need for trade.
This is where you need to agree on terminology first before you can have a constructive conversation. Defining if ravenous void is the same item as ravenous void 4LP or not is a key piece in this distinction.
Personally I feel that they are the same item but not everyone agrees with me.
Build-enabling only requires the base item with no LP.
“End-game Progression” requires the same item, but now with better rolls and LP.
Trade for “Build-Enabling” would be pointless - we can get base items easily.
Trade for “End-game Progression” defeats the purpose of an ARPG.
In essence they are but in actuality they are not.
Two white swords with 40 FP are exactly the same. Turning one into a rare with four properties does not change the fact they are the same, just one does more for you.
Ravenous Void and Orion’s Eye are most definitely RNG locked items. Orion’s eye drops on average around once every 800 hours of play and there is not enough data for R.Void which is even more rare. There is no system that circumvents the RNG, thus they are locked behind and RNG wall.
There are multiple systems that you can make use of to increase your chance of getting these items.
They are still random drops and all the systems never guaranteed anything, but that is how loot driven games work for the most part.
Some items in the ultra-rare category appear to me as items that you should consider yourself lucky to get, not items you should specifically be farming for.
The fact that the items are insanely strong is maybe part of the problem, they shouldn’t just automatically be best in slot for almost all builds.
Trading guarantees targeted items.
Thank you! It is nice to see someone being honest that they want trade in order to be able to RMT. Not my cup of tea and blatantly a violation of the ToS of course.
Which shouldn’t exist in ARPGs.
This is the mindset that will get me to not play this game any more and at the same time tell my friends to not purchase it either. If you can’t play the game to the fullest and enjoy builds then why bother playing in the first place?
That still doesn’t change taht your statement was incorrect. You said there are no systems in place to circumvents the RNG.
Now one could argue what you exactly mean by “circumvents”, but since I am not a native speaker I might misinterpret how you would use that word.
But there are still systems in LE that greatly increase your chances.
There isn’t, you are still hoping for a random drop with nothing that helps you progress your goal.
sigh Well, yes, obviously. I mean, I don’t even need to farm the in-game currency to buy one since I can just go to an RMT site & buy it from lvl 1 (obviously I wouldn’t be able to use it, but I’m sure I could probably get someone to do that pesky levelling part for me as well).
Sorry, I thought it was blindingly obvious that I wasn’t referring to trade when I made that comment.
Not really, I’ve still not got a mirror or a headhunter or anything like that despite having 3.2k hours in PoE (on steam plus godknows how many more on their original client). Unless I should just have played more. I’ve not done the pinnacle bosses either but I should probably breeze through them by just not dieing & killing them first. Simples really.
Curious as to what that means. That entire post feels a bit transactional/money-based (& I’m an accountant), but if it works for you then fair enough. As long as you can afford it & stick within your means (which I assume you do given you give yourself a budget).
TBF, changing the odds isn’t the same as circumventing the RNG entirely. What you’re saying is “just” changing the odds in the players favour which is very different.
I own at least 3 of both of those.
Again, why bother playing a RNG loot-based game if all you want to do is get the items you want without engaging with the basis of the game.
I prefer to have zero RMTs. I do not mind spending money on a hobby though. The point is that I will try first and then proceed later if needed.
Also, I have reached a point that if there are drops that I want that are just really rare, I avoid that game and move on. I also inform my friends that enjoy playing games as a hobby the pros and cons of such game.