I think I wrote about 10 times in high detail about it.
The design aspects which are bad:
Access limitation based on ranks.
Problem: Sure, it can be done, but then it needs to be finetuned immensely. Which it isn’t. We’re talking about being able to buy Uberroth uniques at Rank 3 but exalted items earliest at Rank 5.
This is not acceptable.
Solution: A so-called ‘power based’ decision system for access. It includes acquisition rate, acquisition position for content and Affix count and spread. Harder to set up, necessary for a RNG-based itemization system like we have.
Gold-based Economy:
Problem: Also not inherently one, though it is in the current setup. Gold from MG can be used in Lightless Arbour via CoF, which is double-dipping. That’s not allowed to happen when the systems are supposed to be separate.
The second issue is the technical numerical limitations of 2,5 Bil max limit, which is easily reached as sales happen at the minimum of the 1000 magnitude and not 1 magnitude after all. This causes several items which are extremely rare to be more valued then the maximal available amount of Gold possible to be held.
Not to get into the issue of Gold sinks here even, because the inflation based on the lack of sinks is another topic in itself.
Solution: A separate currency, be it gems, platinum, whatever. Those start with the Magnitude of ‘1’, which allows 1000 times higher prices in itself.
It also removes the Lightless Arbour double-dip.
And a mechanic solely dedicated to MG which has item creation (something like the map runners or shipments of Path of Exile’s Settler league system for example) or a crafting mechanic unique to it to allow a dedicated long-term sink.
Listing costs:
Problem: The listing costs are not adjusted according to item value, they are adjusted according to item type majorly. A well-rolled 4 T5 rare is not supposed to have the same listing price as a 0 FP failed rare item with Affixes all over the place. Same with legendaries of common uniques costing vastly more to list then extremely highly sought-after uniques without LP in comparison.
Solution: Same as the Access limitation. Power based system in the background.
Listing space:
Problem: Currently you can list as many items as you want. This causes the market to be flooded. The longer you play the more likely you’ll have items in the market which aren’t valuable enough to re-list and pay once again, as well as taking up ‘space’ for the people following after you. Month 1 of the Cycle you can basically not make profit with regularly needed but high supply items.
This causes people early ina Cycle to snowball off the early efforts every further while someone even going in a day late or being non-optimal in terms of progression at times entirely missing out and getting either no sales for the same items or magnitudes lower in price.
Solution: Limited listing slots. Number has to be determined but that’s the important aspect. If you ‘only’ have for example 200 slots then you’ll only list the 200 highest valued items instead of - like I did at one time - 7500 items total. This enforces choice and longer-term players will have only their valued items listed, leaving ‘space’ for those coming after them to list lower value items and acrue value which is the direct progression system in MG.
Price checking:
Problem: Price checking is a disaster currently. It takes absolute ages. Not only do we have separate traders which only showcase their stock enforcing you to move between them during those price-checks. You also need to move between the stash and the trader. You then also have to search for the specific base with the specific mods given from not only 1 but 2 dropdown list separately accessed. Then you need to change the listing method from ‘newest’ to ‘lowest’ as it’s not the primary sorting method and then you need to check for the respective rolls afterwards manually. Absolutely unacceptable state.
Solution: Since it is in-game based only they need to provide a quick-check functionality, nothing below is acceptable. You press the button combination, it open the layout to choose which aspects are to be price-checked against the available ones in the market and you need to have the ability to adjust roll-ranges accordingly downwards to get appropriate price comparisons. Same as base-check or avoiding the base to be taken into consideration for direct rolled items or LP slammable ones.
UI issues:
Problem: Ever tried to search for a 3% pen idol? You don’t get presented with a slider stating ‘1%, 2%, 3%’… you get one from ‘1%-100% roll value’. I as a player really don’t care, and I also have no ability to ensure I chose the lowest percentile available for my roll. 3% is 3%, I don’t give a shit - plainly spoken - if it’s in the 67% roll range or the 85% roll range. This is mind-baffling bad design. Any game-dev student will facepalm at that, it’s unacceptable.
Also we can’t sort by roll-range after picking the Affixes we want. This is only a thing with Idols as well, not with items. Why the methodology difference? It’s a sign of bad quality.
As mentioned before the default sorting state is ‘new to old’ rather then ‘low price to high price’, which inherently is not the commonly used default sorting state for a reason. It has vastly less functionality after all and is majorly used in seeing if supply and demand uphold and how to price according to that parameter.
We have no way of re-listing items at all without re-paying, which makes the vast majority of items ‘dead weight’ in the system. You already invested the resources… so taking it out again would be nonsensical, the logical conclusion which follows is ‘leave it in to rot, maybe in the future the situation changes’.
Search is split into separate windows and dropdowns which need to be individually accessed. This is obviously a net-negative. Count the clicks needed for ensuring you get the exact right item in LE compared to PoE (counting the trading site). The process is actually: Click on sorting method → Choose price low → click on subtype → click on all-classes or class specific → choose → close → expand options → click on affixes → search through the sub-dropdowns again… alternatively write it in → click on dropdown for tier → choose tier → slider for rolle-range.
Why so many dropdowns? Because the font is massive, each individual value takes up a massive amount of space, which is bad UI design. Form over function.
Next up we also have another issue, the ‘personal’ Affixes? (Champion Affixes btw, which nobody sane should know they are called ‘personal’ for whatever reason?) aren’t searchable by function, only by name. So if I need one on gloves I can only find it via the dropdown or by knowing the name, as example ‘Mirage Champion’s’. This is senseless as well and doesn’t fit with the UI otherwise.
Solution: Proper consistent UI design. One method needs to be seen everywhere, not idols having a different one from normal Affixes which have a different one from Champion (ah, sorry… ‘Personal’) Affixes. This is low quality simply.
Font changes. Function over Form is mandatory with any complex system. LE’s UI looks nice but is really bad.
Universal window, enforcing a specifically designed UI on top of the window, with proper space to allow options and listing to be separate. The most commonly seen method is either choosing the options first without any display and a toggle between the search and the options, allowing both to take up the entire screen rather then small aspects being shared… or to put it on the side so ‘on the fly’ changes can happen.
Those are a sub-set of the issues. I’m sure I’ve forgotten about a lot of em, but it should be easily seen that there are substantial issues available.
When I talk about ‘20+ year long known issues’ then I look back at D2. Gold was initially the way to trade and got very swiftly changed to a barter system since it had no ability to represent the value because of limitations. The exact same thing happening in LE. With LoD runes took up the space of unique bartering, still existed but was less.
This was done to circumvent the problems from Gold, which was possible via direct trade. In LE we can’t do that since direct trade is enforced to only work with play-time together. So instead we’re mandated to use a broken mechanic which we can’t properly circumvent to alleviate the clear shortcomings.
Do you mean broken builds in Standard?
This will happen in LE too, so LE will be shit for you by then.
Also what do you mean with ‘everything’? That’s a nonsensical comment. Is having levels bad? LE has em too, so it’s shit, right? Or is it having a passive tree? Or is it having mobs? Or is it having a RNG-based highly mutable drop-table? Or is it…
Be a bit more specific there, generalizations like you provided are not helpful beyond ‘Yeah, you don’t like the game’. Nobody can see if you’re talking out of your ass or got proper reasons for it.
Without proper explanations and only generalizations it’s really not shining the best light on you I have to say.
