The Bazaar

General
21

because I don’t want to spam the gambler just to get gear for my character (which has been the case for every character I have ever leveled).
you literally get worse drops in this game then you do in path of exile (and that game has pretty bad drop rates).
To counter the abysmal drops you need a solid trade system (which PoE never really implemented) Or you need to fix the issue which is nothing but trash drops.

1 Like
22

I can only speak for myself, but as for me, I really like this approach.

It enhances my core gameplay, as I have one more location to find something interesting.
It doesn’t always has to be for my current character, but maybe I find a good roll for my other characters or a new idea.
This way, self-found will also stay at the top of the “drop-foodchain”.
Also, I can sell off my stuff for other players.

I would like it, if the shops re-roll after I finish a monolith boss for example.
This way, I have something to look forward too, after finishing a monolith, as a small break or so.

Also, this approach makes third-party sites extremely hard to function, if at all.

6 Likes
23

A lot of how good the drops are comes down to knowing what is actually “good” and what can serve as a usable crafting base.

IMO drops in LE are really good and plenty, just because how easy it is to craft an item.

I would recommend trying think about how your loot filter is setup and trying to adjust it.
With how LE works I get dozens of items that can be potential upgrades within a single game session, but due to the nature of how the crafting works not every item will actually become that upgrade.

Just as an example, I see a lot of people hiding Magic (Blue Items) in LE, which is not a good method of filtering, since a T5-10 magic item with 2 desired affixes is better than most rares, even better than a rare with 3-4 desired affixes if their total tier count is not significantly higher.

There are plenty of other useful tricks and methods to filter out Items and reducing the number of items that are not interesting, while keeping alot of the items that are not direct upgrades, but serve as very promising crafting bases.

LE in the current state does not need trading in any way IMO.

For me personally the trading system will be more interesting due to the fact, that I can sell items, that have no value to me, but are still worth keeping and selling.

This will make loot drops feel more exciting, but I would never want to buy all my upgrades, because this kills the fun of playing the game and collecting upgrades yourself for me.

8 Likes
24

So how do you propose threading the needle of having an easy trade system that doesn’t allow the player to bypass 99% of the game (the finding loot bit)? It’s easy to say, well system X sucks because it won’t allow me to easily search for specific item and then easily acquire it. That kind of trade system is akin to having an item generator/editor. Want affixes A, B, C & D on base Z with a 99% implicit roll? Sure thing, Player Big_Boi_1999 has that up for trade on the AH for a price that’s within your budget! One trivial search and you’ve got the BiS item for that slot! Eleven trivial searches later & you’ve now finished the game! Now don’t forget to get the free DLC “This Game Sucks It’s All Based Around Trade”!

Edit: It’s not a trivial problem to solve & which ever way you try will piss people off.

12 Likes
25

Curious to see how this will turn out. Things I could see happening with this approach:

  • The Bazaar is flooded with uninteresting items, because there are so many masteries and builds that you never get anything of interest appear to you
  • The Bazaar is primarily used to sell fast leveling items
  • The Bazaar will focus over time on the top meta builds or on legendaries/uniques
  • Players will be browsing the bazaar for 3 hours in search for last step of the living to avoid grinding for it for even more hours

So, one suggestion would be to exclude different class items pop up in your bazaar.

3 Likes
26

So start down the PoE path all over again? We all know what a roaring success their version of “trading” is?

Zaodon, please don’t take this the wrong way but once again you start a thread off by jumping all over something with a purely negative reaction & no constructive suggestions/feedback. Considering the other debates we’ve had in the forums; you don’t seem to like a lot of what is in LE, and want it to be more like PoE so sometimes I do wonder why you’re not playing that instead? Maybe I am wrong, but maybe you could assist with that misconception in the way that you create threads? Instead of starting out saying “New Feature - Don’t like this, don’t like that, it all sucks”. How about saying “New Feature - Don’t like this, here is what I would suggest instead”. It’s ok to be critical, but how about some constructive criticism instead of always negative criticism with no constructive element? I see that you later ventured out of your shell a little with some suggestions - Kudos for that but try starting threads out in that vein and you will get less peoples’ backs up. See the way that I replied to you in this paragraph. I didn’t say “I don’t like your posting style”, I said “I don’t like your posting style, here’s a suggestion”. I applaud your participation, but chill out a little :smiley:

Anyway, my feedback on the initial announcement.
To address the Bazaar and some of the issues raised. The devs have already indicated that they don’t want this to become yet another of those games where you level up, then simply go and buy all your gear. Personally I’m in full agreement. I would much rather craft and find 99% of my gear and maybe have to buy that one super rare unique that I just can’t get to drop. As mentioned PoE is already out there for people who want to level then buy everything. Personally I found that approach extremely boring. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a “suck up” or a fanboi. If I see something I disagree with in a game, I can be just as harsh (if not more so) than the next man. However, oddly enough, for the first time in years in a game, I have struggled to find things in LE I don’t like (that haven’t already been listed as being addressed in the future).

More on Bazaars. I played for a long time in a game that used this Bazaar/Marketplace approach. It was a lesser known Asian mmo/aprg called Shaiya. We’d go play as a guild, farm, raid, PVP etc then during dinner/TV time we’d set up our shops in the market and go afk. It worked wonderfully well. You got into a kind of habit of making browsing the shops a quick pre-exit ritual. Each “shop” was only the size of a backpack, and if you wanted to buy an item you clicked on it and the gold was transferred, just like dealing with a npc vendor.

Because each “shop” was only a backpack, browsing 20-30 shops took hardly any time at all if you were looking for something specific, including self crafted items. There were no “fake” listings because once listed it acted like a vendor, unless you “de-listed” them by closing your shop (closing your backpack). Also, there were no “bots” because you had to actually LOOK for what was displayed with your eyes.

So, this seemingly simple system solved several common modern conundrums: No Bots auto trading, no fake listings, no AH & market economy manipulation, no 3rd party nonsense. They eventually ruined the whole thing by bowing to peer pressure and introducing an AH alongside this system. It resulted in bots, inflation, and a complete falloff of socialising. My take from my long experience with that game was simple: Either have a player stall marketplace or an AH, but never both at the same time.

Weirdly enough, it did actually create some getting to know & player interaction. As servers were typically quite small, people got used to seeing the same faces sitting or running around the market and often you chatted about raids or PvP events. Granted, some of this was fuelled by the fact that this was a 2 faction game, lights vs darks, so there were “map control” events to chat about.

So, my opinion is that I am quite excited to see how the Bazaar turns out. Perhaps I am fortunate in having played a long time in a game that had one rather than an AH or PoE’s weird half baked solution. I would suggest in making a Bazaar that the player’s “store” is restricted to one backpack sized listing. This alleviates 2 potential issues: 1 no scrolling/sensory overload, and 2 It forces the player to only list “saleable items” rather than any old junk.

6 Likes
27

I actually see all of these things happening. The first point can be somewhat alleviated by restricting the “shops” of a player to one backpack size. The other points will sadly be driven by supply & demand.

Good suggestion. I can see the merits to this providing a natural filter. It would mean though, that you couldn’t always shop for alts before making them but I do also think that this would be a minor inconvenience as long as we’re not too restricted on character slots long term by the server.

1 Like
28

First thing that comes to mind, when reading this. For those of you who have ever played maple story thats what it reminded me of. A free market when everyone congregates and visit people’s shops to see whats on for sale. I wonder if the bazaar will also be a place where people just camp all day and spam WTB…WTS…WTT… :thinking:

2 Likes
29

A question for @EHG_Stanzwar re the Bazaar.

If the Bazaar is going to function like a car boot sale (a physical space with “shops” that you manually browse looking for specific gear they have for sale) that can’t be “refreshed” by exiting/whatever, how would you deal with the edge-case where “your” Bazaar happens to spawn with “only” Primalist-based shops but you’re not-a-Primalist? Would your trading experience be forever borked until the selection of shops you’ve been given change what gear they have for sale? Would there be no way for the shops to be changed (like they are randomly selected once a day after you log off/on but only once in a 24-hour period)?

And would it be possible to have your item filter be applied to the goods in the shop?

What happens if the shops only have very few items for sale? Would there be a limit but maybe you could put up more than that limit for sale & the extra items are added when existing items are sold (kinda like reserves in ground combat in Stellaris)? What would happen if all of your shops only had 1 item for sale?

4 Likes
30

The way it just sounds at the moment, would work in this manner like an eventual bazaar would almost certainly result in an external website like poe.trade.
→ I don’t really like the idea. Then rather a reasonable implementation IN the game itself.

Since one can assume as indicated above or even should that the players “at the end of the song” will know how to help themselves, one can also anticipate the same.

I have already written this somewhere, you can limit the amount of items in a bazaar in which you can search specifically in another way:

a) There are only auctions, running time generally 24 hours.
b) Remaining time or start of the auction are generally NOT indicated.
c) Current bidding status is NOWHERE indicated.
d) After expiration of the non-visible time, the highest bidder wins.
e) What was put in by someone as a bid is valid in the case of the highest bid and is not cut 1 gold piece above the second highest bid [and the rest is paid back] as it is common in many other exchange systems.
→ THIS WAY EVERY BIDDER IN THE BAZAAR HAS TO CONSIDER EXACTLY HOW MUCH THE ITEM IS WORTH TO HIM.
f) Everybody is allowed to auction a maximum of 5 items at the same time.
g) Every item purchased in this way is automatically account-bound.
h) Exceptions are “volume-based items” such as glyphs, shards, keys and the like.
i) If an item is offered and does not find a buyer, it will go to the bazaar at 10 times [gladly more or less] the base selling price.

j) ONLY AS ADDITIONAL OPTION: The Bazaar will randomly [selection is done by simple random generator] sporadically but basically [permanently frequently so and so many additional auctions] offer some of the items acquired by “non-sales” independently.

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31

Assuming a)there’s an API or similar to scrape the data so the site can format it & present it to the player and b)you’re able to choose who’s “shop” you have access to. The devs have already said that you wouldn’t be able to refresh what shops you have access to which makes something like PoE.trade a lot less useful (you’d be able to see that player X has the Super Awesome Two Handed Mace of Boss Spanking that you need/want for your build, but since
you can’t access their shop, it’s irrelevant, especially since you wouldn’t be able to whisper them & trade like in PoE).

32

Then there’s just more screen shots + a font recognition software + a site like poe.trade that lists the just recognized by software.

Subsequently, as with poe.trade also is invited over the side or game to the personal exchange.

Should work, no?

PS:
The translator unfortunately also does not 100% what I would like. Well, that’s how it is sometimes.

33

But how would the site get access to all of the shops? Assuming there is no API or forum listings (like PoE used to have), the site would have to suck data up from it’s own game account which would only have access to a limited number of shops, from the information the devs have given us so far, it wouldn’t be able to get all of the shop data. Plus, even if it did get all of the data, what would the point be? If the player can only access a certain number of shops then they would need to be able to only include the shops they could see in the listings that the site gave.

It seems pretty good to me.

34

It doesn’t necessarily have to. All more valuable items would be exchanged WITHOUT the help of this - quasi by hand - among the greedier players.
→ Unfortunately, the “greed component” would also apply to my above-mentioned suggestion.

How does it say so nicely?
→ GREED EATS BRAIN!

Therefore it could come in such a way that at least some players are ready to take a good piece more trouble on itself, in order to have to accept no unnecessary loss (time and/or play currency).

Once again:
I’m just afraid that the vultures will come up with something to “not come up short”. This should be taken into account in the considerations just a little bit.

There I try it at the end of the day evenly gladly with various suggestions. Think there also only a few minutes about it, possibly one needs simply still more time for consideration. *laugh

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35

Since money is shared across characters, it should not be a big factor, because you could go to the bazaar early on if it is available with no level restriction.

1 Like
36

But the devs said that you could trade an item within a party if the item dropped while you were partied. I assume that that means that there’d be no way to trade an item outside of the bazaar shops unless it dropped while you were partied. IE, no trading like there is in PoE.

1 Like
37

This could be good. Wouldn’t have anything against it in principle.

Then there would still be the theoretically time-consuming procedure of thinning the bazaar.

Basically, I also prefer to play “selffound”. There are just a few little things like that I still lack an “Omnividence”. I have also already left almost 20,000,000 at the gambler for it, would have bought me such a staff just much rather goal-safe with someone. :+1:

But it’s ok, I’ll find it yet. :sunglasses:

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38

Good to hear about the future plans but definitely a lot questions still unanswered:

  • Are we going to put items with a price tag for sale, so others can just buy it on the spot, like with the npc shop? Or is there going to be an extra trade interface und bargaining?

  • The risk of having uninterensting / irrelevant or mostly empty shops in your bazaar. A “smart bazaar” system like the smart loot or even better, giving us the option to choose, if we like to see items for a specific class / level etc. or random when the bazaar refreshes next time.

  • Considering both points above, wouldn’t it be better for buyer to just scroll pages of items (from everyone) instead of shops of specific players? If I can buy items on the spot, there isn’t much “communitiy building” anyway and so the empty stores are also no problem anymore.

  • How often (if at all) will bazaar refresh? Too often and it becomes a chore, not enough and it won’t matter. I’m assuming the bazaar we get will be same for every char (for the same account) otherwise it can be abused by creating dummy chars just to check different players’ shops.

  • Since we buy/sell with gold, doesn’t this incentivize gambling more? Since I can’t reliably buy an item I want/need, my only reason to sell is to gamble more. My question is, how much profit should I make with an item so it is worth my time to interact with the bazaar to begin with? Is it perhaps more time efficient just to continue farming MoF instead of thinking how much gold I should ask for a specific item?

4 Likes
39

I know this will sound pedantic or over-simplistic, but what is the purpose of item trading in an ARPG, a game genre where (almost) the entire game is about loot hunting?

You’d think that item trading would either be the core of such a game genre, or completely absent to facilitate the main game play experience.

To (mis) quote Mr. Miyagi, “Trading system DO, ok. Trading system DO NOT, ok. Trading system ‘I don’t know’, squish like grape.”

I think The Bazaar is designed for “Trading system DO NOT”. But, yet, it technically has some loopholes allowing “traditional” trading, under certain circumstances requiring a lot of extra work (3rd party sites, RNG visits to the bazaar, etc.).

I think EHG has to think it through more on the implementation side if “Trading system Do Not” is their goal (which it seems it is.)

40

To me, that looks awesome.

  • It will be possible to trade
  • The main way to get items would still be playing
  • We won’t spend a huge amount of time in the trading system
  • We won’t depend on an external site or tool for trading
  • We will be able to give items to party members and receive gifts from them

I’m sure there are some downsides, but right now it seems to be totally compliant with how I want to play and trade.

3 Likes