This was my thought too. I don’t see how it affects a non-trading player at all if the devs don’t hack up the drop rates to “balance” trade (like PoE or D3). At that point, trade basically doesn’t exist and doesn’t hinder their gameplay at all.
They have a plan but aren’t going to tell us what it is yet.
So all of this is just conjecture.
I think loot is too basic right now to drive such an economy, though. I hope they fix that before releasing MP.
I’d like to see some sort of barter-board, for uniques anyway.
You post a bunch of unique items, and select the target unique you want to trade with. You would need to transfer the uniques you want to trade to a ‘bank’, so they can’t be used/dropped/etc while they are available for trade.
Other players can sort by uniques they have, and items they want, to see if any are a match.
When the other players find and confirm the trade, it auto-trades the items between the two players.
There could be a limit to the amount of available trades, or you could chose to trade all your posted items for the same unique multiple times.
Why I’d want to see unique trading? Because unlike rares, you know the special effect of a unique, and there may be specific builds for specific uniques. Trying to farm one random unique can take forever, and there may not be a good way to ‘target’ that item.
I don’t think the same ‘barter board’ would work for rares, because it’d be much harder to match xyz rare between two players. “I want a ring with these affix’s, have this necklace”. “Ooo, perfect necklace, but… I don’t have that ring. Oh well, guess I can never trade…”
This sounds like a band-aid to PoE’s garbage trade system, tbh. However, I don’t think trading uniques this way would be a good idea, because many of them have stat ranges to roll and someone could just swipe your good unique for a “worst in slot” roll of the unique you might be after–an especially bad deal if the reason you want that unique is to get a strong roll in that stat.
I’m generally against barter systems anyway. Haven’t seen one that I liked and it doesn’t make sense that we want to use a prehistoric economic system that humanity correctly moved away from.
There is a good reason everybody everywhere moved away from bartering when they invented coinage.
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Absolutely.
It’s actually funny. In D2 gold had no real value because it was too easy to create/lose, so players started using runes, then some of them made D2jsp–ultimately just using “points” as currency.
PoE tried to replicate this, but people just used the crafting materials as currency instead–to the point that they are actually so accepted as currency that people sometimes forget that they really aren’t (in terms of game mechanics).
Warframe was supposed to be a barter system, but people rarely do that. It’s all in terms of platinum. Even when platinum isn’t being directly exchanged, the value of the items are being weighed against it to estimate value.
If LE lets shards/runes be traded, they will likely become the default currency because gold has so few uses and low value. If these aren’t traded, the next most common (but somewhat valuable) non-gold item is likely to be–I’m thinking bases with perfect implicit rolls, probably, but we’ll see.
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Perhaps it’s possible to make a barter system that doesn’t suck, but I find that doubtful. It seems way more practical and realistic to make a system that embraces trade economies and currency, then design it in such a way that it services the goals of the game devs and players as much as possible without trivializing the game.
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Sure, that’s possible. There are also ways to mitigate that.
Perhaps if you are online you can confirm the trade within x minutes, or it’s auto-declined.
Perhaps you can only trade while you are online.
Perhaps you can ‘rate’ the trader you recieved items from. If they gave you crappy items, you give them a low rating. And you can specify how high/low the trader rating you want to trade with is.
Perhaps items have an affix level, and you can chose to trade with items +/- 10% of your item. If you want a better item, you need to accept the risk of a worse item.
Perhaps you don’t care about the quality, because you just want ANY version of that item
Perhaps you can fuse multiple uniques of the same type to ‘reroll’ a new version of the same unique. You won’t care about ‘garbage’ stats, because you’ll be consuming them.
I can’t comment on whether or not it’s similiar to POE’s trading system, as I’ve never used it.
I just don’t think it’s a sound enough concept to try to fix. No offense.
However, I got a bit of a giggle at this idea…
You ever see that “social credit score” episode of Black Mirror? Yeah, definitely no way this could backfire… lol.
FOr me trade is a must and a part of any ARPG game. I dont have a lot of time and I would like to have the option to improve my gear / get other stuff if I need to. For some players this might demotivating, for others it is a motivating aspect of the game like for me.
I also enjoyed the feeling in D3 when I logged back in and saw that someone needed (and bought) the item I offered.
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If you just take the price tag off of the item, you still get that item you need, and you still feel good when you’re notified that someone took that item you donated.
And, no bots/gold farmers. Win-win.
Except that isn’t how it works, and he may not have cared to post the item in the first place if there wasn’t something to gain.
Then it isn’t about trading or satisfaction of helping players - its exploitation for profit.
Welcome to an economy!
Also, “exploitation?” Grow up.
Capitalism is founded in exploitation. Without exploitation, capitalism literally does not function.
Who needs to grow up? 
Don’t forget the cooperation.
Oh, yeah. You read about Marx in college and think you would even have video games to play without capitalism? Hilarious.
This is patently false. It’s a fallacy of composition. Just because it can occur in the system doesn’t mean the system is founded on it or can’t function without it. Capitalism is founded on the voluntary exchange of goods and services, usually through some medium of currency.
It’s no wonder you’re so wrong about everything trade and economics. You don’t even have good definitions or understanding of what the concepts are.
So yes, you need to grow up. 
Capitalism without exploitation is called Communism.
Profit is literally exploitation.
Otherwise, every single corporation in the world would be a 501c3 (non profit).
Yes, I’m sure you’ll win over lots of people with that failed logic. 
As fun as these threads have become, they’re also going nowhere given that neither of you will budge. It’s not a discussion, you’re both shouting at the wall.