Wow, this seems pretty neat and is a rather novel concept. I hope there is a lot of “sell space” so you aren’t stuck bringing only 10-12 items to the bazaar.
this all sounds good - but restricted sell slots inevitably ends in inflated item prices.
Trade and auction functions can ruin looting, which makes me sad especially considering that LE is a looting game.
Quick idea; Player traded items can only be bought using a unique lootable-only drop, something like a time crystal, which is suitably rare. Time crystals can also be redeemed in the in-game shop for cosmetics, lending them value. For players that want an item, trade the crystal with another player. For players that don’t like trading, just redeem the crystal directly in the cosmetics shop. Sellers get rich with time crystals and own an impressive collection of cosmetics without getting out their wallets.
Maybe not cosmetics(affects the companies wallet), maybe something that is useful in crafting(like turning rares into exalteds, but being very hard to get, auto-fractures and picks a random affix, so are chase items for every build)
The point is it needs to be rare, useful in SSF and it needs to encourage playing the game.
While I can understand the concerns against trading in the perspective of a single person, I cannot understand them reflecting poorly on a broad audience.
First of all, nobody forces you to trade, just giving the options would be very welcome by a big chunk of arpg players. You could make the same argument about forbidding sharing build guides by ToT on the basis players should make their own builds, while I love forging a character so it does fit my playstyle I also do know a lot of people who are bad at exactly that, but they know they are thus they are trying to find finished builds they enjoy.
It is basically the same with trading. It just is giving the options to players who want to participate in trading, everyone is free to use self imposed challenges like guild trading only.
If the main concern is that trading would make gear progression rather meaningless and it is in the best interest of the game to prevent that, another way would be to “gate” the trading until you reached level 100.
That way when you really hit a progression lock, or maybe just want to try out something else on your character you could get the missing pieces. Maybe even put a cooldown on it so you are not allowed to “buy” more than x items a day/week.
Trading also does include a lot more than just gold. Back in diablo2 for example gold was basically meaningless, literally just for SoJ gambing. Trading items for items I think is a rather healthy system to trading in itself.
I myself am all for trading, with limits. And please keep trading out of the global chats.
What happens after the first level 100 char? I can use it to buy gear for any other char and we’re back at square one.
It would not be self imposed, it would be imposed to everyone because of how trading impacts those who choose not to partecipate in it.
We saw how well it went in PoE where gold is just called with another name…
Trade only with those in your party and only for a short period of time after the drop occurred, that would be already a huge advantage to play in party.
Even though this would make bot “services” pop-up like crazy to sell particular drops to your account.
It is normal that first char go thru most of challenges and next one have less obstacles in way because you have gear or currency or crafting materials from first char. You also learned game mechanic better or from your mistakes.
This does not influence the fact that trading would be completely open after the first char and droprates will need adjustment.
I´m for trading from lvl 1. I just pointed out that second char has easier life regardless trade.
I remember a few PoE leagues ago I picked up a yellow bow just because I had a space for it in my inventory and that was the end of the map run. It turned out to cost 25ex. And I didn’t even 6 linked it I was too lazy just sold it as is.
Honestly the simplest solution is if you don’t want to trade, don’t trade.
Quit worrying about how others get their loot.
All this hub bub over loot drops being adjusted is likely way over blown. Its not like this is some seriously competitive game or esport or big money streaming business. Its just a bunch of nerds whacking monsters and getting goodies.
I’m sure the game won’t come to an end just because Jojo999 bought his Sword of Yippee instead of killing a 1000 monsters to get it. In fact, only 2 people are going to give a rats patootie how Jojo999 got his Sword of Yippee. Jojo and the person who sold it to him.
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No if an item is character bound on purchase
Lets look at trading and item rarity. I’ll start with just 2 players, and a rare Boss item which drops only 1% of the time on Boss kill (major boss, like Lagon or Emperor of Corpses).
If both players run the boss 100 times, they should get the item once. In reality, however, RNG is RNG, so its possible 1 player got 2 and 1 player got none. It happens, this is a small sample size.
So, the item dropped its proscribed 1% of the time as the Devs intended. If Player 1 trades their extra to player 2, the only thing which changed was ownership, but there’s still only 2 items after 200 runs, as intended. (Again, this gets better with higher sample sizes).
But what is the effect? Player 2 would normally run that boss X more times until the RNG gods smiled on them. But with Trade, they don’t have to. They take the currency they got from those 100 failed runs and hand it over to player 1 for the item. Player 1 now has 1 item, currency from those 100 runs they ran themselves, and currency from another 100 runs from player 2. So, while the items have evened out, ownership-wise, the currency has tilted to have a wealthy and poor player. But no worries! The process can reverse when Player 2 has the extra item, and Player 1 buys it, so now we’re back even again. 2 players, even items (per the drop rate), and even currency.
How did this affect the game?
- Players didn’t need to grind for their desired item more than the proscribed drop rate (i.e. run same boss 300 times to get a 1% drop item due to bad RNG luck).
- Players could even choose to focus on the currency (dunno, maybe kill a lot more monsters than you normally would, not skipping them) with the express knowledge that with enough players in the game, someone is pulling good RNG and has extras for sale, so their own RNG no longer really matters.
- But, now, you have some players not even running the boss, because maybe currency is more abundant in just echo nodes, so the drop rate is lower than intended, because some players aren’t shooting for the item, just currency.
None of that is meant to support or oppose trade, its just what I could think of as the effect of Trade. It’s not exhaustive, so please add more. My goal here is to understand more objectively the effects of trading. And by trading, in this case, I am talking about open, unrestricted trading, not the Bazaar as proposed. i.e. if full trading exists, what is its effect?
As if this means a fully comprehensive search option, no other trade (quantity) limits and NO gold transfer caps, then the following:
GREED!
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a) At a certain point, you will be able to equip and test new builds more cheaply than with the previous Gambler.
b) There will be more (top) builds with absolute best values (all items with some T6 and T7) on all armor pieces and slots.
c) Over time, some individuals or groups (guilds?) will emerge who can get the new items introduced by EHG (strong legendaries, uniques and sets etc.) on average and also absolutely much faster than the vast majority of other players.
These will put the said new items for above-average prices in the auction house and sell.
Other players will be able and willing to pay these high prices and try to sell their goods at higher prices to compensate for their high expenses. [price inflation]
d) External “real money sites” will eventually open up (possibly including bot farms)… because greed eats brains.
Last Epoch would still be quite playable.
I would still suggest a more restrictive trading model.
PS: There is certainly still some missing, additions are welcome.
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There’s way too much theory in here. Everybody pretends to know what happens if player #1643 sells an item.
Of course trading will make things easier. But also more accessible. I can’t just trade some ingame currency for a badass BiS item right away. I need to have something in exchange. Be it ingame currency or another badass item I’m willing to trade for the currency for obtaining the targeted item. It’s not pay to win. In both cases I have to play the game and farm for either currency or tradable items.
This will generate more satisfactory moments in general. Not only will you be happy if you find a rare item for your current class/build, but also if you find something good for other classes/builds.
If you play no trade and find a Smokeweaver for your Rogue, you are “Yeah Baby!!”. What happens if you find a second one? You are “WTF!!! RNG is fooling me!” In a trade economy you are “Nice, another one I can trade!!”
I have so much fun with trading stuff, I don’t care if it shortens the time I need to max my gear. Because it would mean that I might be able to max my gear during a Cycle if I am lucky.
Also the economy gets reseted every 3 or 4 months. EHG can observe and tweak numbers.
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Numbers that would impact those who do not trade.
Easy trade means reducing drop rates
Compare two hypothetical games. In the first game, trade is very difficult. The majority of items that can’t be used by your character are not traded to other people. In the second game, trade is very easy. Many of the items that you can’t use are traded to other people for items that you can. In the second game, because of trade, you have a much higher acquisition rate of useful items. While that sounds great if you want instant gratification, in reality it means that the second game either receives reduced drop rates relative to the first, or ends up being a whole lot easier and less challenging to achieve goals in.
This doesn’t hold up mathematically.
If the drop rate of ItemX is 1% from Boss Y, then the entire server should see 1 of those items for every 100 runs of that boss (on average across all players). Having some players with 0 and some with 2, whereupon the ones with 2 trade them to the ones with 0, does absolutely nothing to the rate of acquisition of that item. It only has to do with its distribution. There are still precisely 1 item for every 100 runs of that Boss. If players run the boss infrequently, that item will have low distribution. If that boss is run constantly, the player base will be inundated with that item. This has nothing to do with Trade, and everything to do with its drop rate. Just because players move the items around among them doesn’t make the item more abundant. The only thing that makes it more abundant is running that boss more.
To be clear, I am against trade/AH like some games have, I am just stating a fact that trading doesn’t make the rate of acquisition higher, per the POE dev’s post. It makes the acquisition more deterministic, and reduces the effects of RNG.
Without Trade: run that boss anywhere from once & get item (Holy Lucky Roll, Batman!) to 1000 times and never getting it. That’s pure RNG for that one person.
With Trade: RNG is smoothed out because the unlucky person accumulates currency playing the game, and the lucky person who gets multiples sells them off.
The claim that Trading (open, unlimited trading) increases acquisition rate is just mathematically false.
Basically, that POE dev is arguing that if the RNG ISN’T working correctly (or rather, is “streaky”) then certain items will be “harder” to get for some, and that means the drop rate is (SOMEHOW?) balanced. But if players even the RNG curve out by trading, he perceives that as increasing the drop rate (SOMEHOW?) and feels they have to reduce it.
TL;DR - the POE dev is bad at math.
It does not increase the droprate, it increases the easiness with whitch to obtain such item, because not everybody who drops it will want to use it.
So I have the chance to drop it for myself, plus the chance that anyone who does not want it will drop it.
Yeah. That’s why I said
Just add trade to the current state of the game and see where it is going. People will more likely be able to get desired items because they can trade stuff they don’t want for currency to buy stuff they want. But as I said, people will need to find stuff they don’t want for trade first to be able to obtain currency. You can’t buy your way to glory at a Cycle start. You have to invest time first.
Solo droprates are in a good spot right now. Theres also the possibility to target farm items from mono bosses.
I’d rather test it out and see how it feels and works out if EHG adds their currently planned trading system.
When it really brings the doom to all systems and balance some people here are foreseeing, I’m sure EHG will change things.