If they make trade an integral part, for those of us that are prone to not feeling comfortable with it, is be nice if it had an incentive for us to do it on occasion.
And yes some could argue, well you don’t have to do it, and that’s certainly true. But as a sort of ridiculous analogy if every body gets to eat brussel sprouts cooked plain (is normal) but I don’t like them, if you cook them say in a stir fry style I’d be more inclined to eat them.
Yeah not specific and maybe more confusing then it’s worth. And since it’s going to be a small minority that feels this way it’s probably not really relevant.
I have addressed this several times, so I don’t believe it to be a valid point.
There rest of your post is too long and I’m currently too tired to go through, but I will say that I agree with some of the points, disagree with some others, but in the end this game has no future if it doesn’t feature a proper economy. It simply won’t compete in the market with games in the genre other than Grim Dawn, Wolcen (if that), and Torchlight 2, because that’s the niche it will share.
This is because, when it comes to trade economies in games and players’ desire to engage with them, you are no longer competing with just PoE. Now you’re up against Warframe, Eve, WoW, FF14, ESO, BDO, PSO2, etc. If it does feature a proper trade economy, at least there’s only one other ARPG still alive that does, so while they still have those other things as competition, PoE is the main one, so there’s at least a narrower (but more popular) niche to target compared to ARPGs that don’t.
These are important but where we differ is that you see these as the end all, be all of ARPG. But to me, item/wealth accumulation is as interesting an aspect. So I agree with you following point
I’ve said before. Threads like this converts no one. @Llama8 has already shared Mike’s response on discord that the devs have a current trade design in mind. I think we should just wait for its implementation alongside MP and then provide feedback on the system that we would see implemented.
Further discussion on this (theoretical) topic isn’t going to bring about any convergence or consensus among the community.
Yes this is my biggest fear for Last Epoch… the game is really well set up for Self (or Group) found loot, just the right amount of inventive to keep running monoliths for good exalted bases.
But if I can trade out the 100 odd exalteds/uniques that dont suit my build for a few that do… ive just perfected my build in an afternoon… then the reason to play is already over.
PoE is a bit different, you may never get the very specific items you need to make a build work… but in Last Epoch you can make an item with the exact affixes you need at low level… and improve them later.
Great idea. I played a game called Trove for a little while a few years back when it was still good. They have a community chest in the town hub where you can drop any of your items for free. There is still a community run trading system and it works well with both in place.
I strongly disagree with both points here. For one, I do not agree at all that a Trade economy is the driving factor separating the smaller ARPGs from the larger ones. For another, you cannot compare drastically different games such as various MMOs (some of which were designed with a strong focus on a player-driven economy such as EVE, and most of which have wildly differing economic systems amongst one another). While it is absolutely true that these games have overlapping playerbases, and many who play ARPGs also play other genres, the subset of players who only target games due to them containing a trading economy is very small. Trade is a means to an end for the vast majority, and not the purpose of playing in the first place.
Finally, I would argue that sentiment on Trade in general has been strongly shifting over the past decade, from the disaster that was D3 to the troubles PoE has had in finding a good balance between the complex crafting systems inherent to the game and allowing for convenience and QoL in Trade.
I don’t see any harm in discussing the topic in general. For one, I believe EHG themselves are still very much internally discussing and working on how to implement it, for another, this is by no means any kind of appeal or demand, just input from my end. Development is very much the phase to discuss fundamental basics of the game’s design, getting it right from the start is worth a lot as throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks/going back and redoing/removing things is just simply more time/work/money spent.
Unlimited selling like for shards/glyphs and such, limited buying would be best imo. Say, you can buy 1 unique per month and 5 non-uniques (just throwing out numbers here), so if you are really struggling to finish a build at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, one of the main strengths of this game in my opinion is the large number of classes and builds, so “completing” one build doesn’t mean the game ends for you, unless you’re weird like that
I definitely think a way to fill in gaps in a build other than self-found is superior to no way to fill in gaps, but limiting that ability is fine, too.
I think your idea is fine, at least as an example.
My way of saying what you said is this: buying items should be for the purpose of improving your character/build, not for the sake of becoming a Loot Tycoon ™.
I guess that is my real objection to any economy. I have met players in other games who literally do not play the game, per se. They start a level 1 character, and just trade all day, every day, until they are quite literally billionaires (still at level 1 mind you). My opinion is that should not be possible - the trading system should be designed in a way to flatly prohibit that from happening.
And that can only happen when trades are inherently unfair. I mean, obviously, a level 1 character who literally does not go do the quests/earn any loot for themselves can’t possibly be trading “fairly” - i.e. trading what they “earned” for what others “earned”.
Yea I agree with you, it shouldn’t be a trading simulator like PoE is and D2 was. It’s been a long time since I played either of them, but I spent more time on 3rd party sites like jsp than playing the games because it was pretty much necessary.
OTOH, D3 is too simple for gearing, like you can go from level 1 to all ancients in the first week of a new season completely solo.
There’s a middle ground in there somewhere that’s a sweet spot–I personally think it’s mostly self-found with a touch of supplemental trading. The crafting in this game is strong enough that loads of trading is unnecessary.
Ultimately, finding items you need is more gratifying for me, and I assume most people, but if I needed to find my own ie: Windforce to play a multishot build in D2 I never would have gotten to play multishot, since I never found a Windforce despite 10s of thousands of hours of play. So, some trade-lite would be welcome.
Items could even have a trade counter on them when they drop, ranging from say 1-3 or something, and each time they’re traded they lose a counter, at 0 they are bound to that account. Would make it so items are eventually “burnt” as gas fees in the trading process, to keep things valuable.
For me, I don’t want there to be any impediment to players trying to trade items between themselves for the purpose of wanting to actually use the item on a character to play the content.
My issue lies solely around Profiteers and/or “Pro” traders, who do not play the game, and solely want to trade and make money off of trading. Oh, and of course, all Bots and RMTs. Those are worse than “Pro traders” by far.
So, any limits should be limits on profit. I have no idea what EHG is planning per the Dev post quoted earlier. I just hope it addresses profiteering, bots and RMTs, but doesn’t impede on “Legit Trading ™”
Just want to add in here, that a bid system can work just fine as long the bids have a hidden and relatively random duration.
For example let’s say you setup a 24hours auction for your item. Instead of it lasting exactly 24 hours it will last between 23,5 and 24,5 hours. And the clock in the bazaar when the auction has 10 minutes remaining would show: “less than thirty minutes remaining”. This would make sniping pretty much impossible and incentive people to bid higher and sooner if they want the item.
To make it less frustrating they could also allow players to setup an “auto-bid up to a certain value”, so players doesn’t have to keep checking the auctions they are participating, just make a bid, setup an auto-bid for as much you are wiling to pay and that’s it. If you lose, you know that you wouldn’t had the money to win anyway.
Honestly, I never understood bidding systems like that.
To me, bidding in online games would make more sense as a blind bid system. i.e. Everyone submits a bid but no one can see what others have bid. Time runs out, and the highest wins. In order to do this, though, blind bid systems typically require a “Starting bid” as part of the listing. i.e. “Bhuldar’s Wrath - Starting Bid 10,000g” Then people can go from there.
“Real time” bidding is antithetical to asynchronous online game play with people around the world, imho.
Well… Personally i prefer buyout systems. But i believe the auction system was created to provide a virtual delay in item acquisitions and “real time” is probably because the devs want to add a certain degree of “human interaction” into the system for the stockmarket type of players to play with.
But i agree a blind bidding system is overall healthier than “real time” bidding in an online game.
Actually, even thou they are extremely inefficient, my personal favorite “market system” in online games is “physical” player shops (like in ragnarok online for example). But they are incredibly hard to implement in ARPgs since the genre is not designed to hold hundreds of players in the same instance, so it’s not feasible in here.
Unfortunately, flipping is something that just goes along with a trade economy. I understand many players’ frustrations with it, because they feel it drives up the buying prices of things, but they often forget that it also drives up the selling prices, so if they are willing to farm those things themselves, they can make a tidy profit themselves and not even bother too much with trade. Basically, economic systems are rarely as simple or one-sided as people like to think. If a situation does become too extreme, EHG could step in using various means–something as simple as a warning (a type of in-game C&D order) to the user(s), to anything as extreme as a ban. Most games are better off refraining from these kinds of things if they can help it, though.
I would rather it not be that kind of game, but it is a “playstyle.” They purchased their copy of the game to play how they want (within the TOU, ofc). Should they have the right to tell you, “You shouldn’t be able to farm bosses because it deflates my prices” ? I think we both would find that notion ridiculous.
That said, I don’t want it to become the dominant “playstyle,” as that would undermine the spirit of the game.
If you allow the exchange of items that people want, this is unavoidable. Economies are a natural emergent property of trade/exchange.
Couldn’t agree more. I generally hate bidding systems, but if you must, this is the proper approach.
This would be awful.
The problem with some of these suggestions–outside of what Llama pointed out with regard to being strictly hypothetical–is that they generally think of trade within the current context of the game. Loot has a long way to go before trade will matter, because there is very little that is worth trading for right now, and most of that is stuff people agree shouldn’t be tradeable.
They need to fix loot first.
I’m totally down to discuss the merits and flaws with trade and trade economies, but there really isn’t a purpose for it in the game’s current state. That is to say, whether they include trade or not, if the game released like this today (assuming it even had multiplayer), it would see a huge wave of interest at first and then peter out fairly quickly–don’t know how quickly for sure, but I’d be surprised if it was more than a few months. This because of the current state of items/loot. It doesn’t offer enough for the long-term.
Therefore, I think it’s prudent to assume they will fix itemization/loot, and discussion about trade should be about trade or economic principles as it relates to the game without being completely specific to the game (because we don’t know how that is going to look yet).
Theres no point to having trading at all when theres no reason for gold or more importantly nothing to base any values on, people only sold items for extreme amounts in D3 as they wanted to resell the gold for rl currency and it capped at 2billion
If I am going to ‘sell’ an item to another player I want another item of equal value back or theres no point engaging - because…gold is useless
The only trading system I can see working is old archaic PoE style messageboard system:
‘guys I have a T10 Minion Damage/Health Turquoise Ring and I want a Sovnya with T5 Melee and T5 Melee crit on a 7% implicit and nothing else only respond if you have this item for trade’
next guy ‘im selling a T10 Sovnya with T5 Melee/Crit, however I want a Offhand Catalyst for a Sorceror with ‘xxx’ stats and nothing else’ or worse they advice ‘I am selling this for 10 million gold!’ completely pointless to me
that trade system I want no part of and ultimately as the game is at the moment thats the ONLY reason for me to engage with it as I can just gamble and find my own shit without anyone else.
I also do not think trade is a good idea. The faster you “finish” your build the faster you finish playing the game. I want to be able to share items with friends when i play with them though… so items droped to ground should be lootable by party members atleast.
