The Case for Trade with No Economy

Feedback and Suggestions
1

What is Trade?
When people think of “Trade” in online games, their mind sees a “Trade window” with two sides, and double “Accept” buttons for both players to click to validate the trade. The reason is because that’s what all other online games have. The problem with that form of “Trade” is that it instantly manufactures an “economy”, because the trading is going in a bi-directional way, where someone can “profit” from the “sale” (trade) of a rare item for something deemed “equivalent” in value, but in reality, is able to gain more than they give up.

So, lets get that picture out of your mind.

A New Idea
Instead, imagine a community-oriented system. In this system, players can give each other items they don’t need. There is no inherent bi-directional “trade” or exchange. There is only “Giving” and “Receiving”. It would function like that little tray of pennies next to the cash register which says “Leave a penny, take a penny…”

One example of such a system would be an Item Donation Bank. You’d open the dialog window and see a “List” of items. The list shows all the donated items from all other players. It would, of course, be searchable/filterable. You can select any item off of the list, and click a “Take item” button. You get the item off of the list into your inventory (gotta have the open space for it!) and its removed from the list.

Conversely, there would be a different dialog window where you “Donate an item”. It has an open space for an item. You drop in an item, and click the “Donate" button. That item disappears from your inventory and goes on the List in the Item Donation Bank.

Balance?
To prevent characters from getting items “too early” (too low level) and hording/saving them, you invent a mechanism (per character) which tracks the highest Item Level you’ve donated to the system. It then uses that Item Level as a limit/restriction for what Item Levels of items you can take from the system. This also prevents any “new account” malfeasance. Or, if not that mechanism, then some other method could be devised to “protect” the system from misuse.

To get players to donate, an “incentive” could be devised. From something as simple as gold, to as complex as cool character buffs which last a short duration based on the level & rarity of the item donated. The ideas are limitless here.

Summary
Now, the question is… is it “Trade ™” ? I mean… yes, technically.
Is it that image you had in your head of Trade like in other ARPGs? Nope.

2

You are thinking second order in terms of the “trade” mechanisms but not addressing the motivations for trade. Before you offer your “new idea”, I think you should start your thesis with why you think people want to trade in ARPGs, then show how your proposal is superior to existing approaches - addressing people’s motivations and not having the issues of conventional trade approaches.

I guarantee you. Devs who have made games before you, are not stupid. There are real pros and cons in a trade economy that’s not straightforward to deal with.

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3

What “came before” is irrelevant, as it serves only to put you in a box.

The Cons have proven over and over again to outweigh any pros for a Game Economy.

  1. The economy draws in the bots/farmers/RMTs (biggest Con of all)
  2. The economy forces Devs into a box when designing content for the game due to its existence. (Limit on Dev creativity)
  3. Balancing around the game economy (a must if one exists) consumes Dev Time which could be far better spent on new features/content.

The purpose (motivation) of trade for an ARPG is pursuit of loot (items). The basis for Trade is for players to operate as a community, rather than as “a series of single players with a shared chat window”, to facilitate said loot pursuit. For Trade to serve its purpose, it needs to:

  1. Allow players to get loot they, themselves, did not loot (otherwise, Trade literally has no purpose)
  2. Allow players to help other players (community aspect) get items they did not, themselves loot.

There is absolutely no “Economy” or “Profit” element which is essential to trading items in an ARPG.

In games with Economies, players who, either through skill or time, amass more loot than other players, become more driven by the Economy in-and-of itself, than they are driven by the video game itself and enjoyment of playing it.

Video game producers like EHG aren’t under the delusion that they can keep players “forever”. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, gets tired of Game A, and swaps to Game B at some point. Sure, now-a-days, games don’t have subscriptions much anymore, so its easy to say “Well, I still play Game A, but spend most of my time now on Game B.” But in reality, they are slowly fading off of Game A and at some point will stop playing altogether and uninstall.

So, video game makers instead shoot for a retention goal. i.e. “How long can we hold players?” accepting that they will eventually turn-over, replaced by the newer players. Maybe it starts off low, like 5 years. Eventually, they try to raise it. But the point is that their view of player retention is couched in gains/losses. Now, a game which is super friendly to newer players will have a higher gain rate than games where “Only the Hard Core Dare Enter ™”. Things like an economy do not, in fact, keep average players playing longer. It only keeps hard core players playing longer. Average players tend to struggle in games with economies, and drop out early if it seems too much to handle.

The real way to raise player retention is content. Always has been, always will be. If EHG wants to keep players longer, an in-game economy with bots, RMTs, scammers, etc. is not the way to do it. That does nothing but drag their Dev resources down with fixes and limitations on design of new content. Lift those burdens off of Devs, and the new content will be better, come faster, and provide new experiences for the game.

4

Appreciate the wall of text response (no sarcasm intended. I really appreciate the effort). But it’s clear to me we have different starting point on the motivation for trade and the thrill of ARPGs, so I’ll just leave this with agree to disagree and rest my case.

5

I don’t know, that sounds an aweful lot like bartering (a form of trade) or gifting (a form of economic activity). So I’m a bit confused why this isn’t in the “the case for not-trade” thread (other than that being massive & you wanted to present an idea separately, which is fair enough).

6

I would say it’s quite the opposite. It’s just that some people don’t want to accept the cons that come with it. Fortunately, trade is a voluntary system. No requirement to participate. You can argue about “pressure” if you want, but that honestly holds no weight nor water with me because I haven’t played a game where it truly was mandatory–and I don’t believe EHG would create that game.

7

I think that’s more subjective than you think it is. When I play PoE I feel like trading is mandatory since otherwise I won’t get gear to make my chosen build work (from my point of view) and getting maps to drop to progress the atlas always used to feel hideous without trading (and trading for maps usually felt like it was a particular circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno). But then you have people who are happy playing SSF so from their point of view trading is absolutely not necessary…

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8

This is simply not true.

Getting a hold of some rare item is easier without an “economy” and harder with one. For several reasons.

  1. If there is a profit to be had, people will horde items rather than freely share them, making them even rarer.
  2. Devs have to adjust rarity of the drop, meaning those not participating are suddenly affected by having less of a chance to get that item.
  3. Whatever the “currency” of that trading system becomes, that thing’s availability is also altered by the Devs, again, affecting those not participating.

It is pure fantasy to think that an economy based on trade would somehow magically not affect the entire game. It always has in every game. There’s no evidence that it would be different in LE.

9

Only if they change the drop rates. PoE didn’t as far as I’m aware (ie, SSF has the same drop rates as trade).

But yes, if the devs reduce the drop rates in a trade environment then it’ll be harder to get that item in a trade environment if you don’t trade. But it’s based on a big if. PoE didn’t, D3 did. Could go either way.

The first and third sentences are true, the second isn’t.

10

This is the problem. Everyone assumes this. It doesn’t actually have to be that way at all. It’s just that D3 wanted to force an economy they could profit from directly while claiming to be “for the players” and PoE’s mess of an economy goes way back to their simping for D2jsp–a system nobody wanted or uses for PoE.

Just to be clear, I’m not blaming you or anyone for repeating this fallacy that these devs started, but it’s probably better to quit repeating that mistake.

With the most important part out of the way…

This is just false. Even if you want to argue about drop rates, the fact that you can trade for upgrades at any time means you can set your build up sooner, reach power spikes at more intentional intervals, and spend less time in a gimped state induced by a string of bad luck.

Even if I was willing to lie and say I agreed with such a premise, it’s not about which one makes it “easier” to get items. It’s about how these features service the long-term goals of the game and its players.

Nobody is arguing otherwise. The question is how we want it to effect the game.

Lastly, even in PoE, the fact that so many people clear all the content within a week or two on SSF shows how trade isn’t mandatory–simple preferable for many players. This is why I said I don’t buy into the “pressure” or “optimal way to play” nonsense.

I’ve said it before, but it seriously bears repeating:

For the most part, you want to let the players decide the economy without allowing the economy to give them everything.

This is how successful trade systems operate, with few exceptions.

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11

https://imgur.com/r1Uptv0

They have a plan but aren’t going to tell us what it is yet.

12

I was thinking about something hilarious that might happen with OP’s proposed idea, though. You might see coalitions of players (organized through Discord, probably) that scrape this “bazaar” for all the items that have any practical/use or value, cleaning them out, and leaving only the “trash” in. Then they either vendor or shatter the items they don’t actually intend to use. Conversely, they could do the opposite, but that’s doubtful, because it sort of invites a counter-group to form that does the former.

It just screams all kinds of abuse/manipulation and ultimately defeating the purpose of the feature.

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13

I think that’s the evil version of the “If you make something idiot-proof, the universe will just make a better idiot.”

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15

You overestimate malicious activity. Most of the time, stuff like that results in some sort of benefit or profit for those abusing the system. This has no benefit, so maybe they do that once and get a big “Ha Ha” out of it, but its a lot of work for nothing. Its literally just griefing.

I’ll take that over Bots/Gold Farmers every day and twice on Sunday.

16

I don’t think I do. I’ve seen people do more for less just to troll/grief in gaming.

Not if it means we don’t have trade and the proposed system is useless. I’d rather have trade in the first place, but I just don’t see this idea going anywhere.

17

“And that is why you fail.” - Yoda

18

I wasn’t the one with the bad idea, lol

19

Neither was I, its a fantastic idea and will work great.

Its literally how most MMORPG guilds actually work. (Guild bank, people can take items out if they are in the guild and of a “Trusted” rank, etc.) You don’t see those games “breaking” because of it. Instead, you see the game company making more, newer, exciting content version after version, because they don’t have to waste a second of time on “economy”.

Economies don’t belong in games. Games are meant to be a pass-time, not a job. Period.

20

It’s a terrible idea. Comparing it to guilds is a false equivalence. There’s a big difference between friends/friendly associates and the general public. It’s also a false equivalence to compare a game like this to an MMO–especially advocating for a feature present in guilds within a game that features an economy. It’s just so hilariously ill-conceived.

Premise is incorrect. Plenty of games feature them and some games are arguably about them. Just because it has one doesn’t make it a job. Period.

If you want to refine the idea to address the issues presented with its conception by saying something other than “no u” or “people totally won’t do the thing they very obviously can,” there might be something worth exploring, but as it stands, this concept is pretty much /thread.