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GGG could do a limited auction house for consumable items and it would be entirely consistent with their trade manifesto. Limit to consumables, limit the number of trades per hour, have remove only tabs for traded items that are delivered after a short delay, etc. Would there be some side effects to this if people could more easily buy and sell essences, cards, etc.? Sure. Then the economy should adjust accordingly or they could make small adjustments to drop rates.
But let's look at the trade manifesto and see how well it's aged in 18 months ( https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2025870 ):
Easy trade reduces the number of times a character improves their items.
People who are heavily engaged in trade perform fewer item upgrades to achieve their final build. They get there in fewer steps, because they can easily buy items that are close to what they need.
Uh. No. They don't. Not because of easy trading. You know why people trade so few times to upgrade their build? Because upgrading their build is a pain in the ass. You upgrade your helm, now your resists are off and you've gotta change 2-3 other pieces. That's why people upgrade everything at the same time. Then when they are falling behind, they do it again.
Also, trading for gear is NOT the problem. When I trade for gear, I'm trading with someone who actually took the time to identify it and then put it up for sale. Those players usually respond.
Simply put, their character progression is more about trading than it is about getting items from monsters.
Getting items from monsters?! Lololol. This is such bullsh*t. The odds of getting an upgrade from a monster are 1 in a million with all the power creep items they've added. And even if you get an upgrade, it still requires you to go and trade to adjust all your other gear to use it!
We believe that it is more fun to slowly and iteratively upgrade a character over time and to have a longer journey to gear a character up. Knowing that a monster could drop something that improves your character is a great motivator for playing one more level!"
Really GGG? Then put your money where your mouth is. Increase the level cap of level 20 and 21 gems to character level 90. Because that is how long it takes to actually get gems to that much experience. Instead you can just buy your level 21 skill gem at character level 72 and skip 20 levels of damage/progression!
Easy trade means reducing drop rates
Fine. Add an AH for consumables and decrease drop rates slightly.
Easy trade would make the disparity between different players too great
This is just idiotic. How exactly? They say most players don't even trade. If that's the case, how would this make things worse for them? Also, if there was an AH it would make it much EASIER for players to engage with the AH and close the gap, not widen it. Having an AH for consumables that you don't need to interact with others and you can get your item instantly would make trading much less daunting for players that want to trade but do not.
Easy trade allows for greater abuse by automation
Not if you take steps to limit trades per hour, and place short delays before sending items to remove only tabs. Bots are already rampant.
While we work hard to stamp out bots and abusive behaviour, it would be hard to completely eliminate the damage caused by a few trade bots with access to a fast trade system.
Lol. Give me a break. You aren't doing sh*t against botting. You know why? Because bots are the only thing keeping trade leagues alive right now.
EDIT: wanted to respond to a couple things.
1) "this post was needlessly negative, GGG bashing," etc: I agree. I should have been less fired up and condescending. PoE is my favorite game of all time because of how good GGG has been over the years and how good their community communication has been. It's why I dump 100-200 dollars a year to support it. We can all do better, and I'm always willing to learn from mistakes.
I don't WANT to quit or stop giving them my support. I want to keep playing and just make the game a better experience. I've been playing more and more SSF, but I do miss the trade leagues too. A consumables AH with instant buyout would reduce 99% of my trade frustrations. And while I'm not naive enough to think it would have zero effect on the economy or gear progression, I don't think it would be negative. I also think making it easier to get what you need to craft items would make that more accessible to people too.
2) with that said, I felt the one sentence on trading, and the subsequent comment did not do justice to the problems players face with trade, nor do I think they've considered a "middle ground" like a consumables AH.
3) this post could have had more focus. I'm advocating for a consumables market and wanted to show how that would fit with their trade vision. But the reason I went back to the manifesto is because they just said in the Q&A that they stand by all of it. Some of the concerns they raise about an AH contemplate an AH that includes gear. It would be nice to have a manifesto regarding a consumables AH and see if they still stand by their postion.
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