#Brainstorm - Trading

62 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

vivid iris
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Community request of a thread about Trading.

No promotion of RMT, but can be discussed as "how to prevent it".

pallid basin
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I don't want to see any kind of real money exchange for items or progression at all. Preventing it? Well, I'll take a stab at it, fair warning, this is very likely a naïve approach, but I'll try anyway!

Firstly, I believe that the more convenient it is to trade (and just good game design in general), the less likely I am to use any kind of third-party site for my trades. I'd call this the first barrier, not to necessarily prevent RMT, but to incentivize legitimate trading so that players don't feel the need to begin with. Obviously, there will be people who will RMT anyway, but I think this is a good start.

Next, I think addressing cheaters is key, since generally cheaters are the ones who supply items en masse to the population via bots, hacks, dupes, etc. Good moderation of the economy is vital here. Now, I'm definitely not experienced enough to explore methodology here, so I'll be speaking in generalizations. Stop cheaters from hoarding tons of loot, and I believe it will be less likely that loot will end up in the hands of someone willing to buy it.

This won't stop RMT entirely, but I think it could reduce it meaningfully.

That's my two cents. Anyone, feel free to chime in and share your thoughts on this. I'm interested to see what you guys think!

small oxide
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Firstly, I believe that the more convenient it is to trade (and just good game design in general), the less likely I am to use any kind of third-party site for my trades.
Auction house, without RMT fixes this, think of d3 when it has been released, d2jsp was almost dead back then because of how easy it was to trade in the game

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I wont deny I LOVED auction house

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I also agree about effective measures to stop botters. As 90 to 95% of massive, bitcoin super mine level botters are from asia, I suggest to create realms like in old diablo 2, with american+europe and asia as a separate entity or american/europe/asia without the possibility to switch. I believe its impossible to stop them permanently unless some super advanced inhuman clicking mechanism + advanced AI tracking is introduced, so the proposed solution would atleast let them rot with their ruined ingame economy within their own realm

static vine
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with american+europe and asia as a separate entity or american/europe/asia without the possibility to switch.

An interesting countermeasure

small oxide
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As brutal and improper as it may sound, botting, real money trading, purchasing the best items and 'showing off your (non existent) muscles through the internet's cable' by doing these things is actually part of the culture of asian players, there its normal, standard and expected kind of behavior, not judging, just saying its pure standard in asia.
This is very well visible in all of mobile games with tons of microtransactions and in normal desktop games where you can buy something for real money, the scale of competitiveness of who spends more money is sometuimes beyond the wildest imagination. I remember playing some fantasy based cards-like game on android several years ago, the top 1 guy (from asia ofcourse), nicknamed Yuna (I still remember that) was spending more than 50 000 $ monthly(!) according to my calculations and guess what, he got overtaken, MASSIVELY by another asian game nicknamed Utyon. The reason Im saying this it to prove my point, that such behavior of botting and providing tons of items to the market and purchasing them for real money is part of asian gaming culture.

Why not let them 'playing' the way they like. By hermetization of asian realm. Thats the solution I propose.

short perch
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This will be an unpopular opinion but I think trading just ruins aRPGs because it shifts the focus away from the loot game and deflates the value of found loot. I think trading should not exist with the only exception being exchanging items between friends. For that I would make loot that is obtained while in a party with someone tradeable to them and implement a point system that would allow for items to be exchanged based on item rarity and play time together - earn 1 point per hour played together and then you can trade a normal or magic item for one point, rare item for 10, unique for 20 or something like that.

tawdry helm
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For me trading is a vital aspect of a game. It's a game by itself, it gives value to items you wouldn't use yourself and it adds another social aspect.
At the same time, there are obvious downsides connected to trading. Like buying all and everything and not having to actually play the game to get loot at all.
There are good arguments for and against trading, as we can probably all agree upon.
Therefore the ideal solution in my opinion is to go hybrid. That is making many/most items tradeable, but some not. I don't mean something like making equipment non trade and materials tradeable. What I mean is making most Equipment tradeable and some pieces non tradeable. Those will add to a "holy grail" character when farming stuff and prevent being able to buy all and everything, while still having plenty to trade.

pallid basin
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Yeah, I think trading—and it being open in general—is a good thing. What I really like about having a healthy trading economy is how, like some have said before, it adds value to items that may not be useful to you personally, but could be valuable to others. I think Runes in particular, and how Peter mentioned they'll have class-specific modifiers, could definitely increase their value depending on how useful those modifiers are.

That said, I can also see why people might have concerns around trading, especially with how some turn it into a meta-game, as Establishment mentioned above. You've got people who just flip items non-stop—day in and day out—that's all they do. So I do think some limitations should be in place. For example, maybe limiting how many times a particular item can be traded.

Now, I will say—as I mentioned in my initial post in this topic—stopping cheaters is key. Cheaters can completely tank the value of certain items if they flood the market with things that shouldn't be that common. That can artificially crash the worth of those items. I hated when that happened—where you'd find something you know is valuable, you know it's rare, but because cheaters have posted like 1000x perfect versions of it, the item ends up being worthless. It kills the hype and appeal in a big way.

To a large degree, this is why I stopped playing D2/D2R on Battle.net (or as I like to call it: Bot.net). It felt like I was wasting my time playing online when cheaters, botters, and the like were running the economy—where most exchanges happen externally on sites that base item value on real-world money (not naming names here, obviously). It ruins the fun and excitement of finding a particularly rare item, because I immediately know it has no value outside of personal use or maybe starting a new character that can use it.

It's my strongest hope that this won't—and can't—happen with this game. I'm not saying it will, nor that it'll be designed in the same way though.

autumn maple
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i fee like being able to trade and do what you wish in the game should be more key here. i understand what you mean Shadow when you say
That said, I can also see why people might have concerns around trading, especially with how some turn it into a meta-game, as Establishment mentioned above. You've got people who just flip items non-stop—day in and day out—that's all they do. So I do think some limitations should be in place. For example, maybe limiting how many times a particular item can be traded.

but to some playing the economy game is the go to, the ez fun button, games taht limit trade and dont let the open market fix the issues could refine the players out of the game and i would be saddened by this .

now i AM a 'power gamer' as the term is used in ttrpg like D&D or Min-Maxer in the gaming world, i try to maximise either damage or whatever make happy button go brrr, in some games this ends up in the market side of things, but limiting trade just limits that route of fun imo.

just some food for thought on that side — I am all for kicking cheaters, botters, hackers, and anyone else who uses bugs or anything outside of the game space to fuel or enable exploitative and harmful practices in games. they should be delt with in all aspects.

pallid basin
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So after a short discussion I had with @autumn maple in voice chat, he expressed the downsides of a system that limits the number of times an item can be traded. For one, it discourages testing and sharing among friends and guildmates—for example, you lose one of the remaining trades each time the item is traded, which decreases the item's value with each exchange.

It can also needlessly overcomplicate trade filters (if this game features a trade search functionality), potentially resulting in different prices depending on how many trades remain. This makes item valuation more convoluted overall. @autumn maple suggested that a percentage-based tax (e.g., 5–10%, or something that scales with a variable tied to the item) could be a more elegant solution—and I agree.

random hare
hushed zealot
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I like trade in games. the more free and the less restricted the better as this adds a lot to a game when it works. the obvious downside of this is a few people with ill intent can easily wreck a game's economy and quickly turn it from a boon to a bane.

I won't pretend to have a complete solution, but some pieces i think can help build a solid foundation are:

No direct player to player currency trading. This makes rmt gold selling extremely difficult (if you want to help a friend with gold give them something they can sell on AH)

Auction house as only means for item for currency trading .
This allows centralization of item flow and provides time and place for intricate anti duping system to be put in place that doesn't lag trade between players. no one will notice a few second delay of posting something to when it can be bought like they will if this delay happens in a trade window. In these few seconds the item globsl unique item ID can be run against all known items. if a dupe is detected the item can be held from sale and the player account can be flagged for review

Flagged accounts should be trade restricted while under investigation (this freezes any ill gotten assets on this acct)

find and very publicly ban serious offenders early and often. send a message that there is 0 tolerance for duping or gold selling

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of course this does not prevent dupers from trading for other items and then selling those items, but if all trade is logged whenever a duped item eventually finds its way to the AH you can look at the trade history of the account that posted it and theoretically follow it back to the source

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Neverwinter had an interesting take, but part of their system was an official RMT currency that could be traded for other game currency on an exchange. this eventually led to the destruction of economies but the system in general worked well for a while.

wheat granite
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WoW like Auction House

nothing comes close to it, best system hands down

bold kettle
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PoE 2's current trading system is probably one of the best in game trading systems I have seen.

Kinda wish all the arpgs had it

cobalt crystal
# bold kettle PoE 2's current trading system is probably one of the best in game trading syste...

I'll absolutely second this. The new asynchronous trade system they added in PoE2 is by far the best implementation I've honestly ever seen myself.

The only thing I'd consider as a necessary addition to it would be the ability to put an item in a slot and the game to give a rough estimate of the price based on current live and prior trades completed and show those trades that you can select / compare / contrast while it estimates prices. It would be an immense help and a good teaching tool to those who don't know how price checking works and/or can't keep up with the market.

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I think a lot of the reason why some people skew away from the market is because price checking / comparing requires a lot of memorization, it takes so long, the market can move so fast, plus what you compare against isn't always the go-to, either so a system that gives you at least something close to a decent price, I think a lot of people would take that, even if it means losing a little bit of money for the convenience. It's better than getting ripped off / cheaped out on.

People who work the market will still make money hand over fist, but there will be a lot more items being sold in the market to work with allowing far more crafting and creation. I feel that, too, is worth the effort.

fossil stratus
cobalt crystal
fossil stratus
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Nope 😂

bold kettle
# fossil stratus Don't suppose you have an idiots video to PoE2 trading do you? I've not had the ...

No, not video on the current trade system.

How it works is the game has a built in API that knows whats in your stash if you setup your stash to be public and you can post items to the trade website.

The Recent change was giving players their own Shop that people can visit and shop from with items that you put and price yourself.

people can then search on the website and they find your shop teleport to your shop and get to browse your wares. It's pretty solid

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It's up their in the features I would reccomend in any ARPG

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There are some small exploitative behavoirs like pricing all the items the same and then having one item higher than the rest to scam people out of currency

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but thats about the only negative I have seen so far

bold kettle
hushed zealot
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Id nominate DAoC player housing (post search) and Neverwinter (minus the rmt currency) as two of the better ones for a top 10 🙂

runic coral
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IMO the only way to prevent it is by not adding trading at all, or like in D3 where you can trade ONLY with your party members for a limited time 1-2h.

if there is trading and multiplayer, there will be RMT. there is no way you can prevent that.

i think trading in arpg's take away the looting experience because everybody only value the gameplay on the price of the items they find. look at PoE for example, almost nobody plays SSF, sure because of the complexity of the game itself but also because everybody just think in currency per hour or map. and RMT gets worse and worse. the new asynchronus trade does not change that at all, you just place a worthless item in there, list in on a 3rd party site and they will come and buy it.

if there is an auction house, RMT is expected. look at torchlight infinite or wow, they have a trade house and so there is RMT.

if you can't trade at all or like i say just a short time with party members only, you insta eliminate RMT.

to make people grind for their loot (and love that grind) just give them the ability to customize their loot to certain mechanics/builds/classes/skills and nobody feels like not getting the loot they need or want.
a simple example would be by filtered-loot-settings.
if i play melee with a certain skill then let me choose that as a filter-setting, and if i want to farm for another build then let me change the filter-setting to that and farm that instead, or if i don't care and just want any loot then i remove the filter-setting and get everything. the more i fine tune this filters, the stricter and less the loot gets.

i play arpg's for more than 15 years now and can say it is annoying anyway to look at items just to see they don't even have the stats i am searching for. loot filters help with that but that does not change what drops.
i think if you manage to change that so we can tune the drops itself, that would have a huge impact

bold kettle
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RMT is just a consequence of player trading. But the alternatives are generally locked down systems with basically no trading whatsoever.

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Like you compare D3 Zero trading to D2 or PoE 2 full open trade and it's just no contest.

D3 practically felt like a single player game with how locked down trading was.

shy junco
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What about trade factions like in Last Epoch? Allow people to post trades and not have to be present in a trade room. This will allow devs to moderate trades and keep an eye on if people are offering or accepting low ball trades that could indicate RMT outside of the game. Global drops in multiplayer like in D2. No I get this, you get that D3 garbage.

bold kettle
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I have talked about this on stream, RMT Companies generally only do well because of the 7-11 Mentality

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I want my item and I want it now

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Companies have found a way around this ages ago Take Steam for example

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If I want to gift a game to someone we need to be friends for at least 24 hours

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This prevents all manner of sillyness

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like Someone stealing/ logging into your account, and giving a buncha games away to their friends

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A Trade Delay would be annoying sure, but it would almost completely cripple rmt websites

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they would lose all ability to deliver items quickly and the 7-11 I want it now mentality loses them tons of business

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There would be tons of ways to bypass the restrictions, such as anyone your friends with is already vetted, anyone in your clan (same delay 24 hours)

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Age of the account could come into play

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older accounts have less restrictions, while newer accounts are stuck with the 24 hour wait

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I think account age is the real winner, as constant ban waves on RMT should hold the RMT accounts at a disadvantage there

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So accounts that are older would have less restrictions in general

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In this way you are rewarding your established player base

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PoE 2 has it, new accounts are basically locked down for the first week or so

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an you need to get to act 4 and talk to ange to unlock trading

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there is also another restriction preventing level 25 characters from trading certain items like uniques

hushed zealot
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for sure RMT is a cyber security issue... it requires layers of defense and can never be 100% effectve against everything

fading ibex
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and that RMT uses p2p trade and not auction house to trade as well right?

bold kettle
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"In Path of Exile 2, players must reach character level 25 to trade currency and unique items with others. This is a requirement for the first character on an account to prevent spam trading. Other characters on the same account can trade freely, even at level one, once a character has reached the level 25 milestone"

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I know first hand because I made a new account for PoE 2 instead of going with my old one, and I was immediately hit with this restriction

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I have also seen many others with new accounts hit with that restriction

bold kettle
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The funny thing is, that a lot of people who play PoE 2 don't know about the level 25 restriction, because they have long eared accounts in good standing

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That is exactly what you want, heavy restrictions for new users, that all but disappeared for long standing accounts

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Which when combined with bans, keeps the bot accountable under restrictions no matter how many new accounts they make

blazing void
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I agree with GGM points about backend ideas to stop the reintroduction and cycling of bad actors into the game over and over.

I think a modern aarpg needs a form of item exchange to be succesful and theres only really 3 or so choices that aren't terribly dated. Central auction house, individual player shops, redeemable currency tokens to save up for what you want instead of actual trading (not a fan).

I dont think limiting player trade freedom to effectively combat rmt is possible without significantly impacting the player experience. Outside ladder rankings, world firsts and just showing off it doesnt affect anyone else that plays the game so on a broad level the incentive shouldn't be there. Part of the aarpg experience is finding gear and feeling the power growth. At a certain point when you have everything is when you reroll or stop playing.

Trading is also more or less necessary based on game design aspects. Drop systems, the overall number of possible suffix/affixes, and how min maxed you really need to be to progress is different in every game and greatly ffects the need and impact of trading.
For example in Poe2 I use the marketplace because of the specific stat combos to puzzle piece builds. In Diablo 2 I only trade and MF within a small friend group. In runescape I just do 4 player Ironman.

Also like shadow says above, it is more important to stop cheaters and botters than directly fight an unwinnable battle on rmt. A combination of account restrictions, in game trade fees, are superior to restricting player freedom

shy junco
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What about if an item can only be traded by the character that found it or one that has had it equipped for minimum duration/monster kills, and not from a shared stash?

Another take:
Can only be traded once every 30-60 days?

Or another:
Received items become soulless but increases the chance of another one dropping if equipped . And when it does drop it is a soul(lvl 1-5) instead of the item that can either be used to regain its soul (original stats) or reroll its soul with max range chances depending on the soul level dropped.