Trade and tg .

[Elendilli]

My "realistic" solution or a better way to describe it is "coping solution" is to create a Moderated SSF (solo self found) / GSF (group self found) thread/topic where voluntary players challenge themselves without the use of tg. People have always done this but there was never really any moderation for this type of gameplay in terms of checking whether players actually broke the rules by trading or not. The reason for the moderation aspect is to add a level of competition which is the only reason I would play it since SSF is not really offered as a gamemode for whatever reason. You don't really win anything other than recognition for your efforts which you can then rub your ego and compare penis sizes after completing content as a coper.

In essence, it's a ladder for self found enthusiasts or copers whatever u want to call em (including me).

[Cheno]

Most ideas relating to tg removal are unrealistic or incredibly biased. I've been in your shoes and agree that tg kills the game to a degree, but none of us can offer even a somewhat concrete solution without too much consequence. Here's one important flaw in some of the reasonings: If you think about "resetting tg" implying everyone starts at 0 tg, then nobody will have any tg to trade with, because nobody has tg (duh).

One solution that I came up with a long time ago was having tg only function after the first week of ladder (7 days). In theory it works, right? No pay to win shenanigans for the first week and everyone lived happily ever after? After I proposed this idea, other people were able to identify several flaws one of which was: "What if people hold their expensive items so they can trade it after 1 week?". Just like that the idea was put in the dumpster. How about 2 weeks then? The same problem exists for sure but to a much less degree favored towards tg considering that people who want to progress during the first 2 weeks would definitely not hold their expensive items for tg and would most likely rather trade it off for something they need. This idea for sure works but I predict the loss of donations would be very apparent in comparison. It's really really bad for developers to be losing donations for tg and I know most of you are thinking along the lines of "oh we'll just donate some money to them to offset those loses lol!1" but a band-aid solution is exactly as implied and will only be temporary. I can't think of a concrete solution for devs let alone tg appreciators without too much loss.

A sacrifice has to be made. Somebody has to lose. Right now the losers are people who trade but don't want tg to dominate the economy (which it has been since the introduction of tg). Personally, I'm on the side of the losers and would appreciate some love for once but I don't condone the loss of dev assets for an already dead game until 2.0.

Anyone who unironically believe that TG can just be removed overnight and that the game well be better for it, is delusional. It would probably be the fastest and easiest way to put Median in a negative growth rate and would in the long run negatively affect the amount of servers and general development of the game. I really don't see that as a viable option at all. I mentioned a similar thing in a different thread, that a TG lock after season start would probably be the most balanced and moderate solution, if the intent in to keep TG in it's current flavor. I personally think that people holding on to their expensive items until the lock goes away, is a completely acceptable thing, almost to be encouraged. It would help slow progression and one of the major reasons why people stop playing in a season, is because they have achieved whatever it is that they want to achieve. If they achieve things at a slightly slower rate, that is not a bad thing.

A different idea (not necessarily a good idea), would be to not balance the very late endgame around the expectation of trading. Essentially, devalue TG to the extend that it becomes more viable to beat Sam and high labs, with either less or no trading done. This would obviously mean a nerf to the lvl 135 content and I'm very confident that Marco would not do that but it would be an alternative way to make TG have less of an effect on the game. It would probably not be a good way to do it but at the end of the day, it's very much down to game philosophy. If the philosophy of Median is that 98% of players should not kill Sam, because it is a requirement to do a large amount of trading that most people don't want to participate in, then this whole topic is a waste of time, cause the game is working as intended.

[Elendilli]

A different idea (not necessarily a good idea), would be to not balance the very late endgame around the expectation of trading. Essentially, devalue TG to the extend that it becomes more viable to beat Sam and high labs, with either less or no trading done. This would obviously mean a nerf to the lvl 135 content and I'm very confident that Marco would not do that but it would be an alternative way to make TG have less of an effect on the game. It would probably not be a good way to do it but at the end of the day, it's very much down to game philosophy. If the philosophy of Median is that 98% of players should not kill Sam, because it is a requirement to do a large amount of trading that most people don't want to participate in, then this whole topic is a waste of time, cause the game is working as intended.

Well you don't need to trade to kill the current Samael, but you do need a large amount of resources which is more easily available by trade (umos mostly). I could easily see some players grinding rifts by killing Phoboss over and over until they rack up enough umos but this is super hard/grindy which is basically the same as grinding Fauzt/Dunc over and over for Sacred Uniques. Basically, only a handful of players will kill Sam on SSF which would be pretty good content for people to watch and we can jerk them off for having invested too many hours into the game.

Deimoss on the other hand is a no. I don't think any SSF player is going to kill this thing unless the stars align and your odds become 1 in 40 billion in terms of luck (umos/relics/sssus etc.).

1 in 40 billion meme

[Cheno]

Well you don't need to trade to kill the current Samael, but you do need a large amount of resources which is more easily available by trade (umos mostly).

Well that's just a more elaborate way of describing trading.

I could easily see some players grinding rifts by killing Phoboss over and over until they rack up enough umos but this is super hard/grindy which is basically the same as grinding Fauzt/Dunc over and over for Sacred Uniques. Basically, only a handful of players will kill Sam on SSF which would be pretty good content for people to watch and we can jerk them off for having invested too many hours into the game.

Getting to Phoboss and actually killing Phoboss is a pretty decent feat by itself but you're just highlighting the problem that is UMOs. You have this very limited resource that is required for the 2 hardest bosses but is very hard to farm and BAM, endless light is now 120tg+ for 3 weeks straight. Obviously the meta is part of the reason for this but sam/deimoss, tg and UMOs, basically go hand in hand and it's as much a barrier to entry as any amount of "skill" is.

Deimoss on the other hand is a no. I don't think any SSF player is going to kill this thing unless the stars align and your odds become 1 in 40 billion in terms of luck (umos/relics/sssus etc.).

1 in 40 billion meme

I agree, it's not gonna happen and if it does, it will be some busted build that was never intended to function in such a way.

Edit: I was there when forsen did his sub 30 run. Chat doubted.

[syllab]

First of all, the current system with all its flaws is "working as intended". Some people and maybe the ones in charge of the decisions made around it are very happy with the as-is, and are not interested in possible to-be's. That being said, here's my take on it.

TG is necessary to keep the servers up and development going. Removing it completely is not an option.

The problem is that TG interferes with and basically replaces regular trading.

With this requirement and the problem that TG brings with it defined we can come up with some solutions.

Off the top of my head:
Revitalize ingame trading and reduce the importance of having TG to trade:
TG can now only be used in an online item shop. The item shop would act as a mechanic where people can spend their TG on unidentified versions of the sets/SU's/SSU's/SSSU's they would like to get. Maybe pay extra to get high stats guaranteed, allow people to spend TG to buy levels, charms, quest completions, ... Basically it would be pay2win advantages, traded for TG. These items are generated and brought into TSW by the admins. Items bought with TG are account bound to keep them separate from the non-TG economy. Certain restrictions could be placed on this, for example items of a certain level are only unlocked after a player has completed the rift / dungeon where it can be found. SSU's? Only available after server first duncraig. Maybe items become less expensive the longer the season goes on. Maybe items are only available after a player has actually gotten an ingame drop of said item, so the community will need to farm to unlock the TG shop.

Items dropped for players ingame can no longer be auctioned for TG.

TG is account bound and can only buy items for the account it's bound to. Gifting items could be made possible for an extra amount of TG, the rarer the item the higher this gifting fee.

This way people willing to spend money for items can still do exactly that, and ingame trading becomes important again.

Maybe allow players to gain TG trough ingame contests, first level 100/110/115/120/125/130/... <class>, first to complete all 5 acts on all difficulties (destroy the infernal contraption on hell), same on hardcore, 1st/2nd/3rd to complete <rift> or <dungeon>, ... There are endless possibilities.

"But muh universal currency"
-->Like in regular diablo2 where the standard currency were SoJs, some item will come out on top as general currency, at the start of the season this will be AC's and sigs, later in the season it could be charms, great runes or whatever, the item supply and demand will determine this.

"But muh monopoly"
-->In what world is a monopoly healthy for an ingame economy.

"But muh current TG"
-->Let people keep it. Use the idea of unlocking items to prevent people from buying a SSSU setup for the character at level 1. Come up with any other idea.

"Pay2win sucks, r u retard?"
-->The current system is pay2win for people who don't want to spend time on ingame grinding. The unfortunate side-effect of the current system is that ingame trading is dead, along with all the negative consequences we are experiencing right now.

"But muh easy way to find the item and person I want to trade with"
-->https://forum.median-xl.com/viewforum.php?f=34

Even if people disagree with this idea's specific implementation, I do believe that people who have the best interest of the ingame economy at heart can agree with me that the fundamental concept of separating TG from the regular drop economy is a viable way of making actual ingame trading important again. I'm not saying it's the only way, I'm not saying it's the right way, but I do think it would solve some issues.

[megast4rk]

If I compare all your statements the only thing we need is, that we have lvl130+ charms character bound.

Than there is no use in rushing and all this tg blasting.
Also all good items wouldn’t sell that high because there is no tg benefit anymore, only the personal one if I do the charm.

Removing the possibility of trading 130 charms will set the focus more on the game again. People who want to rush may rush and those who don’t... dont.

Ladder won’t „end“ after 2 weeks anymore. Instead people may start creating guides again and share new builds and ideas instead of keeping all secrets to rush high charms and sell them for high prices.

I think this will benefit seasons and gameplay a lot. Also the Focus may move from individual to community again. Like it was supposed to be when playing on realm.

[Anonymous:]

I kill boss, you pick up charm. Much bounding. Such wow.

[megast4rk]

I kill boss, you pick up charm. Much bounding. Such wow.

I talked about 130+ bosses....

Well, i want to see someone enter laz, samael and deimoss and stay alive to just pick up.
Also reduce lockdown time of void. Also add a lockdown time to uldy.


Another option is to make high boss portals 1 person only.

So there are several possibilities to create a work around for this.
The maion trade market issue is about the high charms. Remove those from market and u will have a better economy and gameplay every season.

After 2-3 more seasons a lot more players are able to do a laz void samael, whatsoever-boss. Simply because you can t buy them and people start to learn the game again.


So, your argument is there, but no KO criteria.


But i' d likle to hear more opinions.

[shnurr214]

I'd like to see a TG lock for the first 2 weeks of a ladder or something akin to that. I think its fine that the devs want to have a way to fund the mod and servers but new ladders aren't really a fresh start when some folks are sitting on thousands of TG whilst noobies have none. I try personally to play self found as much as I can at least til i've done most of the content so I just don't have to deal with the TG silliness and get a somewhat fresh start every ladder. A lot of the people who play MXL i'm sure also used d2jsp which had the exact same issue as median's TG problem.

[RequiemLux]

There are two ways of making TGs: either selling items you find ingame or by donating.
The more one plays the more he's likely to find worthy items for a specific timeframe, and thus making TGs by trade.
The more money one donates the more TGs he will have enabling him to be more competitive on the market.

I see the TG sistem, in its current implementation, being problematic in two ways:
A) On the short term (during a season) where someone who hasn't much time to play or simply rightfully takes his time in doing so, is bound (mid-ladder) to fall behind the weight of his needs compared to the shrinking offer which at the same time focuses on items of increasily higher lvl or scope. Thus the slow player will find himself pushed towards a SSF playstyle and with little to none trading power, basically steadly moving to an approximation of a NL experience while on ladder.
B) On long term with the worsening of the problems you guys are lamenting, couple with others.

For obvious reasons TGs cannot be abolished, so the point is how to better the sistem to reduce negative consequences?

Regarding point "A":
1) It seems that the TGs finds their preferable ecosystem around highly competitive players who are willing to invest time and/or finances into a position of dominance on the ladder-chart (mostly with finances) and in the market (mostly with time), thus heavly favouring the first half of the season runtime.
This becomes a problem only under two existing conditions: the first one is that the game itself is beatable in a relatively short amount of time if you have deep knowledge of it, while the second is that the market can get easily flooded by few users with items that should require more ingame-time/skills investment for the majority of players instead of being purcheseable in large quantities so soon.
How to mend this? Some brainstorming:
- Reducing a bit drop chances across the board of items like UMOs, SSSU and whatnot while also disabling the 20charm=frag (or increasing it), until the 3rd/4th week of ladder where (via patch) everything returns to normal, assuming nothing breaks.
- Shuffling the meta even more with new seasons so that a part of the veterans' "knowledge" advantage is challenged, moving the paradigm from a mostly-fair/static-oriented balance to a more possibly-unfair/variable-oriented balance. To avoid breaking items I'm thinking more along the lines of enemy stats, zones bias, items' rarity flactuations, season-only content (dungeons/items), and other such things.

2) Due to intrinsic issues that emerge with the market and players' in-season retention, the TGs cannot homogeneously suffice as a balanced currency method in the middle-end of a season for everybody.
It's like the ladder is comprised of different lanes with different speeds and the TGs' role of "enabler" falls short in its function often enough.
Sadly this is an issue that I cannot see as nicely solvable by solution implemented from above. So how to mend this?
- Slow/late players must somehow come together and prioritize in-game resources based trades, group plays and all things that can off-set the "ladder is dead" snowball effect.
- Some kind of dev-shop, to open on the second half of each seasons, with scheduled and timered sells. Low/mid lvl items sold at competitive prices and high lvl items at outrageous high prices (to be greately lowered on season's end), as to cash on possible late/mid-season TGs hoarder (and sponsor events) while boosting late players with affordable items.

Regarding point "B":
Mostly already discussed from here on: viewtopic.php?p=462316#p462316

Ultimatelly I dunno what is the best course of action, same boat as you all, and here is pretty late so right now I've quite a foggy mind. But these threads are getting common recently and many people are pointing out that they feel something is not right and could hopefully be better; so surely there is some weight behind this sentiment. Who knows, maybe things will auto-assest for the better in the future if more people join the community, maybe these issues simply lose ground once in the context of a bigger playerbase. An improved mxl experience is the one thing we can surely all agree is needed to grow the users foundation. Maybe this is just another reason to look foward to future exciting patches ^^