Playing last night it dawned on me the many flaws that I ran into with the trading system as it stands. For the first time I wanted to sell something to someone face to face, and I knew that you’d lose potential for trading on equipment. But what came to my attention were these upon this little adventure:
1.) You cannot trade silver face to face.
Issue: So the work around for this is to trade items of value. Gold Bars, etc. But in my case this also deters face to face trade of equipment, in conjunction with the silly potential loss penalty.
What People Will Do: Avoid face to face purchases and use the Market (Auction House). You won’t lose potential on equipment, and it’s the only way to move silver around as far as I’m currently aware.
2.) Recipes Become More Valuable Because of Potential
Issue: Another work around to losing potential.
What People Will Do: instead of crafting items to give to friends you’ll simply trade them the recipe+materials needed to craft the item. The issue here is that it feels like another work around to the silly potential penalty of trading. It’s a “smart” thing to do but for the majority who are unaware and will have to learn the hard way, they’re just being inefficient in a ever flawed system if they trade equipment between each other.
There are tons else to discuss but I’ll start with this, the potential system in on itself is great. But the penalty for trading and inability to trade silver is needless. It brings nothing to the game, it punishes a typical social aspect that’s the norm in any other game, and it’s not going to stop any RMT while there are the work arounds I’ve hinted on above.