POE money auction house – 4 things you need to know

Are you a fan of Path of Exile but hate its inconvenient, tedious, convoluted trading? Rejoice! a new money auction house as Currency Exchange has been added to POE 3.25 settlers of Kalguur that will allow for a form of automatic player-to-player trading.

This is a good time for active players and former players of Path of Exile who love the game but not so much its troublesome trading system to finally give the game another chance, as this long-waited feature promises to fix many of POE’s long-standing trading ire. Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur is set to release on July 26th, 2024.

1. Why POE money auction house is being introduced?

The new Path of Exile money auction house, officially known as the Currency Exchange, is one of the first automatic and asynchronous players-to-players ever to be introduced in the game in an effort to remedy the drawbacks of its notorious trading issues. This long-awaited addition to POE has had a very positive reception from the fan base in general as it is one of the most requested fixes to one of the game’s most glaring problems.

“[Faustus] allows you to asynchronously by and sell currency and most other stackable items with other players without the nuisance of …ugh… price fixers and people who never responds”

Mark Roberts – POE Game Director

This quote taken from the Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur content reveal is one of the few times GGG’s officials have acknowledged the issues with the game’s trading system. However, make no mistake, the issue with Path of Exile trading runs far deeper than just a few price fixers and AFK-ers. Here is a compilation of the many POE’s troublesome trading characteristics:

• Lack of features: Most likely the biggest issue with POE trading is the fact that you will heavily rely on external 3rd party apps and extensions to assist you. Such as Awakened POE Trade. It is not a stretch to say that it is near impossible to trade without them.
• Require a premium tab to trade: You need to pay for at least a Premium Stash tab to be able to participate in trading via POE’s trading website. This functionally makes POE not a fully Free-to-play game.
• Inconvenient trading process: Trading in POE mainly takes place via the POE trade website. This means you have to put your game aside, open the browser and go through to filters and listings for your trade.
• Price fixer: By far one of the ugliest sides of POE trading is the price fixers. Just as the name suggests, these are individuals and groups who try to mislead the market by unitedly setting the price below the actual market price in an attempt to control the market and profit off unsuspecting players. Yes, they go to this length over a video game.
• AFKs: Another shameless type of traders in POE is the ones who never respond. This is typically because:
  • For the fun of it (because they can)
  • They list their items in mass without pricing and just wait for people to ping them. Essentially using other people as a price checker.
• Scammers: There are built-in measures in the game that make sure a trade can only go through when both parties confirm the trade. However, unsuspecting or experienced players getting scammed is a common occurrence.
• Spam bots: POE trading is filled with spam bots of players who are trying to profit off a margin trade (buy low sell high)
• 3rd party Trading platform: The POE trade site is particularly unsupportive of a certain type of bulk trade or service trade which incentivizes players player to resort to some of the 3rd party trading platforms such as TFT and Wealthy Exile.
• Limited call rate: The POE trade site has been particularly a victim to API spam calls which has result in the game massively limited call rate. A little speeding up in searching the trade site and you will get call limited and will have to wait until it’s lifted.

Considering all of these issues, it is no wonder so many players positively scorn the Path of Exile trading system. Heck, I wonder why the active players would even put up with it at all. Not to say that a money auction house is going to fix all of this, it certainly is not, but it certainly is a step in a promising direction. Perhaps enough for the players who would have otherwise loved Path of Exile if not for its terrible state of in-game trading, to give it another try.

2. How does the POE money auction house work?

In short, the Path of Exile money auction house, a.k.a the Currency Exchange, operates just as a stock exchange. In summary, you will place an order for your desired trade and the system will automatically authorize and execute the trade once there’s a matching party. Here is a step-by-step of how to use the Currency Exchange:

Now you can go back to blasting enemies while the system waits for a match for the same rate or less and once it matches the trade will automatically take place and notify you. Note that it will cost gold as a trading fee.

How to access the new POE money auction house:

3. What can be traded in the POE money auction house?

As of the current rendition, the POE money auction house’s trades are limited to only currency and other stackable items. This is for obvious reasons because multi-mods non-stackables are incredibly varied and would significantly raise the complexity of the facilitating system.

This is a list of tradable items in the POE Currency Exchange:

As mentioned, multi-mods and nonstackable items are generally excluded. These items include:

4. POE money auction house is highly experimental

Although the new Path of Exile money auction house is an exciting new feature, it is also largely untested and highly experimental. Even if this new feature is designed with certain exploit prevention mechanisms in mind (such as the gold fee), there might still be huge problems in the upcoming Settlers of Kalguur release. This is something you should keep in mind and watch out for.

“cards on the table, this is an experiment to see if this type of asynchronous trading has a place in future Path of Exile releases. We’re very excited to see how it goes.”

Mark Roberts – Path of Exile Game Director

Early League economy issue

Market manipulation is nothing new to the Path of Exile’s economy, and with the introduction of an automated trading system, the issue just might get exacerbated.

The initial prediction is that groups of players may combine together to monopolize certain items in the game to massively profit from them. A problem that is potentially very real in a market with low liquidity – something which is certainly the case in the early League landscape. Even later in the league, there can still be a low liquidity situation with certain rare items. Furthermore, when you consider the fact that such a manipulation tactic could potentially accelerate even more with all the profits that they gain from it.

A potential price fixing situation, along with possibly other POE market shenanigans that might take place is something that players of this upcoming 3.25 League should watch out for.