The first thing most people hear about Last Epoch is that it’s an action RPG with a clever trading system. And that’s true, it does have smart mechanics for bartering gear and ranking up your affiliation with the Merchant’s Guild to equip better purchased goods, which prevents you from making some canny deals and immediately walking off in endgame armour. But the thing that’s really clever is that you can opt out entirely.
When you reach the point where you’re presented with the chance to join the Merchant’s Guild, you can just say, “Nah, that’s not for me”. In that case, you join the Circle of Fortune, receiving an increase to item drops so you can find better gear out by killing people and taking their stuff just like Gygax intended.
As someone who could not care less about auction houses in RPGs, this is ideal. I’m not here to play the medieval stock market. This approach to trading is one of many smart decisions Last Epoch makes about items. Another is the loot filter, which lets you get real fine-grained about which gear affixes you want to see.