Current state of trade

Hello!

I've not played PoE in a few years, mainly due to me not understanding A LOT of features added throughout expansions (If you have videos that can explain those, that'd be a lot of help, I think last leagues I played were Delve and Bestiary).

But my main inquiry today is...

Is trading between players still a thing in PoE 1?
I came to the surprise that the website Poe.trade does no longer exist... and I'm 101% unused to the official website trade system, which by the way... has a VERY complicated UI compared to the one Poe.trade used to have.

I tried to look for a belt in settlers league... I only found like 4 OFFERS!!! To me that's INSANE, I remember I could swim through pages of offerings even for rare/unique items in Poe.trade...

I just found FOUR!!! Is the league dead or is trading just not a thing anymore??!!

And, any videos that explain current trading systems please?

Thanks!

You might just need some getting use to the ui. I don't know what belt you are looking for, but there are stacks of belts listed.

Maybe link the search parameters you are using and someone can advise what you are doing wrong or if there is a reason it's not available.

The league may not be so active for trade currently since it's been running for over 6 months. There's been necro settlers league, Phrecia event and POE2 since settlers launched, so would not be surprised if the trade is not very active.

Currency exchange has also been added, so if you are trying to trade for currency you might find a lot of people are using the exchange for that.

Some trading does get done in other methods, but for what you are attempting I think you should be able to do it through the trade site.

(Just noticed you are in HC, that might have something to do with it as well. My understanding is hardcore is typically pretty rough for trading.)

Are you playing Hardcore? Every league has much stuff on trade listed, except hardcore. Pretty slim pickin's there. (H.C. Settlers - not sure about other leagues / events).

Yes, I was playing HC Settlers, It's been a while since I played PoE so I didn't even know what league I was getting into... I went with Settlers instead of Phrecia, then I had to switch... the playerbase in Phrecia is pretty decent, trade's alive, but HC Settlers is pretty much the same as HC Settlers SSF, I couldn't get ONE soul to trade with me in HC Settlers LOL

I always used to play the game in HC, adds ... spiciness for me, but since there are SOOOO MAAANYYYY Things that I don't have the lesser clue of how they work despite trying to watch a few videos about them, I guess I'll have to play standard for a while and re-learn item mods, crafting, quests, etc, etc...

Yep some of the leagues will get like that at some point. I played standard ruthless and it was very close to playing SSF. HC trade is the league I have the least experience with, only guessing, but I think there with be trade in the first few weeks, that drops off. Settlers has now been running almost 4 times as long as a normal league would. A large amount of players are also in POE2, so i'm not that surprised.

Good if you have found something enjoyable in Phrecia. Yes there have been a lot of changes. I mainly play SSF HC, but also until recently have been playing some SC trade to learn some of the mechanics. There are some things, like endless hunger for example, that I could not of learned on SC without video guides. I might give HC trade or HC ruthless trade a go at some point, but it would need to be early on in the league. I think there are some very dedicated participants in those leagues, but it has been somewhat of a niche, with people largely going full SC trade or full SSF HC.