We need to talk about Columbine

spartaxoxo · February 29

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Why expect the game developers to fix a player made problem?

The devs are the ones that made the problem by locking the supply behind a tedious and unengaging task, and making alternative sources unrewarding. They also chose not to make the pots the columbine is used for readily available. They also make multiple needed potions require a single ingredient.

They could up the amount given in other tasks or they could make the pots available to purchase at an NPC to alleviate the issue. The devs did this in the past with the weapon and spell power pots when they made them able to be purchased for AP.

DenverRalphy · February 29

spartaxoxo wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Why expect the game developers to fix a player made problem?

The devs are the ones that made the problem by locking the supply behind a tedious and unengaging task, and making alternative sources unrewarding. <snip>

That's just it though. The supply isn't locked behind anything. You walk up to a pretty flower, you pick it up, and boom you have columbine. And in a few minutes, another one will pop right back up. If not right there, then nearby. And guess what? You don't even have to do it yourself! Nope. All ya gotta do is buy it from someone who does do it.

Now if their price is too high, it's not due to a lack of supply. They've got piles of the stuff (I know they do, because I'm someone with piles of it), and they're out there right now harvesting even more of it. If their price is too high, it's because they know somebody will pay it. They're by no means running out of it. And if they claim that they are, then they're not being entirely honest and upfront about it.

FlopsyPrince · February 29

Selling things for what the market will pay is not "greed driven".

TaSheen · February 29

Yeah, I've got tons of it. I don't sell it because I don't need gold AND because I'm not going to mess with the guild trader crap. So *shrug*.... It's mine, and it lives in my craft bag. Pick your own.

Neoauspex · February 29

ToT rewards for real though, never need any mats again

BlueRaven · February 29

Wow! Maybe I should start selling some of my mats.

Solariken · February 29

It's definitely a growing problem. I know changing the Bewitched Sugar Skulls recipe would be a huge help for me, being my preferred food on 90% of builds. Instead of 2 Columbine, maybe 1 Columbine and 1 Bugloss.

DreamyLu · February 29

Like someone said before, go farm.

It's the same in all MMOs with farming resources: some call it grinding, some like it and from there, some farm, others pay. That's a free decision.

There are rare resources that need more work at farming, like columbine because they're not first tier, so logically, they're more expensive on the market.

I apologize, I very rarely talk grumpy, but am just tired of that type of complain. Not everything can be easy. It's normal to have a few items a lot more expensive. That's standard in a game content with resource farming. Beside, columbines are not that rare. The price is high only because nobody farm them, so the demand is high. And that's fair enough that those who do the work are rewarded for that. If more players would farm them, the price would automatically go down and there wouldn't be an issue anymore.

grmppffffff... *grumpy grumpy*

MidniteOwl1913 · February 29

I like to farm if Columbine prices on the PS were anywhere near what they are on the PC I would be rich!

spartaxoxo · February 29

DenverRalphy wrote: »

That's just it though. The supply isn't locked behind anything. You walk up to a pretty flower, you pick it up, and boom you have columbine. And in a few minutes, another one will pop right back up. If not right there, then nearby. And guess what? You don't even have to do it yourself! Nope. All ya gotta do is buy it from someone who does do it.

If it wasn't locked behind anything, then I'd be able to get it doing anything that I wanted to do. The developers chose the source. And that source requires a lot of unengaging gameplay. You walk up to a flower is simple, but it's also tedious and it requires a large grind to get enough of it.

Now if their price is too high, it's not due to a lack of supply. They've got piles of the stuff (I know they do, because I'm someone with piles of it), and they're out there right now harvesting even more of it. If their price is too high, it's because they know somebody will pay it. They're by no means running out of it. And if they claim that they are, then they're not being entirely honest and upfront about it.

People are willing to pay it because the supply on sale doesn't meet the demand for the item

Drammanoth · February 29

DenverRalphy wrote: »

(...)The real issue is that too many players are too impatient, and gradually over time pay a little bit more, then a little more, then a little more. Until >BLAM!< the buyers finally hit a wall with prices they're unwilling to pay. But they do it anyway, cuz hey, you can't miss any time can you?

The fix is simple.. Don't pay those prices. EZ enuff. 1)Take a break from those activities that require such an obscene consumption of pots and 2)wait for the sellers to look at their piles of product doing absolutely nothing for them. There actually are other activities in game that don't require so many pots. Might not be your first choice, or even second or third. But hey, :shrug: it's either that or pay the prices. Eventually the sellers will come around. Or more likely, new younger sellers will come in and take over the buisness.

Why expect the game developers to fix a player made problem?

(underline, bold and italics - mine)
I had to do some emphasis, because this post is spot on, and because it is so simple, only reasonable people will heed the advice.
In other words, people are paying for their laziness. Well, for sellers and the guild that's perfect - they can cash in on somebody's lack of effort.

EF321 · February 29

spartaxoxo wrote: »

People are willing to pay it because the supply on sale doesn't meet the demand for the item

Players are not obliged to offer you items in their possession at all.

spartaxoxo · February 29

EF321 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

People are willing to pay it because the supply on sale doesn't meet the demand for the item

Players are not obliged to offer you items in their possession at all.

I didn't state they were. I was using Supply and Demand more so in the sense the economic meaning of the terms. I didn't mean I am personally demanding people put them for sale. I actually don't even need this help as I don't PVP or tank on a regular basis, and thus I have plenty of Columbine.

Lags · February 29

remove trading addons, problem solved

wolfie1.0. · February 29

i mean the largest way to immediately cause an influx of mats into the market would be to remove the craft bag, that would drive prices down as people are forced to sell. lol, and no its not really a solution.

there are two problems with Alchemy. First is that it needs to be rebalanced and brought in line with hybridization. Along with that they either need to fill the tree with redundancies or remove all redundant systems and get rid of wasteful and useless mats. there should be either more than one way for tri pots to be made, or the effectiveness of tripots vs other pot combos should be adjusted.

second is sourcing. farming alchemy mats is a very very very painful and grindy process in the wild. getting 1-2 reagents per node and the semi randomness of the spawns means that you have to spend 3 to 10 times more time farming wild spawns than any other node type. your actually better off not farming in the wild and farming tel var bags instead from a time perspective.

HowlKimchi · February 29

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I like to farm if Columbine prices on the PS were anywhere near what they are on the PC I would be rich!

In terms of economy, you would be as rich as you were in PS, because all the things in PC are also more expensive to buy.

It's true though that in-game gold sinks are much more affordable in PC NA, like furnished housings.

Diebesgut · February 29

... got some thousand of Columbine, just by picking it up, it grows everywhere I go... and my Khajiit need a lot of Bewitched Sugar Skulls ...

🤔 this reminds me of farming scrib jelly 🪲

uniqpy · February 29

The free market decides the price lol. If people weren't willing to pay it, it wouldn't be so expensive. Its that or spend a few hours farming. Dont forget your basically buying another players time there. Why do you think their time should be worth less? The price is the price, sell a decent style page or two from a daily vet dung and you've got your pots for the week.

ApoAlaia · February 29

Once they get around to reworking the pots, which according to the official 'chatter' during the promotion of Scions of Ithelia is coming soon, this may no longer be an issue. We will have to wait and see.

Maybe they will look into increasing the reward rate of Violet Coprinus and Mudcrab Chitin from daily writs as well, that would be nice.

The rest of the discussion, well, it was done to death in the previous thread on the subject; I see no new arguments here and I have none new of my own either.

Pepegrillos · February 29

Do you want bots or do you want high prices? Pick your poison.

ADarklore · February 29

Instead of complaining about the cost, how about you go out and farm some, then either sell it or use it. I come across Columbine all the time and sell it all the time. The only way to bring prices down is to saturate the market... as in... supply and demand. If demand outpaces supply, then prices go UP. If supply outpaces demand, prices go DOWN.

With that being said, of course you also have players who buy any cheap Columbine (or other alchemy ingredients) and stockpile them creating an artificial shortage- then sell it little by little when prices jump. Sadly, that's how the traders work.

Aurielle · February 29

I use tripots and Sugar Skulls in PVP (I have four characters that I use for PVP), and I’ve never had to purchase Columbine. I get a lot of alchemy surveys from writs, and get tons of Columbine that way. It’s also just something I always stop to pick up. If I’m doing some PVE quest or riding around Cyrodiil and see that pink goodness just lying on the floor, free for the taking… off the mount I go.

Price is so high because people aren’t prepared to farm it, and because players generally have so much gold on the PC servers. It’s NBD to drop 300k for some flowers when you’ve got 50 million in the bank.

TybaltKaine · February 29

Columbine is an infinite free resource.

Just go pick it up off the ground. Take a solid few days a couple of times a month to farm it for yourself.

If you don't want to do that, you pay the market set price. If you don't like the market set price, don't pay it, and convince other people to do the same.

akdave0 · February 29

There needs to be more columbine nodes. It’s curious, almost as if the game has an algorithm that collects the data on your most crafted potions and makes the node rare. I always find blessed thistle, dragon thorn, nirnroot, wormwood, cornflower. My least found reagents are columbine, mountain flower, bugloss, lady’s smock, and hyacinth.

BXR_Lonestar · February 29

Columbine is tough to get for sure, but I've tapered my use of it by using alliance trash pots in situations where I don't need both resources restored to slow my use of tri-pots. It sucks, and it can be rough if your trying to switch potions on the fly, but I've basically been trying to reduce my reliance on tri-pots because I also rely on them for my tanks (both argonians) for endgame PVE content.

DrNukenstein · February 29

TybaltKaine wrote: »

Columbine is an infinite free resource.

Just go pick it up off the ground. Take a solid few days a couple of times a month to farm it for yourself.

If you don't want to do that, you pay the market set price. If you don't like the market set price, don't pay it, and convince other people to do the same.

You must be the life of every party

DrNukenstein · February 29

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Columbine is tough to get for sure, but I've tapered my use of it by using alliance trash pots in situations where I don't need both resources restored to slow my use of tri-pots. It sucks, and it can be rough if your trying to switch potions on the fly, but I've basically been trying to reduce my reliance on tri-pots because I also rely on them for my tanks (both argonians) for endgame PVE content.

It's getting like that for me too. My build that runs on tri-stats is a special treat to play now. I wouldn't even want to have pockets deep enough to chug tristats 24/7 at these prices.

sarahthes · February 29

I think the biggest issue is, the activities I spend my time on don't all give rewards that pay for the cost of doing the activities. I'm fine paying for tripots and heroism pots (which also use columbine) at current prices if I can generate enough gold to keep up with them.

My time is limited, and having to choose between either doing the thing that is fun, or farming to do the fun things at some later date, isn't really a great choice.

TLDR endgame raiding needs to provide more gold earning potential.

TybaltKaine · February 29

What if I told you that you could pick Columbine without leaving Cyro

Crazy stuff, right?

sarahthes · February 29

TybaltKaine wrote: »

What if I told you that you could pick Columbine without leaving Cyro

Crazy stuff, right?

I can't pick columbine in Rockgrove though.