We need to talk about Columbine

sarahthes · March 1

ElderSmitter wrote: »

I'll say what people do not want to say out loud.

This goes back to Chromium Plating and Dreugh Wax before the jewelry change last Major Update and Corn Flower before Alliance Pots could be bought.

ESO is built. and thrives in many different ways. One of them is the Guild community. It is so Big behind the scenes that many posting on here have no idea how big it really is..

All i will say is this.

Don't you think it is strange something with 300+ Pages on TTC can hold a Price so strong besides the average joe schmoe seller selling for less to quickly free up some gold.

Use your Brain and realize there will always be a few items that magically do not come down in price. Supply and Demand have nothing to do with it.

Cheers!

Idk about that. Cornflower dropped.

DrNukenstein · March 1

EF321 wrote: »

A good example of why developers should not be catering to current patch meta chasers and make adjustments based on what youtube video is popular this month.

I don't know if we're playing the same game, but tri pots being by far the meta potion choice for PvP is super old news.

Jierdanit · March 1

erdYrrson wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

[...]LOL. Imagine expecting people to spend 5-7 hours a week to get enough materials to keep using potions that are necessary to be as strong as possible.

But no one is forcing you to want potions right?

In case you don't remember:

Jierdanit wrote: »

xclassgaming wrote: »

you are forced if you want event tickets.

But no one is forcing you to want event tickets right?

Oh ZOS is absolutely forcing me, because potions are a must have part of your build for any serious endgame content.

Not like event tickets which don't help your gameplay at all.

Hope that helps

Jierdanit · March 1

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

LOL. Imagine expecting people to spend 5-7 hours a week to get enough materials to keep using potions that are necessary to be as strong as possible.

Somebody has to do it in order for you to be able to complain about the prices they are charging.

I'm not complaining about the people selling Columbine at all. We all want to get as much gold as possible for the stuff were selling. That is simply supply and demand.

I would just like ZOS to actually give PvP players an option to either get tristat potions themselves or at least a way to reliably get enough gold through PvP to keep being able to afford them.

DrNukenstein · March 1

Jierdanit wrote: »

Oh ZOS is absolutely forcing me, because potions are a must have part of your build for any serious endgame content.

Not like event tickets which don't help your gameplay at all.

Hope that helps

sarahthes · March 1

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Oh ZOS is absolutely forcing me, because potions are a must have part of your build for any serious endgame content.

Not like event tickets which don't help your gameplay at all.

Hope that helps

You could redo this to have one side be PvE and one side be PvP!

DrNukenstein · March 1

sarahthes wrote: »

You could redo this to have one side be PvE and one side be PvP!

That works too. Done.

Sakiri · March 2

sharquez wrote: »

Arizona_Steve wrote: »

Get rid of the guild trader system and I think more people would be willing to sell.

So invest company time, money, and effort to dismantle a functional trading system so people can some how trade more? How does that make sense?

It's a thinly veiled, "we want an auction house" post.

Sakiri · March 2

Jierdanit wrote: »

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

The prices of Hakejo are too high and the PVP set gear from AP are too expensive going 1.7million or more. Even deadly daggers going for 800K+

So because of that, we demand Hakejo should have a 10% chance to drop in overland nodes and treasure chests in Cyrodiil should drop gear from AP boxes at 100% rate

There is a massive difference between Columbine and Hakeijos or Deadly daggers. You only need to buy 1 Deadly dagger and at max 11 Hakejios (which no one is going to need) for your entire build.

PvP Players constantly need more Columbine to keep playing their build. Its not a one time investment.
Also btw, PvE DPS potions can actually be bought for AP which is a big reason why they are not so expensive anymore.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

If you spend those 5-7 hours to farm alchemy mats you shouldn't have that problem.

LOL. Imagine expecting people to spend 5-7 hours a week to get enough materials to keep using potions that are necessary to be as strong as possible.

That's how it's worked in every other game since 1999.

You want to play, you work, too. Or just buy it. 5 to 7 hours a week to farm isn't really that bad, I spend more time than that because I like farming. *shrugs*

spartaxoxo · March 2

I actually haven't played many newer games that have required extreme grind for resources, and I think the games are better off for it.

Arizona_Steve · March 2

Sakiri wrote: »

sharquez wrote: »

Arizona_Steve wrote: »

Get rid of the guild trader system and I think more people would be willing to sell.

So invest company time, money, and effort to dismantle a functional trading system so people can some how trade more? How does that make sense?

It's a thinly veiled, "we want an auction house" post.

And you would be correct. I'm not sure how limiting the number of people who can sell via guild traders does anything to reduce prices vs a system where every player can be a seller.

hiyde · March 2

Jaraal wrote: »

20 columbine in 2 hours, that's 80 tri pots. Sell the rest of the mats you harvested on a guild trader and buy another 20 columbine, that's 160 tri pots.

I think it's way better than that, Jaraal.

If they're running around on PCNA for 2 hours to get ~20 Columbine and *also* picking up every other node in sight during those 2 hours, then they've quite likely picked up another ~800k in mats during that 2 hour run.

Sell those mats and you've got enough to pick up another ~800 potions worth of Columbine.

So, 2 hours of farming = nearly 900 potions.

Those numbers are likely on the upper end of what you can accumulate (but by no means out of reach) but even if you run around at half the speed of a hardcore node farmer, we're still talking about picking up enough resources to obtain enough Columbine to make more than 400 pots...in 2 hours.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be adjustments to make this situation a bit better, but if someone is running round for 2 hours and *only* taking Columbine nodes, they're forfeiting a LOT of gold.

Inflation has hit pretty much everything, meaning everything you pick up has value and can be converted to what you need.

NoTimeToWait · March 2

DenverRalphy wrote: »

It's not a supply issue. There's an infinite amount of Columbine out there. Always just sitting right there, ripe for the picking.

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. Take a break from those activities that require such an obscene consumption of pots and 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?

Being a trader is my primary activity in this game, I can say that this unfortunately won't work as well as you think. The only way to drop down prices is to increase supply, lowering demand won't be as effective mainly because traders don't feel pressured when demand is waning. Traders have stocks of many things, so when sales for one or two of these items begin to lag, we just switch to selling something else until demand recovers. And since we can store an infinite amount of stuff in Crafts bag, traders also are not pressured for storage space.

So the only real options to fix this problem (which doesn't include only Columbine tbh) are:
1) curbing gold inflation by introducing gold sinks (an eternal problem of any MMO)
2) adding more acquisition sources of an item
3) incentivize the harvesting activity

Sakiri · March 2

Arizona_Steve wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

sharquez wrote: »

Arizona_Steve wrote: »

Get rid of the guild trader system and I think more people would be willing to sell.

So invest company time, money, and effort to dismantle a functional trading system so people can some how trade more? How does that make sense?

It's a thinly veiled, "we want an auction house" post.

And you would be correct. I'm not sure how limiting the number of people who can sell via guild traders does anything to reduce prices vs a system where every player can be a seller.

You're not going to get one though. There's a solution. Join a trade guild and turn off chat.

Sakiri · March 2

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

It's not a supply issue. There's an infinite amount of Columbine out there. Always just sitting right there, ripe for the picking.

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. Take a break from those activities that require such an obscene consumption of pots and 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?

Being a trader is my primary activity in this game, I can say that this unfortunately won't work as well as you think. The only way to drop down prices is to increase supply, lowering demand won't be as effective mainly because traders don't feel pressured when demand is waning. Traders have stocks of many things, so when sales for one or two of these items begin to lag, we just switch to selling something else until demand recovers. And since we can store an infinite amount of stuff in Crafts bag, traders also are not pressured for storage space.

So the only real options to fix this problem (which doesn't include only Columbine tbh) are:
1) curbing gold inflation by introducing gold sinks (an eternal problem of any MMO)
2) adding more acquisition sources of an item
3) incentivize the harvesting activity

Adding gold sinks would cause problems on other servers because the ONLY server with this supposed problem is PC NA.

acastanza_ESO · March 2

The irony is that so many people who aren't PVPing or Tanking actually complain about the number of crown tripots that get given away in daily rewards, while I'm sitting over here wishing I could buy every single one of them that anyone could possibly want to get rid of - but almost all of my wealth is in AP and ZOS tanked the best way to convert it.

Just put tripots in the AP vendors already, there would still be plenty of other demand from people making Immovability and Detect potions, even tripots still (AP buyable Mag and Stam pots didn't erase people crafting them), and even the many foods that require it, but the massive strain on the Columbine market caused solely by Tripots would be eased enough that it would be a reasonably priced reagent again.

Also we desperately need useful things to spend AP on, the jewelry changes have completely tanked the market for the golden vendor jewlery so we PVPers aren't making the gold that we were before and so we're ill able to afford the skyrocketing columbine prices that we need to pay to be able to sustain our gameplay. It simply isn't fair to the PVP community to keep things this way.

EF321 · March 2

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

there would still be plenty of other demand from people making Immovability and Detect potions

So other players who use different types of potions should be left at competitive disadvantage and spend their time on all those things you don't want to do today? Why not add their potions and not yours, what makes you more important than other players?

NoTimeToWait · March 2

ElderSmitter wrote: »

I'll say what people do not want to say out loud.

This goes back to Chromium Plating and Dreugh Wax before the jewelry change last Major Update and Corn Flower before Alliance Pots could be bought.

ESO is built. and thrives in many different ways. One of them is the Guild community. It is so Big behind the scenes that many posting on here have no idea how big it really is..

All i will say is this.

Don't you think it is strange something with 300+ Pages on TTC can hold a Price so strong besides the average joe schmoe seller selling for less to quickly free up some gold.

Use your Brain and realize there will always be a few items that magically do not come down in price. Supply and Demand have nothing to do with it.

Cheers!

*Narrates in toneless argonian voice* Oh no, this dryskin caught us redhanded. What reptiloids should do now

You know, when something looks like a coordinated action sometimes it is actually just a common sense? Supply and Demand is not the only basic rule in Economics 101. There is also Invest and Diversify (especially in inflation-driven economy). So any trader with a common sense does it, because keeping wealth as gold is not reasonable. And since a lot of wealthy traders have their wealth stored in goods, it means that most traders try to keep prices stable (especially keeping prices not going down).

If there was any real coordinated action, it would probably be directed against inflation, since, you know, wealthy people don't like when their wealth goes down in value by the virtue of time going by. So if there was a conspiracy of major trading guilds out there, they would probably take out as much gold as possible out of circulation and store it, to curb inflation so that we don't have an inflation rate of 50% (or more) per year

doabhi · March 2

Make NPCs pay more gold. the oldest quests in the game still give you a poultry 2 digit sum in some cases, this harks back to the early days of the game when the inflation wasn't so rough. The later quests give a bit more, 3 digits on average, but still not enough to really buy you anything useful.

Failing that? bump up the gold from rewards of the worthy so that spending a day in Cyro' nets you a decent amount of pay instead of toddler's pocket money.

wolfie1.0. · March 2

Dekrypted wrote: »

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.

Wild.

Dekrypted wrote: »

You know somethings wrong when it's beneficial to actually not play this game and wait for your tri pots from the daily log in because tri pots are too expensive.

There have been threads before about this and they've been gaslit to oblivion by probably the people continously raising the prices. It's actually a problem. Doesn't make sense to shove hybridisation down our throat and then let the prices go out of control for potions that become more and more essential.

A majority of these mats are coming from surveys. They aren't coming from running around "picking flowers". I humored the people here on the forums and spent 2 hours just doing that. Got a whopping 20 of them and a ton of other mats that aren't going to allow me to make tri pots. Not everyone has the time to do writs and surveys.

By simply adding other methods to get tri pots like through AP, Tel var, or the IA currency that brings the cost down, but doesn't eliminate it 100% from the market.

Say what you want, but I see no point in playing the game when I can't afford the potions I need. I as a player am being rewarded by not playing the game. Makes alot of sense.

Tel var rewards already exist. Go farm IC.

Also, wild farming Columbine works, but yes the rate is dependent on where you farm and how many others are doing it.

wolfie1.0. · March 2

sarahthes wrote: »

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.

The problem is actually too much gold in the system. Not earning it.

There was a time when cornflower was top dog and selling at 2k per and Columbine was down to 300 per. Now it's reversed and it's because of the Meta changes.

XSTRONG · March 2

Threads like this about flowers, potions always get big interaction yet Zos is quiet about it

barney2525 · March 2

I have never bought any columbine.
Farm it from starter zones
They are overloaded with nodes

Sennecca · March 2

Does anyone note anything that's similar here?
Tri stat potion:
Columbine ,Bugloss, Mountain Flower
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragon’s Blood
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragonthorn
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Dragon Rheum
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Lady’s Smock

Essence of Immovability:
Columbine Mountain flower Wormwood
Blue entoloma Columbine Namira’s rot
Columbine Corn flower, Wormwood
Columbine Lady’s smock, Namira’s rot
Columbine Dragonthorn Wormwood

Jewels of Misrule:
Bervez Juice , Lotus, Mint, Rose Columbine

-Tri- stat potions are used in PVE/PVP in the Infinite archive. It's probably the most used potion in the game and every form of it requires Columbine.
-Different forms of Immovability are used very frequently in PVP and Every one requires columbine.

Jewels of Misrule is used more in PVP, but with the The push for more health and recovery in the Infinite archive, It has also become more popular and requires Columbine.

If someone is an active player in content where they are using potions on a constant basis in dungeons, trials, pvp or Infinite archive, the amount of columbine they would need is ridiculous. It's the fact that They are the MOST used potions and every single one of them requires the same ONE ingredient.

freespirit · March 2

Sennecca wrote: »

Does anyone note anything that's similar here?
Tri stat potion:
Columbine ,Bugloss, Mountain Flower
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragon’s Blood
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragonthorn
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Dragon Rheum
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Lady’s Smock

Essence of Immovability:
Columbine Mountain flower Wormwood
Blue entoloma Columbine Namira’s rot
Columbine Corn flower, Wormwood
Columbine Lady’s smock, Namira’s rot
Columbine Dragonthorn Wormwood

Jewels of Misrule:
Bervez Juice , Lotus, Mint, Rose Columbine

-Tri- stat potions are used in PVE/PVP in the Infinite archive. It's probably the most used potion in the game and every form of it requires Columbine.
-Different forms of Immovability are used very frequently in PVP and Every one requires columbine.

Jewels of Misrule is used more in PVP, but with the The push for more health and recovery in the Infinite archive, It has also become more popular and requires Columbine.

If someone is an active player in content where they are using potions on a constant basis in dungeons, trials, pvp or Infinite archive, the amount of columbine they would need is ridiculous. It's the fact that They are the MOST used potions and every single one of them requires the same ONE ingredient.

Don't forget Bewitched Sugar Skulls, quite popular these days ...... that uses TWO columbine per craft! 😲

manukartofanu · March 2

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

Being a trader is my primary activity in this game, I can say that this unfortunately won't work as well as you think. The only way to drop down prices is to increase supply, lowering demand won't be as effective mainly because traders don't feel pressured when demand is waning. Traders have stocks of many things, so when sales for one or two of these items begin to lag, we just switch to selling something else until demand recovers. And since we can store an infinite amount of stuff in Crafts bag, traders also are not pressured for storage space.

If it worked like that, the price of chrome wouldn't have dropped by half. When big traders know that irreversible changes have occurred, they are the first to rush to offload their stocks at lower prices.

acastanza_ESO · March 2

EF321 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

there would still be plenty of other demand from people making Immovability and Detect potions

So other players who use different types of potions should be left at competitive disadvantage and spend their time on all those things you don't want to do today? Why not add their potions and not yours, what makes you more important than other players?

All of those potions see less individual use than tripots which are massively used by every player in PVP and by a significant number of PVE players as well (including all tanks), none of the other potions would even make a fraction of the impact that tripots would.

People who use other potions are in fact at a competitive advantage not disadvantage. And it's not like some of those effects aren't already available - the Alliance health potions are also immovability and stealth potions. The only other effect missing is detect, and you'd have all the nightblades mains in here rioting if you proposed making those more available. But like I said before, making alliance tripots available would, by lowering the price of one of the most essential crafting resources in the game, make those more sophisticated advantageous high end options more accessable to players and, in fact, decrease the likelihood of some players having a competitive advantage.

Your argument is completely pants-on-head.

Jaraal · March 2

freespirit wrote: »

Sennecca wrote: »

Does anyone note anything that's similar here?
Tri stat potion:
Columbine ,Bugloss, Mountain Flower
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragon’s Blood
Columbine, Bugloss, Dragonthorn
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Dragon Rheum
Columbine, Mountain Flower, Lady’s Smock

Essence of Immovability:
Columbine Mountain flower Wormwood
Blue entoloma Columbine Namira’s rot
Columbine Corn flower, Wormwood
Columbine Lady’s smock, Namira’s rot
Columbine Dragonthorn Wormwood

Jewels of Misrule:
Bervez Juice , Lotus, Mint, Rose Columbine

-Tri- stat potions are used in PVE/PVP in the Infinite archive. It's probably the most used potion in the game and every form of it requires Columbine.
-Different forms of Immovability are used very frequently in PVP and Every one requires columbine.

Jewels of Misrule is used more in PVP, but with the The push for more health and recovery in the Infinite archive, It has also become more popular and requires Columbine.

If someone is an active player in content where they are using potions on a constant basis in dungeons, trials, pvp or Infinite archive, the amount of columbine they would need is ridiculous. It's the fact that They are the MOST used potions and every single one of them requires the same ONE ingredient.

Don't forget Bewitched Sugar Skulls, quite popular these days ...... that uses TWO columbine per craft! 😲

The difference being that one meal lasts over two hours, versus 47 seconds for the potions.

EF321 · March 2

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

All of those potions see less individual use than tripots which are massively used by every player in PVP and by a significant number of PVE players as well (including all tanks), none of the other potions would even make a fraction of the impact that tripots would.

This does not answer the question. Why certain groups of players should be discriminated when everyone has equal opportunities in current system?
Name one clear reason why you, as an individual, deserve special treatment and user of armor potion does not.

spartaxoxo · March 2

EF321 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

All of those potions see less individual use than tripots which are massively used by every player in PVP and by a significant number of PVE players as well (including all tanks), none of the other potions would even make a fraction of the impact that tripots would.

This does not answer the question. Why certain groups of players should be discriminated when everyone has equal opportunities in current system?
Name one clear reason why you, as an individual, deserve special treatment and user of armor potion does not.

Current system doesn't have equal opportunities for everyone, if we're defining that as picking mats. Which we shouldn't. But we'll go with it anyway.

There are already NPC pots in the game. It's not discrimination either. It makes sense for activities to reward things that makes those activities better. PvP rewards potions that make PvP easier. So it makes sense to ask for the most popular PvP potion to be added in with the rewards that already exist.

Just as PvE gets things like stealth pots as a reward for assassination missions.