PTS Update 42 - Feedback Thread for Mail Expiration Changes

Xoz

You know, I was about to complain, but at this point I think it's pointless.

Sillvos

How would this improve server performance? In-game mail and guild traders should already have their own dedicated server.

ApoAlaia

Xoz wrote: »

You know, I was about to complain, but at this point I think it's pointless.

Is worse than pointless.

If we keep arguing the changes by week 5 of the PTS listings and trader mail will expire within 24 hours.

heinousmoz

jrmwvu04 wrote: »

Great changes, will help clear out dead weight in trader listings. If your items are sitting on a storefront for longer than 14 days, they were priced poorly and another 16 days isn’t going to help. The combination of changes is 28 days to deal with an unsold listing, which is quite reasonable.

Tell that to all the items I've sold after 14 days of being listed...

Phaedrathallassa

What about people who don’t plan on being away from the game? Ie medical events, computer breaks, family stuff, all kinds of things life throws at us. Will ZOS restore their mail? I can’t imagine being away because of an unexpected life event and finally get a chance to relax only to realize you’ve lost millions of gold/hours of progress.

I lost a Baron Zaudrus page to the mail gods due to a hiatus (estimated value: 80 mil gold). I didn’t care too much since I’d already sold 3 (and it was my own fault because I could have logged on and chose not to). That would be heart wrenching to most people. Imagine if it was outside your control.

MoonPile

The first question that popped into my head as I read this Patch Note cannot actually be said here on the forums without being snipped. You can guess: 3 words, or even an acronym.

ShawnF

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period.

I wonder if you might hire a data scientist here, someone who could point out that the majority of listings are for items like a stack of apples or a single intricate necklace. Yes, those will sell quickly (if priced properly) or not at all (if priced beyond the market), making your statement above correct but misleading. The common items that sell quickly probably deserve less attention in this discussion than the things which take the longest to sell.

I rarely list things because it's a hassle on console, but when I do put something in the store it's often something rare that might take two months to find an interested buyer. I'm not paying to be in a major trading guild, so my trader is getting fewer visitors than the big guilds, which increases time to sell as well. Now I'll have to do work of listing items twice as often & pay twice the fees. Or are listing fees going to be cut to 46% of their previous value?

If this goes through, it'll drive more business to the few trade guilds able to afford capital city traders, and make casual trade guild members less interested in listing low-value items, and less interested in playing the hard content to get high value items to sell.

Also... "strain on the database" please talk to Microsoft about this product they have called SQL Server, it's been around since 1989 and I hear the latest versions should be able to handle even the largest workload in Tamriel...

licenturion

Wow.
While last year the game did a lot of great things for quality of life, this year they go about destroying all the progress they made and made it worse that when they started out.

This combined with the mail system changes seem a terrible idea. People need to pay way more to put up more special items in guild stores if they expire so quickly.

I also don't see how this will improve server performance. If items expire twice as fast, there need to be twice the amount of in game mail send out of expired items and people will login more to repost said items on on their guild stores leading to much more mail and server traffic than to just let items hang there....

I wonder why they mention 'server performance' again. Never had any performance issues, not even when 150 people where doing a a geyser with their pet, companion and combat pet. Is scribing that heavy? Or is this all for this Q4 PVP thing we have to pay dearly for with gigantic quality of life regressions?

Also why make feedback threads about these items if you are only going to say 'thanks for the feedback, we will ignore it'. I really hope these decisions have major pushback from the more casual player base as well. This seems more something the 'player engagement and monetization' department came up with.

KlauthWarthog

I am going to run out of popcorn at this rate.

Yes, consumable items like reagents, potions, materials etc move on the first couple days or not at all.
Persistent items, like motifs, do not usually move in the first couple days at all. Having to keep relisting those will just make people stop bothering, unless they are exceptionally valuable.. in which case they will be paying the listing fees multiple times.

This change was not well considered at all.

Horny_Poney

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period.

I can’t see the relation between this and the reduced timers on mails. This simply doesn’t make any sense.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days.

Utterly UNACCEPTABLE! In fact I’ll advocate the total opposite: remove the timers for items in guild traders completely. Do you really think people will spend that much time on refilling their traders, not every month, but every 2 weeks now? Seriously? You’re out of your mind if you think so. Personally there is absolutely no world in which one I’ll continue to donate to traders that ask me twice the amount of work. This would also mean I would have to pay double fees (each time I put something to sell).
Moreover, there are absolutely no reasons to reduce those trader timers, and certainly not performance nor strain on the database: let’s say an item expires after 14 days, what will happen? The player will put it back to sell or put another one. Right? So where is the performance improvement? Nowhere, there are still the same number of items to sell.

Mails: back to 30 days.
Traders: remove entirely the 30 days timer.

shadyjane62

This is why I never offer insight to the PTS. It is a waste of time. For years we tell ZoS what we think, what we feel and are ignored.

So be it.

BetweenMidgets

As others have stated, this is absolutely tonedeaf and awful.

Doesn't address the original problem, and adds the trader issue into the mix.

High value items take time to sell. This morning I was on top of the world with the monthly rewards, and now I'm brought back down to reality. ZoS never really seems to change, do they.

Fiktius

As someone who rarely post these days on forums, I guess my account was considered "dead" here.
Congratulations Zenimax, you technically revived a corpse with this change to mails & guild trader listings.

And now jokes a side:
Seriously, listen what players tells you. These changes are bad.
If you took a look to statistics, I can understand why you think that majority of items sells within two weeks.
Most items that guild traders sells are crafting materials and they have high traffic.
But even then if you are not feeling being in hurry and do not have a need to undercut your guildies, you might have to wait some days longer to get your items sold, because obviously cheapest sells first.

And that's with materials due they have high purchase ratio in every guild, every day.
However if you take a look to items that sells less: those are gear, weapons, furniture and some rare/collector items.
It's not uncommon at all that some of those items I mentioned above takes longer than two weeks to sell, especially if you are not selling meta gear with cheapest pricing at your trade hub.
One would need actually patience to get those items sold and 30 days are just fine.

Dear Zenimax, please take a look elsewhere than guild trader listings if you truly want to change performance.
As - currently former - PvP player that has been waiting for properly fixed Cyrodiil for years, do not take the joy away from the one and only thing that I log in to play the game (with several accounts).

Tandor

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

I am going to run out of popcorn at this rate.

I don't usually come out with all the old cliches about a comment making me spill my coffee, or winning the internet, or not being able to award enough awesomes, but this particular comment comes close to making me do so !

luchtt

i dont trade much, barely use guild traders aside from selling high value items but even as a bit of an ''outsider'' to this... why? If it's for storage/performance reasons at least say so, because right now people are seeing this as just a complete ''F you'' move to the playerbase. if it's not for performance reasons, its just a bad change. It doesn't accomplish anything except for increasing the likelihood people will lose their gold and items.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

My dead CPU kept me out of the game for longer than a listing will last after the patch. 😐

M33tr3

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We hope this information has been insightful, and as always, you are welcome to leave additional feedback in the PTS section of the Forums.

You have provided insight into the LACK of care your company has for its customers and their thoughts on the game. Why would we leave ANY feedback when IF the devs even read it they don't take it into consideration?

ake

halve the duration, double the slots?

JHartEllis

These are hard pills to swallow even if for performance improvements, and more of a give-and-take approach would be appropriate since it feels like all take as is.

Here are several suggestions to help things be better received and to augment goals:

Reducing the listing fee from 1% to .5% would help take the edge off the listing time reduction.

Adding a small listing fee (e.g. 100g) would encourage people to stack listings tighter, helping reduce the negative externality effects on the database, which would magnify performance improvements.

Increasing default stack sizes from 200 to 800 would allow players to further optimize listings and reduce database strain.

People are going to be caught off guard by these changes. Sending a system mail detailing key changes and including a chunk of gold to cover some future listing fees would help pre-empt problems.

The guild trader system doesn't work for everyone. ESO would benefit from adding a parallel sales system such as bid-up auctions, batched lot bartering, or selling items from player house vendors. Would be happy to help design any such system.

WIZZARD2K

I guess we're going to have to resort back to shouting in zone chat to sell anything of significant value/rarity, rather than risk losing the listing fees on a 14-day timer.
Heaven forbid someone have a technical issue that keeps them away from the game for longer than 14 days and they start losing money they earned on sales.
These do not sound like player-friendly ways of tackling this issue.

sarahthes

Players: "We need more gold sinks."
Also players: "Not like that."

Chef42

I can't see how this will help server overhead. And also, this is not a player friendly change. So I am guessing this change is intended to drive player engagement.

I find it funny how ZOS has tried to move away from players min maxing only to then go and find the smallest ways to do it themselves.

javic1502

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.

As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward.

We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

If you plan on being away from the game for an extended period, we recommend taking those personal plans into account when making decisions regarding Guild Trader listings.

We hope this information has been insightful, and as always, you are welcome to leave additional feedback in the PTS section of the Forums.

@ZOS_Kevin
Please reduce the Listing Fee & House Cut. If the item listing time is reduced from 30 days to 14 days, it would only be fair to reduce these costs by 50%. Perhaps change the Listing Fee from 1.0% to 0.5%. Perhaps change the House Cut from 7.0% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 3.5% lost to the system, to 3.5% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 0.0% lost to the system. This would be a net change from 8.0% overall to 4.0% overall without the guilds losing anything. This 50% reduction in costs would balance out the change from 30 days to 14 days for guild listings.

FrancisCrawford

MoonPile wrote: »

The first question that popped into my head as I read this Patch Note cannot actually be said here on the forums without being snipped. You can guess: 3 words, or even an acronym.

I'd like to request a new dance emote, to be called the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

sarahthes

javic1502 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.

As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward.

We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

If you plan on being away from the game for an extended period, we recommend taking those personal plans into account when making decisions regarding Guild Trader listings.

We hope this information has been insightful, and as always, you are welcome to leave additional feedback in the PTS section of the Forums.

@ZOS_Kevin
Please reduce the Listing Fee & House Cut. If the item listing time is reduced from 30 days to 14 days, it would only be fair to reduce these costs by 50%. Perhaps change the Listing Fee from 1.0% to 0.5%. Perhaps change the House Cut from 7.0% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 3.5% lost to the system, to 3.5% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 0.0% lost to the system. This would be a net change from 8.0% overall to 4.0% overall without the guilds losing anything. This 50% reduction in costs would balance out the change from 30 days to 14 days for guild listings.

They would be effectively cutting in half one of the biggest gold sinks in the game if they did that. It would be bad for the game (keeping in mind that the bulk of items sold are sold within the first week and are not relisted - yes I know there are exceptions, but you have to also consider the items that follow this general rule which are the majority).

Araneae6537

Regarding trader listings, what if we could pay a varying level of tax depending on how long we wanted it posted for? I’m sure a lot of items do sell that quickly, but some lower demand items, including expensive furnishings, can take longer to sell. One may wish to pay upfront to have an item listed longer than to potentially re-list several times.

As others have said, some mails could expire faster without harm, but payment from a sold item absolutely should not (assuming the timer starts when the item is sold). I’m also baffled at why mail should have anything beyond a negligible impact on server performance.

Ezhh

Plenty of people are making the reasons why this is bad clear, so just adding my voice to it all. I have plenty of non-material listings that sell after 14 days. And now if I want to take a two week holiday leaving things listed in a trader stops being practical. And two weeks is a pretty common length for a holiday.

DenverRalphy

sarahthes wrote: »

javic1502 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.

As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward.

We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

If you plan on being away from the game for an extended period, we recommend taking those personal plans into account when making decisions regarding Guild Trader listings.

We hope this information has been insightful, and as always, you are welcome to leave additional feedback in the PTS section of the Forums.

@ZOS_Kevin
Please reduce the Listing Fee & House Cut. If the item listing time is reduced from 30 days to 14 days, it would only be fair to reduce these costs by 50%. Perhaps change the Listing Fee from 1.0% to 0.5%. Perhaps change the House Cut from 7.0% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 3.5% lost to the system, to 3.5% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 0.0% lost to the system. This would be a net change from 8.0% overall to 4.0% overall without the guilds losing anything. This 50% reduction in costs would balance out the change from 30 days to 14 days for guild listings.

They would be effectively cutting in half one of the biggest gold sinks in the game if they did that. It would be bad for the game (keeping in mind that the bulk of items sold are sold within the first week and are not relisted - yes I know there are exceptions, but you have to also consider the items that follow this general rule which are the majority).

You've got it backwards. It would be keeping the gold sink in line as the change will be doubling the gold sink. If you list a high value item that takes up to 30 days to sell, and the listing fee is 4k. You'll pay it twice on average to sell it paying 8k to keep it up for 30 days.

Though I do agree that the House Cut should not be touched, since that doesn't get taken until the item actually sells. You lose nothing but the listing fee if it expires.

sarahthes

DenverRalphy wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

javic1502 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.

As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward.

We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

If you plan on being away from the game for an extended period, we recommend taking those personal plans into account when making decisions regarding Guild Trader listings.

We hope this information has been insightful, and as always, you are welcome to leave additional feedback in the PTS section of the Forums.

@ZOS_Kevin
Please reduce the Listing Fee & House Cut. If the item listing time is reduced from 30 days to 14 days, it would only be fair to reduce these costs by 50%. Perhaps change the Listing Fee from 1.0% to 0.5%. Perhaps change the House Cut from 7.0% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 3.5% lost to the system, to 3.5% overall with 3.5% to the guild and 0.0% lost to the system. This would be a net change from 8.0% overall to 4.0% overall without the guilds losing anything. This 50% reduction in costs would balance out the change from 30 days to 14 days for guild listings.

They would be effectively cutting in half one of the biggest gold sinks in the game if they did that. It would be bad for the game (keeping in mind that the bulk of items sold are sold within the first week and are not relisted - yes I know there are exceptions, but you have to also consider the items that follow this general rule which are the majority).

You've got it backwards. It would be keeping the gold sink in line as the change will be doubling the gold sink. If you list a high value item that takes up to 30 days to sell, and the listing fee is 4k. You'll pay it twice on average to sell it paying 8k to keep it up for 30 days.

Though I do agree that the House Cut should not be touched, since that doesn't get taken until the item actually sells. You lose nothing but the listing fee if it expires.

And if you list mats/consumables that flip in 24 hours, which is probably the bulk of sales, you cut that revenue in half. Things that take longer to sell are the minority, not the majority.

Wolfkeks

I'm afraid to add something in case ZOS decides to reduce the listing time to 7 days 😬