Is the game economy working for you?

clocksstoppe

Yes

Jeremy wrote: »

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Evanis wrote: »

I belong to four trade guilds with hundreds of members each, but yet I find *one* bottle of dwarven oil to purchase at 500g. Sorry, but I only look stupid... No thanks... There is something *very* wrong with that and this example only underscores the problem. I think that

No, there is nothig wrong with that. crafting tempers are the hardest things to obtain and that is why nobody is selling theirs

This is exactly the problem. An economy like this encourages people to hoard anything rare that they may end up wanting. And I'm sure you know that concentrated wealth is harmful to any economy.

The system is just flawed and isn't going to work. Any social benefit it may add due to the need for players to manually trade with one another (which is dubious at best) is going to be far out-weighed by the lack of access and availability players are going to encounter.

Also the success or failure of players in a gaming economy should not depend on belonging to the right guild store. It should be based on their determination and willingness to work to afford the best stuff for sale. So not only does the system fail on practical terms, but moral ones as well

ok let me put it this way. WHY should i give you the element that will generate my profit and not use it myself?

Nobody owes you tempering items or the obligation to sell you tempering items.

I know in your opinion it's not fair but it is.

andrantos

I would say yes and no...

The problem with a central AH is that the economy goes to poo. Inflation and deflation go rampant and especially more so on a "megaserver".

The other problem is that Guild Stores are awful in terms of finding things. Search might as well be broke!

The other problem is that craftables just aren't in as much demand as they need to be. Everyone can craft the first tier of items, so the prelvl 20 economy is dominated by crafting materials, motifs and all the junk that players "think" other players should want.

I imagine once the bulk of the player base gets into their 20s, 30s, 40s... and players realize guilds are a different beast here, the economy will shape up. Right now, players are just a tad too self sufficient (and guild store search sucks).

Jeremy

No

Opioid wrote: »

@grayssonb16_ESO Sorry, but I need to completely disagree with you here. Having a lot of different markets is nice, but the problem is the limiting factor that not all the consumers in this game can participate in all the markets. You're limited to 5 guilds, or trying to spam for things in zone chat. There's nothing to stop price gouging in the current guild store setup either. In fact, quite the opposite. I can see the current system encouraging price gouging, especially the ability of guilds to own a keep and set exorbitant prices on their items since they basically have a captive audience with no competition.

Having a global economy helps to reduce price gouging significantly, with the exception of exceedingly rare/luxury items. Rare and highly sought after items will always command a higher price.

That was my point. The different stores are not all accessible, which fragments the economy and shrinks/de-stabilizes the economic base.

When I said market in that post I was referring to the economy as a whole. I didn't mean in the context of competing produce stands.

Jeremy

No

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Evanis wrote: »

I belong to four trade guilds with hundreds of members each, but yet I find *one* bottle of dwarven oil to purchase at 500g. Sorry, but I only look stupid... No thanks... There is something *very* wrong with that and this example only underscores the problem. I think that

No, there is nothig wrong with that. crafting tempers are the hardest things to obtain and that is why nobody is selling theirs

This is exactly the problem. An economy like this encourages people to hoard anything rare that they may end up wanting. And I'm sure you know that concentrated wealth is harmful to any economy.

The system is just flawed and isn't going to work. Any social benefit it may add due to the need for players to manually trade with one another (which is dubious at best) is going to be far out-weighed by the lack of access and availability players are going to encounter.

Also the success or failure of players in a gaming economy should not depend on belonging to the right guild store. It should be based on their determination and willingness to work to afford the best stuff for sale. So not only does the system fail on practical terms, but moral ones as well

ok let me put it this way. WHY should i give you the element that will generate my profit and not use it myself?

Nobody owes you tempering items or the obligation to sell you tempering items.

I know in your opinion it's not fair but it is.

I'm having a really hard time following the posts you direct at me Clock.

I never said you are obliged to sell me anything. And you can use what ever you want for yourself. I wish you would stop trying to make this discussion personal and about me. I never said you owed me anything.

I am talking about why I feel an auction house is necessary to promote a healthy economy. You can do what ever you choose with your items. That is your choice and doesn't concern me

My point was that when availability is scarce it can encourage hoarding, which is harmful to any economy, both real and imaginary ones ^^

Jeremy

No

andrantos wrote: »

I would say yes and no...

The problem with a central AH is that the economy goes to poo. Inflation and deflation go rampant and especially more so on a "megaserver".
.

I don't understand why you think broadening the auction house would cause the economy to go to poo. More customers and more competition are signs of a good economy. Not a bad one.

Drachenfier

No

KiroElmarok wrote: »

Please. No Auction house. You'll all regret it.

Haven't regretted it any game I've played yet that had one. On the other hand, everytime i (rarely, that is) get into a game with out one, I do regret it.

You know what I see when there aren't auction houses? Tons of spam and people taking advantage of the fact that prices aren't well known and trying to gouge the hell out of everybody else, which is exactly what's going on in ESO right now.

I honestly can't fathom all the hate against Auction Houses. I'm starting to think all the people so vehemently opposed to auction houses are the very people that try to suck as much money from unsuspecting players as they can, because when there is an auction house, prices are rapidly regulated, by the player community.

Jeremy

No

Me either. It baffles the hell out of me too.

Ease of access and competitive prices. What is there to hate?

Ironclap

What's not working for me is the horrendous store system where I can't even filter by the most basic things, except for that it's looking alright.

Krym

Yes

I just mentioned the difference to consider, both have their pros & cons depending on your POV; and I think the crude usability in the guild store makes the whole selling & buying less enjoyable as a whole (imagine a proper interface, that would make guild stores look better as well if you know what I mean)

I didn't want to imply one is better than the other. (although there probably is a reason the devs designed it the way it is. maybe an official devpost with some background would help to understand what their goals and intentions are)

Morthur

No

.

Krym

Yes

wow had 10k players tops per server, and were split by faction (dunno if they still are). a server's market also didn't interact with others, unless you payed money to move chars around - although with CRZ they opened a whole other can of worms, especially for smaller servers..

another thing to mention: the guild markets are player controlled. this means while some guilds can gouge prices - unlikely since everybody can theoretically do the same to get hose items and in the worst case sell via chat - they can also control who is part of the guild. in a central market we have to ask zos to take care of it, right new we can control who sells where. it's much more difficult for a goldseller to penetrate several markets at once.

Musonius

No

Just a note on the COD fee. I hope this is just a bug, but as of now the COD fee is based upon the gold amount and the number of items being sent. If you send 1 item for 1000 gold the COD fee is 110 G. The 10G seems to be a flat rate for sending any item or items COD, while the 100G is 10% of the gold amount. However, the 10% fee is charged PER item sent. So if you send 2 items in that same COD mail for a price of 1000G total, the COD fee is 210G, 3 is 310G and so on to the max of 6 items and 610 G or a 60% COD fee! This needs to be changed ASAP to a flat percentage of the gold cost regardless of the number of items in the mail.

Abeille

No

I hate chat spam, so no, it is not working.

BrassRazoo

Yes

There needs to be a third answer in the poll.
I have not sold or bought one thing from another player and I am level 30.
I find and make everything myself at present.

GLaDOS

Yes

I wish there was a 'yes and no' response!

It works for me because I'm able to sell things most of the time.

At the same time I don't feel like it is working for me because I wish that there were separate categories for recipes and the various crafting mats or at the very least a search field so I don't have to sift through pages of things that I'm not interested in.

SuicideDonkey

It's too soon to judge, the game simply hasn't been running long enough for the economy to reach any sort of equilibrium, let alone see all the effects of a system like this on a game economy, so I've taken a wait and see approach for now.

That being said, I personally have three problems with it as it stands right now.

1) Why can guilds not choose to set trade fees, it makes absolutely no sense to me to remove that control from the guilds, I can understand the need for some gold sinks in the form of a small minimum percentage to represent a factions "tax rate" as it were, but the rest should be at the guilds discretion.
1.1)Trade guilds (guilds in general) are very underdeveloped (poorly implemented?) right now and are mostly pointless right now, they need to add some usefulness to the guilds, a quick example of the top of my head would be to add perks and facilities that guild members can use, buying these expansions for the the guild and giving them a upkeep cost would make guild fees justifiable, and add a nice gold sink to the game to fight currency inflation as well as make being in a guild worthwhile, then guilds would be more than they loose affiliation of traders they are now, they should take a lesson from GW2 and WoW in this respect and make being in a trade guild somewhat more useful than the glorified and very limited trade chat channels they basically are now.

2) Whoever designed the search and filter functions of the guild store needs to be taken out into the street and beat in the face with a basic programming and web design manual until deader than a parrot (cookie for you if you got that reference), it's a travesty and might as well not even be there for all the use it is, I think a team of monkeys could have written and compiled something more useful.

3) The tiny size of the market with this system, if all 5 of your guilds are trade guilds then you can potentially access 2500 people for trade, that seems like a lot, but it's actually not a very large percentage of the available market on these mega-servers, that makes finding buyers and sellers challenging and makes for a less healthy economy, they need to give guilds the ability to form conglomerates/alliances and share/merge the shops between them, that way you can reach a much larger part of the server population.

theoak1ey

No

Yes for the most part. What I will say is there really isn't an awful lot to spend my money on at the moment so I don't go out of my way to make money through guilds (although I am apart of 2).

I'm levelling all my crafts and since hitting 50 on provisioning no long collect any ingredients apart from the select few for my better recipes and as a result I no longer have space issues so I don't need to send money on storage space and I have an imperial horse so buying another horse is a priority at the moment either, couple that with the fact resources are plentiful and weapon/armour drops the same I don't see the need to spend gold on anything.

For me until there is things to buy that are worthwhile I'm not concerned with no auction house as what do I send my money on? once I get maximum storage space and a better horse.

kodesai_ESO

Yes

The economy forces players to be social in a social game. I see no problems as a guild actually matters if you want anything. You need to make friends with crafters etc. This is a great idea and the best implementation since EQ1 imop.

LadyInTheWater

Yes

I think the economy is amazing!

The fact that there's no "Auction House" makes me squeal with joy. I was so tired of the auction houses in other games, which were dominated by people who "played the economy", basically ripping people off under the excuse of Supply and Demand.

If you look at games like WoW, low-level items sell for ridiculous amounts of money, because high-level characters use them for decorations. In short, people charge high amounts simply because they can.

At least in ESO's economy, the people who want to dominate the auction system are going to do so in their Trade Guilds or whatever.

For me, it gives me the option to not join one of those guilds. The guilds I join will be with people who I want to know and enjoy playing with. And if I opt to sell something (or buy something), it'll be from people who I would call in-game friends. And those people won't necessarily be out to rip me off.

It basically lets me play in my own separate economy, rather than playing with those people who farm and jack up prices.

Granted, it's not perfect. But nothing's perfect.

Mantiss

Yes

The economy for me has been excellent. I sell and buy various things while visiting the cities and just watching the chat. Also joined a player-run crafter's guild which has been amazing for my needs.

This system is so much better then the silly AH of other past games and I hope it never changes.

Krym

Yes

SuicideDonkey wrote: »

3) The tiny size of the market with this system, if all 5 of your guilds are trade guilds then you can potentially access 2500 people for trade, that seems like a lot, but it's actually not a very large percentage of the available market on these mega-servers, that makes finding buyers and sellers challenging and makes for a less healthy economy, they need to give guilds the ability to form conglomerates/alliances and share/merge the shops between them, that way you can reach a much larger part of the server population.

iirc guild can open a shop in a claimed castle.

we also don't know what they have planned regarding (guild)housing. TOR introduces it soon, and a lot of people played hearthfire. I'd wait till the first big patch which usually is the patch that makes the game the launch version...

Myxril

Yes

Morthur wrote: »

Myxril wrote: »

Centralized market access jacks up any game that has people botting or powerfarming. Nothing's worse for an economy than people being able to flood tons of outrageously underpriced goods, or buy up entire markets and repost them at insane markups.

Why would a centralized market be easier to manipulate then 10-20 smaller markets to which only limited people have access?

A centralized market puts all goods in one location, whereas the trade guilds compartmentalizes this. I don't care how good WoW's central AH is; that doesn't mean a damn thing. It just means that WoW hasn't suffered from what many other games have; people buying up whole markets to resell at huge markup, or flooding markets to drop the price so they can do the previously mentioned market purchase for resale at higher price.

Right now, the game's economy is still figuring itself out. Soon, it's just going to be a matter of finding the right trade guild(s) that have competent members who buy & sell at (more or less) decent prices. That, in turn, will eventually spread to the server in general (thus, speculating, it would also affect the WTS'ers into matching... or not gouging as much).

Give it time. That's all I have to say right now.

MkChkn

Yes

I said yes but the question does need clarity. After 20 hours I bought a horse and all bank and bag upgrades. Now I'm not sure what I'm hoarding gold for since I craft what I need.

tylarthb16_ESO

No

The economy is horribly primitive to all mmos i have played post DAOC, its bitty insular poor UI and search, terribly limitedpools of buyers, relative worth of items is obscure. i hav no interaction with any of the trade guild i am in other than to trade. the clunky time investment is really not a benefir to my play in the game, coupled with the atrocious inventory system compared to volume/varitey of loot i'd say the economy is borderline broken.

huntgod_ESO

What economy? It is far too aggravating to deal with multiple trade guilds or the obnoxious trade chat...

Which is sad as this is one of the first games that had a really robust and usefull crafting system, where items made have actual value to the player, it is too bad that the distribution system for allowing crafters to get their products to market are so difficult and awkward to use.

lichmeister

Beryl wrote: »

No, for me personally it does not work.
I am not happy with:
- the present functionality of the Guild Stores (not enough filters, no search by name, no sort by price per item etc),
- the constant spam WTS in all zone chats,
- the ridiculously high fee for COD items or selling the in a Guild Store,
- high repair costs combined with small vendor price of items you loot.

I am still trying to adapt and find my spot here, but so far - no, for me the existing system does not work. It does not make me happy.

yeah that would sum up anything i could say on the issue. the 4th point is only marginally a problem for me since i replace gear faster than i can break it. i would add a 5th point
- the ridiculously slim amount of storage space does not allow a crafter to store even a portion of the materials they will need. just the gemstones and upgrade components takes up the lions share of my vault

rickynick97b14a_ESO

No

No, overall the economy of this MMO is definitely not at where it should be.

The idea of having no Auction House is an amazing one IMHO, because it forces players to independently seek out their own ways to earn money, and their own ways to trade. It also eliminates the fact that in certain MMO's it is fairly easy to manipulate the economy with a large amount of the given currency.

What bothers me the most is the idea of these extremely private trade guilds. Personally, I was too busy to play much during the first few days of my 5-Day Earl Access period. But, during these five days trade guilds began and many of them filled up immediately. Now, to get into many of the more-successful trading guilds, one would have to pay a certain fee. Just to try and make a little money, because these vendor prices are nothing short of atrocious, but that should be expected, from an MMO with a functioning public trade unit.

Once again, I like the innovative idea of no Auction house in the MMO as it promotes player interaction. Sadly though, ESO currently offers no easy alternative other than being ripped off by vendors or by joining a "ghost-town" trade guild.

I do not have any suggestions myself, but there is definitely a need for players to make a decent amount of money instead of selling that new "rare item" you just found to a vendor for 15g.

Thanks for reading!

kevlarto_ESO

No

Still trying to figure out the best way to do things, it is not really working yet for me, but, it is making me think outside the box, I get it rolling here in a few more weeks..

Drsunday

No

I think a better base line for value should have been set....From what I see is even though an items price could be 0-1gold it will sell 100x that just because its color or because others don't fully understand what it is. Now the not understanding could just be lack of game time which is going to happen but what I am asking is why not then just have the base line gold of an item be higher or reflect what the lack for a better term "market value" for it is....or even some sort of reference that players can view. Again to counter that, and in anticipation for a surge or decline in overspending in the game why not have more things a player can buy or do in terms of shops as in standing venus or an actual house....my not have to be a physical slot per say for each player but then you might start to see some what of a balance and less of the sporadic selling. At least thats just my opinion and may be incredibly flawed but again just my opinion.

Asawasa

Yes

works great for me but then i'm not one of the crazy people tripping over themselves for daedric motif books, low level enchantment glyphs, purple recipes, etc. i have 3 trade guilds i use to find decent prices for what i need as well as sell my goods for some decent coin.