Gold sinks

Treadpool

I attempted to send 2100 worth of materials to someone via COD and almost payed a sending fee of 650g. So, I decided to post it to the guild store instead. Posted the same items, still had to pay a large fee (as a percentage of $ sold).

Inventory expansion is expensive and bank space is expensive. We are encouraged to explore but have no way early on to store all of our materials and seem to be dissuaded from trading or selling them.

Is there a plan to lessen the gold sink burden? If this is what TESO is going to be, I won't last long I don't think. It's more like "Inventory Management Online" than "Elder Scrolls Online".

Yakidafi

Think it is going to stay a while.
Personaly I do not mind the auction house fee but the cod is high in my opinion, since travelling to another person is fairly easy.
Not thought about trading in person or putting a higher price on the item?

Nox_Aeterna

Mate , i walk around in totally broken equips , and no , i did not die , they just break freaking fast and cost a LOT to repair , so i just dont do it :P.

Hakoke

I don't find the fees to be excesive myself. When I sell something I normally send it via cod and we agree before hand whos paying it, fyi normally its the buyer in my experience. Then just add the fee to the cost.

As for repairs, I can't really comment' I'm still only lvl 25 and I just craft new gear every 2 lvls.

SexyVette07

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Mate , i walk around in totally broken equips , and no , i did not die , they just break freaking fast and cost a LOT to repair , so i just dont do it :P.

This is the thing that really pisses me off. Taking no damage and your gear still breaks. 99% of the tkme its not even worth it to repair because its so expensive. You can just buy another comparable item for less from a guild AH or make something.

Jirki88

The repair costs and CoD fees are ridiculous. Especially since your armor get damaged even if you don't actually take any damage. And with the CoD fees and guild fees... It's like ZeniMax wants people to ONLY trade face-to-face... Which probably mean some bigshots on their team have a brutal hard-on for WTS/WTB/WTT spam.

Phranq

In what land are these wonderful kitchens and bathrooms with their gold sinks ?? I have been too poor buying bag space to afford anything like that I personally don't repair anything I just trash it and make a new one, but then I'm not up to Veteran content or legendary anything...

blauschwinge

I too find the fees for using the guild shop outrageous, there should be a fee based on what an npc actually gives you for the item you post, not 15% of what you ask, accidentaly type one or two zeroes too much and all your gold goes poof instantly, thats freaking dangerous and irresponsible. The additional 10% more after an item is sold (IF IT SELLS AT ALL) is just greedy as well.

I dont want to excessively spam zone chats every few minutes to sell my goods...

And then there is the repair costs, it costs (at 0% durability) about ten times as much to repair your gear, than selling the whole set (at pristine condition) to an npc. WTF??? I die often as a sorcerer to big mob groups (public dungeons etc) because my pets cant really offtank them efficiently to keep me from harm, and I often bruise my legs from jumping off small cliffs which apparently breaks my gear too. If this doesnt change, I wont ever repair my gear until veteran 10 and optimal items (and I am very scared at goldprices at this level as it seems to rise all the time)

Also 30000 Gold for a Respec at 300 Skillpoints? Just Silly.

I generally think npc prices for equipment are outrageous too. I earn 200 gold on most quests at my current level (35) but crap gear from them goes up to 1500 gold or more. I wont ever use any NPCs for buying items if this isnt changed, because the Gold is earned too slow atm to justify the squandering when you can just loot better items from enemies just around the corner.

Phranq

I don't think I've bought a single item from an npc vendor at all, lol. You can loot them, or better yet craft your own

BloodLustedPeon

I will have to agree and say that costs on some stuff 100% need to re-balanced.

pokebreaker

blauschwinge wrote: »

...I generally think npc prices for equipment are outrageous too. I earn 200 gold on most quests at my current level (35) but crap gear from them goes up to 1500 gold or more. I wont ever use any NPCs for buying items if this isnt changed, because the Gold is earned too slow atm to justify the squandering when you can just loot better items from enemies just around the corner.

I agree about the cost of generally everything. However, I believe the vendor gear cost is meant more to kind of control the price of which another player can charge. If you can literally buy a similar item from a vendor for a certain amount, it will be hard for a player to get away with price gouging, when you could just run over to Mr. NPC and get it cheaper.

LadyInTheWater

warcrafticuiub17_ESO wrote: »

Is there a plan to lessen the gold sink burden? If this is what TESO is going to be, I won't last long I don't think. It's more like "Inventory Management Online" than "Elder Scrolls Online".

"Gold Sinks" are important in MMOs. They keep the economy fluid. In real-life, we have money sinks as well; Rent, utility bills, insurance, taxes, fees, postage stamps, shipping costs, gasoline, food, etc. This is how an economy is able to function. Money goes in, and money goes out. You work for what you get.

Here's a fun game to play; Check your bank statement at the end of the month for your household. Look at how much your household earned, and then how much went out in expenditures. Figure out what % of your income you have left in your pockets. In my household, we have about 10% of our total income left over at the end of the month, which goes into savings. Sometimes a bit less. Which means we always come out ahead, but we're not overly-wealthy. But at least we have the funds to go out, have some fun, maybe see a movie.

If your inventory is hard to manage, I suggest not hoarding things. Outside of Provisioning, I'm able to keep enough materials in the shared bank to cover all of my crafting (including trait gems). In my inventory, a couple potions and some buff foods. My gear is equipped.

So, I have no idea what you're stuffing in your bags to inspire a title like "Inventory Management Online", but I am led to believe it has less to do with the design of the game, and more to do with how you're playing it. I'm not going to tell you how to play the game. But I don't feel bad about saying that any problems you're having aren't a design issue.

TL;DR - Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

Jirki88

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

warcrafticuiub17_ESO wrote: »

Is there a plan to lessen the gold sink burden? If this is what TESO is going to be, I won't last long I don't think. It's more like "Inventory Management Online" than "Elder Scrolls Online".

"Gold Sinks" are important in MMOs. They keep the economy fluid. In real-life, we have money sinks as well; Rent, utility bills, insurance, taxes, fees, postage stamps, shipping costs, gasoline, food, etc. This is how an economy is able to function. Money goes in, and money goes out. You work for what you get.

Here's a fun game to play; Check your bank statement at the end of the month for your household. Look at how much your household earned, and then how much went out in expenditures. Figure out what % of your income you have left in your pockets. In my household, we have about 10% of our total income left over at the end of the month, which goes into savings. Sometimes a bit less. Which means we always come out ahead, but we're not overly-wealthy. But at least we have the funds to go out, have some fun, maybe see a movie.

If your inventory is hard to manage, I suggest not hoarding things. Outside of Provisioning, I'm able to keep enough materials in the shared bank to cover all of my crafting (including trait gems). In my inventory, a couple potions and some buff foods. My gear is equipped.

So, I have no idea what you're stuffing in your bags to inspire a title like "Inventory Management Online", but I am led to believe it has less to do with the design of the game, and more to do with how you're playing it. I'm not going to tell you how to play the game. But I don't feel bad about saying that any problems you're having aren't a design issue.

TL;DR - Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

So... If I'm reading this right... You like to play games because they make you micro-manage stuff like IRL? Because you... Think that is fun? You just love to pay bills, expenditures, etc? You get a warm fuzzy feeling from it? Yeah...

Bolded part: Right back at ya, buddy.

Samuruzi

There is a way around spending time finding buyers... There ought to be more brokering going on. Someone willing to do the footwork. Metal brokers, alchemical brokers, etc. You find one person to sell these things to, and they will take a small cut, then it's on them to either use the items or sell/trade as they see fit. This is something I'm trying to incorporate into my guild.

LadyInTheWater

Jirki88 wrote: »

So... If I'm reading this right... You like to play games because they make you micro-manage stuff like IRL? Because you... Think that is fun? You just love to pay bills, expenditures, etc? You get a warm fuzzy feeling from it?

I didn't say anywhere in there that I "like" doing it. I was illustrating that sometimes it's just the way things are, and you learn to deal with it instead of whining about it. So no, you didn't read it right.

Brennan

I would like to see guilds be able to set their own house cut. Guild leadership will either need to lower rates to get more people in or jack the rates up to generate more income for their guild. For what they would need to generate more income though, I don't know.

Jirki88

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

Jirki88 wrote: »

So... If I'm reading this right... You like to play games because they make you micro-manage stuff like IRL? Because you... Think that is fun? You just love to pay bills, expenditures, etc? You get a warm fuzzy feeling from it?

I didn't say anywhere in there that I "like" doing it. I was illustrating that sometimes it's just the way things are, and you learn to deal with it instead of whining about it. So no, you didn't read it right.

Ah. So you think that instead of speaking up and push for something to be changed when you don't think it's good, you think that it's better to keep silent and just keep doing something you don't like. Gotcha!

Tetujin

The guild store takes 25% of the transaction value, 15% of which you put up and then get back, but that amount it still paid by the buyer and so a net 25% disappears in the transaction. Seems steep to me. Better to just have it as a cancellation fee. Put it up for free, get charged 10-15% if it sells, same 10-15% to cancel ('buy it back'). Whatever number, make it the same for COD maybe, free if face-to-face.

Repair costs may be reasonable if they only applied from a death. As it is now, they are a tax on walking around basically. Totally absurd. They also lower both armor and enchantment stat values, so in a sense each action you take increases the difficulty of the next action, unless you buy out with an amazingly expensive repair or are able to replace the items. I'm tempted to think this is a bug and you are only meant to have armor damage from death, which would make it more reasonable.

LadyInTheWater

Jirki88 wrote: »

Ah. So you think that instead of speaking up and push for something to be changed when you don't think it's good, you think that it's better to keep silent and just keep doing something you don't like. Gotcha!

I didn't say I "disliked" it either. Since you obviously want to be some "armchair psychologist", and you're failing at it, I'll put it plainly so you can stop trying to read into something that's not there:

It's not wrecking the game, you just don't like it. Stop being a crybaby.

Tyler2613

Shots fired

Tetujin

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

It's not wrecking the game, you just don't like it.

It can be a good system in principle from an overall perspective, but still need tweaking. Should the COD be for +100% of the value, or the guild store be for 90% cut of the profits? No. There is room to argue about the effect the specific numbers have.

Maybe everyone will get used to certain ones, like the COD and guild store costs over time, if the developers agree with this then they can hold fast and see.

I really choke on the armor repair costs which are my current axe to grind, but if everyone is swimming in gold before long because then they become meaningless, so there is hopefully a nice sweat spot to hit somewhere.

Laerian

I'm no repairing. What consequences it has for the gameplay?

Well, first I feel my chars as darn scavengers. They use random equipment just because it's not damaged.

Because the repair costs, I'm skipping crafted sets and all the improving thing too. Having a definitive equipment at level cap will be a pain.

Well considering I'm not repairing, not respecting and not selling items in a guild store. The developers have failed for me.

maniacal1

I'm actually quite surprised that nobody has mentioned the astronomical cost of buying a mount, and the day-one ability to purchase it in a cash shop for real money.

If that doesn't say all that needs to be said about this game, well, then I dunno what else to tell ya.

LadyInTheWater

maniacal1 wrote: »

I'm actually quite surprised that nobody has mentioned the astronomical cost of buying a mount, and the day-one ability to purchase it in a cash shop for real money.

If that doesn't say all that needs to be said about this game, well, then I dunno what else to tell ya.

You're absolutely right, it really does say all that needs to be said about this game; They're not selling epics, and mounts are nothing more than a convenience.

Censorious

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

warcrafticuiub17_ESO wrote: »

Is there a plan to lessen the gold sink burden? If this is what TESO is going to be, I won't last long I don't think. It's more like "Inventory Management Online" than "Elder Scrolls Online".

"Gold Sinks" are important in MMOs. They keep the economy fluid. In real-life, we have money sinks as well; Rent, utility bills, insurance, taxes, fees, postage stamps, shipping costs, gasoline, food, etc. This is how an economy is able to function. Money goes in, and money goes out. You work for what you get.

Here's a fun game to play; Check your bank statement at the end of the month for your household. Look at how much your household earned, and then how much went out in expenditures. Figure out what % of your income you have left in your pockets. In my household, we have about 10% of our total income left over at the end of the month, which goes into savings. Sometimes a bit less. Which means we always come out ahead, but we're not overly-wealthy. But at least we have the funds to go out, have some fun, maybe see a movie.

If your inventory is hard to manage, I suggest not hoarding things. Outside of Provisioning, I'm able to keep enough materials in the shared bank to cover all of my crafting (including trait gems). In my inventory, a couple potions and some buff foods. My gear is equipped.

So, I have no idea what you're stuffing in your bags to inspire a title like "Inventory Management Online", but I am led to believe it has less to do with the design of the game, and more to do with how you're playing it. I'm not going to tell you how to play the game. But I don't feel bad about saying that any problems you're having aren't a design issue.

TL;DR - Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

This is essentially correct. Personally, I'm having no problems over gold and inventory. My equipment is reasonably on-level and I keep it repaired and weapons charged.
Right now I've no idea how much gold I have in the bank. It isn't important. I know it's quite a lot and the pile is getting bigger so I have no worries.

But then, I've been in RL for quiet some time and I'm applying the lessons I learned there to the game world.
Maybe Zenimax are trying to tell you something.

Sharee

I don't repair armor while leveling. I craft my own set without anything special(simple white), and when it gets worn i give it to an alt to dismantle(good crafting xp) and craft a new set. Here and there i wear a dropped piece if it happens to be better (or at least less damaged) than the crafted equivalent.

Weapons are an exception - since they don't get damaged, i craft the best i am able to (improvement/traits) and enchant them so they last me a while.

Tarelyn

the economy is awful. The Op has a valid point for discussion. pls do not b rude.

Trainerdc

Well... I like it, ok the COD is too mutch yes, but the auction house is ok.

SadisticSavior

Jirki88 wrote: »

So... If I'm reading this right... You like to play games because they make you micro-manage stuff like IRL? Because you... Think that is fun? You just love to pay bills, expenditures, etc? You get a warm fuzzy feeling from it?

You like it better when everything is handed to you on a silver platter? Emulating real life is part of the appeal in a game like this. Realism = immersion. If you want easy mode, just play a hacked single player game.

Not being sarcastic either. If that is fun to you, go do it. But difficulties like this are part of what makes the rewards rewarding in an MMO.

Treadpool

This is all good discussion. And, for the record, I'm not whining. At all. I get the need for expenditures in-game just like RL. But games are supposed to be games, not RL.

But looking at all this downtime and hacking, I guess ZOS has other more pressing issues to deal with right now.

Ithug

THe OP is a liar... 2100 COD is not 650 fee...