Trader Notification Glitches & "Dummy" Guild Exploitation Needs To Stop!

Anne13 · March 2017

Carokube wrote: »

For the sake of argument, I would like to make a theoretical suggestion and am curious to hear your reponse:

1) Identify a 'prime' spot that a dummy (Guild Dummy) guild has bid on this week. Have your 'real' guild (Guild Awesome) bid on this spot. 150k or 200k or whatever you think it would take to outbid a dummy.

2) Who wins the spot next week? Is it 3A) your "Guild Awesome", is it 3B) "Guild Dummy" (because you underestimated how much the dummy guild was bidding), or 3C) one of the "big" guilds from trade consortium (Guild MEGAMART)? (Or something else).

3A) If Guild Awesome wins, Guild Awesome should stay in this spot, and keep increasing their bid week over week. You may lose some weeks, but since you can guess at some point in the future it will be open again, just keep on keeping on. If you're a good trader, you will make more on this prime location in a week than you would in whatever little spot you were bidding at before could make in 4 weeks, so if you could hold onto it for 2 weeks a month it's still totally worth it. Eventually you will establish yourself at this spot, you'll win your bid more weeks than not, and Guild Dummy won't be a problem for you.

3B) If it was Guild Dummy: Up your bid next week and try again on this same spot. Then see 3A for your potential path to success.

3C) If it was Guild MEGAMART: If this is who won, then I assume Guild MEGAMART bid on this trader because they knew the spot would be open and it's a prime spot. But apparently Guild MEGAMART isn't staying here, because if they were, I don't understand why there was ever an issue in the first place. So try your bid again next week, maybe increase it a little. Then see 3A for a potential path to success.

4) Theoretically all of these paths could be the way for Guild Awesome to make it onto the big scene. But it takes patience. Maybe my 3C scenario is incorrect, and Guild MEGAMART stays here forever. Just pick a different Guild Dummy trader and try the process again.

Downsides: This could take a long time and loyal followers. But anyone on PC/NA who has a big trading guild went through a lot of trial-and-error week after week to get into their established spots. It took time and a crap ton of hard work. If you want to be a top tier trader, your money is no longer your own. You and your leadership team's pockets empty directly into the guild bank.

What just doesn't sit right with me about this whole Dummy guild situation is why aren't there established guilds in one of these spots keeping these low-balling bids from ever being an issue? I'm worried that they're just pushing people around and acting all scary, but if you had enough guilds willing to just stand there ground and say 'I'm not gonna take it anymore,' they'd have no where else left to go.

There's 23 trader locations that would be their dummy guilds target.
It's not possible to counter their cover.
I did list them in previous comments.

To stop them ourselves without ZoS implementing anything. It would take 23 guilds to all bid way above what an average bid usually takes for that specific prime location.

To ensure not only their dummy guilds bid gets beat but their main guilds potentiinal bid.

Again it's not possible most guilds do not earn enough to compete. There's only say 5 or 6 that can. That leaves 17 guilds uncovered.

IronCrystal · March 2017

Anne13 wrote: »

Carokube wrote: »

For the sake of argument, I would like to make a theoretical suggestion and am curious to hear your reponse:

1) Identify a 'prime' spot that a dummy (Guild Dummy) guild has bid on this week. Have your 'real' guild (Guild Awesome) bid on this spot. 150k or 200k or whatever you think it would take to outbid a dummy.

2) Who wins the spot next week? Is it 3A) your "Guild Awesome", is it 3B) "Guild Dummy" (because you underestimated how much the dummy guild was bidding), or 3C) one of the "big" guilds from trade consortium (Guild MEGAMART)? (Or something else).

3A) If Guild Awesome wins, Guild Awesome should stay in this spot, and keep increasing their bid week over week. You may lose some weeks, but since you can guess at some point in the future it will be open again, just keep on keeping on. If you're a good trader, you will make more on this prime location in a week than you would in whatever little spot you were bidding at before could make in 4 weeks, so if you could hold onto it for 2 weeks a month it's still totally worth it. Eventually you will establish yourself at this spot, you'll win your bid more weeks than not, and Guild Dummy won't be a problem for you.

3B) If it was Guild Dummy: Up your bid next week and try again on this same spot. Then see 3A for your potential path to success.

3C) If it was Guild MEGAMART: If this is who won, then I assume Guild MEGAMART bid on this trader because they knew the spot would be open and it's a prime spot. But apparently Guild MEGAMART isn't staying here, because if they were, I don't understand why there was ever an issue in the first place. So try your bid again next week, maybe increase it a little. Then see 3A for a potential path to success.

4) Theoretically all of these paths could be the way for Guild Awesome to make it onto the big scene. But it takes patience. Maybe my 3C scenario is incorrect, and Guild MEGAMART stays here forever. Just pick a different Guild Dummy trader and try the process again.

Downsides: This could take a long time and loyal followers. But anyone on PC/NA who has a big trading guild went through a lot of trial-and-error week after week to get into their established spots. It took time and a crap ton of hard work. If you want to be a top tier trader, your money is no longer your own. You and your leadership team's pockets empty directly into the guild bank.

What just doesn't sit right with me about this whole Dummy guild situation is why aren't there established guilds in one of these spots keeping these low-balling bids from ever being an issue? I'm worried that they're just pushing people around and acting all scary, but if you had enough guilds willing to just stand there ground and say 'I'm not gonna take it anymore,' they'd have no where else left to go.

There's 23 trader locations that would be their dummy guilds target.
It's not possible to counter their cover.
I did list them in previous comments.

To stop them ourselves without ZoS implementing anything. It would take 23 guilds to all bid way above what an average bid usually takes for that specific prime location.

To ensure not only their dummy guilds bid gets beat but their main guilds potentiinal bid.

Again it's not possible most guilds do not earn enough to compete. There's only say 5 or 6 that can. That leaves 17 guilds uncovered.

You keep contradicting yourself. Sometimes you say the dummy guilds are bidding only 100k other times you claim they are bidding 4 million.

If they are bidding 4 million (which is about right), then I say it's in their own power to do that. Regardless, they are spending 4 million x 23 traders as you claim every week. There's no way that is sustainable for a long time. And you say they bid more than a guild can normally do. Well, that means prices are rising and you have to keep competitive. If you can't keep up the bid then maybe you don't earn enough to deserve that spot?

If they are bidding 100k as you claimed originally, then your guilds just need to try bidding on different ones.

I still don't see why its a problem. Obviously you don't even have enough guilds on PS4 to occupy all the traders anyways.

Anne13 · March 2017

@IronCrystal it's not contradicting myself when you're reading one thing and missing 10 other things.

1) no one knows how much their dummy guilds bid.
2) the same for their main guilds.
3) i was only giving an approx average.
4) logically their dummy guilds wouldn't bid over 500k their aim is to make gold by doing this ' exploit '
5) prime locations have an Aprox average bid range.
Deshaan 5m plus
Front Craglorn 2m to 4m
Elden Root 2m to 4m
2 traders in wayrest Morg and Estildo 1m to 3m
Atin in Wayrest 5m plus

I reapeat these are an approximate based on a year of bidding these areas. Ok.

I'll break this down as simply as I can.

Their main guilds bid in various places within in the 4 mentioned prime locations.

For arguments sake say 5 main guilds bid there ^^
The rest are covered by their dummy guilds.

That means 5 traders in the 4 main areas was bid on by their main guilds. Aprox and for arguements sake 5m each

The other traders they did not bid on. Gets covered by their dummy guilds. Aprox for arguements sake 200k.

A) coincidentally enough. The only people that can get exactly what is going on is the people that have run guilds and have encountered such problem before.

potentionally just trolling

C) you're Xbox, pc or Na server. Therefor making it hard to see what we see and know. Because you witness things different.

The_Smilemeister · March 2017

I think throwing figures into the mix is just confusing people more. Different severs have different economies, let alone systems. Hense why I decided to avoid adding any in my original.

Regardless of economy, this is an issue which can impact players regardless of system. Different economies doesn't automatically eliminate the exploit. Maybe it will limit its effectiveness, but it doesn't get rid of it.

Anne13 · March 2017

Figures are apart of it. It's one of the main reasons they do what they do.
If they can get a trader that usually goes for 5 mil and it only cost them 200k that's a 4.8m profit.

Because their isn't enough guilds big enough or have enough funds to counter their main and dummy guilds bids.

Anne13 · March 2017

And they did it again.

For instance.
Deshaan. 4 of their main guilds and 2 dummy guilds of theirs occupy it.

Soon those fake guilds will be disband and any of their alliance guilds that lost will occupy it

Great job scum -_-

Hand_Bacon · March 2017

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Carokube · March 2017

Anne13 wrote: »

There's 23 trader locations that would be their dummy guilds target.
It's not possible to counter their cover.
I did list them in previous comments.

To stop them ourselves without ZoS implementing anything. It would take 23 guilds to all bid way above what an average bid usually takes for that specific prime location.

To ensure not only their dummy guilds bid gets beat but their main guilds potentiinal bid.

Again it's not possible most guilds do not earn enough to compete. There's only say 5 or 6 that can. That leaves 17 guilds uncovered.

I don't think you understood my point. If there's 23 kiosks, I'm sure at least some of the guilds beating on the kiosks are legitimate, so you don't need 23 trading guilds to counter their dummies. You don't have to completely obliterate their consortium to compete. You just need to get a foothold and show other people it can be done, then I bet others would follow suit. Again, you won't win every week, but if you win enough of them, it's worth it.

jazsper77 · March 2017

First off on PS4 NA you are not repeat not getting a prime 4 location for 200k.

The dummy guilds all have said names: classic store,classic merchant,classic bank,classic trade,general store etc etc etc

There is a large Alliance of 12, another of 5 and we are not even counting larger sisters guilds that work together. So most PRIMARY bids cover the top 4 spots.

Where the back up bids come is Orsinium,Shornhelm,Marbruck,Alikr,Evermore and the 2 around the corner in stormhold.

I have 100's of screenshots that have been uploaded Via ticket to ZOS with the Sunday nite dummy guild and a follow up shot when flipped usually by Monday morning.

The Normal bid range for the Back up spot is 400-600k peanuts for a large guild to keep its members happy.

Plus if they win there main the flip the back up for profit.

* note - when the disbanding guild disbands the buyer best make sure there is no one next to kiosk with faster fingers or bye bye $$

The bid amount and locations may differ between PS4,PC and Xbone but I think we all get the general idea what's going on.

Anne13 · March 2017

@Carokube this has been tried for months and months. To the best of what we can. It's not working.

They get away with it every week.
They profit millions from this every week.
They launder for real money. although unfortunately no proof of this as of yet.

There's nothing our guilds can do it's all been tried. We need Zos to do something

Anne13 · March 2017

as suspected 2 of their bigger guilds are now on the 2 spots their dummy guilds were on. More tickets wrote, screenshots taken. When will this massive problem ever get looked at!?

I'm very eager to here what ZoS has to say

MacCait · April 2017

Anne is correct, this is a real problem on PS4 EU. I can't say for any other server.

I saw a comment above that states that there are not enough trading guilds for traders on PS4:

IronCrystal wrote: »

I still don't see why its a problem. Obviously you don't even have enough guilds on PS4 to occupy all the traders anyways.

Actually PS4 EU has a ton of trading guilds, way more than there are spots.

I imagine that when ZOS designed the trading guild system, they intended that individual guilds would compete over spots. I do not imagine they ever intended for one person to own multiple trading guilds creating a monopoly where one person becomes the head of an alliance, owning multiple trading guilds, with other people owning smaller trading guilds in their alliance, and then together running a monopoly that makes it incredibly hard for any non-exploiting guild to fairly compete. I just cannot imagine they ever even saw that occuring. Yet it is an aspect of human nature (greed) that has caused that exact thing to happen on PS4 EU.

Having a monopoly and owning multiple trading guilds so that you are making so much money that no one else can compete with you is one thing...

...buying up other trading spots by using dummy traders you and your team have created is going way over the line and is exploiting the system! This means that a handful of people on the EU server are making crazy amounts of money and controlling the entire market, including pricing of items, and this is unfair to the rest of the community who play on PS4 EU.

Why should a handful of players be in this position over the rest of the players on a server? It shows there is clearly a severe problem that is going un-addressed.