Guild Traders a lesson in elitist trading

Grao

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

So this week none of my 3 trading guilds have a trader.

One of them was ousted even though the bid was 280,000g in Wayrest

We don't need a system with so many barriers to effective trading.

This is a far cry from the assertion that not having an AH would create an egalitarian system.

So now my 3 trading guilds have no trader for a whole week, making less money, making it harder to bid, and inevitably losing members. Effectively these guilds now have no access to the open market.

The elite guilds control the market.

We just want to trade, buy & sell and not have to put so much effort into bidding, recruiting etc.

If we are not to have an AH the current system needs some serious reworking.

I will have to disagree with you OP, sorry.

I've played WoW specially during Cataclysm and while the AH made it seem easier to sell items, it really didn't. Why? Because some of us with better market strategy and more time in our hands could completely take over the Market and control it nearly perfectly.

I know that was possible and a practice because I was one of the controllers on the server I played. Together with a guild mate I controlled both Blacksmith and Jewel Crafting Markets by buying every useful item bellow what we agreed was the right price for gems and reselling those at a higher price. We also undercut people with no mercy when we thought their price wasn't low enough to justify a buy off.

The Trading System in ESO is not perfect, but I don't think it was ever meant to be. It is meant to mimic trading in a semi medieval society, trade relying on Guilds, small stands all over the place and mouth-to-mouth deals between people. That system actually protects casual crafters from people like me... Jackasses that enjoy piling up gold like dragons.

Ps. My main has all professions leveled to max and I have at least a stack of every crafting material in the game. If an AH was released today in ESO, me and others like me would pounce it claws and fangs and would take complete control over it... You would not like that. ^^

If your Trade Guilds are having problems they should definitely try entering a trade alliance, those are forming in every server and they can be very useful when securing stands, determining prices for new items in game, etc. Have your guild leaders look into it.

And as the OP in my original post you will see that I say,

"If we are not to have an AH the current system needs some serious reworking."

Hopefully this thread and others like it will prompt the Devs to improve the current system.

Do you have ideas for improving it? The current system with small stands will always spurt different power levels between guilds. There will always be stands in better locations to which small guilds will hardly ever have access to as they are too expensive, how do you suggest fixing that without making the system completely pointless?

I will not waste time saying you want the system to be 'easier', I don't think that is the case. You want a more egalitarian system, unfortunately any Market is by nature not egalitarian. Those with more gold will always control its whims, create its whims.

Alphashado

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

Sorry, but @SFBryan18 is correct. If you want to see what an auction house on a global server looks like, just play Gw2. There are so many of every possible item on the auction house that the sale price is literally pennies above vendor cost. In some cases even cheaper than vendor cost because people don't pay attention and post items for less than they could get at the vendor.

Ebay is not an accurate comparison because there is an almost infinite amount of items for sale there. A game only has so many items that can possibly be for sale. Imagine 1.2 million people all using the same auction house. Now imagine how many magicka potions are listed. Now imagine what they cost because there are tens of thousands of them listed.

You really have to see it for yourself to understand.

Sorry, but in my experience it doesn't work like that.

LOTRO has a perfectly fine AH where prices are reasonable according to factors of supply & demand peculiar to an MMO. What you are condoning is over-inflated prices and a market where the buyer may be exploited through lack of choice.

Also in ESO people are already selling materials for less than vendor value, so your argument doesnt hold.

In MMOs prices are dictated by three things.

A.) The rarity of that item e.g. rare armor like hawkeye or jewelery from chests like Soulshine. Even though there may be a few of these around prices will remain high because of rarity. The vendor knows the buyer will have to go through hoops to get one.

B.) The amount of time that a player will have to put in to get an item e.g. from crafting, farming or PVE dungeons. So you will see hides that are easy to farm and easy to obtain from decon, selling for less than vendor value, whereas you will see tri-stat pots selling for premium because the farming for the mats takes a long time.

C.) The introduction of a new crafting tier, crafting component or level etc. where an item is in high demand for a short period therefore spiking demand and prices. As supply increases prices level to a natural rate according to A. or B.

All of the above will always dictate prices in an MMO as they will dictate supply.

This thread is about giving everyone a fair and equal opportunity to sell.

Your argument condones closed markets, lack or buyer awareness and inflated prices thereby confusing the factors of MMO supply listed above.

The current system is limiting the supply of goods, not by player effort but by ability to sell based on bidding for a few limited selling outlets. Further confused by a minimalist searching UI.

Games that have individual servers like lotro, swtor, or wow are nothing like a game with a mega server. The comparison isn't even close. This has been explained many times.

martinhpb16_ESO

Grao wrote: »

Do you have ideas for improving it? The current system with small stands will always spurt different power levels between guilds. There will always be stands in better locations to which small guilds will hardly ever have access to as they are too expensive, how do you suggest fixing that without making the system completely pointless?

I will not waste time saying you want the system to be 'easier', I don't think that is the case. You want a more egalitarian system, unfortunately any Market is by nature not egalitarian. Those with more gold will always control its whims, create its whims.

I think I would start from clear principles and move from there.

I am not a game developer or an expert in virtual world economies, but there are people who are.

What we know: Clearly a significant part of the player base favours the trade guild system. Also a significant part of the player base either wants the current system to be improved or replaced by some form of AH. It follows then that there is enough support for the current system to be improved.

Lets not fool ourselves that this system is aspiring to a medieval style trade system. Medieval trade economies were heavily dictated by feudalism with the dominant landowner completely controlling local economies which were predominantly agricultural. National and international trade was controlled by merchant classes, guilds and the church. The old trade guilds eventually collapsed as more trade began to operate at a national, not local level.

Back to principles as a starting point.

In this article:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134576/virtual_economic_theory_how_mmos_.php?print=1

The author takes into account these considerations:

- First and foremost, give players the tools they need to be an active participant in the game economy without undue burden or stress.

- Secondly, ensure that all types of players ("market players", casual players, and everything in between) feel like the market works for them.

As yet the current system is not doing this.

What we are talking about are "trade barriers", things that hinder or distort the principle of every seller being able to sell their stuff on an equal footing and every buyer being price aware even at a regional level.

What we need are incremental changes that improve regional trade hubs

Ideas (some conflicting) off the top of my head:

- More outlets for selling, naturally reducing competitive prices to sell.
- Trade brokers. A merchant guild in each major town where sellers are able to list items to sell or place orders to buy. Eve uses trade brokers.
- Better seller tools e.g. adding option for auctions rather than just fixed price.
- better buyer tools e.g. easier UI searching
- Buyers being able to place orders at a chosen price or that sellers can bid on.
- shorter listing times
- mail notices saying what sold, for how much, in what guild
- an optional trade channel
- New primary game activity tied to more zones e.g. dailies has made Wayrest a more trade-worthy spot.
- A fixed price that randomly allocates trade guilds to traders.
- A market UI that can be used to access the market for buying or selling. you still have to go to the spot where the item is listed to go and get your stuff. This could be the regional merchant guild trade broker.
- carefully managed gold sinks that limit ingame inflation that can destroy economies

cant be bothered to think of anymore but that list only took 5 mins.

martinhpb16_ESO

Alphashado wrote: »

Games that have individual servers like lotro, swtor, or wow are nothing like a game with a mega server. The comparison isn't even close. This has been explained many times.

But maybe regional trade hubs could be.

MrSuplex

The trading system in ESO is needlessly cumbersome. I have only just started playing on Xbox, but I can already see how silly the system is, both from a buyer and seller perspective.

As a buyer, I have to:

1) Shop around a number of stores to find what I want, instead of having a centralized system to shop in like a normal auction house would provide.
2) To add insult to injury, I have to actually travel to each store, making the process even more painful

As a seller, I have to:

1) Be in a guild
2) Hope that guild can win a merchant bid
3) Hope that the right shopper visits our merchant

The system fragments the market and creates all kinds of artificial barriers to a true free market where everyone can buy and sell, and for what benefit exactly?

The lack of an auction house is probably the single biggest flaw in this game right now.

jkemmery

@MrSuplex

You should give a lesson in thread resurrection

MrSuplex

Given the huge influx of new players, the discussion is worth resurrecting. The current system is still in place and it seems plenty of people have serious issues with it. These issues are compounded on console where we do not have a general chat function to bypass guild trading.

Ljungstroem

@MrSuplex I am glad you brought back this thread. I have even made my own thread regarding trading problems, especially on console.

I feel like we have to make these threads and spread the word every day in order for ZOS to take action. They have stated they wont do anything about it, but this is by far the most important part of the game. Why have it online when there is so much struggle interacting with other people.

MrSuplex

I'm glad you feel the same way. To be honest, I am just scratching my head at how stupid the trading system is in this game.

FallenProphet

BRogueNZ wrote: »

Having to scope around x number of NPC's in x locations to find a)what your looking for and b) to compare prices; is plain daft in my opinion.

Yea because I want my fantasy world to run more like amazon, cuz that's fun. People miss the point

mdhammond

Agree 100% am new to eso but this is worst trading system I've ever seen

PoseidonEvil

the crazy thing is, i play on console and ive seen a trade guild be outed a trader for a guild that only has 3 items to sell in their store lol. THATS mind boggling... also im not the best GM for trade guilds but my trade guild does 150-200k a week and we sit in ebonheart lol

Daishin15

I'm just saying hell I've lost a bid Two weeks in a row and to be sure I have a trader im up before rotation of the traders waiting to see if I lose. When I do i port to every major city and check every trader till I find an empty one. Its hectic not hard. its just when your a GM you do what you got to to help the guild survive. Shout out to my friends that assist me in that moment because its not fun.

LEGENDARYYY

The system works perfectly. The issue is with the GMs. If your guild is bad at generating money then why bid in capitols???? These places aint for you then. Capitols are pretty lucrative and good trading guilds should have a spot there. 280K bid is nothing when well run guilds can earn 700K in taxes there alone per week. Start small, then build your guild into something good.

I run 1 Craglorn trading guild, 1 Mournhold trading guild and 1 Ebonheart trading guild. I failed many times when I first started. I started with about 20K g personally. Now, I lose a trader for one of those three guilds maybe once every 2nd month. So, learn from mistakes, invest some time into it and stop thinking everything should be EASY. It takes hard work and running trading guilds is actually the most rewarding part of this game.

GaldorP

One of the most active trading guilds on the EU server (500 active veteran rank players) just lost their guild trader auction again which means no guild trader at all for them for another full week. Another guild that is selling less than 350 items total bid a crazy amount of gold and outbid them.

Here's my suggestion how to improve the current bidding system:
(I've posted this twice before: here and here )

Let guilds bid on a guild trader in a global auction instead of having them bid on a specific trader.

The guild traders could be ranked either according to a fixed ranking (Craglorn best, followed by alliance capitals, then main cities in the 5th zone of each alliance, main cities in the 4th zones, 3rd zones, and 1st zones of each alliance, Coldharbour, starter islands, then all traders in the wilderness, and last the traders in the outlaw refuges) or the ranking could be based on sales made on a specific guild trader in the previous week (by whatever guild had that trader in the previous week).

The guild with the highest bid in the server-wide auction would get the rank 1 guild trader.
The guild with the second highest bid would get the rank 2 trader.
And so on.

This system would ensure that the largest, most active trading guilds on the server would all get a decent to good guild trader location and cannot be left without any trader for an entire week because some random guild outbid them for one week.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

The kiosk guild trade system in this game is the most dysfunctional and counter-productive sub-system of any game I have ever played.

Of the few players I came to ESO with just two months back I was the only one still playing as of yesterday, and all the other left primarily because of the (for a new player who isn't a guild-wh0re) insurmountable barriers to trading.


All The Best

martinhpb16_ESO

Im a trade guild GM of a good sized profit-making guild.

I now spend approx 50% of my game time keeping the guild going and competitive, if I didnt it would probably fold:

- constant recruiting and weeding out non-sellers and inactives. This involves advertising in vet zones and welcoming new members, checking for non-sellers on MM.
- Running a lottery - recording names on a spreadsheet, farming prizes, garnering donations for prizes and making the draws as well as advertising in in-guild.
- Making the trader bid. OMG splitting the bid across hundreds of bids to disguise the amount, then withdrawing and depositing items in guild-bank to cover tracks. OFC this isnt totally spy-proof.
- Getting up at stupid times and annoying my wife 3am UK time to see if we have won the spot. If we haven't then running around looking for an available spot. Not a good activity for a middle-aged man.
- constantly incentivising members to donate to guild bank and make sales.

Now for the second week running we have lost our trader, despite spies, alliances with another guild and forever boosting the bid-price. The impact of this has been incredibly de-moralising.

Problems.

- not enough traders
- You can get a huge amount more sales from a trader literally a stones throw from another one due to prominance
- A low-activity guild with practically nothing to sell can get a spot for free as long as the person gets up early enough, whereas next door a guild can bid upwards of 500k and not get the spot.
- A completely transparent bid system.
- trader bid prices inflating and going higher all he time
- Trade guilds are dependant on the good nature and time constraints of the leader.
- Devs who dont seem to want to improve the system or spend any more time on it now its launched.

There are so many ways around a lot of the above.

A better bidding system for a start: thats not transparent; rewards highest bids either globally or locally; that doesnt hit 3am-5am EU time and so on.

And a Dev who is going to dedicate time to this. You have GMs dedicating their precious game time to this system and no input from Devs! shocking.

And yes I'm p****d because despite my endless hard work we now havent had a trader for 2 weeks.

Please Devs do something with your trade system.

martinhpb16_ESO

LEGENDARYYY wrote: »

The system works perfectly. The issue is with the GMs. If your guild is bad at generating money then why bid in capitols???? These places aint for you then. Capitols are pretty lucrative and good trading guilds should have a spot there. 280K bid is nothing when well run guilds can earn 700K in taxes there alone per week. Start small, then build your guild into something good.

I run 1 Craglorn trading guild, 1 Mournhold trading guild and 1 Ebonheart trading guild. I failed many times when I first started. I started with about 20K g personally. Now, I lose a trader for one of those three guilds maybe once every 2nd month. So, learn from mistakes, invest some time into it and stop thinking everything should be EASY. It takes hard work and running trading guilds is actually the most rewarding part of this game.

bully for you

martinhpb16_ESO

FallenProphet wrote: »

BRogueNZ wrote: »

Having to scope around x number of NPC's in x locations to find a)what your looking for and b) to compare prices; is plain daft in my opinion.

Yea because I want my fantasy world to run more like amazon, cuz that's fun. People miss the point

And what is the point? Don't tell us its realism? If it was you would rack up a stall, buy a shop, or pay your rent and sell. Not have to bid each week etc etc. Also the bid price is contsantly prone to inflation which skews the economy etc etc etc

Also this system bares no resemblance whatsoever to medieval trade guilds.

Callous2208

I just wish there was a big AH like in every other game, so I could buy all my mats and stuff from bots and only bots and people who farm motifs and high end gear all day could make money...

martinhpb16_ESO

Callous2208 wrote: »

I just wish there was a big AH like in every other game, so I could buy all my mats and stuff from bots and only bots and people who farm motifs and high end gear all day could make money...

An AH doesn't make bots, this game was plagued with bots and we had no AH, and people in ESO already farm motifs and high-end gear to make money.....Wait a sec make money?

Outrageous a trading system where people make money!

Callous2208

An auction house does not make bots, true. But it fosters their growth and creates an environment where people seek them out to further exploit. If you truly believe a global auction house will help anyone make more money than the current system, I surmise this is your first mmo. Instead of reasonably priced stacks of mats and so forth, placed by individuals, you will have 25 pages of Iron Ore for pocket change and..gasp...all those high end items for the same price they are now. I will concede an auction house makes things extremely easy to get right away, every time you need it, but lets not pretend it's gonna make anybody any more money than they are under the current system.

k2blader

The current trade kiosk system is a joke.

Sadly for harder-to-obtain items it's maybe the easiest way to find what you're looking for without the hassle of zone spam and haggling. If I wanted to endlessly search for goods then haggle over them I'd be out at flea markets all day, not playing an MMO.

FelixTheCatt

Agree with op completely. Fail trading system fails. End of story. I get the feeling this is a case of ZoS wanting to not admit this was an epic fail on their part. Being different just to be different from other mmo's is one thing. If something like the current trading system is messed up to this degree its time to swallow your pride , admit you goofed and fix it. Prolonging it or just steadfast refusing just makes the decision even more foolish.

martinhpb16_ESO

Callous2208 wrote: »

An auction house does not make bots, true. But it fosters their growth and creates an environment where people seek them out to further exploit. If you truly believe a global auction house will help anyone make more money than the current system, I surmise this is your first mmo. Instead of reasonably priced stacks of mats and so forth, placed by individuals, you will have 25 pages of Iron Ore for pocket change and..gasp...all those high end items for the same price they are now. I will concede an auction house makes things extremely easy to get right away, every time you need it, but lets not pretend it's gonna make anybody any more money than they are under the current system.

If you look at my posts they are about improving the system we have. The quest for an AH is long done. I disagree with you about the bots still though

Callous2208

I indeed looked back and feel rather foolish now. I learned long ago to read and understand before opening my big mouth. My apologies.

LEGENDARYYY

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Im a trade guild GM of a good sized profit-making guild.

I now spend approx 50% of my game time keeping the guild going and competitive, if I didnt it would probably fold:

- constant recruiting and weeding out non-sellers and inactives. This involves advertising in vet zones and welcoming new members, checking for non-sellers on MM.
- Running a lottery - recording names on a spreadsheet, farming prizes, garnering donations for prizes and making the draws as well as advertising in in-guild.
- Making the trader bid. OMG splitting the bid across hundreds of bids to disguise the amount, then withdrawing and depositing items in guild-bank to cover tracks. OFC this isnt totally spy-proof.
- Getting up at stupid times and annoying my wife 3am UK time to see if we have won the spot. If we haven't then running around looking for an available spot. Not a good activity for a middle-aged man.
- constantly incentivising members to donate to guild bank and make sales.

Now for the second week running we have lost our trader, despite spies, alliances with another guild and forever boosting the bid-price. The impact of this has been incredibly de-moralising.

Problems.

- not enough traders
- You can get a huge amount more sales from a trader literally a stones throw from another one due to prominance
- A low-activity guild with practically nothing to sell can get a spot for free as long as the person gets up early enough, whereas next door a guild can bid upwards of 500k and not get the spot.
- A completely transparent bid system.
- trader bid prices inflating and going higher all he time
- Trade guilds are dependant on the good nature and time constraints of the leader.
- Devs who dont seem to want to improve the system or spend any more time on it now its launched.

There are so many ways around a lot of the above.

A better bidding system for a start: thats not transparent; rewards highest bids either globally or locally; that doesnt hit 3am-5am EU time and so on.

And a Dev who is going to dedicate time to this. You have GMs dedicating their precious game time to this system and no input from Devs! shocking.

And yes I'm p****d because despite my endless hard work we now havent had a trader for 2 weeks.

Please Devs do something with your trade system.

Theres 1 solution to your problems. Bid higher. There is NO reason to keep a lot of money in guild bank until you've made your competitors afraid of you.

You say your guild profits? Why don't you use that profit to secure a stable spot. Bid much more than usual in a new place. A stable spot wil slowly increase sales, stabilize your guild, get more members and make you stronger in time. You run negative in the beginning, but it'll reward you later.

Example: I bid 800-900K weekly in Mournhold with my guild PVT for 5 weeks. Normal bids were 400k there at the time. We lost money early, of course, but with donations we made it work. Slowly we got more and more good traders because of our stable spot and dedicated recruiting. Guilds stopped trying to take our spot cus they couldn't, shouldn't and instead they targeted the other traders. Guess what? Within 1 month we earned 700K only in taxes weekly from sales. WIth donations we earned a lot of money. Then, when we were dominating the place, selling twice as much as any other guild there, I could put variety to my bids. Be unpredictable. Bid 400k one week, 800k the next. Build guild bank, become wealthy as ***. Within a few more weeks we went to Craglorn, using the same tactic, been there for 3 weeks, and in time, there's nothing stopping us.

You can whine all you want about the system, but instead you could learn it and love it.

k2blader

FallenProphet wrote: »

BRogueNZ wrote: »

Having to scope around x number of NPC's in x locations to find a)what your looking for and b) to compare prices; is plain daft in my opinion.

Yea because I want my fantasy world to run more like amazon, cuz that's fun. People miss the point

The point is TIME. Most sane people do not want to waste TIME running around to brick-and-mortars when they could be actually enjoying running around with friends killing monsters or other players.

Egg_Death

This whole thing seems insane to me as a beginner, but I can definitely say that economics will give customers and crafters the best deal. A small guild starting out has no business selling in a busy/well known area, and a strong and well-established guild will lose out on sales if they push the prices too high. Obviously there will be higher prices in more concentrated market areas, but customers are going to go there to not have to deal with small stores that won't have what they're looking for. It is a convenience charge, and it is arising naturally in-game. I'm not sure how it works, but you should not be able to buy up traders and not use them to get a monopoly.

Perhaps guilds should be allowed to advertise somewhere that players can look, to draw business to another market. But at the end of the day, if another guild takes your trader and offers as much or more than you do, nobody is going to be complaining but you.

arena25

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

So this week none of my 3 trading guilds have a trader.

One of them was ousted even though the bid was 280,000g in Wayrest

We don't need a system with so many barriers to effective trading.

This is a far cry from the assertion that not having an AH would create an egalitarian system.

So now my 3 trading guilds have no trader for a whole week, making less money, making it harder to bid, and inevitably losing members. Effectively these guilds now have no access to the open market.

The elite guilds control the market.

We just want to trade, buy & sell and not have to put so much effort into bidding, recruiting etc.

If we are not to have an AH the current system needs some serious reworking.

Congratulations. You joined the "Beating a Dead Horse Club."

Seriously, people, USE THE SEARCH TOOL!