Sabotage Ridiculous Flower Trade!

Isavier

Okay, peeps, no rant intended, i'll keep it simple for those who do not like maths.

The price limit for bugloss and columbine is 200 gold per flower, as long as tripots cost around 15k.
Tripots are tri-stat potions, restoring magicka, health, and stamina. They have been the most profitable potions of all for a long time, and are, arguably, the last profitable kind of potions after 1.6 killed spellpots with standard major buffs.

If you are a fully-levelled achemist who wants to make potions for people and have a lil profit from it, you have to farm flowers on your own. You should also consider to not craft any potions for anybody at all, and just sell those flowers. Why? Because ingridients cost more than the product.

If you are lucky to buy mountain flowers for 120g each, if you farm all the water on your own, if you are a fully levelled alchemist, if you are lucky to find bugloss and columbine for 200 g each, you will get a profit of about 500g from a whole stack of 100 potions. For all your time and effort spent.

The problem is in people who constantly increase prices. 300-400 gold for a single columbine flower and bugloss is norm now.
Columbine is not a rare flower anymore. 1.6 brought additional mechanics for more effective gathering. Prices keep growing.
Why? Because they can. Sellers just don't have a reason to ask less if they can ask more. I can't ask them to stop.

What i can ask, though, is to not support this ridiculous business.
I have no idea who even buys all this?! For wat reason, decorating your home with those flowers?
You won't sell any potions for the prices that justify such self-cost, if you just wanna play sometimes instead of framing flowers by yourself.

Zeni doesn't care about alchemy either, so there is one way to stop this.
To every person who tries to sell you flowers for 200g+, always say (how do i put this politely?)
NO THANK YOU.
Cheers.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

If you don't like the price you can always gather your own, good luck to those that actually get 300+ for them. I personally have no problem getting all the plants I need so have no idea why anyone would pay for some.

Nestor

Just because some people price it high, does not mean all people price it high.

Now, if all the prices in the guild stores are set this high, then either the Tri-Pot price will increase, or the Alchemists will just farm their own and the price will drop again.

This is a situation where the market will take care of itself. In time.

vovus69

This is BS. I saw a lot of stuff yesterday in ~10 guild stores and bugloss/columbine were at 200 +- 10 or so. And you can buy tons of them. If someone selling it higher, it sits in the stores for really long time. So just buy at 200g or farm them yourself. I am seeing a lot of WTB spams in chat where people wants to buy them at 120g ea. They are doing this for half a year already, so obviously, someone is selling to them, so it is possible to buy them even cheaper but you have to spam the chat...

Nestor

vovus69 wrote: »

I am seeing a lot of WTB spams in chat where people wants to buy them at 120g ea. They are doing this for half a year already, so obviously, someone is selling to them,

I think they are probably getting most of theirs 1 or 2 at a time, and not any stacks of significant size. A lot of people are not in a Guild or a guild with a Kiosk, so selling them this way is quick and easy for them.

Tarukmockto

@Isavier: While I agree with you about the cost of Tri-Pot mats increasing without merit. I have to take issue with your assumption of profit.

Isavier wrote: »

If you are lucky to buy mountain flowers for 120g each, if you farm all the water on your own, if you are a fully levelled alchemist, if you are lucky to find bugloss and columbine for 200 g each, you will get a profit of about 500g from a whole stack of 100 potions. For all your time and effort spent.

Assuming that you are gathering your own water and paying 520G for the 3 mats required for one potion, that's 52K per Stack of mats. If you have a fully leveled Alchemist with all the skill points where they belong, that will yield you 4 stacks of Tri-Pots.

At 15K per stack sold, you will net 60K for the 4 stacks. This is a profit of 8K. Not stellar, but nothing to sneeze at either.

jasdistefanob14_ESO

Isavier wrote: »

Okay, peeps, no rant intended, i'll keep it simple for those who do not like maths.


Zeni doesn't care about alchemy either, so there is one way to stop this.

Why is this Zenimax's fault? Zenimax is not in the business to change simple economic theories. They are in the video game business. Plus, there is nothing Zenimax could do to directly affect this "problem" of yours. And before you say they could increase supply you must remember that it is solely up to the individual players to set the prices for these markets. If a player is willing the pay 200g for Columbine then that is the price. This is not the fault of Zenimax.

Rant all you want, but make sure to place blame appropriately.

Lirkin

They could change it so we can have a gatherer. They we might not have to buy them as much and the prices would go down.

Just one example of a way that Zenimax can effect the costs.

Another would to make the flowers more plentiful and easier to see.

Some of the flowers are very hidden and are easily missed.

Vandril

c00lmon wrote: »

They could change it so we can have a gatherer. They we might not have to buy them as much and the prices would go down.

Just one example of a way that Zenimax can effect the costs.

Another would to make the flowers more plentiful and easier to see.

Some of the flowers are very hidden and are easily missed.

While true, consider this...

If they do this, supply increases. Great, less need to buy from the shops! Okay, so, the result? Flower prices on shops drop, but their supply in shops does not drop - it stays the same or relatively so. So, let's recap: supply is up, demand is exactly the same, price is down.

What do you think will happen to the price of the potions, then? The materials to make them are now cheaper and easier to find, so...the exact same thing that happened to the herbs.

The end result is that the prices of the potions will decrease to match the decrease in prices to the materials. There is a direct link between supply and price of materials and supply and price of the resulting potions. If one becomes cheaper and more plentiful, then so will the other. The profit margins for people selling the potions will actually decrease, because the profit zone between herb and potion prices will likely remain the same by percentage. With smaller numbers, this profit zone becomes numerically smaller.

And even though alchemists would have more potions to sell due to the influx of materials to make them, the demand for potions will not have changed at all, so an insufficient number of additional sales would be made.

Profit of alchemy would plummet into nothingness.

________________________________

There is no "fixing" this on Zenimax's end. It is not a mechanical issue. Demand is more or less static, only depending on average amount of content run by all players per time (which fluctuates mainly due to number of players online per time), so there's no changing that. Changing supply will only result in an equal price rise or fall of both materials and potions, so changing that won't fix a thing.

It is very much a player "issue". Players are willing to buy what they need at that price, so sellers will continue to sell at that price. Once players are not willing to buy what they need at that price, prices will fall. The only solution to this problem of materials costing nearly the same amount as their resulting items is to have players be less willing to buy the materials at their current price, thus driving the material price down, without the players changing their willingness to buy the potions at the current price.

In other words, the only way to "fix the issue" is to get a player-wide herb boycott going on. And this will never happen.

Valije

The problem for the op will be fixed if he gather the flowes himself. But that takes time and he doesn't want to waste the time harvesting... so pay the price or don't buy them.

failkiwib16_ESO

I wish i could buy columbine. I was at 10+ guildstores in the most popular places in AD faction, and got around 40 columbines. I didn't buy from a guy who sold them for 1k each but pretty much what els i could find

Tallowby

The ability to learn crafts in this game is relatively simple, and as such many players learn the crafts themselves and not necessarily for trade but self use..

So when we look at the market... those players are not looking to buy crafted items, in this case potions, they are looking for raw materials to make their own for their personal use and/or for leveling.

So by far the economy of ESO is shifted from players buying crafted items back to the raw materials needed to make said crafted items.

Unless the developers increase the difficulty in learning the crafts I do not see this changing. Note the latest provisioning changes may be a step in the right direction but may fail to be enough to turn the tide either. We will need to see how the market responds.

ESO is a foragers market and they are benefiting well, crafters are relegated to niche markets.

Being a forager AND crafter yields the best return.....

I am looking forward to see how the new economy on consoles shapes up. With out all the addons crafting value may be in more demand.

Valije

As someone noted then, supply and demand. A lot of demand, and a shortage of suppy, makes the price go up.

If you think the price is too high, go harvest those herbs and make a fortune !!

Gyudan

I remember buying truckloads of flowers 1 year ago for 10-30g each.
Good times ...

Lirkin

Tallowby wrote: »

The ability to learn crafts in this game is relatively simple, and as such many players learn the crafts themselves and not necessarily for trade but self use..

So when we look at the market... those players are not looking to buy crafted items, in this case potions, they are looking for raw materials to make their own for their personal use and/or for leveling.

So by far the economy of ESO is shifted from players buying crafted items back to the raw materials needed to make said crafted items.

Unless the developers increase the difficulty in learning the crafts I do not see this changing. Note the latest provisioning changes may be a step in the right direction but may fail to be enough to turn the tide either. We will need to see how the market responds.

ESO is a foragers market and they are benefiting well, crafters are relegated to niche markets.

Being a forager AND crafter yields the best return.....

I am looking forward to see how the new economy on consoles shapes up. With out all the addons crafting value may be in more demand.

Just remember that consoles will not effect the market on the servers for PC users as they will have their own servers.

I personally don't care about what the prices are on the flowers because I don't purchase anything from the guild traders because it's to much of a pain. I would be happy for more flowers so I can harvest what I need easier.

Tallowby

c00lmon wrote: »

Tallowby wrote: »

I am looking forward to see how the new economy on consoles shapes up. With out all the addons crafting value may be in more demand.

Just remember that consoles will not effect the market on the servers for PC users as they will have their own servers

That is why I made that comment..... Crafting on consoles should be more viable.

cote-bmsb16_ESO

It takes a long time to farm up a stack of anything in this game. If I spend my day farming, I'd like to turn a significant profit for all of my time spent running around gathering supplies.

Instead of spending my time farming and supplying alchemists who sell the pots, I could be getting more champion points, loot and experience.

You are paying for someone else to do all of the leg work.

TheRealDoc

How lazy are some people? I appreciate the argument of it's not fun to farm, but you can get all the alchemy ingredients for nothing more than some of your time. It's the easiest skill to farm and level.

Just go to Coldharbour city and run around in a circle for an hour and you'll have 50-100 of every flower type (some +speed gear helps a lot). If you spend some time running around the coldharbour woods, you'll find a good route and all the mushrooms you will ever need.

Water is even easier, go to your V10 zone and run along the streams and lake edges and rake it in.

At the same time, do your alchemy writs which will give you even more ingredients.

I only make potions for myself, because you make more money selling the ingredients, it's simple economics, if people would not pay, then I would not sell.

It's almost the same as provisioning, but food/drink has rare ingredients you can only get through hirelings and writs, limiting supply.

failkiwib16_ESO

TheRealDoc wrote: »

How lazy are some people? I appreciate the argument of it's not fun to farm, but you can get all the alchemy ingredients for nothing more than some of your time. It's the easiest skill to farm and level.

Just go to Coldharbour city and run around in a circle for an hour and you'll have 50-100 of every flower type (some +speed gear helps a lot). If you spend some time running around the coldharbour woods, you'll find a good route and all the mushrooms you will ever need.

Water is even easier, go to your V10 zone and run along the streams and lake edges and rake it in.

At the same time, do your alchemy writs which will give you even more ingredients.

I only make potions for myself, because you make more money selling the ingredients, it's simple economics, if people would not pay, then I would not sell.

It's almost the same as provisioning, but food/drink has rare ingredients you can only get through hirelings and writs, limiting supply.

I happen to farm every single flower i get by, and i even get flowers from my friends - however the flowers that I need to make tripots and panacea of spell critical and panacea of spell power are always lacking. I need more to supply my friends and myself, we gather all we can and buy what we can - but it is not enough. I can't even buy potions anymore, because alchemists don't earn enough with the current prices - so they keep the potions for their own supply.

You mention crafting writs - they have been a complete waste of time for me, mainly I've been getting the flowers I already got stacks of, and not the ones that I need to make potions.

However, i really do agree that it is the easiest skill to level, it took me 20 minutes to go from lvl 13 to lvl 50 in alchemy.