Enough is enough Zenimax, fix this trader bid problem

VioletBaby

I am a GM of a major trading guild on the NA server. Zenimax you have got to fix this trader bid problem. Bids should NOT be available to all members, even after the bid is over. This practice encourages spying and sabotage. My guild has been subject to spying and sniping. You say its a blind auction...it is not a blind auction considering the exact amount you bid is in the guild history for all to see on Mondays, whether you are a loyal guildy or a spy. It leads me to believe devs have no concept of whats happening in their game. This is hurting the gaming community and creates distrust and unnecessary stress on GMs and affects the community as a whole. Im all for healthy competition, what im not ok with is spying and deceit to get ahead. This had been brought up before in forums, i certainly have submitted countless tickets and bug reports about it. To no avail. Listen to your community Zenimax, how on earth did you think this was a good idea??? This is an easy fix, for the love of god, please make bid amount histories only available to those with bidding permissions, my gosh...

granty2008cyb16_ESO

VioletBaby wrote: »

I am a GM of a major trading guild on the NA server. Zenimax you have got to fix this trader bid problem. Bids should NOT be available to all members, even after the bid is over. This practice encourages spying and sabotage. My guild has been subject to spying and sniping. You say its a blind auction...it is not a blind auction considering the exact amount you bid is in the guild history for all to see on Mondays, whether you are a loyal guildy or a spy. It leads me to believe devs have no concept of whats happening in their game. This is hurting the gaming community and creates distrust and unnecessary stress on GMs and affects the community as a whole. Im all for healthy competition, what im not ok with is spying and deceit to get ahead. This had been brought up before in forums, i certainly have submitted countless tickets and bug reports about it. To no avail. Listen to your community Zenimax, how on earth did you think this was a good idea??? This is an easy fix, for the love of god, please make bid amount histories only available to those with bidding permissions, my gosh...

meh someone lost the bid.

and i don't think he is happy zos.

VioletBaby

You're deduction is correct lol but i've been hounding Zenimax about this for months, as Ive watched countless guilds getting targeted, even before it has affected my guild personally. Being "sniped" was just the impetus to finally write this post . Btw "he" is actually a she

granty2008cyb16_ESO

VioletBaby wrote: »

You're deduction is correct lol but i've been hounding Zenimax about this for months, as Ive watched countless guilds getting targeted, even before it has affected my guild personally. Being "sniped" was just the impetus to finally write this post . Btw "he" is actually a she

we won one this week after 3 weeks :-) so not that sad today.

that being said i do think this info shouldn't be shown to people that are not in the high ranks of the guild, there should be a option to turn this info off in the ranks this would be a easy fix and could be implemented in minuets, but weather zos chose to do so will have to be continued they will probably say "SOON" and we know what that means.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Why tinker with the edges by trying to fix / rig the bidding process.

The bidding process is the least problematic issue in the trade system.

The main problem is that the Kiosk system doesn't work at all for a significant percentage of the player base.

Many sellers are forever prevented from selling, and as a buyer I have only found what I was looking for once out of over 50 attempts.

Changing how bidding works is like changing the seat covers on a runaway train - pointless cosmetic tinkering , and does absolutely nothing to affect the main issue at hand.

All The Best

VioletBaby

Grats on the trader!

My faith in Zenimax would be seriously restored if they implemented this easy fix. But you are right, reassurances from customer support rarely hold weight with promises of SOON. Ive had customer support say, im paraphrasing, "you are right, bid amounts shouldnt be seen by all members". But ive been told to submit yet another bug report...

granty2008cyb16_ESO

VioletBaby wrote: »

Grats on the trader!

My faith in Zenimax would be seriously restored if they implemented this easy fix. But you are right, reassurances from customer support rarely hold weight with promises of SOON. Ive had customer support say, im paraphrasing, "you are right, bid amounts shouldnt be seen by all members". But ive been told to submit yet another bug report...

lol and round we go, the story of zos.

Darastix

They should just let anyone bidding see the current bid so we know if we should waste our time on that trader or find one we could afford, and if were outbid let us retract our bid to put it up else where more affordable.

P3ZZL3

Damit @ZOS This is not acceptable.

We also lost our trader this week after finally getting one.

Now, I may or may not have forgotten to actually place the bid last night, but really, the system should KNOW that I want to bid on him!

J2JMC

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Why tinker with the edges by trying to fix / rig the bidding process.

The bidding process is the least problematic issue in the trade system.

The main problem is that the Kiosk system doesn't work at all for a significant percentage of the player base.

Many sellers are forever prevented from selling, and as a buyer I have only found what I was looking for once out of over 50 attempts.

Changing how bidding works is like changing the seat covers on a runaway train - pointless cosmetic tinkering , and does absolutely nothing to affect the main issue at hand.

All The Best

They should just let anyone sell at the guild traders while allowing whichever guild in control of the trade posts to set taxes between 0-30%on ally/neutral/enemy foreign products. This gives a strong incentive(tax free trading) to join a guild while allowing those who prefer not to join a guild the ability to still sell items.

It could also produce interesting economic interaction as guilds would have to find the balance between attracting more traders with lower taxes, or keeping higher taxes for profit and ensuring their own guild members will have an advantage on the market.

The ally/neutral/enemy thing allows the setting of different taxes for different groups of players. For example, if a guild wants to set a general tax of 15 percent, but knows someone who frequently trades on their market, they could set that ally to 5 percent while setting neutrals to 15 percent.

The whole ally system maybe a little much from the start, but just allowing all players to sell with the tax system could be a great way to have a more inclusive economy imo

GaldorP

Going to post my suggestion here again

What if guilds would just bid on a guild trader in general and not on a specific guild trader anymore?

Guild traders could be ranked according to the total sales that was made with them in the previous week or based on another system (ZOS could define a fixed ranking with the Craglorn traders being the best 7, the traders in the alliance capitals next, then 5th alliance zones, 4th alliance zones, 3rd zones, 1st zones, Coldharbour, starter islands, then all the traders that aren't in the main spots of the zones, with the outlaw refuge traders being the last ones in the ranking).

The guild with the highest bid on the server would get the rank 1 guild trader.
The guild with the second highest bid on the server would get the rank 2 trader.
And so forth...

That way, all large trading guilds would get a good trader pretty much guaranteed.
The auction would still be blind, and the spying problem would pretty much be gone.

Contraptions

I agree that bids should be private, but I think all the guild members want to know exactly how much is being spent on their traders. So here is what I suggest:

Make bids private, until the guild wins the trader. Then display the winning bid/amount spent to all members.

If the guild doesn't win (and thus gets their gold refunded), then the bid amount won't be displayed.

Maybe this will help solve the problem. Spies may still try to gauge next week's bid through previous ones, but at least bid sniping won't be as simple as it is now.

VioletBaby

Contraptions wrote: »

I agree that bids should be private, but I think all the guild members want to know exactly how much is being spent on their traders. So here is what I suggest:

Make bids private, until the guild wins the trader. Then display the winning bid/amount spent to all members.

If the guild doesn't win (and thus gets their gold refunded), then the bid amount won't be displayed.

Maybe this will help solve the problem. Spies may still try to gauge next week's bid through previous ones, but at least bid sniping won't be as simple as it is now.

That's exactly what happens now essentially and there's still rampant spying...