Poorly thought out maintenance times and their conflict with economy mechanics

sylviermoone

Ok, this is freaking ridiculous.

The ENTIRE economy of ESO revolves around one mechanic: the Kiosk flipping time. It used to be that the bids closed at 5 minutes to 8 Eastern, flip happened at 8 Eastern, and then servers went down for maintenance. During the winter, there was an extra hour to run around looking for a stall if you happened to lose. While it isn't ideal to have maintenance happen directly AFTER the kiosk flips, it is SO MUCH BETTER than having your maintenance time DIRECTLY in conflict with this one mechanic.

Please ZOS: Get your *** together. This new maintenance time, and its direct conflict with the Kiosk mechanic on the PC/NA server is INSANE. Whoever thought this was a good idea should be taken out back and flogged.

For the love of The Eight: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE move the maintenance time back to 8 AM Eastern on Monday. Or 8:15 Eastern. Or any day but Monday. OR ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS CRAP IT CURRENTLY IS.

labtecw

Best post i have seen so far i agree with this all the way

AtmaDarkwolf

lol the fact is it don't matter WHAT TIME they set maintenance, someone will ALWAYS find it 'hampers their gaming time'

But you are right, they should sync the kiosk time with maintenance so there's a 2-3 hr difference between the two(or have maint finish and have kiosks flip 12 hrs later so it flips during uptime)

AzraelKrieg

This is my reaction to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Early maintenance means I can't play on a Monday but meh, I'll do something else. Vendor change happening during maintenance? Meh. I put my bid in early enough that I don't worry too much.

Lady_Ems

I think they should move the maintenance to Tuesday's. Since ZOS can't do anything more to the trader/kiosk aspect of the game. They attempted to move the time of the maintenance and seems like every week it goes way past trader flip time. Seems like the only logical thing for them to do is move their time to a different day and that way they won't screw up the economy of the game any worse than they already have. But do we really think ZOS cares about this one bit at all. I seriously doubt it.

Lady_Ems

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

This is my reaction to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Early maintenance means I can't play on a Monday but meh, I'll do something else. Vendor change happening during maintenance? Meh. I put my bid in early enough that I don't worry too much.

Yeah I put my bid in early, but then run into the thing.. what if I get outbid.. then I don't have a trader and I have to worry about will I be home when the game comes up, will all the traders be full when I can get in. There is a good system in place and they keep messing it up

code65536

I hate Monday mornings because of this. It is already very stressful to manage a trading guild, and the conflict between maintenance and bid close makes it so much worse. Move the NA/PC maintenance back to 8AM EDT like what it used to be. Or just do it on Tuesdays. Anything but this.

sylviermoone

AtmaDarkwolf wrote: »

lol the fact is it don't matter WHAT TIME they set maintenance, someone will ALWAYS find it 'hampers their gaming time'

But you are right, they should sync the kiosk time with maintenance so there's a 2-3 hr difference between the two(or have maint finish and have kiosks flip 12 hrs later so it flips during uptime)

You are right; maintenance time will always be bad for someone, no matter what time it happens. But we aren't talking about being upset because "maintenance ruins my weekend gaming time" or "Monday is my day off!!!".

We are talking about their chosen maintenance time now being in direct conflict with a pretty important game mechanic. All it has done is greatly increase the stress of being a GM of a trading guild while vastly inflating bids in every desirable trading location on the server.

It is absolutely in ZOS's power to fix this issue.

AzraelKrieg

Lady_Ems wrote: »

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

This is my reaction to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Early maintenance means I can't play on a Monday but meh, I'll do something else. Vendor change happening during maintenance? Meh. I put my bid in early enough that I don't worry too much.

Yeah I put my bid in early, but then run into the thing.. what if I get outbid.. then I don't have a trader and I have to worry about will I be home when the game comes up, will all the traders be full when I can get in. There is a good system in place and they keep messing it up

I guess that's a big issue if you're gunning for places like Mournhold or Rawl'Kha. One of mine didn't have a vendor last week. Sure we suffered but we had other guilds we could sell in. I take a vendor loss as a chance to regroup, gain a little extra in guild's coffers from internal sales and guild events, and then try again next week.

Lady_Ems

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Lady_Ems wrote: »

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

This is my reaction to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Early maintenance means I can't play on a Monday but meh, I'll do something else. Vendor change happening during maintenance? Meh. I put my bid in early enough that I don't worry too much.

Yeah I put my bid in early, but then run into the thing.. what if I get outbid.. then I don't have a trader and I have to worry about will I be home when the game comes up, will all the traders be full when I can get in. There is a good system in place and they keep messing it up

I guess that's a big issue if you're gunning for places like Mournhold or Rawl'Kha. One of mine didn't have a vendor last week. Sure we suffered but we had other guilds we could sell in. I take a vendor loss as a chance to regroup, gain a little extra in guild's coffers from internal sales and guild events, and then try again next week.

And that is correct, which is exactly what happened last week. We was trying for Rawl'Kha.. Got out bid and time it got back online and got the download and got in.. There was no place to go. So we ended up with no trader at all. So yeah their choice to move the time and every week it interferes with the trader flip is affecting the economy in the game

Stump

I agree and have already made several posts about this in the past. I understand maintenance and I'm glad they are constantly improving the game...
but they also designated an event time that happens ONCE a week. They can move their maintenance time to accommodate what they already put in place 2 years ago for the guild trader flipping.

Lady_Ems

Stump wrote: »

I agree and have already made several posts about this in the past. I understand maintenance and I'm glad they are constantly improving the game...
but they also designated an event time that happens ONCE a week. They can move their maintenance time to accommodate what they already put in place 2 years ago for the guild trader flipping.

I have seen several people make post about it. Which is in part I believe to it being moved to 4AM EST, but that seems to be causing a bigger problem. Seems like since that move, it has really been messing up the trader reset event

Stump

Lady_Ems wrote: »

Stump wrote: »

I agree and have already made several posts about this in the past. I understand maintenance and I'm glad they are constantly improving the game...
but they also designated an event time that happens ONCE a week. They can move their maintenance time to accommodate what they already put in place 2 years ago for the guild trader flipping.

I have seen several people make post about it. Which is in part I believe to it being moved to 4AM EST, but that seems to be causing a bigger problem. Seems like since that move, it has really been messing up the trader reset event

Exactly right, they can move maintenance to any day they like to avoid conflict. Moving it to 4am was a good start if it didn't last for 4+ hours.

Ourorboros

Instead of changing maintenance time to accommodate kiosk bidding why not change kiosk bidding to a time more removed from maintenance, like Friday night or Saturday morning. No idea if this would be acceptable to the community, but I do agree it was poor planning to have maintenance time conflict with kiosk bids.

Lady_Ems

Ourorboros wrote: »

Instead of changing maintenance time to accommodate kiosk bidding why not change kiosk bidding to a time more removed from maintenance, like Friday night or Saturday morning. No idea if this would be acceptable to the community, but I do agree it was poor planning to have maintenance time conflict with kiosk bids.

I personally don't care which one happens.. It just needs to happens. I have heard that they can't do anything with the kiosk system fot some odd reason and that its easier for them to move maintenance. How true that is .... I dunno.. But they have got to do something so the two do not collide anymore

Lady_Ems

Stump wrote: »

Lady_Ems wrote: »

Stump wrote: »

I agree and have already made several posts about this in the past. I understand maintenance and I'm glad they are constantly improving the game...
but they also designated an event time that happens ONCE a week. They can move their maintenance time to accommodate what they already put in place 2 years ago for the guild trader flipping.

I have seen several people make post about it. Which is in part I believe to it being moved to 4AM EST, but that seems to be causing a bigger problem. Seems like since that move, it has really been messing up the trader reset event

Exactly right, they can move maintenance to any day they like to avoid conflict. Moving it to 4am was a good start if it didn't last for 4+ hours.

I want to say, this is the second week in a row, that the maintenance has lasted into the afternoon. So much for a fair trader flip

waterfairy

Everyone is down at the same time yes? So if anything, this maintenance just gives you more real life time before you have to go bid in game.

Panth141

@Ixtyr summarises it all pretty well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOqMY9gIKfc

chess1ukb16_ESO

EU is just as bad in its own way.

Bid times should be moved to Friday or changed completely as Trade Leaders are required to stay awake or get up at absurd time ( 3/4am ) in case they lose and need to run around to find an alternative in the limited Trader location pool we currently have.

I know its only a small group of people but they are important members of the community and forcing (or subjecting your guild to a week without a Trader which is no option either) a weekly break in sleep is very unhealthy for anyone involved and should be a primary concern for a responsible game developer.

hiyde

I'd like to take this opportunity to lay out a few of the issues we have with Kiosk flip times. Despite our best efforts of asking about this and suggesting specific solutions for over a year, we've never had any sort of response.

Bid Spying
It remains a huge issue in the game and is extremely easy to do. It is possible to calculate EXACTLY what a guild has bid *before* the bids process. This forces guilds in a competitive location to be on just before the kiosks flip to "top off" their bid. Numerous suggestions have been put forth to eliminate this issue once and for all. Removing bids from the history (which used to be posted after the bids processed) has accomplished nothing other than reducing transparency to members while allowing bid spies to keep right on spying. This also creates paranoia and bad blood between guilds.

Flip Time
In the summer, Kiosks flip at 5AM PDT / 8AM EDT. It's even worse in the winter - an hour earlier!
Highly active trade guilds typically do their biggest events on Sunday night and then have just a few hours to grab some sleep and be present for the flip. Even if bid-spying was eliminated, Officers still have to be on to search for an open location if the bid is lost. Why does this have to take place before the sun comes up on a *Monday* morning?

Maintenance
And now, maintenance has added a special new layer of hell. That means placing final bids at 4A East / 1A West and then being at the mercy of whenever servers come back up to know the results and search for a location if the bid isn't won.

Why do kiosk flip times have to be early Monday morning? How about something closer to peak play time so people don't have to interrupt their sleep 1-2 times every Monday just to secure a kiosk?

I realize this affects a small slice of the community and there are far more pressing issues that affect bigger portions of the population. But c'mon. These have been our main "pain points" with Trading Guilds for a very long time and despite extensive and thoughtful feedback, we can't even get an answer, let alone any sort of improvement to the situation.

Suggestions:
- Eliminate bid spying once and for all.
- Move kiosk flip time to something at or near "prime time" on Saturday or Sunday nights, when we're all online holding our end of week guild events.
- If the above isn't possible, can we please be told why? And if that's the case, then yes, the last resort would be a request to move maintenance so it doesn't directly conflict with this critical game mechanic for trading guilds, but it seems there are much greater benefits to moving Kiosk flip times instead, to a time that would never interfere with regular maintenance and would allow people to get a good night's sleep. Mondays are hard enough as it is!


@ZOS_GinaBruno

chess1ukb16_ESO

Excellent post Hiyde

Hagbard_OM

Vigarr wrote: »

Everyone is down at the same time yes? So if anything, this maintenance just gives you more real life time before you have to go bid in game.

Here is the problem with that. If the game is up and running when trader bids go through, GMs (or officers with trade privileges) can quickly go searching for an unclaimed spot should they lose with their bid. It's not a pleasant task, but at least everyone knows when it's going to happen and can make arrangements to have an "emergency bidder" online for the flip.

If the servers are down for a patch when trader bids go through, people's ability to hire unclaimed traders is dependent upon their internet connection speed. If the patch is of a significant size (like it was last week), you get a situation where some players are able to get into the game and look for unclaimed traders hours before others due to how quickly they can download the patch.

calia1120

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert, please, please, can we do something about this? The maintenance before the bid close time is causing untold amounts of havoc. I've been speaking with a number of people, trade and otherwise, and this change has made it so much more nerve racking for everyone, and as mentioned before, it's hitting the small guilds the worst of all.

In my own instance, I'm either going into work late every Monday with over an hour's commute into Boston or arranging to work from home; I'm sure many others have similar stories; I can only imagine how people not in the Eastern time zone are handling it. Between running guild events on Sunday nights and then handling bids, this new maintenance time means I've been going into work on about 2-3 hours of sleep if I'm lucky.

Many of the smaller guilds don't have the officer base to run around and look for a trader if they lose bids or sit and wait for the patch to finish.

The question has been asked in the past, is there any reason why the trader switch couldn't happen over the weekend, say to coincide with the leaderboard flip? With a weekend switch, that would allow more players the opportunity to get online for trader bids and less instance of overlap with maintenance times.

Lady_Ems

Has anyone else noticed how no one from ZOS is answering this thread but are posting on other threads. Makes one question if they are intentionally ignoring the trader problem.

Nilmot

Don't have a personal story to add, but want to keep this thread bumped. The amount and random duration of maintenance is ridiculous already, but scheduling it over the trader bid close is just flat out dumb.

nine9six

The Guild Trader system is soooo awesome.

Preyfar

This causes a massive amount of anxiety on the guildmasters for large trading guilds, especially for those who lose an established place because they couldn't be up to monitor the trade. Especially when you have almost 500 people who are depending on you to get the trader. It's an unneeded stress put on guildmasters.

Lady_Ems

Preyfar wrote: »

This causes a massive amount of anxiety on the guildmasters for large trading guilds, especially for those who lose an established place because they couldn't be up to monitor the trade. Especially when you have almost 500 people who are depending on you to get the trader. It's an unneeded stress put on guildmasters.

I agree with you... This happened to us last week becuz of this maintenance and then the extended maintenance. Then the different download speed and the stress on the ESO servers when everyone was trying to get in.... we went without an trader and have almost 500 peeps. Not counting having to get up in the middle of the night and for the west coast, twice... and then try to stick around home all day long just to lose a trader because of their screw up

AzraelAcid

I'm personally ready to quit over it. I'm West Coast, so this is insanity for me. I've never seen any game run a system like this.

I've been awake since 1:00 am. It's now 8:16 am PDT. Another sleepless night, another grueling work day.

@ZOS_GinaBruno,@ZOS_JessicaFolsom we have provided feedback on this major pain point for so long. Please, for the love of all that is sacred, CHANGE THE BID TIMES so we can all get some sleep!

Cryptical

By definition, the economy is created by the transactions performed by humans.

By procedure, the transactions that humans perform are only possible AFTER they have engaged in playing (at least one part of) the game. One must fish, or farm, or grind, or in some other manner must PLAY the game before a single transaction may be performed.

The economy is built on the foundation of playing the game, and therefore the game must take priority over any trade issues.

People seem to forget that the economy is the aggregate of human action, and that human action will always continue to exist even if they delete the program code for guilds and guild traders completely.

Hard truth - the economy will not disappear if the maintenance times mean that no trade guild gets a cart anywhere on the map. ESO is a game of killing monsters and enemy characters, not the 1995 game Capitalism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_(video_game)

KimberlyannKitsuragi

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

This is my reaction to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Early maintenance means I can't play on a Monday but meh, I'll do something else. Vendor change happening during maintenance? Meh. I put my bid in early enough that I don't worry too much.

I'm the same. I work mondays during maintenance so I can't play till I get home anyway