Potential Guild Trader Exploit! Please Investigate and Fix ASAP!

DRXHarbinger

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

Scaena

Erasure wrote: »

Scaena wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

The_Last_Titan wrote: »

I believe i saw someone from Guild For Testing attempting to recruit people in zone for this, offering a kuta for membership. What ever the intent was it appears to expose problems with the current system, so would be nice if this was addressed.

Interesting. Got pics?

Posting pictures of chat would violate the naming and shaming rule. Are you trying to get him banned?

Pretty sneaky of you.

That's a rather convenient excuse for unsubstantiated rumor-mongering, but no, that's not how I roll. There are other avenues to share through.

And I would encourage you to use those avenues.

However I wanted to make clear why there would be no posting chat screen caps in this thread.

After all I don't want any harm to come to one of my eventual minions when I take over Tamriel!

Erasure

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

Artmetis

Scaena wrote: »

Also what's this about hundreds of accounts? I just need one account per guild or other players who want to join in. Most likely partners because hey I'm not made out of $$. Getting to 50 players is easy. There's loads of players in the game and it won't take much time to get 50 people to join a casual social trade guild. No need to mention the dual purpose of the guild.

Hundreds of millions of gold? Pshhh. Only the top trade spots go for millions of gold. Lots of spots go just for the hundreds of thousands.

I could easily get a dozen or so spots for a few million at most. If I wanted to take 3 spots in Elden root I bet I could get them for under 10M. A significant sum but still attainable. This is also where selling those trader stalls come into play and I start making a profit

It's not about ruining people's fun.. it's about crushing their spirits and conquering Tamriel!

Hmm... So King Pin, what shall we name our cartel? Exploiters R Us? Meh to generic, Pinky and the Brain? Nah, then ppl will know about the Tamriel domination, hmm.... Those Who Disband to Control? Oh and we still need a third to go to the mattresses with the DC guilds though. Hmm i wonder if we can recruit an army to guard spam the hire button to be safe. Perhaps pay them a Kuta each.

baratron

nooblybear wrote: »

Let's talk about the other elephant in the room: the number of people who seem to be outraged in this thread that are leaders of, officers of, or high-ranking members of guilds that are closely interlinked, the majority of which seem to be associated with the Council of Nirn (if they still call themselves that). Just by signatures alone, I've spotted the GMs and former GMs of at least four trade guilds directly associated, plus a self-described officer, and other members. This group's history with the current occupant of this trader on PC NA is well known and well-documented.

I am not sure why Council of Nirn is being blamed for anything here. Speaking as a member of said Council, I wouldn't say that the group as a whole has a gripe with any other guild in particular. I certainly don't. There has been considerable turnover in membership since the original Direnni Dynasty split, and at least half of the current membership represent guilds which are not primarily trading guilds. Some of us represent social guilds, PvE guilds, PvP guilds, even one roleplaying guild. Other members are addon developers or prominent streamers. Also, not all of the members of Council of Nirn are even on the North American PC server (although I believe we *are* all on PC).

The association you are seeing is more due to trade guilds who are current or former regular bidders in Rawl'kha. It doesn't surprise me that people who run large trade guilds might be bothered to find that one of their number may have been caught "cheating". Whether this is an exploit or not is something for ZOS to answer.

Having been caught out by the bug you described, I must admit a certain grudging admiration for this apparent attempt to get around it. It's a problem that we at Council of Nirn have mentioned to ZOS before. Quoting directly from one of our recent feedback documents:

Guild Trader Bids
Problem: It’s very easy to accidentally lock in a Guild Trader bid for the next week when attempting to hire an open trader. The current process (hit Bid on Guild Trader, hit E to accept) is overly simple for such an important guild function.
Solution 1: Remove the auto-populated 10,000 gold bid from the guild trader bid prompt. Adding an extra confirmation prompt to the process would also help.
Solution 2: Move “bid on guild trader” further down the list, so that “E - E - E” doesn’t end up with you accidentally hiring a shifty Khajiit with a target clientele that only consists of Shadowscales.

Bad Guild Trader Bids
Problem: Accidental bids and sabotage bids cause serious issues for guilds.
Solution: Allow the bid to be undone for a certain amount of time after it was first set.

Clearly, the majority of people involved with running a guild would agree that it is downright insane for the "Hire" prompt to change to "Bid" when, having failed to get your first choice Guild Trader, you're trying to Hire one which was unclaimed - but then the Guild Trader you're trying to Hire has been hired by someone in another shard. When an Officer in my Guild ended up placing an accidental Bid, we were quite unhappy and several of us didn't believe it was a bug, until two weeks later when the same thing happened again. This time the Officer concerned, fortunately, noticed that "Hire" had changed to "Bid". But it's easy for a person not to notice that in the heat of spamming the E key to try to secure a Trader for the week. Combined with the lack of ability to cancel a bid, this is a real problem.

nooblybear wrote: »

Somehow I doubt they would be quite so outraged if it was one of their own who had done something similar.

For the sake of avoiding both naming and sharing and the airing of dirty linen in public, I can only assure you that you're wrong. If it was a member of Council of Nirn, there would be just as much outrage, but in email or our private forums rather than the official forum.

Scaena

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

There's a lot less incentive to bid on multiple Trader Stalls you CAN'T use as backup spots or possibly sell to other guilds then if you could. Why spend hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of gold bidding on multiple spots just to leave them worthless? You need some kind of profit angle to make it doable and there just isn't any way to make a profit if you can no longer exploit the system to sell Trader Spots to other guilds. Even just a backup spot has a profit incentive as you get 3.5% tax of all your guild sales. So you can make up what you spent through the now increase sales you have thanks to that backup trader.

I would like Zenimax to also make "nuking" as you put it less likely as well. Maybe require a guild store to have X items up for sale before they can bid on a trader stall so that the store isn't wasting space.

However if Zenimax is fine with this exploit then we'll soon be seeing a shift in the economy as large guilds take advantage of this new method to ensure they always have a trader.

I know for myself I will soon embark on conquering all of Tamriel if this a viable method.

Artmetis wrote: »

Scaena wrote: »

Also what's this about hundreds of accounts? I just need one account per guild or other players who want to join in. Most likely partners because hey I'm not made out of $$. Getting to 50 players is easy. There's loads of players in the game and it won't take much time to get 50 people to join a casual social trade guild. No need to mention the dual purpose of the guild.

Hundreds of millions of gold? Pshhh. Only the top trade spots go for millions of gold. Lots of spots go just for the hundreds of thousands.

I could easily get a dozen or so spots for a few million at most. If I wanted to take 3 spots in Elden root I bet I could get them for under 10M. A significant sum but still attainable. This is also where selling those trader stalls come into play and I start making a profit

It's not about ruining people's fun.. it's about crushing their spirits and conquering Tamriel!

Hmm... So King Pin, what shall we name our cartel? Exploiters R Us? Meh to generic, Pinky and the Brain? Nah, then ppl will know about the Tamriel domination, hmm.... Those Who Disband to Control? Oh and we still need a third to go to the mattresses with the DC guilds though. Hmm i wonder if we can recruit an army to guard spam the hire button to be safe. Perhaps pay them a Kuta each.

I had been thinking of "The Kingpin" because you know its all about me

nooblybear

baratron wrote: »

I am not sure why Council of Nirn is being blamed for anything here. Speaking as a member of said Council, I wouldn't say that the group as a whole has a gripe with any other guild in particular. I certainly don't. There has been considerable turnover in membership since the original Direnni Dynasty split, and at least half of the current membership represent guilds which are not primarily trading guilds. Some of us represent social guilds, PvE guilds, PvP guilds, even one roleplaying guild. Other members are addon developers or prominent streamers. Also, not all of the members of Council of Nirn are even on the North American PC server (although I believe we *are* all on PC).

I appreciate your comments and admit that my statement was potentially misleading, but it doesn't invalidate my point: it is simply public fact that there was an extremely large and volatile dispute between members of the Direnni Dynasty and the guild currently occupying Ronuril. I'm sure the paraphrase "3 million gold in reparations" will prove to be familiar to all involved.

I did not mean to imply that the entirety of the Council of Nirn was commenting on this thread, but simply stating that many of the original commentators (and some founding members of CoN) on this thread had or were involved in a major conflict with this guild. It's absolutely something that changes the context of some of these comments, and they deserve to be considered in that light.

baratron wrote: »

Whether this is an exploit or not is something for ZOS to answer.

I strongly agree, and I hope that, if they do weigh in on this matter, they can also weigh in on the matter of bid spying, something that countless guilds (I won't name and shame here, although there are simply too many to list) have used as a technique for acquiring a trader for only a few thousand gold more than another guild have placed a bid on it.

If we are to term this as an exploit, then bid spying, more wide-spread and widely used (although less easily detected) absolutely must be considered one.

baratron wrote: »

Solution 1: Remove the auto-populated 10,000 gold bid from the guild trader bid prompt. Adding an extra confirmation prompt to the process would also help. [...] But it's easy for a person not to notice that in the heat of spamming the E key to try to secure a Trader for the week. Combined with the lack of ability to cancel a bid, this is a real problem.

It is possible when using a modified LUA environment that completely prevents you from bidding to encounter a kiosk that is supposedly "unbid" upon. Attempting to hire this kiosk can be construed by the system as a bid, even though GuildKioskBid is never actually called.

Simply put, the bidding system is horribly, horribly broken.

baratron wrote: »

If it was a member of Council of Nirn, there would be just as much outrage, but in email or our private forums rather than the official forum.

I'm sorry, but you just validated my point. You've just said that, if it were a member of the Council of Nirn who had done this "exploit", you would not have posted it on the official forums, but instead discussed it privately. How is a private discussion euqal to a public forum thread, where Zenimax's presence has been requested?

DRXHarbinger

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

Erasure

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The reverse situation that this thread was created to discuss, a large guild leaving a small, less worthy/ worthless one in its previous location to prevent open hires by competitors happens All.The. Time. But one guild one bid, right?

KingYogi415

My god how many exploits can ZOS even try to fix at once....

Erasure

KingYogi415 wrote: »

My god how many exploits can ZOS even try to fix at once....

Fifty devs coding
Master Writs,Housing, Combat
Fixes coming "Soon"

Scaena

nooblybear wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Whether this is an exploit or not is something for ZOS to answer.

I strongly agree, and I hope that, if they do weigh in on this matter, they can also weigh in on the matter of bid spying, something that countless guilds (I won't name and shame here, although there are simply too many to list) have used as a technique for acquiring a trader for only a few thousand gold more than another guild have placed a bid on it.

If we are to term this as an exploit, then bid spying, more wide-spread and widely used (although less easily detected) absolutely must be considered one.

The difference between this exploit (or Method for World Domination) and bid spying is that this exploit can be tracked. They can see in the logs who hired what, who disbanded, etc...

What they can't track is X person spying on Z guild. There's no logs for that. This is something that Zenimax can only fix by changing how information is shared among guild members.

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

You are correct. It's only worth spending millions of gold on if its being used as backup Trader spot for a large guild. If G guild bids 4M on a spot and loses then their backup bid of 2M has now not only saved them from a week of no trader but at half the price.

It's about playing the odds. You can't predict how other guilds are going to bid. Even if you bid 6M on that one spot, you may still lose if the other bid 7M.

You could also bid 500k on a less valuable spot then 2M on a better one. It depends on how much gold your guild has to spend. It's worth throwing away gold if it means ensuring your guild ALWAYS has a spot.

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The reverse situation that this thread was created to discuss, a large guild leaving a small, less worthy/ worthless one in its previous location to prevent open hires by competitors happens All.The. Time. But one guild one bid, right?

Yes, and that's a problem that has also been complained about:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/249620/corrupt-guilds-junk-trader-slots-and-game-wrecking-tactics

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/301391/pc-na-troll-guilds-taking-traders-wtf

This problem with this exploit has also been complained about before too and its gotten ridiculous: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248291/guild-traders-being-sold-for-real-money-zenimax-can-we-do-something-about-this

BOTH need to be addressed by Zenimax in some fashion.

However if this exploit is ignored AGAIN then its time for me to ascend and take Tamriel for myself. Long Live the Kingpin Empire!

baratron

nooblybear wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

If it was a member of Council of Nirn, there would be just as much outrage, but in email or our private forums rather than the official forum.

I'm sorry, but you just validated my point. You've just said that, if it were a member of the Council of Nirn who had done this "exploit", you would not have posted it on the official forums, but instead discussed it privately. How is a private discussion euqal to a public forum thread, where Zenimax's presence has been requested?

Ah, you misunderstand. I mean that if the guild concerned was represented on Council of Nirn and another member brought the situation to the admin group, we would hold a discussion just like this but in private. This means that rather than having to discuss whether or not something is an exploit while dodging around the official forum's naming and shaming rules, we would instead collect evidence of the alleged miscreant's wrongdoings and discuss it frankly. Holding this discussion in private allows the sharing of video and screenshot evidence which is not permitted on the official forum, and also allows the alleged miscreant to answer for their alleged wrongdoings. After all, not all behaviour which players believe to be an exploit is considered to be an exploit by ZOS.

On the rare occasion that a member of Council of Nirn has been found to have exploited or broken the game's Terms of Service in other ways, they have been asked to leave the Council and had their ability to access documents revoked. Their actions have also been reported to ZOS along with the video or screenshot evidence, for consideration under the game's disciplinary policy.

I should also mention that ZOS staff have access to Council of Nirn documents and attend some of our meetings, so there is no question of leaving them out of the loop. Every time there has been a question of a possible exploit, an email has been sent to our contacts at ZOS at the earliest opportunity. However, we recognise that the devs and customer service people are busy and might prefer to discuss a possible exploit among themselves before making an official declaration on the forum. Indeed, you'll notice that over the years, there have been very few forum clarifications of whether many alleged exploits are actually exploits or not. People are still arguing about animation-cancelling!

Betheny

Tabbycat wrote: »

I thought the entire point of using Traders was to prevent one guild from gaining a monopoly over others. If this is happening and continues to happen, ZOS might as well just pull the whole thing and change to a global Auction House system instead.

Wait what? They've already done that, there are guilds with sister guilds that basically control trading, some even control areas.

Why we still have this dumb system is a mystery, it doesn't benefit the regular players at all.

Duck

Unpopular opinion time!


What if we "fixed" the problem by completely tossing out the bidding system for traders.

Make it a raffle instead.

Would guilds all be fixed to 1 raffle ticket at a trader? Or should they be able to buy an unlimited amount (same chances of winning as the bid system TBH, but the 2nd and 3rd and 4th place would be random not sorted by money bid)? Or maybe a limited quantity? And what price per ticket? Traffic could dictate what area has most costly trader raffle tickets, and update on a monthly or 3-month basis. When a guild disbands while owning the trader, the trader falls to the next randomly raffled guild.

You could still have your back door deals of "pay me 500k gold and I won't buy a raffle ticket at Rawl" or even "5k gold a month to any guildmate who diverts their trading traffic OFF of Rawl merchants until the next update on raffle ticket prices", none of which are enforceable or traceable, but it would still be done.

Scaena

Betheny wrote: »

Tabbycat wrote: »

I thought the entire point of using Traders was to prevent one guild from gaining a monopoly over others. If this is happening and continues to happen, ZOS might as well just pull the whole thing and change to a global Auction House system instead.

Wait what? They've already done that, there are guilds with sister guilds that basically control trading, some even control areas.

Why we still have this dumb system is a mystery, it doesn't benefit the regular players at all.

The issue is those groups now expanding to have alt guilds that are used either as backup traders or just to sell to guilds who lose their trader.

I think most people don't want half the traders in the game to become empty worthless guild traders.

One group controlling an area is less of a problem than them controlling MOST or even all areas.

The system is unique and makes trading more exciting as it becomes its own play style. You have players who only pvp, those who only do pve and this system allows players to focus on being traders.

There's ZERO need for Trade Guilds if you have a universal auction house. All those players who enjoy playing the economy suddenly lose out on that play style.

Imagine if someone suggested PvP is too hard and it was suggested that guilds /alliances shouldn't be fighting to win over the other one and the "fix" was to eliminate all competition.

BUT anyways I can't wait to see if Zenimax will allow my plans for Tamriel Domination to go forward.

Qbiken

ArchMikem wrote: »

If tomorrow, say, a person finds an exploit in gameplay or PvE, even when more people join in, nobody panics. But when someone finds a way to cheat other Trading Guilds out of their gold income monopolies, well then everyone loses their minds!

/Joker

Have you missed the thread about people exploiting vMoL?? Huge thread.

Scaena

Duck wrote: »

Unpopular opinion time!


What if we "fixed" the problem by completely tossing out the bidding system for traders.

Make it a raffle instead.

Would guilds all be fixed to 1 raffle ticket at a trader? Or should they be able to buy an unlimited amount (same chances of winning as the bid system TBH, but the 2nd and 3rd and 4th place would be random not sorted by money bid)? Or maybe a limited quantity? And what price per ticket? Traffic could dictate what area has most costly trader raffle tickets, and update on a monthly or 3-month basis. When a guild disbands while owning the trader, the trader falls to the next randomly raffled guild.

You could still have your back door deals of "pay me 500k gold and I won't buy a raffle ticket at Rawl" or even "5k gold a month to any guildmate who diverts their trading traffic OFF of Rawl merchants until the next update on raffle ticket prices", none of which are enforceable or traceable, but it would still be done.

Alternative suggestions are always nice to hear but a raffle? Just... no...

Also a monthly or 3-month basis? OH GOD NO! That means death for any trade guild that loses the raffle. People already leave if they lose their trader for 1 week and especially 2 weeks in a row.

It's already stressful with the current bidding system if it became a raffle where bidding high becomes even a less of a guarantee to getting your trader.

JHartEllis

This is a terrible exploit, and it will have disastrously nasty consequences if not addressed.

The simplest fix (or at least I hope it's simple from a technical standpoint) is to not "free up" the guild trader of any disbanded guilds.

On a related note, I noticed that the guild info on all guilds got messed up and now says "None Hired", and this happened suspiciously right after this disbanding switcheroo--it would be worth looking into whether these are connected. The "None Hired" bug is pretty ugly since it presents guild members with false information that they act on by not selling or by leaving guilds or by getting frustrated, angry, or worried.

Duck

Scaena wrote: »

Duck wrote: »

Unpopular opinion time!


What if we "fixed" the problem by completely tossing out the bidding system for traders.

Make it a raffle instead.

Would guilds all be fixed to 1 raffle ticket at a trader? Or should they be able to buy an unlimited amount (same chances of winning as the bid system TBH, but the 2nd and 3rd and 4th place would be random not sorted by money bid)? Or maybe a limited quantity? And what price per ticket? Traffic could dictate what area has most costly trader raffle tickets, and update on a monthly or 3-month basis. When a guild disbands while owning the trader, the trader falls to the next randomly raffled guild.

You could still have your back door deals of "pay me 500k gold and I won't buy a raffle ticket at Rawl" or even "5k gold a month to any guildmate who diverts their trading traffic OFF of Rawl merchants until the next update on raffle ticket prices", none of which are enforceable or traceable, but it would still be done.

Alternative suggestions are always nice to hear but a raffle? Just... no...

Also a monthly or 3-month basis? OH GOD NO! That means death for any trade guild that loses the raffle. People already leave if they lose their trader for 1 week and especially 2 weeks in a row.

It's already stressful with the current bidding system if it became a raffle where bidding high becomes even a less of a guarantee to getting your trader.

I didn't mean to limit the traders to 1 guild a month, just the traffic calculation. Alright, cut the "traffic calculation" to 1 month so it's not exploited, but a fresh raffle per week. Make the raffle tickets cost something slightly prohibitive, but make the amount available unlimited, so that it mimics the bid system (more tickets = more chances) but leaves a little more randomness into the equation.

That way, you can't just guarantee that if your alt guild wins the highest bid, your main guild can't be guaranteed to suck up the #2 spot at highest-bid-minus-one. Sure, the chances could still be high, but it wouldn't be guaranteed.

Scaena

JHartEllis wrote: »

This is a terrible exploit, and it will have disastrously nasty consequences if not addressed.

The simplest fix (or at least I hope it's simple from a technical standpoint) is to not "free up" the guild trader of any disbanded guilds.

On a related note, I noticed that the guild info on all guilds got messed up and now says "None Hired", and this happened suspiciously right after this disbanding switcheroo--it would be worth looking into whether these are connected. The "None Hired" bug is pretty ugly since it presents guild members with false information that they act on by not selling or by leaving guilds or by getting frustrated, angry, or worried.

Well... damn... Got to check my guild then.

Yeah that fix would work since disbanding the guild wouldn't change a thing and make disbanding no longer a viable method.

But no worries if they don't fix it, you can all join my Kingpin Cartel while I take over Tamriel

DRXHarbinger

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The reverse situation that this thread was created to discuss, a large guild leaving a small, less worthy/ worthless one in its previous location to prevent open hires by competitors happens All.The. Time. But one guild one bid, right?

Surely a better way around it is to show the current bid. Guilds can only make so much money and then people can see if 1. They have a chance. 2. Force these gimps into paying over the odds and never seeing any return on thier behavior by others constantly upping it (could work both ways.

Or make it so only one person can make only one bid. I don't many guild masters allowing others to stashes of millions. It's clearly one person floating around 3/5 traders with tons of gold to boot. Block him to one bid and it'll cut down.

lee.m.brucepreub18_ESO

@Scaena, been thinking about the costs involved with ghost guilds and wonder if you have considered offsetting the bidding cost by allowing guilds who can afford it to hold one of your ghost guilds on retainer. For a set price (ideally the bid price) they would have first dibs on one of the merchants your ghost guilds are holding. If they lose their main bid than for an additional fee they can take over/hire the ghost guild merchant. If they win their bid they do not get their retainer fee returned (cost of doing business) and than you can sell off the ghost guild merchant to another guild who may be in need of a hire. Other than a starting float for the first bid, you could easily sustain your ghost guilds at no additional cost to yourself. Just need to find 50 people who would like to make a chunk of gold once a week and have an empty guild slot. LoL
On a side note best idea I have heard IMO is bidding on a city and not an individual merchant. 7 merchants in Mournhold- top 7bids win a merchant in that city. Might not be the same merchant each week, but at least you would have the same city, and we wouldn't have one merchant going for a stupid amount of gold well another sits empty available for hire. Could leave the rural merchants as individual hires. (ps- I do believe the idea above for bidding on cities was a suggestion from The Council of Nirn )

alephthiago

This situation you just described in Rawkha...are you talking about PC NA?

Dawnblade

Scaena wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Tabbycat wrote: »

I thought the entire point of using Traders was to prevent one guild from gaining a monopoly over others. If this is happening and continues to happen, ZOS might as well just pull the whole thing and change to a global Auction House system instead.

Wait what? They've already done that, there are guilds with sister guilds that basically control trading, some even control areas.

Why we still have this dumb system is a mystery, it doesn't benefit the regular players at all.

The issue is those groups now expanding to have alt guilds that are used either as backup traders or just to sell to guilds who lose their trader.

I think most people don't want half the traders in the game to become empty worthless guild traders.

One group controlling an area is less of a problem than them controlling MOST or even all areas.

The system is unique and makes trading more exciting as it becomes its own play style. You have players who only pvp, those who only do pve and this system allows players to focus on being traders.

There's ZERO need for Trade Guilds if you have a universal auction house. All those players who enjoy playing the economy suddenly lose out on that play style.

Imagine if someone suggested PvP is too hard and it was suggested that guilds /alliances shouldn't be fighting to win over the other one and the "fix" was to eliminate all competition.

BUT anyways I can't wait to see if Zenimax will allow my plans for Tamriel Domination to go forward.

I think most people never see half the traders in the game and could care less if they were empty.

One group controlling an area IS just as much an issue and a problem as them controlling most, especially since all areas are not created equally - so controlling certain areas gives them de facto market control.

And while a single marketplace would eliminate the need for trade guilds, it would NOT eliminate the option for players to engage in playing the economy...all it would do is lower the barriers to entry and increase competition.

So the better analogy would be someone complaining about issues that keep people from participating in PVP and suggesting changes, with the effect of the changes being more people participating and competing.

Scaena

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Simple fix. Disband a guild and the spot doesn't release until the next turn over. Job done. Can't be done then.

How far and how much time some nerds will dump into these things is crazy.

That just shifts the problem, man. Instead of 'Grant kiosk for week to group of choice' it becomes 'nuke spot for week to deny to group of choice'. An unprecedented and unfair circumstance that we haven't seen on the servers since... oh right, every other week, that happens all the time with just regular bids

But surely that'll cost millions to do that? I don't see the incentive is spending millions for a top spot and never use it. If you win it and disband etc you'll never get your fee back?

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The reverse situation that this thread was created to discuss, a large guild leaving a small, less worthy/ worthless one in its previous location to prevent open hires by competitors happens All.The. Time. But one guild one bid, right?

Surely a better way around it is to show the current bid. Guilds can only make so much money and then people can see if 1. They have a chance. 2. Force these gimps into paying over the odds and never seeing any return on thier behavior by others constantly upping it (could work both ways.

Or make it so only one person can make only one bid. I don't many guild masters allowing others to stashes of millions. It's clearly one person floating around 3/5 traders with tons of gold to boot. Block him to one bid and it'll cut down.

Blind bids are better than open ones otherwise you end up with people winning by 1-10,000g (low numbers). Right next Zenimax needs to make bids truly blind because they aren't currently due to bid spying. They need to make the gold bank balance invisible to anyone without gold withdrawal permission.

Also they can't make it only one person because then its one point of failure. What if the guild leader has an emergency or cant get online? Having multiple people with bid permission means a guild can get the bid in even if the main person can't do it themselves.

The problem with just blocking is that people use multiple accounts so even if you block them on one account they will just use another account. The fix needs to be better than that.

lee.m.brucepreub18_ESO wrote: »

@Scaena, been thinking about the costs involved with ghost guilds and wonder if you have considered offsetting the bidding cost by allowing guilds who can afford it to hold one of your ghost guilds on retainer. For a set price (ideally the bid price) they would have first dibs on one of the merchants your ghost guilds are holding. If they lose their main bid than for an additional fee they can take over/hire the ghost guild merchant. If they win their bid they do not get their retainer fee returned (cost of doing business) and than you can sell off the ghost guild merchant to another guild who may be in need of a hire. Other than a starting float for the first bid, you could easily sustain your ghost guilds at no additional cost to yourself. Just need to find 50 people who would like to make a chunk of gold once a week and have an empty guild slot. LoL
On a side note best idea I have heard IMO is bidding on a city and not an individual merchant. 7 merchants in Mournhold- top 7bids win a merchant in that city. Might not be the same merchant each week, but at least you would have the same city, and we wouldn't have one merchant going for a stupid amount of gold well another sits empty available for hire. Could leave the rural merchants as individual hires. (ps- I do believe the idea above for bidding on cities was a suggestion from The Council of Nirn )

I'm open to suggestions The retainer idea is definitely interesting and something I may end up doing if Zenimax allows this exploit to continue. Anything for my glorious rise to the Tamriel Kingpin.

That bidding system also sounds interesting as it would mean that only the top bids in the area win and ghost guilds have less of a chance of getting a spot.

alephthiago wrote: »

This situation you just described in Rawkha...are you talking about PC NA?

Yes.

Dawnblade wrote: »

Scaena wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Tabbycat wrote: »

I thought the entire point of using Traders was to prevent one guild from gaining a monopoly over others. If this is happening and continues to happen, ZOS might as well just pull the whole thing and change to a global Auction House system instead.

Wait what? They've already done that, there are guilds with sister guilds that basically control trading, some even control areas.

Why we still have this dumb system is a mystery, it doesn't benefit the regular players at all.

The issue is those groups now expanding to have alt guilds that are used either as backup traders or just to sell to guilds who lose their trader.

I think most people don't want half the traders in the game to become empty worthless guild traders.

One group controlling an area is less of a problem than them controlling MOST or even all areas.

The system is unique and makes trading more exciting as it becomes its own play style. You have players who only pvp, those who only do pve and this system allows players to focus on being traders.

There's ZERO need for Trade Guilds if you have a universal auction house. All those players who enjoy playing the economy suddenly lose out on that play style.

Imagine if someone suggested PvP is too hard and it was suggested that guilds /alliances shouldn't be fighting to win over the other one and the "fix" was to eliminate all competition.

BUT anyways I can't wait to see if Zenimax will allow my plans for Tamriel Domination to go forward.

I think most people never see half the traders in the game and could care less if they were empty.

One group controlling an area IS just as much an issue and a problem as them controlling most, especially since all areas are not created equally - so controlling certain areas gives them de facto market control.

And while a single marketplace would eliminate the need for trade guilds, it would NOT eliminate the option for players to engage in playing the economy...all it would do is lower the barriers to entry and increase competition.

So the better analogy would be someone complaining about issues that keep people from participating in PVP and suggesting changes, with the effect of the changes being more people participating and competing.

As someone who shops all around Tamriel.... I disagree. I go to most Traders in the game every week looking for stellar deals. People who play the game for trade, take advantage of the number of traders and the fact that some players wont go to all of them. You can get some great deals by spending the time shopping around and then selling for a great profit

Certainly controlling an entire area gives them a lot of control but if its 5 big guilds with full trade shops that are playing fairly with one bid per guild than I find that less of an issue then one guild bidding on multiple spots and leaving worthless empty trader spots in their wake while they shut out the small trade guilds.

A universal auction house = bot heaven. It will become a race to the bottom and become like every other MMO where trade is boring. There is zero reason to have trade guilds when you have a universal auction house. ZERO.

There would be little point to play as a trader in this game. Also this wouldn't make it harder for monopolies, it would make it EASIER. There would only be ONE store not regulated by anyone. Nothing would stop one player or group of players from for example buying ALL Perfect Roe that gets listed and then selling it at their SET price. You wouldn't have the option of looking for a cheaper price elsewhere because there would be no where else.

Your system is only about convenience. Not about improving the trader system in my opinion.

It would be like saying we need to dumb down PvP. Make it easier and more universal. Lets take away those elder scrolls, those keeps, those pvp weapons. Lets just make it a straight up killing match where you simply need to kill all of the opposing team to win (once you die, you are dead for the match). Make it like a lot of other games pvp games.

Lady_Ems

alephthiago wrote: »

This situation you just described in Rawkha...are you talking about PC NA?

It happened on the PC/NA


Whether it was an exploit or not. Imo is just shows that, that guild in question dropped to a low level to do something as underhanded as that. How can a guild hold any face to its members when it did something like that. From what I'm reading here people are basically calling for heads, they want something done. I can understand that.

So what if they are "at war" with someone else or another guild.. That has nothing to do with it. That guild made the choice to do this due, supposedly due to a bad bid location. They didn't like where they had accidentally bid. Suck it up and deal with it. Don't work the system to your advantage.

This underhanded move could prove bad for other guilds. How may other guilds will be locked out of their location while certain guilds decided which location they want.

The one thing that bothers me is what happens to its members if ZoS does decide to do something. This underhanded act will in the end hurt the members. What kind of guild leader would take a chance to lose the guild because of a bad bid. To any of the members of this guild....for you I hope you don't lose in this.

Can we please get some insight from ZoS on this @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

dotme

Okay, I'll admit that what happened in a very popular trading location last night just after changeover time on PS4 NA had me scratching my head a bit - I couldn't understand how there were suddenly several stores with no items at all available to purchase. Now I think I get it. Wow.

Cpt_Teemo

Erasure wrote: »

KingYogi415 wrote: »

My god how many exploits can ZOS even try to fix at once....

Fifty devs coding
Master Writs,Housing, Combat
Fixes coming "Soon"

And I also wonder why they even decided to bump up Homestead by 2 weeks with all these bugs out still, and exploits.

If they can't get ahold of current exploits, what makes them think they're ready for a release 2 weeks earlier, it should be 2 weeks later

AFrostWolf

Just another reason for a global AH