Potential Guild Trader Exploit! Please Investigate and Fix ASAP!

code65536

NerdyHayseed wrote: »

Having retractable bids only addresses the excuse used by a guild that created 2 bids in the this last round of trader auctions.

Which is why I--quite explicitly--said in my post that both issues need to be addressed, and yet despite explaining why retraction is necessary in addition to doing something about disbands, you just dismiss it out of hand by telling people to "suck it up". And you wonder why you so deservingly drew my ire?

Scaena

SaSa2112 wrote: »

Lots of great ideas for fixes....here is my take on it....

1) Allow for bid retraction. I don't know of ANYONE that hasn't placed an accidental bid. However, before this, we all just sucked it up and didn't exploit. So please CLOSE THAT LOOPHOLE!

Nod.

SaSa2112 wrote: »

2) Don't allow disbanded guilds empty a trader spot. Make it stick for the week. (Stop the KingPin!)

WHAT?! Oh no you didn't! Domination Force ASSEMBLE! We're starting our conquest early!

SaSa2112 wrote: »

3) I love the city center trader bidding idea. So frustrating to lose a bid and have an empty kiosk next to you. Plus I like the idea that you won't individually get targeted out of spite. It obviously occurs.

4) NO AUCTION HOUSE! I love the uniqueness of the trading system. It feels so much more immersive to me. The economic game is a great part of the allure for some of us! Even more than PvE or PvP! So if you take that away, most of the game will be dead for me. I get that some people don't like to shop. But some of us love doing ESO retail therapy or just like the idea of checking out dusty little traders in the outback looking for deals.

5) Using a ghost guild (or series of them), it would be possible for moneyed guilds to actually pay less for a trader spot than they do now. The NUMBER ONE concern of a trading guild is having a guild trader. If you knew that you would have an available back up, you could actually take a chance to reduce your bidding on a prime spot knowing that you have a back up waiting in the wings. It would make it way easier for big guilds to drive out medium/small guilds - most of whom could not compete with that type of money.

I saw that you, ZOS, responded about not saying things about individuals/groups - but you have yet to comment on this latest practice of ghost guild bidding and disbanding. I am worried about keeping our trader - because it is our primary concern. (:::Looks at King Pin:::)

I agree we need need clarification... even if you are opposing my Tamriel domination...

OrphanHelgen

Exploits? Never heard of that before, you must have mixed with a different game. The Elder Scrolls Online does not have that, and if exploits exist, there will be taken care of asap.

NerdyHayseed

code65536 wrote: »

NerdyHayseed wrote: »

Having retractable bids only addresses the excuse used by a guild that created 2 bids in the this last round of trader auctions.

Which is why I--quite explicitly--said in my post that both issues need to be addressed, and yet despite explaining why retraction is necessary in addition to doing something about disbands, you just dismiss it out of hand by telling people to "suck it up". And you wonder why you so deservingly drew my ire?

Mea culpa for my oversight in reading your post. Ire was not necessary to point that out.

Scaena

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

Exploits? Never heard of that before, you must have mixed with a different game. The Elder Scrolls Online does not have that, and if exploits exist, there will be taken care of asap.

lol...

But seriously I'm hoping Zenimax will either fix this exploit or allow me the honor of conquering all of Tamriel and putting all the traders under my thumb!

NerdyHayseed

You know it, @Scaena! If this exploit isn't deal with, it will be blood in the waters for sure in the trading game. I love ESO and am a trader at heart. This exploit ruins the trading aspect of the game. There are very large guilds that will roll over everyone else. I'm sure all are waiting with baited breath to see what ZOS does.

How about it, ZOS? Throw us a bone please.

Cpt_Teemo

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

Exploits? Never heard of that before, you must have mixed with a different game. The Elder Scrolls Online does not have that, and if exploits exist, there will be taken care of asap.

^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1J5JM_M9qs

JHartEllis

As far as I can tell, ZoS has laid out some goals of the guild trader system: a competitive environment that acts as a gold sink and is accessible to smaller/newer guilds. Underlying this is a recognition of the value that guild traders bring to players in making items relatively accessible regardless of their play styles. The decentralized trader system is also a big feature of ESO--giving an immersive feel and preventing monopolization of items, so it deserves to be preserved.

For smaller or newer guilds, the guild trader bid process is intimidating, and I think the system is currently failing in encouraging these sorts of guilds to form and grow. A big problem is there is no data to go off when putting in a bid for the guild. That means the guild has to either spend weeks of losing bids (and disappointing 50+ people each time) to try to get a grasp of what constitutes too low of prices, or they have to grossly overpay, eating into their ability to bid going forward. The losing message only relays that the guild ought to bid more or bid somewhere else--this is an oversimplification of the dynamic bidding process.

On the other side are the established guilds that want to entirely hide their bids in order to counter bid spying. I would love to be able to put in a final bid mid-week and not have to worry about spies. However, I can understand why this may not have been implemented yet inasmuch as this clamps down on whatever little information about guild bids does exist.

As such I would identify two changes: making the bid system MORE transparent to help the smaller guilds while also shielding the guild's gold balance change to counter spying to help the established guilds.

A few proposals on shielding have some drawbacks. Walling off the guild's gold bank balance behind permissions has a few problems--the biggest one being that members wouldn't be able to tell if their deposits actually go through, and they would have to constantly pester leadership to confirm deposits. Alternatively, holding the bid in escrow until the bids close would curtail spies for the given week but would then allow the exact gold change to be seen at trader flip time. I think the best way to shield the balance change is to either have a separate, permissioned-off guild bank balance designated for only bids or to allow bidders the option to use their personal gold balances to pay for the bid.

If spying is dealt with, then historic bids could be and ought to be more transparent. If the bid amounts are entirely blind, it would remove necessary accountability from the guild leadership--members would have to take the guild leadership's word on whether the guild is bidding in the best interests of the guild members (too high or too low can both be issues). Guilds would be more likely put in low bids, and then the guild traders wouldn't be acting as much of a gold sink.

I can imagine many reasons why guilds wouldn't want their exact week-to-week bids revealed, so something more in the ballpark would be ideal. What I would think could work as a compromise would be to post a range of the past several weeks of winning bids on the guild trader kiosk bid UI screen in half orders of magnitude: "This trader has been hired in recent weeks for between 300,000 and 1,000,000 gold per week". This would help smaller guilds gauge the market, and the message could also be mailed to losing bidders to give them a better sense of expectations. Revealing this sort of info would also allow guild members to know that the guild is maintaining healthy, competitive bids and sinking gold as intended. This is just one suggestion, and, really, there are many ways to be more transparent, and I think it would help the small and forming guilds the most to have at least some data.

Artmetis

code65536 wrote: »

Did the amount that was bid ever become public?

If the dummy guild bid competitively for the spot and won it because they paid however millions a spot like that goes for, then it lends support to the story that this was just a workaround for the can't-retract-a-mistaken-bid problem (particularly since it appears the main guild had lost their trader last week, so they were probably scrambling for a spot after last week's close, and it's especially easy during that scramble to accidentally bid instead of hire). With the bid system the way it is, there really aren't any good options for them if that was indeed the case. While I doubt ZOS really intended for guilds to disband like that, I also doubt that they really intended for misplaced bids to be so easy to make and so punishing. Yet the system is such that both of these problems exist.

Now, if the dummy guild bid and won with some low nominal amount to cover the main guild's rear while the main guild made a competitive bid elsewhere, then, yes, that would indeed be cause for alarm and a dangerous precedent to set.

Either way, there are two problems with the bid system that need to be fixed here: traders shouldn't be hireable if the guild holding them disbands (the NPC already got paid; they should take a weeklong holiday) and there needs to be a way for a guild to cancel or retract a bid--in a blind bidding system, there's no reason why bids shouldn't be retractable. (Well, there are a lot of problems with the clunky guild and bidding system that need fixing, but that's a topic for another thread...)

If I bid by accident on Sunday the 16th (while trying to hire) after the bid closed, my guild the XYZ Merchants would be locked into that spot for the week, until the following week's bid cycle opens on the 26th. Unless XYZ Merchants disbands, they would be stuck with that trader no matter what. Even if i had ABC Trading Company, a ghost guild, win a spot and disband, i would not be able to get that spot from them for XYZ Merchants, AS I WOULD BE LOCKED IN STILL. The argument that ABC Trading Company was created (to be disbanded and offer the spot to XYZ Merchants) because of a 'bug, accidental bid et al.' is null and void due to the lock in on the 'accidental' bid. The only way to do this - if the excuse of a bug or accidental bid was placed, - is to disband XYZ Merchants, reform them, then disband ABC Trading company, and offer XYZ the spot. Which did NOT happen. So folks, please do not buy into this excuse, as its just not physically possible. GuildForTesting was created to have a backup bid in case their main guild lost their bid, effectively giving the main guild a bid on two spots. As for $ wasted, if XYZ Merchants bid 4 million on Trader One, and their backup guild ABC Trading Company, bid 2 million on Trader Two, If they lose Trader One, they can win Trader Two for even cheaper then their first choice trader in the same city. 2 mil 10,000 (cost of hire). The intention was one bid per guild, circumventing this by creating a backup guild to have a backup bid is an exploit imho. It denies that spot to legitimate trade guilds. This is quite different from 'sister guilds' as those guilds actually have members of the community placing goods for sale, and ppl buying them, therefore creating more competition and lower prices. These are legitimate guilds, not just a 'place holder,' (with no goods for sale) for a large guild. We need not to support this, as its not only the smaller guilds that would be squeezed out, but the community loses out on more competitive places to shop in the interim.

However, if this continues, the King Pin and I are looking for a third master for our monopoly. Get in early or you would have to pay heftier dues! We all will still have to pay a 'protection tax' to the King Pin himself so he does not use his XYZ and ABC guilds to bid on a spot we wanted, but the dues get steeper, the longer you wait! Pssstt... We for a few spots for sale, $29.95 plus tax, a pound of skooma, and 10% of all your gold income from the spot. Message Scaena for details. Don't forget the proper etiquette. Groveling and begging is a must. The smaller your guild is, the less revenue you would likely bring in, so therefore the taxes levied on the peons will be adjusted on a sliding scale to compensate for the fact that you are not a 'super guild', and can't give us much tax.' Smaller guilds need to consider folding into us asap, to avoid further embarrassment.

Artmetis

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Exactly, The guild traders are failing so hard right now it would be best to just implement a centralized Market place for One Tamriel or even if its just a market place for each Faction. True stuff will get inflated but it won't be as bad as single guilds running the entire games trading system, that is pretty much the end of casual trading there.

Just an FYI, with a centralized market place the prices WILL get hugely inflated. I, personally, controlled ~90% of the trade in 'glyph' market in WARHAMMER. I would buy out the lower priced glyphs, (and mats to make um) and re-list at much higher prices. If you wanted any of those and did not have friends to get them from, the chances are you would of been buying them from me at inflated prices or do without.

The best suggestions I've seen so far..

1) Make it so that a guild cannot disband if they currently hold a trader. By far the best solution, if it was a legit guild, you can wait a few days, or pass the guild on to a guildie to decide what they want to do. The x gm can then go his/her merry way, and perhaps the guild would still flourish, thus not frustrating all the guildies that were in it b4 that decision.

2) Make the trader unavailable for hire for the bid cycle. After all he/she did get paid, why work if ya don't have to and ya got paid already

3) Enable City Bidding with the top bidder choosing first, etc.

4) Only open bidding if XYZ items are in the stall/higher amount of guildies to access bidding. May be a pain to code, and there is always a workaround as people can post xyz amount of 'cheese' in the stall to get around the restriction. I disagree with the higher pop to bid though, as it would squeeze out smaller guilds, but i can see 100 or so as a good possible limit.

Cpt_Teemo

Artmetis wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Exactly, The guild traders are failing so hard right now it would be best to just implement a centralized Market place for One Tamriel or even if its just a market place for each Faction. True stuff will get inflated but it won't be as bad as single guilds running the entire games trading system, that is pretty much the end of casual trading there.

Just an FYI, with a centralized market place the prices WILL get hugely inflated. I, personally, controlled ~90% of the trade in 'glyph' market in WARHAMMER. I would buy out the lower priced glyphs, (and mats to make um) and re-list at much higher prices. If you wanted any of those and did not have friends to get them from, the chances are you would of been buying them from me at inflated prices or do without.

Or wait till cheaper ones get listed, cause yours probably wouldn't sell right away centralized AH works in every other MMO as of date.

radiostar

quelle surprise!

Artmetis

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Artmetis wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Exactly, The guild traders are failing so hard right now it would be best to just implement a centralized Market place for One Tamriel or even if its just a market place for each Faction. True stuff will get inflated but it won't be as bad as single guilds running the entire games trading system, that is pretty much the end of casual trading there.

Just an FYI, with a centralized market place the prices WILL get hugely inflated. I, personally, controlled ~90% of the trade in 'glyph' market in WARHAMMER. I would buy out the lower priced glyphs, (and mats to make um) and re-list at much higher prices. If you wanted any of those and did not have friends to get them from, the chances are you would of been buying them from me at inflated prices or do without.

Or wait till cheaper ones get listed, cause yours probably wouldn't sell right away centralized AH works in every other MMO as of date.

Sort of, a few would get through, but if you check often enough, you will gain the majority of them... Hence the ~90 %. I did it, I know. I also did so with specific plants in the game Rift. The specific items you target won't get replenished fast enough to make a dent in your income from the inflated ones you sell. Only some will get though while you are asleep/at work etc. But if you check once in a while and buy up the cheaper ones to relist, while you are on, ya make a killing. Trust me, it's not a hypothetical situation as i personally controlled most of the market for 'glyphs' in WARHAMMER, and for specific plants in the game, Rift.

AFrostWolf

JHartEllis wrote: »

As far as I can tell, ZoS has laid out some goals of the guild trader system: a competitive environment that acts as a gold sink and is accessible to smaller/newer guilds. Underlying this is a recognition of the value that guild traders bring to players in making items relatively accessible regardless of their play styles. The decentralized trader system is also a big feature of ESO--giving an immersive feel and preventing monopolization of items, so it deserves to be preserved.

For smaller or newer guilds, the guild trader bid process is intimidating, and I think the system is currently failing in encouraging these sorts of guilds to form and grow. A big problem is there is no data to go off when putting in a bid for the guild. That means the guild has to either spend weeks of losing bids (and disappointing 50+ people each time) to try to get a grasp of what constitutes too low of prices, or they have to grossly overpay, eating into their ability to bid going forward. The losing message only relays that the guild ought to bid more or bid somewhere else--this is an oversimplification of the dynamic bidding process.

On the other side are the established guilds that want to entirely hide their bids in order to counter bid spying. I would love to be able to put in a final bid mid-week and not have to worry about spies. However, I can understand why this may not have been implemented yet inasmuch as this clamps down on whatever little information about guild bids does exist.

As such I would identify two changes: making the bid system MORE transparent to help the smaller guilds while also shielding the guild's gold balance change to counter spying to help the established guilds.

A few proposals on shielding have some drawbacks. Walling off the guild's gold bank balance behind permissions has a few problems--the biggest one being that members wouldn't be able to tell if their deposits actually go through, and they would have to constantly pester leadership to confirm deposits. Alternatively, holding the bid in escrow until the bids close would curtail spies for the given week but would then allow the exact gold change to be seen at trader flip time. I think the best way to shield the balance change is to either have a separate, permissioned-off guild bank balance designated for only bids or to allow bidders the option to use their personal gold balances to pay for the bid.

If spying is dealt with, then historic bids could be and ought to be more transparent. If the bid amounts are entirely blind, it would remove necessary accountability from the guild leadership--members would have to take the guild leadership's word on whether the guild is bidding in the best interests of the guild members (too high or too low can both be issues). Guilds would be more likely put in low bids, and then the guild traders wouldn't be acting as much of a gold sink.

I can imagine many reasons why guilds wouldn't want their exact week-to-week bids revealed, so something more in the ballpark would be ideal. What I would think could work as a compromise would be to post a range of the past several weeks of winning bids on the guild trader kiosk bid UI screen in half orders of magnitude: "This trader has been hired in recent weeks for between 300,000 and 1,000,000 gold per week". This would help smaller guilds gauge the market, and the message could also be mailed to losing bidders to give them a better sense of expectations. Revealing this sort of info would also allow guild members to know that the guild is maintaining healthy, competitive bids and sinking gold as intended. This is just one suggestion, and, really, there are many ways to be more transparent, and I think it would help the small and forming guilds the most to have at least some data.

Wouldn't it just be easier to publicly state what the current highest bid for a trader is? Sort of how at a real auction everyone knows what the current bid is and the auctioneer is calling for more to get the bid higher. The bid amount can be public with the name hidden and the fee held till a winner is confirmed. It actually helps if people know exactly how much a spot is going for and if two guilds want to try to outbid each other then let them.

BlazingDynamo

PathwayM wrote: »

I noticed something funky that happened in Rawl'kha during the trader flip on 1/22/2017.

The guild 'Guild for Testing' won the bid for the guild trader 'Ronuril'. Moments later the guild trader was owned by an entirely different guild.

Here are some screen shots showing the initial guild's ownership of the said guild trader:





It looks like the initial guild might have disbanded and the second guild hired the spot. This brings up some immediate concern for this behavior to be abused. If a large trade guild bids on one location, loses their bid, and makes a bid on a second location with a 'throw away guild' it seems as though the throw away guild could be disbanded and immediately hired by the primary guild. I cannot say whether or not this was the case in this scenario and I'm not going to name the guild that took over the spot, but this needs to be addressed.

Can't be [snip] to read all the comments to see if someone explained this or not but basically what is happening is big guilds are using a phoney guild with enough members to bid on a second trader in case their main bid doesn't pull through. So basically they have a second chance if they lose their main bid. What they do is disband that second phoney guild and snatch up the empty trader.

Not really an exploit but definitely greasy af

[Edit for profanity]

Aaru

King Pin

Do you need an enforcer to help retrieve that protection money?

Volunteering

Aaru

There are definitely problems with the current trader system in ESO, but global auction houses also have their own problems.

Why not have Faction auction houses in ESO. No individual traders, and each faction shares an auction house, with one Underground Auction house that lets you buy from other factions AH's for a 40% fee (goldsink)?

Cpt_Teemo

Artmetis wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Artmetis wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Exactly, The guild traders are failing so hard right now it would be best to just implement a centralized Market place for One Tamriel or even if its just a market place for each Faction. True stuff will get inflated but it won't be as bad as single guilds running the entire games trading system, that is pretty much the end of casual trading there.

Just an FYI, with a centralized market place the prices WILL get hugely inflated. I, personally, controlled ~90% of the trade in 'glyph' market in WARHAMMER. I would buy out the lower priced glyphs, (and mats to make um) and re-list at much higher prices. If you wanted any of those and did not have friends to get them from, the chances are you would of been buying them from me at inflated prices or do without.

Or wait till cheaper ones get listed, cause yours probably wouldn't sell right away centralized AH works in every other MMO as of date.

Sort of, a few would get through, but if you check often enough, you will gain the majority of them... Hence the ~90 %. I did it, I know. I also did so with specific plants in the game Rift. The specific items you target won't get replenished fast enough to make a dent in your income from the inflated ones you sell. Only some will get though while you are asleep/at work etc. But if you check once in a while and buy up the cheaper ones to relist, while you are on, ya make a killing. Trust me, it's not a hypothetical situation as i personally controlled most of the market for 'glyphs' in WARHAMMER, and for specific plants in the game, Rift.

I don't really care who owns what market, if someone needs it bad enough they'll pay for it, i'm sure someone would pay even more for time convenience as well to stop going around through each of the stalls to buy what they want and wasting to much valuable game time.

Aaru

Could we please get an official response from ZOS on whether or not this bidding on multiple traders thing is acceptable?
@ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

stuartx13

I will be surprise if they do we had another post calling all GM or something like that,and we call out meany admins and nothing.

stuartx13

This is what is wanted IMHO.

NeillMcAttack

This has been happening since console release at least. On many occasions I have seen "dead" traders on top spots. But I can honestly say I didn't make sense to me until now.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

JHartEllis wrote: »

As far as I can tell, ZoS has laid out some goals of the guild trader system: a competitive environment that acts as a gold sink and is accessible to smaller/newer guilds..

Then it has manifestly failed.

Pretty much since day one.

All The Best

NerdyHayseed

Aaru wrote: »

Could we please get an official response from ZOS on whether or not this bidding on multiple traders thing is acceptable?
@ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

This would be awesome as certainly there are guilds preparing to get in on the action.

Scaena

JHartEllis wrote: »

As far as I can tell, ZoS has laid out some goals of the guild trader system: a competitive environment that acts as a gold sink and is accessible to smaller/newer guilds. Underlying this is a recognition of the value that guild traders bring to players in making items relatively accessible regardless of their play styles. The decentralized trader system is also a big feature of ESO--giving an immersive feel and preventing monopolization of items, so it deserves to be preserved.

For smaller or newer guilds, the guild trader bid process is intimidating, and I think the system is currently failing in encouraging these sorts of guilds to form and grow. A big problem is there is no data to go off when putting in a bid for the guild. That means the guild has to either spend weeks of losing bids (and disappointing 50+ people each time) to try to get a grasp of what constitutes too low of prices, or they have to grossly overpay, eating into their ability to bid going forward. The losing message only relays that the guild ought to bid more or bid somewhere else--this is an oversimplification of the dynamic bidding process.

On the other side are the established guilds that want to entirely hide their bids in order to counter bid spying. I would love to be able to put in a final bid mid-week and not have to worry about spies. However, I can understand why this may not have been implemented yet inasmuch as this clamps down on whatever little information about guild bids does exist.

As such I would identify two changes: making the bid system MORE transparent to help the smaller guilds while also shielding the guild's gold balance change to counter spying to help the established guilds.

A few proposals on shielding have some drawbacks. Walling off the guild's gold bank balance behind permissions has a few problems--the biggest one being that members wouldn't be able to tell if their deposits actually go through, and they would have to constantly pester leadership to confirm deposits. Alternatively, holding the bid in escrow until the bids close would curtail spies for the given week but would then allow the exact gold change to be seen at trader flip time. I think the best way to shield the balance change is to either have a separate, permissioned-off guild bank balance designated for only bids or to allow bidders the option to use their personal gold balances to pay for the bid.

If spying is dealt with, then historic bids could be and ought to be more transparent. If the bid amounts are entirely blind, it would remove necessary accountability from the guild leadership--members would have to take the guild leadership's word on whether the guild is bidding in the best interests of the guild members (too high or too low can both be issues). Guilds would be more likely put in low bids, and then the guild traders wouldn't be acting as much of a gold sink.

I can imagine many reasons why guilds wouldn't want their exact week-to-week bids revealed, so something more in the ballpark would be ideal. What I would think could work as a compromise would be to post a range of the past several weeks of winning bids on the guild trader kiosk bid UI screen in half orders of magnitude: "This trader has been hired in recent weeks for between 300,000 and 1,000,000 gold per week". This would help smaller guilds gauge the market, and the message could also be mailed to losing bidders to give them a better sense of expectations. Revealing this sort of info would also allow guild members to know that the guild is maintaining healthy, competitive bids and sinking gold as intended. This is just one suggestion, and, really, there are many ways to be more transparent, and I think it would help the small and forming guilds the most to have at least some data.

Interesting read. I agree that bids need to be truly blind BUT as you say there needs to be some transparency so competitors can have a chance. Not knowing if a trader goes for 1M or 5M is a big issue. It would help new guilds a lot if on the bid screen if it provided a range that the trader has historically gone for SO that they know whether they can compete or not. The only way to get that information currently is to bid spy.

I think for accountability its already on the members to just trust the leadership. Nobody is tracking how the gold is being spent. How many members are bid spying on their own guild to see how the leaders are bidding just to make sure the gold is being spent well? I know that I tell NOBODY what I'm bidding.

Artmetis wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Did the amount that was bid ever become public?

If the dummy guild bid competitively for the spot and won it because they paid however millions a spot like that goes for, then it lends support to the story that this was just a workaround for the can't-retract-a-mistaken-bid problem (particularly since it appears the main guild had lost their trader last week, so they were probably scrambling for a spot after last week's close, and it's especially easy during that scramble to accidentally bid instead of hire). With the bid system the way it is, there really aren't any good options for them if that was indeed the case. While I doubt ZOS really intended for guilds to disband like that, I also doubt that they really intended for misplaced bids to be so easy to make and so punishing. Yet the system is such that both of these problems exist.

Now, if the dummy guild bid and won with some low nominal amount to cover the main guild's rear while the main guild made a competitive bid elsewhere, then, yes, that would indeed be cause for alarm and a dangerous precedent to set.

Either way, there are two problems with the bid system that need to be fixed here: traders shouldn't be hireable if the guild holding them disbands (the NPC already got paid; they should take a weeklong holiday) and there needs to be a way for a guild to cancel or retract a bid--in a blind bidding system, there's no reason why bids shouldn't be retractable. (Well, there are a lot of problems with the clunky guild and bidding system that need fixing, but that's a topic for another thread...)

If I bid by accident on Sunday the 16th (while trying to hire) after the bid closed, my guild the XYZ Merchants would be locked into that spot for the week, until the following week's bid cycle opens on the 26th. Unless XYZ Merchants disbands, they would be stuck with that trader no matter what. Even if i had ABC Trading Company, a ghost guild, win a spot and disband, i would not be able to get that spot from them for XYZ Merchants, AS I WOULD BE LOCKED IN STILL. The argument that ABC Trading Company was created (to be disbanded and offer the spot to XYZ Merchants) because of a 'bug, accidental bid et al.' is null and void due to the lock in on the 'accidental' bid. The only way to do this - if the excuse of a bug or accidental bid was placed, - is to disband XYZ Merchants, reform them, then disband ABC Trading company, and offer XYZ the spot. Which did NOT happen. So folks, please do not buy into this excuse, as its just not physically possible. GuildForTesting was created to have a backup bid in case their main guild lost their bid, effectively giving the main guild a bid on two spots. As for $ wasted, if XYZ Merchants bid 4 million on Trader One, and their backup guild ABC Trading Company, bid 2 million on Trader Two, If they lose Trader One, they can win Trader Two for even cheaper then their first choice trader in the same city. 2 mil 10,000 (cost of hire). The intention was one bid per guild, circumventing this by creating a backup guild to have a backup bid is an exploit imho. It denies that spot to legitimate trade guilds. This is quite different from 'sister guilds' as those guilds actually have members of the community placing goods for sale, and ppl buying them, therefore creating more competition and lower prices. These are legitimate guilds, not just a 'place holder,' (with no goods for sale) for a large guild. We need not to support this, as its not only the smaller guilds that would be squeezed out, but the community loses out on more competitive places to shop in the interim.

Yup, I agree. The "bug" excuse smells rotten.

Partner/sister guilds are definitely different than empty worthless alt guilds since they have actual stores and active members. They provide a good place for customers to buy from and don't exist only to be disbanded. Its good for the economy to have as many quality stores as possible.

Artmetis wrote: »

However, if this continues, the King Pin and I are looking for a third master for our monopoly. Get in early or you would have to pay heftier dues! We all will still have to pay a 'protection tax' to the King Pin himself so he does not use his XYZ and ABC guilds to bid on a spot we wanted, but the dues get steeper, the longer you wait! Pssstt... We for a few spots for sale, $29.95 plus tax, a pound of skooma, and 10% of all your gold income from the spot. Message Scaena for details. Don't forget the proper etiquette. Groveling and begging is a must. The smaller your guild is, the less revenue you would likely bring in, so therefore the taxes levied on the peons will be adjusted on a sliding scale to compensate for the fact that you are not a 'super guild', and can't give us much tax.' Smaller guilds need to consider folding into us asap, to avoid further embarrassment.

Hey, I'm not selling for paper money! You got to have cold hard gold coins! You are correct with the groveling and begging!

Our cartel will welcome all guilds provided they show the proper respect and pay their dues!

Artmetis wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Exactly, The guild traders are failing so hard right now it would be best to just implement a centralized Market place for One Tamriel or even if its just a market place for each Faction. True stuff will get inflated but it won't be as bad as single guilds running the entire games trading system, that is pretty much the end of casual trading there.

Just an FYI, with a centralized market place the prices WILL get hugely inflated. I, personally, controlled ~90% of the trade in 'glyph' market in WARHAMMER. I would buy out the lower priced glyphs, (and mats to make um) and re-list at much higher prices. If you wanted any of those and did not have friends to get them from, the chances are you would of been buying them from me at inflated prices or do without.

The best suggestions I've seen so far..

1) Make it so that a guild cannot disband if they currently hold a trader. By far the best solution, if it was a legit guild, you can wait a few days, or pass the guild on to a guildie to decide what they want to do. The x gm can then go his/her merry way, and perhaps the guild would still flourish, thus not frustrating all the guildies that were in it b4 that decision.

2) Make the trader unavailable for hire for the bid cycle. After all he/she did get paid, why work if ya don't have to and ya got paid already

3) Enable City Bidding with the top bidder choosing first, etc.

4) Only open bidding if XYZ items are in the stall/higher amount of guildies to access bidding. May be a pain to code, and there is always a workaround as people can post xyz amount of 'cheese' in the stall to get around the restriction. I disagree with the higher pop to bid though, as it would squeeze out smaller guilds, but i can see 100 or so as a good possible limit.

Yup I agree. A central market place will make it easier for a few sellers to monopolize certain items. Not ones that get listed in vast amounts very quickly but the ones where it will be simple to buy up the daily supply of new stock. It's very difficult to do that if you have to search through 100+ stores and would take probably hours each day! Also the store you searched a hour ago could have new stock already listed while you are still going through your first round around Tamriel. It's very easy in a centralized auction house to just search for the item and then press BUY a load of times until you control the stock.

I definitely would like Zenimax to make it either impossible to disband a guild with a TRADER or for the trader to still be locked out for the week. Otherwise its time for me to shine, to take my rightful place as Leader of the Subjugated Tamriel Traders!

City Bidding does sound like an interesting idea and would make it less personal between guilds. It's harder to be mad at the 5 guilds that outbid you then just the one currently.

I definitely do think its a good idea to have a certain amount of items up for sale before being allowed to bid/hire a trader but I agree it could be difficult to implement.

AFrostWolf wrote: »

JHartEllis wrote: »

As far as I can tell, ZoS has laid out some goals of the guild trader system: a competitive environment that acts as a gold sink and is accessible to smaller/newer guilds. Underlying this is a recognition of the value that guild traders bring to players in making items relatively accessible regardless of their play styles. The decentralized trader system is also a big feature of ESO--giving an immersive feel and preventing monopolization of items, so it deserves to be preserved.

For smaller or newer guilds, the guild trader bid process is intimidating, and I think the system is currently failing in encouraging these sorts of guilds to form and grow. A big problem is there is no data to go off when putting in a bid for the guild. That means the guild has to either spend weeks of losing bids (and disappointing 50+ people each time) to try to get a grasp of what constitutes too low of prices, or they have to grossly overpay, eating into their ability to bid going forward. The losing message only relays that the guild ought to bid more or bid somewhere else--this is an oversimplification of the dynamic bidding process.

On the other side are the established guilds that want to entirely hide their bids in order to counter bid spying. I would love to be able to put in a final bid mid-week and not have to worry about spies. However, I can understand why this may not have been implemented yet inasmuch as this clamps down on whatever little information about guild bids does exist.

As such I would identify two changes: making the bid system MORE transparent to help the smaller guilds while also shielding the guild's gold balance change to counter spying to help the established guilds.

A few proposals on shielding have some drawbacks. Walling off the guild's gold bank balance behind permissions has a few problems--the biggest one being that members wouldn't be able to tell if their deposits actually go through, and they would have to constantly pester leadership to confirm deposits. Alternatively, holding the bid in escrow until the bids close would curtail spies for the given week but would then allow the exact gold change to be seen at trader flip time. I think the best way to shield the balance change is to either have a separate, permissioned-off guild bank balance designated for only bids or to allow bidders the option to use their personal gold balances to pay for the bid.

If spying is dealt with, then historic bids could be and ought to be more transparent. If the bid amounts are entirely blind, it would remove necessary accountability from the guild leadership--members would have to take the guild leadership's word on whether the guild is bidding in the best interests of the guild members (too high or too low can both be issues). Guilds would be more likely put in low bids, and then the guild traders wouldn't be acting as much of a gold sink.

I can imagine many reasons why guilds wouldn't want their exact week-to-week bids revealed, so something more in the ballpark would be ideal. What I would think could work as a compromise would be to post a range of the past several weeks of winning bids on the guild trader kiosk bid UI screen in half orders of magnitude: "This trader has been hired in recent weeks for between 300,000 and 1,000,000 gold per week". This would help smaller guilds gauge the market, and the message could also be mailed to losing bidders to give them a better sense of expectations. Revealing this sort of info would also allow guild members to know that the guild is maintaining healthy, competitive bids and sinking gold as intended. This is just one suggestion, and, really, there are many ways to be more transparent, and I think it would help the small and forming guilds the most to have at least some data.

Wouldn't it just be easier to publicly state what the current highest bid for a trader is? Sort of how at a real auction everyone knows what the current bid is and the auctioneer is calling for more to get the bid higher. The bid amount can be public with the name hidden and the fee held till a winner is confirmed. It actually helps if people know exactly how much a spot is going for and if two guilds want to try to outbid each other then let them.

No, if bids weren't blind than somebody could bid 1-10,000g higher and just steal it. No guild could place a bid during the week. You would HAVE to wait until the last few seconds to put your "real bid" in to avoid some ass bidding 1g higher than you.

I do believe there needs to be better transparency but it should be vague like the last bid placed was in the 1-2M range so competing guilds have an idea of how expensive a certain spot is.

Aaru wrote: »

King Pin

Do you need an enforcer to help retrieve that protection money?

Volunteering

I can always use good minions! Just remember to call me the Kingpin and grovel on command!

As for the money... that goes directly to me! I trust NO ONE!

Aaru wrote: »

There are definitely problems with the current trader system in ESO, but global auction houses also have their own problems.

Why not have Faction auction houses in ESO. No individual traders, and each faction shares an auction house, with one Underground Auction house that lets you buy from other factions AH's for a 40% fee (goldsink)?

I believe that's what WoW did and honestly I like the current system. It's unique to ESO and makes for an interesting economy. It just needs some improvements.

PathwayM

I'm hoping Zenimax will be able to provide an official opinion on this issue since many people have chimed in at this point showing their concern that this would be allowed. Could we get a few words @ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_JessicaFolsom?

I know there were many different suggestions that were made in this thread as potential solutions, and with your clear move toward providing more transparency with the dev notes on the pts patch notes, could we get some kind of confirmation that Zenimax is at least exploring anything regarding this topic?

Thanks!

redmoonga

Bids:

A bid that could be seen would only lead to widespread bid sniping, with most bids coming at the last seconds.
Adding a rank permission level to viewing the guild bank balance would restore some measure of fairness to the system.

I am also in favor of allowing bids to be retracted in the first hour of the weekly bidding, or better yet make the interface more distinct so you can not bid without an extra step. I don't know anyone who hasn't bid in the rush to hire by mistake.

Exploits:

On the other hand, being able to exploit the system with the test guild method has to not be tolerated. We all know it's not right. I think the easiest and best method to stop this is to have disbanded guild's stalls to remain empty. I do not believe this would lead to stalls being empty except on super rare occasion but would prevent the exploit.

@Redmoonga, GM Black Dragon Apothecary

Lyserus

I just want to know what addon is that

JWKe

They're simply going around the system. How is this an exploit?

redmoonga

JWKe wrote: »

They're simply going around the system. How is this an exploit?

That is the definition of exploit.

-red