How Does the In-Game Economy TRULY Work?

Ch4mpTW

As time goes on, I'm beginning to grow more and more curious about how it is that the market works. Or more specifically the economy of ESO.

Meaning... How are certain trends set, and certain items chosen to be marked above other items? What gives certain items more value than other items? What or who is it that sets the standards for things such as legendary improvements, and why do things seem to always have a pattern to them? Why is it that it appears that certain people always win guild raffles? Or why is it that the price for certain guild traders tends to go up and up?

I don't quite understand these things, but I'm very interested in learning. I also am curious about just how deep the whole: Botting, gold buying, buy low and sell high things go. Because from what I've noticed, those 3 things play a very crucial and rather integral role in the ESO economy.

For example, there was a guy a few moments ago in Craglorn asking for people to CoD him pieces of rosin for 3k each. While also requesting wax for 4K and alloys for 3k. He then proceeded with saying how he had 10M gold to spend for purchasing said things, and that he was looking to make anyone rich who sold to him. Weird, yes? But then on the flip-side, I saw someone again in Craglorn a few days ago selling stacks of heartwood and other furniture materials for 10k to 20k a stack. 20k being for heartwood, and 10k for stacks of everything else. Mind you this was a person who had a Lv. 8 character, and upon checking their trophies had little to no time actually invested into ESO. Any ideas as to how that is possible?

notimetocare

Bot impact in this game is next to nothing.
Mass buyers make profit on the ignorant.
Low level alts for storing and selling excess.
The economy is capitalist. You have to know what something is worth or you lose.

Integral1900

Alloys for three grand... I'd tell him to sod off... they still go for twice that

Basically it's effort versus award, for example my master crafter has every motif in the game, but the idea of farming those myself is simply something I don't have time for, therefore I'm willing to buy them from traders at a price that reflects the effort I'm saving

Another example is those gold tempers, now for a player like me spending 70 or 80 those things is not a problem, this is because I like to do quests, explore and I do a lot of crafting writs, therefore I'm knee deep in those things, but there are many players that don't want to have to do that, therefore there willing to pay me to get them

The simplest way to think about it is that players are affectively exchanging gold for time

nooblybear

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Meaning... How are certain trends set, and certain items chosen to be marked above other items? What gives certain items more value than other items? What or who is it that sets the standards for things such as legendary improvements, and why do things seem to always have a pattern to them? Why is it that it appears that certain people always win guild raffles? Or why is it that the price for certain guild traders tends to go up and up?

As far as I've been able to make out, on PC at least, trends are set by trend-setters: YouTubers who make videos, people who share builds on forums and websites, which name a specific set combination, will result in the prices of those set pieces going through the roof. Some of them are obvious to the general public (Necropotence, say), some not.

Sometimes this trend-setting just happens through gradual spread of ideas (so-and-so is powerful in PvP, people want to run what they're running (or what they think they're running)) as well. Sometimes the spread can simply be "I've seen X people wanting to buy sharpened swords of Y set in zone chat" and then people who pay attention capitalise and begin selling Y items.

Items have extrinsic and intrinsic value. The rarity of an item contributes to its intrinsic value, as well as, for item sets, good traits and good set lines/set bonuses (note that this are intrinsic to the item, but how highly they are valued is extrinsic). In all cases, the extrinsic value of the item is "how much someone is willing to pay for it". When it comes to MasterMerchant sales data, it's "how much someone has paid for it in the past".

If one person spends outrageously on an item, that does not mean that all other people are going to do the same. But if the general trend of the market area (your five trade guilds, for example) have people purchasing the item at around a specific price, then that tends to be the "accepted" price for an item. You always have a chance of seeing it listed cheap somewhere, or finding people who have it listed at four or five times its "accepted" value.

People who are desperate might be willing to eventually pay such an inflated price, but usually only out of being unable to find it anywhere else.

Improvement items fluctuate due to supply and demand. Over-supply (occasionally through botting but not always) means there's more product available for the number of people looking to buy, so they can purchase the cheapest item. That drives others to drop their prices lower and lower to ensure that theirs is the item sold. This has a knock-on effect where other people see the items selling this low, and reduce their prices to compensate. That has the overall effect of reducing the price of the item.

Kuta is a good example: I don't have specific data to back this up, more of an observation, but since the (relatively) recent change that combined enchanting nodes, the chances for getting kuta have improved. So that could contribute to a drop in price, although demand is a big thing:

Demand changes for improvement materials when new craftable gear sets, new character slots/classes are added, when sets are nerfed, when particular skill/set combinations are nerfed and when the general overall "trend" changes and requires people craft/buy and upgrade new sets.

The changes to sustain according to the PTS patch notes are likely going to result in increased demand for gold tempers. People craft or purchase or farm new sets and upgrade them to gold quality, people switch from weapon and spell damage jewellery enchantments to cost reduction and recovery increasing glyphs -- all of these could increase the price of tempers.

An actual example of a demand change would be with master writs in the Homestead release. Ancestor silk (refined) went for around 15-25g on PC a month or two before the patch, and last I checked, it was going for around 45g a piece. With the addition of no new sets to the game and therefore no significant reason to be crafting new sets, it implies strongly that the possibility of master writs have driven more people to complete daily writs, and to purchase the materials for those writs, thus driving the prices up.

For guild raffles, you've got a couple of options: a) (unlikely) you have an unscrupulous GM who rigs their raffle so that specific people win in order to keep prizes and money within the guild. This is unlikely because it's extremely obvious and it will eventually create a community that doesn't trust the GM. Without trust, people have no reason to maintain a relationship.

b) (slightly more likely) People who tend towards winning raffles regularly contribute to raffles. In areas where your chance is X tickets purchased/Total tickets purchased, people who purchase more tickets have a statistically higher chance of winning prizes -- especially if there are multiple prizes available and guild rules don't allow people to win multiple prizes. For example, if there are 500 tickets sold, and we take 5 "random" members a. purchases 10 tickets, b. purchases 50 tickets, c. purchases 100 tickets, and d. purchases 5 tickets. If there are 5 prizes, person d. has 5/500 chances to win. If person c. wins the first prize, person d. has a 5/400 chance of winning the next prize. The more winners take chunks out of the total pool of tickets, the higher person d.'s chances of winning something.

(Disclaimer: It's entirely possible that I've done the math completely wrong here. Corrections would be appreciated.)

c) (possible) Some names just stick out. They might not statistically have one more prizes than average, but if their name is familiar and you see it in a list of "people who won", it might seem as though they only just won something. Mostly psychological.

Finally, the matter of guild trader bids: on PC-NA the most popular cities seem to be Rawl'kha, Mournhold and Wayrest and possibly Elden Root. There are a finite number of available kiosks that people can bid on, but considerably more trading guilds who want kiosks.

This simple fact, combined with the (relatively) blind bidding system pushes prices up: (all hypothetical numbers here) guild A bids 100K gold each week on a kiosk, guild B decide they want to take that kiosk over. Guild A's bid is hidden from everyone else, so guild B only has gut instinct/rumour/espionage. Guild B may decide to bid 500K, and they win the kiosk. All guild A knows is that their 100K bid was not high enough.

A few weeks might then elapse where guild A bids 200K and loses to guild B bidding 500K, so guild A, desperate to return to that kiosk, increases its bid to 750K. Guild A win the kiosk, with guild B simply knowing that 500K is not enough. Guild B then bids 1M gold, and the cycle repeats until one of them cries uncle.

In reality, communication between GMs along with rumour and experience will give trade guild leaders a relatively good idea of how much kiosks are going for in a specific area. The back-and-forth of outbidding and then outbidding does happen, though, and until one guild calls it quits, the prices will keep escalating.

Even once the "war" is over, the war itself has had a lasting impact on the other kiosks in the area. Those, fearing that they will be targetted instead of guild A, increase their own bids out of "safety", perhaps with inside information given to them by guild A. The net effect is that the kiosk guild A was originally on has gone from being bid 100K each week to being bid over 1M per week, while the other kiosks in the area also increases.

And my values are entirely hypothetical here. I hear rumours about how high bidding is in places, but have no specifics. I just know that millions and millions of gold are going out of the economy each week in trader bids, and the amount doesn't look to be decreasing any time soon.

Emothic

To make it short and simple. The economy on this game is a classified as a Free Trade/Free Market economy. Meaning there are limited to no trade restrictions of items in the economy. As a result the economy is based off of player/community decisions. Meaning that the items value is created by the community of players, these are usually set by the Guild Traders. Standard Supply and Demand can take place that will adjust the pricing of items, of which can be preditced with game update's, so a bit of a "Stock Market" investment can be made.

So in a sense. The economy in this game is a Capitalistic Free Trade economy. If you have any specific quetions, please ask me and I will anwser to the best of my ability. I just focused on how the general overall trade works on this game to give you a basic idea of how it works.

FlicksZ

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Watered down version:

Central guild kiosks -> Outskirt guild kiosks -> Regional/Local chat trade (Mix and match where/when needed)

Supply and demand -> Player/Dev created -> Specific builds/Items and quests/Crown store/Drop rates/Time/Platform

Alliances -> Sister trade guild(s) -> Solo/rogue trader

Coincidence/Fixed

ToS -> Code/Cheat engine -> Enforcement -> Minimal to maximal affect

DLCs -> One Tamriel -> lvl/skill point requirements -> Exp gain

Linaleah

on low level character with barely any achievements. probably a new alt. achievements are character based, so new alt will have none even if player themselves have invested a LOT of time into the game.

KingYogi415

Cheers!

The_Art_of_Paw

If people share the information you are looking for, then they reduce their opportunity to make the gains themselves. The trading scene on ESO is very cut-throat and it takes quite a lot of experience to stay in the playing field.

Same as with build information. You can find many that will show you how to sell the basics though for end game trading you need to be rolling with the 1%-ers to stay on top of the market.

The visual idea about bot farming I see people writing is incorrect. People genuinely enjoy grinding for items to sell. They spend a full week grinding and then sell a batch of it at the end of the week. They make their character builds efficient in fast gathering of materials so are gathering things roughly 10 times faster then most so they have 500-1000 of the item they wish to sell at the end of the week.

What you will find most of in game is deceptive tactics to buy resources from others cheaply. These tactics range from creative begging to well organised 2-3 people lures to roleplay a person in to trading at a low price. Both sides enjoy the experience so I assume the deceivers see their art as entertainers for newbies.

Entry level trading is selling what you find for 50-500 gold
Mid level trading is selling items and reselling items for up to 20k gold
High level trading is participating in the trade scene for hundreds of thousands of gold at a time
End game trading is trading in the millions

It is commonplace in end game trading to see people flip a 2-5k purchase in to a 500k or even 2mill sale

aLi3nZ

I bought 350k of dreugh wax for 20% off market price from a lvl 3 and sold it for 10% off market price within 2 days on guild store. Got to wonder where he got all that wax.

As far as item prices. It varies a lot as sometimes ESo devs seem to make things more easily available with farming. Columbine for example. Used to be 330g per. Now it's maybe 180g per and the most common item when buying alchemy bags in ic

Darlgon

For historical reference, based on what I have seen after playing the past few weeks, returning after being gone 14 months, I still think this comment from 2014 is the "economy" of ESO.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1092812#Comment_1092812

Rinmaethodain

There are three types of players sorted by their relation to ESO economy (PC only):

- People who accept an MM/TTC as being a guideline of selling/trading and acknowledge fact that these prices are subjects to 7% guild tax to adjust them accordingly in zone chat


- People with hypocritical behaviour, they will be using MM/TTC guidelines only when selling things but when buying they will be offering lowball offers to everyone practically ripping them off and then declaring that "this is zone chat, MM/TTC does not work in zone"


- People completely detached from TTC/MM selling things for whatever they want to, awfully dangerous to game economy as they ignore time factor and will often declare that "i farmed it myself so its free", in large quantities they can effectively ruin market for certain goods


Where does the price of things come from? First and foremost comes this:

- how many of these things i can obtain in given specific timeframe - which pretty much translates into item rarity

Then comes supply and demand:

- how easily available is said item and how many people beside me can obtain it + how many people actually need that item

After that, all prices are subject to "illegal" activites like price fixing, price flipping, buying out and reselling and good injections by botters and crown store sellers.

Now, for Master Merchant and Tamriel Trade Center, someone will say "these things dont make prices, people make prices" - that is perfectly 100% true.
MM/TTC are monitoring the market, not creating it. They simply gather data and present them in easily readable way. Sure they can impact players decision but in the end its the player who makes choice. As a real world reference MM/TTC could be compared to stock market/resource market.

When a player lists an item for sale and it sells super fast, next will be listed higher. When player lists an item and it doesent sell it will be listed at lower price. Of course that is theory. What we very often see in ESO is that people threat MM as some sort of god and ultimate guideline "MM told me to sell for this then i sold for that much" - I hear that too many times when I look for specific rare item that can't be found in any guild store, so i list mine for say 200k and 2 hours later i see someone posting same item for .... 100k only because his MM told him to do so (with 1 sale in history from 2 weeks ago).

Ch4mpTW

Damn... There's a lot of food for thought, and incredible information here. I kinda regret not making this thread sooner. Great stuff, everyone. Very great stuff.

Tasear

It's mostly supply and demand. Demand is influenced by outside forces like where you pick up Pledges or do crafting.

Zvorgin

I just wish BoP was changed to BoE and this economy would explode in it's robustness. I have several guildies who all they like to do is run dungeons, if they could sell those items they could be market participants and also help others avoid the grind. I think more people would run content knowing they could capitalize off the loot that drops. Bring back BoE!

Ch4mpTW

Zvorgin wrote: »

I just wish BoP was changed to BoE and this economy would explode in it's robustness. I have several guildies who all they like to do is run dungeons, if they could sell those items they could be market participants and also help others avoid the grind. I think more people would run content knowing they could capitalize off the loot that drops. Bring back BoE!

To a degree, I can understand why BoP exists. For example, take Maelstrom Weapons. I'm assuming that the idea was to make completions feel rewarding (although it doesn't often times than not). Essentially giving player an incentive to complete the content themselves. However, it has been shown that what ZOS had intended for, isn't exactly going as planned. More and more people (myself included) have given up the grind there, because of the crushing amounts of RNG involved.

However, places like dungeons shouldn't have BoP gear (outside of the monster head pieces).

Rohamad_Ali

For the most part it is supply and demand . Some steamer puts out a build with a certain set and next day prices start inflating in anticipation of demand . News a set is no longer viable in upcoming patch and price plummets in anticipation it is true . Then there's a dozen variables on mats .

Axoinus

This "economy" is very inefficient.

1) Small participation rate
2) Supply and demand is unknown and
3) Fair value is unknown
4) It is not a global economy

Granted, there are mods to give visibility to selling prices, but that information is only available to the few of us that make the effort to use mods..

Worst market system of every game I've ever played. The only people that like it are those that are in a position to take advantage of it.

zaria

MaximusDargus wrote: »

There are three types of players sorted by their relation to ESO economy (PC only):

- People who accept an MM/TTC as being a guideline of selling/trading and acknowledge fact that these prices are subjects to 7% guild tax to adjust them accordingly in zone chat


- People with hypocritical behaviour, they will be using MM/TTC guidelines only when selling things but when buying they will be offering lowball offers to everyone practically ripping them off and then declaring that "this is zone chat, MM/TTC does not work in zone"


- People completely detached from TTC/MM selling things for whatever they want to, awfully dangerous to game economy as they ignore time factor and will often declare that "i farmed it myself so its free", in large quantities they can effectively ruin market for certain goods


Where does the price of things come from? First and foremost comes this:

- how many of these things i can obtain in given specific timeframe - which pretty much translates into item rarity

Then comes supply and demand:

- how easily available is said item and how many people beside me can obtain it + how many people actually need that item

After that, all prices are subject to "illegal" activites like price fixing, price flipping, buying out and reselling and good injections by botters and crown store sellers.

Now, for Master Merchant and Tamriel Trade Center, someone will say "these things dont make prices, people make prices" - that is perfectly 100% true.
MM/TTC are monitoring the market, not creating it. They simply gather data and present them in easily readable way. Sure they can impact players decision but in the end its the player who makes choice. As a real world reference MM/TTC could be compared to stock market/resource market.

When a player lists an item for sale and it sells super fast, next will be listed higher. When player lists an item and it doesent sell it will be listed at lower price. Of course that is theory. What we very often see in ESO is that people threat MM as some sort of god and ultimate guideline "MM told me to sell for this then i sold for that much" - I hear that too many times when I look for specific rare item that can't be found in any guild store, so i list mine for say 200k and 2 hours later i see someone posting same item for .... 100k only because his MM told him to do so (with 1 sale in history from 2 weeks ago).

Shopping at guild stores its obviously that many use either MM or just looking at other prices, its pretty funny then you find that one kiosk sells an common item for 4.5k with the next sell it for 3K.
Especially rarer items is pretty weird here.

ssewallb14_ESO

In most MMO economies, production and currency are controlled by the players with hard limits set by the game developers, property ownership doesn't exist, and distribution is market based. Basically "Market Socialism."

This system is mostly a demand based economy, as supply is inherently limited. In other words base price is determined by "drop rate," and prices scale up and down mostly based on how much people want a specific item.

The behavior you describe in zone chat is known as "speculation." Players are buying items in anticipation of the price rising, usually due to a demand spike from a new patch. This works extremely well in a demand based economy. It's also possible to form "Cartels," or groups or players that attempt to buy an entire market and sell items at a fixed price. This is illegal in most real economies, but as MMOs don't have anti-trust laws it is very possible for low supply items. The usual fix for cartels is to increase drop rates or incentivize farming whatever item is being controlled, such that Cartels can't keep up with supply.

raasdal

The answer is Supply and Demand. As simple as that. There is basically no difference from ESO market economy, to real life.

When something goes up in price, it is because more people are buying, than selling.

Jollygoodusername

SSF.

Don't want your trash, I'll find my own thanks.

Rohamad_Ali

The dude with no trophies could of been an alt character or account just for holding storage for the main account . People maximizing profits don't like to pay for storage beyond the cheap upgrades .

Ch4mpTW

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

The dude with no trophies could of been an alt character or account just for holding storage for the main account . People maximizing profits don't like to pay for storage beyond the cheap upgrades .

@Rohamad_Ali I mean he had no trophies on PSN. Lol. It was a fresh account (so it seemed). He may have had like 1 or 2 bronze trophies, and that's it.

Tandor

It is down to supply and demand, but with the supply severely restricted by the trading system which is further corrupted by over-reliance by the dominant trading guilds on add-ons. In absolutely no sense is it a free market economy.

Troneon

Loads of players exploited gold at launch, never got banned or gold taken away.

Guild Trader Alliance monopolies ever since.

Ch4mpTW

Troneon wrote: »

Loads of players exploited gold at launch, never got banned or gold taken away.

Guild Trader Alliance monopolies ever since.

You know, I heard about that. I heard of the huge duplication exploit occurring, and even remember a few as well. Anyone remember the Glenumbra Pig Farm? That exploit lasted for how long, before it caught the attention of hundreds? Thus causing it to be fixed by ZOS. Who knows how many thousands of wax and other improvements people obtained. I remember standing in Elden Root, and seeing people selling stacks of wax for 5k in area chat at the time. Wax was literally that common. I'll say it again. 5k PER stack of dreugh wax. Nowadays wax sells for 5k a piece (1M per stack currently). That's incredible. And people hoarded stacks upon stacks of wax. Just think about how much gold they're sitting on. . .

Ch4mpTW

I also have this to bring-up which I'm rather curious about. When did it become okay to prey upon new players, and those who are unaware of certain items?

For example... A guy who'll spend hours on end in say Auridon or Grahtwood, and post the same message over and over again about how they'll buy heartwood for 30g a piece. And kutas 1k a piece. Upon being told that he's wrong for taking advantage of unsuspecting sellers, he immediately responds with an onslaught of insults and profanity. Followed by claiming how if people have an issue with his buying price, then don't sell. Proceeding with commenting about how he's bought thousands over the weekend for that price.

Is that exactly allowed...? Is it actually not in violation of the TOS to take advantage of people, and prey on the unsuspecting and new? Because if not, it would make a ton of sense as to why on PS4-NA those types of people are popping-up more and more frequently. People who'll claim that they'll buy this and that at an absurdly low price, and claim how it's the seller's fault for being ignorant.

Rinmaethodain

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

I also have this to bring-up which I'm rather curious about. When did it become okay to prey upon new players, and those who are unaware of certain items?

For example... A guy who'll spend hours on end in say Auridon or Grahtwood, and post the same message over and over again about how they'll buy heartwood for 30g a piece. And kutas 1k a piece. Upon being told that he's wrong for taking advantage of unsuspecting sellers, he immediately responds with an onslaught of insults and profanity. Followed by claiming how if people have an issue with his buying price, then don't sell. Proceeding with commenting about how he's bought thousands over the weekend for that price.

Is that exactly allowed...? Is it actually not in violation of the TOS to take advantage of people, and prey on the unsuspecting and new? Because if not, it would make a ton of sense as to why on PS4-NA those types of people are popping-up more and more frequently. People who'll claim that they'll buy this and that at an absurdly low price, and claim how it's the seller's fault for being ignorant.

Im wondering about this too and I meet this kind of people very often. They will use funny arguments like "im not forcing anybody to sell" or "i buy a lot like that why would i pay more" or sometimes "your MM is guild MM, im not in guild, this is zone chat" - the most pathetic part is when these players are members of large trade guilds with big renown and you can look up their own sales history to see they are selling same items for 5x more using that "bad and terrible MM".

And just like you said, they will try to blame sellers for not knowing the price.

Unfortunately as far as i can tell, there is nothing to be done. Its not against TOS since players agree on a price. Guild identity in ESO is completely dead, you cant look up other players guilds (if you are not in same guild) and most guild leaders dont give a frik what their members do (as long as they dont cheat engine) and care just for sales.

The only thing left is educate, spread information and popularise trade guilds (as opposed to limiting them and charging people gold which is common on consoles from what i heard).

Korah_Eaglecry

A lot of it is speculation as to the value of something. Just look at how people thought One Tamriel was going to affect the Legendary material prices. People were gobbling them up in fear that there would be a sudden shortage and that the prices would sky rocket.

Ch4mpTW

MaximusDargus wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

I also have this to bring-up which I'm rather curious about. When did it become okay to prey upon new players, and those who are unaware of certain items?

For example... A guy who'll spend hours on end in say Auridon or Grahtwood, and post the same message over and over again about how they'll buy heartwood for 30g a piece. And kutas 1k a piece. Upon being told that he's wrong for taking advantage of unsuspecting sellers, he immediately responds with an onslaught of insults and profanity. Followed by claiming how if people have an issue with his buying price, then don't sell. Proceeding with commenting about how he's bought thousands over the weekend for that price.

Is that exactly allowed...? Is it actually not in violation of the TOS to take advantage of people, and prey on the unsuspecting and new? Because if not, it would make a ton of sense as to why on PS4-NA those types of people are popping-up more and more frequently. People who'll claim that they'll buy this and that at an absurdly low price, and claim how it's the seller's fault for being ignorant.

Im wondering about this too and I meet this kind of people very often. They will use funny arguments like "im not forcing anybody to sell" or "i buy a lot like that why would i pay more" or sometimes "your MM is guild MM, im not in guild, this is zone chat" - the most pathetic part is when these players are members of large trade guilds with big renown and you can look up their own sales history to see they are selling same items for 5x more using that "bad and terrible MM".

And just like you said, they will try to blame sellers for not knowing the price.

Unfortunately as far as i can tell, there is nothing to be done. Its not against TOS since players agree on a price. Guild identity in ESO is completely dead, you cant look up other players guilds (if you are not in same guild) and most guild leaders dont give a frik what their members do (as long as they dont cheat engine) and care just for sales.

The only thing left is educate, spread information and popularise trade guilds (as opposed to limiting them and charging people gold which is common on consoles from what i heard).

Damn... That's bad. That's bad and sad, actually. It's because of things like that, that I am all for auction houses. As this current setup is just atrocious.