Casual Player Enfranchisement through Guild Merchant Deflation

BuddyAces

If you are super casual then don't expect to make tons of gold. I mean that's pretty fricken obvious. Alternate ways include stealing (I know multiple folks who do this every day till they got a certain amount, I've never done this) or just go farm a public dungeon for one hour. Yes, just one hour of farming a public dungeon and getting gold plus items to vendor will be more than enough to sustain a casual playstyle.

Juju_beans

idk wrote: »

I got confused. It seemed OP wants to make trading complicated.

Well OP stated they only play for 1 week every couple of months.
That removes farming, looting, guild trading for making gold.

What can they do for 1 week every couple of months to get them lots of gold to play with for that week.

xan4silkb14_ESO

Kawall wrote: »

Battlemaster rivyn's reward box. Right now they're 17k in PC EU. I always sell them.

Didn't they fix the bug where they were supposed to be bind on pickup? I had always assumed they were already and never even thought about selling them.

BuddyAces

Juju_beans wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I got confused. It seemed OP wants to make trading complicated.

Well OP stated they only play for 1 week every couple of months.
That removes farming, looting, guild trading for making gold.

What can they do for 1 week every couple of months to get them lots of gold to play with for that week.

Not alot. Unless you get lucky with a drop and don't want to use what little bit of game time you have farming then that person is going to have to come to terms with the fact that they will be broke.

Like I posted earlier, simply farming a pub dungeon for an hour or stealing will support that kind of game style. If you're looking to gold out gear every couple months with limited play time then I suggest setting your heights a wee bit lower. It's simply unrealistic.

DenMoria

Okay. That is one of the best thread titles I have ever read. Thank you.

I haven't read the thread yet, but the title alone made me smile!

DenMoria

Best solution? Have merchants actually sell resources. There is nothing more annoying than wandering about the countryside looking for Flax and Oak for hours on end. Just have the friggin' merchant have some for sale. I could care less about a design for a bowl for goodness sake.

DaveMoeDee

isailandshootub17_ESO wrote: »

AuldWolf wrote: »

A treatise on why casuals never use guild merchants.

3.) If you buy an item it becomes bound in a way where it can't be resold, so if you buy it stays with you, no matter what;
4.) Make resource nodes instanced to the player to stop people from hoarding that way;

#3 alone would fix the inflation issue. Well done.

#4 just sounds awesome to a casual player like myself. ~10 hours per week for 5 or 6 weeks out of the year.

Yeah. I hated their 1 and 2, but 3 sounds interesting. I say that as someone who has done some reselling, though 95% was rings I bought person to person or through mail.

Thing is, restricting guild trading would mean people abandon guilds for p2p trading, which would be pretty annoying. I am wary of making things onerous to help "casuals," though I like the idea of removing pure speculation through reselling.

One point I think is horrible is coming up with any kind of cap on sale prices. ZOS doesn't even bother setting prices on many very valuable items. The market will decide what really rare hard to get items will cost.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure what the big deal is anyway since the best gear can either be crafted by a casual, or is bind on pickup. Sure, there are some good overworld sets. But how much are people selling those for? The prices aren't ridiculous. Sell mats from hirelings and you can buy those overworld sets with minimal effort.

Fiktius

bellatrixed wrote: »

Nothing is broken for casual players.

It is incredibly easy to make gold in this game if you try even a *little*. If you are unwilling to try even a little you must not really want whatever you're grinding gold for.

^This. It's all about knowing what to focus and what kind of demand is currently going around markets, what kind of gear sets are popular, what kind of items people need daily and so on. If you know the meta and know desired items, you can make millions of gold in the game. Even harvesting and selling raw materials provides way to reach a fortune.

And seriously, this knowledge of what kind of items are worth to sell is not secret information. Trade guilds exists and if you are willing to learn more and ask tips from other guild members, they will help you. Some guilds offer even proper trading guides. It's completely up to the player how much they are willing to spend time on the game and how much time goes for trading. And this is not mind blowing information as well: It's possible to have a job, a family, loads of in-game PvE and PvP time and still make millions of gold through guild trader.

It's all about clever pricing, smart store slot usage and knowing target audience of yours. That's it!

idk

Juju_beans wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I got confused. It seemed OP wants to make trading complicated.

Well OP stated they only play for 1 week every couple of months.
That removes farming, looting, guild trading for making gold.

What can they do for 1 week every couple of months to get them lots of gold to play with for that week.

All that for such a short message? Wow. No wonder.

1 week every couple months and worries about their build. Does not make sense. Just enjoy the game if that is all the time you put into it.

ResTandRespeC

for the majority I'd say that "best in slot" or "flavor of the week" builds are totally and completely unnecessary to play this game all the way up to almost the highest level of play. A basic crafted set, with a basic dropped set could last you through many a patch with very minimal changes to damage output etc. Likewise, the reason the prices go so high isn't because many a few people have a lot of money, at least not entirely. The main reason is because so many people chase fotm builds. When alcast drops his build list for a new patch everyone starts rushing to buy the items. Supply and demand.

For real though, even though I do go for best in slot gear, I also am trying to do score runs for trials and such. The difference though between a combo of juli/necro (or some other dropped set for magic) is within a 2-5k dps at the top end (40k+ dps) so i'd expect it'd be much less then that towards the middle of the spectrum. Somewhere around the 500-1k mark compared to something like Sirioria/mothers sorrow.

Beardimus

Only read the start and zoned out as based on a load of bad assumptions.

I'm very casual and yet make Guild Traders work well for me. I do 30 mins admin a week tops. I'm lucky to get 5hrs in game a week. Often its done.

Making gold needs focus yes, and you need to put effort in, but its not this big corporate take over of no lifers you think it is.

He'll selling Gold tempera from writs alone which take minutes can net you a few K.

Selling motifs from a Vet HM run can get 10k's in one hit.

Keep ahead of the times and its easy to profit. If a streamer mentions a set double the price and sell for easy buck - etc

Malacthulhu

I think to simplify it would be nice to use mats to turn them into other mats, this could provide a healthy resource/gold sink while deflating some of the pricing in some areas. Example10 rosin could be converted into one temper. They could make it an transmutation thing in alchemy, even include transmutation crystals in the mix etc. This would also achieve the effect of creating artificial shortages opening up trade in more areas.

bellatrixed

I guess I take offense to the idea that the only people who can make money are hardcore players no lifing it. I spend around 30-60 minutes a day doing my writs and make about 40-80k a day. It's a decision to spend up to an hour a day making gold instead of questing or raiding or whatever. I want the gold so I spend the time to make the gold instead of doing game stuff that might be more fun.

This means I tend to progress through content slower, since I actually AM a casual player and can only dedicate multiple hours to PVE a couple times a week. But, I can afford to buy whatever I want, so it's a tradeoff.

For what it's worth I've played plenty of games with universal auction houses and it's not the utopia people in ESO tend to think it is. The cost of entry tends to actually be way higher since one person can corner the market across the entire game rather than on individual traders.

starkerealm

ArchMikem wrote: »

And that's why you're here! Am I right? You got all excited when you saw "Enfranchisement"!

Will admit. Don't know what enfranchisement means.

The ability to participate in a system. Usually used in context of the ability to vote.

DuskMarine

how is buying stuff from merchants such a issue? we can get gold by breathing basically in this game so i dont know why people keep complaining

starkerealm

isailandshootub17_ESO wrote: »

My first thought is to do away, in some respect, with randomized loot. If a desired set or item could be acquired through a direct quest, that would be great. It would be even better if it could be incorporated into all existing quests.

So, this is a, "the cure is worse than the disease" kind of situation.

Randomized loot does two things, which might seem to be flaws from a player experience perspective, but keep the game going.

First, it ensures that old content remains relevant in the current climate. Stick a huge asterisk on this one, but the basic gist is that if you have to farm an instance, it's not one-and-done. This is especially true of endgame dungeons. You need players going into those to keep the group finder working, if you had a non-random system (ex: everyone gets the exact same Zaan mask every time you stepped foot in there), the number of players running the content would drop sharply. This, in turn, would lead to more complaints that there's, "nothing to do," from hardcore players who'd already cleared all content.

Second, this would outright kill content that's otherwise viable. If, for example, vMA always gave the exact same item. Unless that item was FotM, there wouldn't be much reason to push through vMA.

On the other side of this discussion, this kind of behavior already does exist in the game. Using the vSCP example earlier, clearling vet hardmode, speedrun, and no death (not, necessarily, on the same run), will award a skin. It's not a dice roll, you will get it if you clear those thresholds. It's a cosmetic thing without gameplay relevance, but it will encourage you to jump through hoops.

isailandshootub17_ESO wrote: »

There are many ways this could be done. For example. Imagine a clever daedra finds a niche in collecting rare armaments (i.e. set items). He carries almost every set item in game, all selectable through his trade menu. But he doesn't care for gold. Instead he desires a special form of life essence. He gives you a gem or something else whereby every enemy you kill grants life-force points to the object, which can be traded for his items (like soul gems, but automatic without need to aquire the gems).

Ah, the elusive token vendor. I've actually played other MMOs with token vendors. At some levels it's fine. On the other, it will disinsentivize running some content.

I mean, if you didn't need to run vSO to get TFS... would you? I wouldn't. SO eats my framerate alive, it's a miserable trial with a couple really painful fights sprinkled throughout (if your DPS don't listen to directions.) So, why run it when you can get the same rewards from running vAA? To a lesser extent vHRC is another one. Personally, I like that one a hell of a lot more, but I could see people skipping it in favor of vAA spam, then they collect their War Machine or Master Architect pieces on their way through the daedric gift shop, because "**** farming vHoF."

This is before you consider that the, "almost all sets," thing starts to kick over, and you're looking at people acquiring endgame raid sets from running dailies on Vvardenfell.

Now, on it's own, fine, cool. There isn't a problem. But, ESO's endgame raiding community has been structured to bring newbies up through the earlier raids because you use them to farm for gear. This would remove that.

isailandshootub17_ESO wrote: »

Or you could have a faction merchant who awards glory points for quests completed to trade for these items. Or there could be a nefarious merchant who will accept infamy points for bad deeds, thieving, and dark brotherhood contracts. Anything. I suppose there is already something like this in Cyrodiil for certain PvP sets. But I'm talking comprehensive with even less chance.

The key here is that with a moderate amount of play, someone can receive the items they desire without having to engage with the Guild Merchant traders (which are too inflated for them). Furthermore, you can level and quest with your friends even though you both want something different.

This is the other problem here. You're thinking of the BoE sets, but describing a system that applies directly to the BoP sets instead.

isailandshootub17_ESO wrote: »

What will this mean for Guild Merchants? Will it do away with the need for them? I certainly hope not! It seems that this would simply stabilize the value of set items and move the Guild Merchant market from such items to mats and crafted goods, which in turn enfranchises crafters.

So there you have it; my humble economic musings.

Back to Tamriel for me, before the next patch makes my nearly completed character non-competitive....

Yeah, if this is happening to you, you did something, "ill advised." I know I've said this before, but gear is not the deciding factor on your ability to clear content. Hell, your character's race isn't either, in spite of the whining you'll sometimes hear about how you need to have X race, and Y gear sets." You can clear everything running Hunding's Rage or Law of Julianos with another 5pc sprinkled in.

There are reasons you want your healer in Mending + SPC, but it's not like you can buy those on the market anyway.

What you need to do is learn how to play. And, yes, this is somewhat counter-intuitive in some cases. It will require you to reach out for other resources. If you're honestly at a loss where to start, @Alcast is always a pretty good starting point. (Also, pay attention when he lists alternate options.) That knowledge will carry you far further than picking through a build guide, farming up a collection of very specific sets, and then running with a build you don't understand, and can't really play.

Katahdin

Someone that plays one week every month isnt going to have as much gold as someone that plays a few days a week.

Getting gold is easy but you do have to put some effort in.

I have a full time job and do other things outside of the game. I have 10M gold and have spent over 15M on houses. I did it by farming things to sell when housing came out and thieving and selling every drop that I did not need.

starkerealm

doctor_refuel wrote: »

And please, let Adam Smith have his rest, he was an 18th century political economist whose theories are obsolete as hell, if they were even correct at some point : )

Yeah, this is just basic, "invisible hand," stuff which... you know, in the context of ESO kinda works. If you price something for more than demand will support, it doesn't sell. If demand exceeds supply (which, you know, with the valuable stuff that @isailandshootub17_ESO seems to be thinking about), price scales up accordingly. It's kinda wacky to see people chasing after Mother's Sorrow again, but, what can you do? Oh, right, grab a different set instead.

jedtb16_ESO

i read the op, time i will never get back, and understood every word of it.

what we have here is yet another snowflake gimme thread wrapped up in snake oil salesman language.

the main thrust of the argument is that people who get to play more than the op have more stuff (who would have thought it?)

because of that the game should be changed so that the op get's more stuff without having to do much for it.

um.... lemme think about this a second....

no.

Waffennacht

You deserve only what you can afford

Waffennacht

Juju_beans wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I got confused. It seemed OP wants to make trading complicated.

Well OP stated they only play for 1 week every couple of months.
That removes farming, looting, guild trading for making gold.

What can they do for 1 week every couple of months to get them lots of gold to play with for that week.

Shouldn't be playing an MMO

Rawkan

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

AlnilamE

OP, it seems to me that you want to replace farming for gear with farming for tokens instead. What is the difference?

As others have stated, there are solid craftable sets in game that will let you clear all the content you have time to clear. Change your skills if needed, but a base set will serve you through several iterations of the game. Particularly now that you can also craft set jewelry.

That said, there *are* a number of set items that are quest rewards, and if you are in a zone questing for those, chances are you are also going to get other set pieces as drops.

And if you really want to get a particular set, why not group with a few friends and run through the zone where the set drops killing the world bosses and doing the dolmens and having a good time?

Agenericname

Rawkan wrote: »

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

That would be my choice. I read somewhere that there are 1000 trading guilds for 100 spots. I'm not sure how true that is, but even a less exaggerated discrepancy between the two would create an artificial barrier restricting competition which is naturally going to drive the prices up.

There are other ways to cover the gold sink.

wolfie1.0.

WhiteNoiseMaker wrote: »

There is however the clear cut examples of market manipulation that goes on.

For example, on NA PC finished Jute used to be commonly found a few months ago at the price of 7-9 gold apiece on average, sometimes even less. Then it suddenly spiked for no discernible reason to the price of 35-40 gold a unit. It stayed this way for two months, before gradually lowering now to the current price of 25 per unit. This is still remarkably higher than it was a mere season ago.,

Oko runes are another example of price manipulation on what used to be a trivially cheap rune. At least in this case, there's a partial reason in that writs have begun to make more use of Oko, but we're talking about price hikes over over 1000% to 2000% increase fro last year.

Just adding this in response to the suggestion that 'things in the basket get cheaper over time'. :-)

Well the price increases make a whole lot of sense if you factor in that selling refined jute was not very lucrative when it was 7 to 9 gold. When you factor in that you can sell it to an npc at 8 gold. Now consider that every raw jute a farmer finds is a missed ancestor silk which sells for 40+ gold each. Now I am an active trader and crafter. I have 30 slots to sell in my guild store and a craft bag. So given a choice I would sell the ancestor silk and leave the jute in my bag. Ofcourse this affects the prices.

jedtb16_ESO

Agenericname wrote: »

Rawkan wrote: »

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

That would be my choice. I read somewhere that there are 1000 trading guilds for 100 spots. I'm not sure how true that is, but even a less exaggerated discrepancy between the two would create an artificial barrier restricting competition which is naturally going to drive the prices up.

There are other ways to cover the gold sink.

100 spots?

not true.... there are over 200

source...

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Guild_Traders

if you are going to debate it at least get your facts in order first.

jedtb16_ESO

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

WhiteNoiseMaker wrote: »

There is however the clear cut examples of market manipulation that goes on.

For example, on NA PC finished Jute used to be commonly found a few months ago at the price of 7-9 gold apiece on average, sometimes even less. Then it suddenly spiked for no discernible reason to the price of 35-40 gold a unit. It stayed this way for two months, before gradually lowering now to the current price of 25 per unit. This is still remarkably higher than it was a mere season ago.,

Oko runes are another example of price manipulation on what used to be a trivially cheap rune. At least in this case, there's a partial reason in that writs have begun to make more use of Oko, but we're talking about price hikes over over 1000% to 2000% increase fro last year.

Just adding this in response to the suggestion that 'things in the basket get cheaper over time'. :-)

Well the price increases make a whole lot of sense if you factor in that selling refined jute was not very lucrative when it was 7 to 9 gold. When you factor in that you can sell it to an npc at 8 gold. Now consider that every raw jute a farmer finds is a missed ancestor silk which sells for 40+ gold each. Now I am an active trader and crafter. I have 30 slots to sell in my guild store and a craft bag. So given a choice I would sell the ancestor silk and leave the jute in my bag. Ofcourse this affects the prices.

how can raw jute ever be an issue?

want raw jute? take a low lvl round a starter island... you'll have enough to make a marquee in half an hour.

Agenericname

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Rawkan wrote: »

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

That would be my choice. I read somewhere that there are 1000 trading guilds for 100 spots. I'm not sure how true that is, but even a less exaggerated discrepancy between the two would create an artificial barrier restricting competition which is naturally going to drive the prices up.

There are other ways to cover the gold sink.

100 spots?

not true.... there are over 200

source...

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Guild_Traders

if you are going to debate it at least get your facts in order first.

You did see the part where it presented as speculation didn't you? It should be taken in context with the following sentence.

jedtb16_ESO

Agenericname wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Rawkan wrote: »

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

That would be my choice. I read somewhere that there are 1000 trading guilds for 100 spots. I'm not sure how true that is, but even a less exaggerated discrepancy between the two would create an artificial barrier restricting competition which is naturally going to drive the prices up.

There are other ways to cover the gold sink.

100 spots?

not true.... there are over 200

source...

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Guild_Traders

if you are going to debate it at least get your facts in order first.

You did see the part where it presented as speculation didn't you? It should be taken in context with the following sentence.

why speculate when you can verify?

starkerealm

Agenericname wrote: »

Rawkan wrote: »

Most casuals want an auction house, for good reason. There's a lot of posters on these forums that are in the high end trading guilds controlling the market, so it's gonna be hard to get neutral opinions on this.

That would be my choice. I read somewhere that there are 1000 trading guilds for 100 spots. I'm not sure how true that is, but even a less exaggerated discrepancy between the two would create an artificial barrier restricting competition which is naturally going to drive the prices up.

There are other ways to cover the gold sink.

There are 204 trader locations. 20 added in the last year alone. Combine that with the fact that those locations are unique to server and platform, so there are technically 1,224 trader kiosks.

In a lot of cases, the, "shut out of kiosks," argument seems to be people in mid-tier or casual trade guilds who want a slot in Rawl-Kha or Mournhold. That's the equivalent of someone who's spent five hours in Cyrodiil saying they should be Emperor, or the guy who wanted to pug vMoL for the skin, with no prior trial experience. Yeah, these are realistically possible, if you work together with others, but they're not "entry level."

EDIT: Yay, zombie drafts creating reposts.