The problem with ESO economy

Nic727

Hi,

I really love ESO even if I'm not playing a lot like most of you, but it's been a while I'm thinking to write this thread. It's about the ESO economy (gold).

Getting gold in the game is way too hard if you don't sell items to other players directly or if you are luck in your guild store. My problem is that you can get a lvl 50 gold weapon and it will only sell for 20 gold to a vendor.

I personally don't use the guild vendor a lot and getting money in the game is so long. I'm only getting around 100 gold/hour by defeating bosses and selling some stuffs really fast.

Is there any way Zenimax could change how the economy work?

For example, items could be more and more expensive depending of the rarity and the level. (I'm talking about selling to normal vendor).

Thank you

Sylvermynx

Hmm. I started playing in late June. I have over 2M gold now. Gold is easy.... just do crafting writs on 12 of 15 girls every day. Serious. I don't sell anything except to vendors - I'm not into the guild store monopoly (just give me a real AH damn it). I don't spend a lot of gold for anything.

Gold is easy. Quest lines.... not so much.

Abigail

I'm not a big-time guild store seller; though, I do maintain a small but pretty consistent income from that source.

The lion's share of my income is from doing dolmens and killing surrounding mobs in between. Dependent upon where I'm setup, it gets me a few pieces to sell via guild store, but mostly stuff I sell directly to merchants. I net 10K daily, often more, which is sufficient for my needs because I craft all my gear or grind it out overland. At this point, I decompose only purple unsalable items. I'm certainly not rich, but I don't want for anything either. I'll do a few quests each day, but the rest of my time goes to gathering, and that inevitably gets me enough gold mats that I've never had to purchase them.

In short, I've found a system that makes me entirely self sufficient and simultaneously allows me to gear my alts well, if not up to meta-of-the-day standards. And that's all I ever expected from this game.

VaranisArano

Increasing the amount of gold you can get by selling items to NPC vendors will increase the amount of gold in circulation. That leads to inflation. To combat inflation, ZOS would have to increase gold sinks to take gold back out of the economy - things like Housing, guild trader bids, repair costs, Outfit System, and COD costs.

So unless ZOS wants to adjust their gold sinks to account for inflation, I doubt they'll increase the NPC vendor prices.

Especially when there is a simple solution: join a trading guild. There are plenty of guilds with decent traders and low or no fees/requirements. If you want to make more gold, spend that hour farming alchemy reagents and crafting materials and sell those to other players in the guild trader or in zone chat if you prefer to collect in bulk.

yodased

you don't need a guild or a store to sell your items. Use tamrieltradecentre.com for an overview of the market listings for the items you want to sell and then go to the 3 alliance capitals, craglorn and summerset.

Announce in zone you want to sell X for Y price. Even if they see it after you zone, they will send you a private message. .

Many people sell exclusively this way to reduce the overhead being in a high requirement guild causes.

Hymzir

You're doing it wrong...

Think of it this way - If you can make millions by selling to other players via Guild Stores, then where did the people who buy stuff from the guild store get their gold in the first place?

There are plenty of sources that inject more gold to the system. Daily Quests are a prime example of this. Just doing crafting writs on 1 character each day will net you over 4k in gold. Plus some more from the junk and ornate items you get from the reward coffers.

You can further improve your gains by learning all the traits and learning as many motifs as possible. The gold mats and master writs you get will add lot more to your haul. My master crafters tend to get at least one of those, and usually about two, each time I do all the crafting dailies with them.

Bosses as a rule do not drop gold, and aren't really a source for it. They drop other valuable or useful stuff depending on the boss in question. Getting gold from monsters means grinding mobs - go to one of the Public dungeons that has a good mob density and a handy route to run over and over and over again.

Popular choices are Nchuleftingth, Rkindaleft, Sunhold, Obsidian Scar, Razak's Wheel and the Vile manse. Chapter dungeons come with the benefit of additional rare drops, but for simple gold grinding Vile Manse is my personal favorite. Just run around the upper level grinding mobs while listening to some podcast or Youtube video and generate tons and tons of gold.

Any dungeon, or any place with lots of mobs, will do the trick, but public dungeon mobs tend to drop lot more gold than items. Like 50 or more gold per drop and come in large packs. Though not all of them drop gold every time, but a single mob pack will generate couple of hundred gold. Kill 10 mob packs and you got 2k in gold. With a properly specced and geared AOE build it takes less 12 seconds to wipe a mob pack of 10. Grind a way for an hour or two and make serious bank in the process.

The trash items mobs drop generate even more gold, but need to be vendored, and unless you have the Merchant assistant, vendor trash will clog up your inventory and force you to make more vendor runs, and thus cutting into your gold grinding time.

Do not waste money on repairing your armor - it's a gold sink designed to funnel gold away from the system. With a max CP character, you can easily grind mobs even when running around naked. Fixing your gear is best done by using repair kits you get from doing crafting dailies. I haven't used gold for armor repair in years now, and have several hundred grand repair kits distributed among my characters.

If mindless grinding of mobs is not your thing, you can always go the thievery route. There are tons of lucrative places with tons of easily pillageable containers, and you can make 10k in an hour just by pilfering stuff and fencing green and higher quality stuff at the nearest outlaw refuge. Grinding gold via thievery does require bit more attention and care than just grinding monsters, but may suit your personal tastes better.

There are lots of other lucrative ways of making bank, but do tend to require access to a decent guild store to maximize your profits. But even something as simple as grinding dolmens will net out plenty of gold and stuff to vendor. Even making Treasure chest runs gives plenty of gold and ornate items to vendor.

The point is, that just by doing base content, at max level, should net you at least 5k per session and usually lot more than that. Focusing on grinding gold should net you at least 10k an hour. If your not getting that, then you are indeed doing something wrong. Hope my tips will help you to a more financially secure future.

phileunderx2

This morning loaded up my alt account and discovered I only had 50 gold on her so I snuck around the crafting area in vivec city and stole everything that was easily stealable. Took about 10 minutes and I made 380 gold. More than enough to train my mount. making gold is easy and being in a trading guild isn't necessary.

VaranisArano

phileunderx2 wrote: »

This morning loaded up my alt account and discovered I only had 50 gold on her so I snuck around the crafting area in vivec city and stole everything that was easily stealable. Took about 10 minutes and I made 380 gold. More than enough to train my mount. making gold is easy and being in a trading guild isn't necessary.

True. Leveling Legerdemain and fencing stolen items is the real way to make money for anyone who doesnt want to sell to other players.

AlnilamE

Kill things. Vendor loot. Profit.

It adds up rather quickly.

Anotherone773

There seems to be a lot of poor people in ESO who think making a few hundred gold is hard. As @Hymzir said the people who have millions to spend buying on guild traders have to get it some where. They get it from a multitude of places.

* Crafting writs= At max level these pay 3500-4000 gold per character per day.
* Gold Drops from mobs. = It sounds insignificant until you put into perspective how many mobs are killed a day. Millions of gold is generated everyday just from mobs.
* Vendoring= selling a few foul hides and a couple of gnawed bones doesnt sound significant. And its not. But you get ornate gear from various places( mostly writs) and those produce a couple hundred gold each out of thin air. Then there are items you think wouldnt be vendored. Like i vendor about 1 stack of soul gems a week for 6k gold.
* Treasure chests= Every chest has gold. With the right CP allocation at max level that gold is over 100 per chest. Doesnt seem like much but some people will run 100 plus chests a day.
* Quest rewards= max level these are just over 300 each. Between writs and daily quests i use to bring in about 6k per character on 4 characters or about 24k in a few hours of playing. Not efficient by itself but the real rewards was not the gold it was just a bonus.
* Thievery = This can be a huge money generator. I can collect about 15-20k in about 30 minutes each on 4 characters. This was how i made money when i first started playing. In my first 6 weeks with two characters i made 350k almost all of it from stealing.

Most of this is just by products for the more industrious players. I dont even count gold generated by the game anymore. I make far more off guild traders.

TaliColdwater

Honestly, I wish sometimes that stuff was worth more at regular merchants too. I'm a member of a few guilds and sell stuff at those. I'll do dolmens, crafting writs, steal everywhere I go, and hunt treasure chests. I still hover around 30K. Here lately, I'm only at 15K. The one and only time I've ever had over 100K was when we had that daily log in reward. I took the opportunity to buy some furniture for my house. Buuuuuut, I wouldn't want an inflation type situation either. So...boo.

Erraln

100 gold an hour?

Go pick one Columbine, and double your income o_O

SHADOW2KK

Plenty of guides on Youtube and elsewhere on how to make gold, tbh it is very easy to make millions in the game, but to be fair, the first one is the hardest.

Go for a wander, pick up loads of mats that people use for tri stat pots, like Columbine, etc etc, and then sell in zone, sell gold mats in zone, or w/e, but pretty easy to make gold but you do have to know what the current rates are, since you are not in a guild making your job making gold harder, then use the TTC addon which gives an approximate amount for stuff.

Not read the rest of the posts, but even doing crafting writs on a few characters nets in a good bit of gold per week plus gold mats etc, vendoring is rubbish:P

Kiralyn2000

phileunderx2 wrote: »

This morning loaded up my alt account and discovered I only had 50 gold on her so I snuck around the crafting area in vivec city and stole everything that was easily stealable. Took about 10 minutes and I made 380 gold.

There's easier places to rob, depending on what quests you've done/etc. The ships on the NW dock in Daggerfall; the Altmer Embassy in Elden Root/Grahtwood; the Inn? on Bleakrock Isle, post-quest; etc.

i.e, interior building spaces with many containers and few (if any) NPCs, that you can reset all the containers by logging out & in again.

mairwen85

A few rounds sneaking, stealing, murdering, pilfering the church in daggerfall can net you approx 15k in 30 minutes. The npc respawn rate is high, the chests, crates and scenery items replenish quick too. Just learn the rotation of the npc cycles, top right upstairs, main hall front, right aisle, left aisle, stage area, you can repeat as long as needed or your bags are full, teleport to hews bane thieves den, hit up the fence, voila - - profit. I start most days with this easy church run.

Sometimes I take a guildie or 2 and have them sneak behind me... They get free gold and zero risk of bounty.

ImmortalCX

30-40K gold an hour just farming nodes and selling mats, assuming you expanded your inventory to the 180+ range.

You can generate a million in a week if you really need to in 25-30 hours. Thats a few hours each night until you have your first mil. Just go to Craglorn and farm. Keep increasing your inventory. Sell full stacks of mats.

Go into zone chat and say returning player lf tg 300K+ weekly sales. You will get a whisper from a top trading guild.

Once you have a million, you don't really need any more gold, thats enough of a buffer to buy any expensive gear or housing items you need.

mreisse

TaliColdwater wrote: »

I still hover around 30K. Here lately, I'm only at 15K. The one and only time I've ever had over 100K was when we had that daily log in reward. I took the opportunity to buy some furniture for my house. Buuuuuut, I wouldn't want an inflation type situation either. So...boo.

I think it's not that you're not earning enough, but that you're spending faster . When I started out, i was always just this side of broke, but that was due to my bank and bag upgrade costs. I literally did not buy anything else until I maxed bag and bank. When I hit 240 and 200, you can bet I threw myself a little party lol. And then a week later, with exactly the same activities, my bank was sitting pretty at 100k, and I haven't looked back since.

Don't spend on nice to have until you have your must expenditures bought.

MartiniDaniels

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Hmm. I started playing in late June. I have over 2M gold now. Gold is easy.... just do crafting writs on 12 of 15 girls every day. Serious. I don't sell anything except to vendors - I'm not into the guild store monopoly (just give me a real AH damn it). I don't spend a lot of gold for anything.

Gold is easy. Quest lines.... not so much.

Lol, 15 alts in 4 month of play, 1-2 hours each day for writs only, for resource restock etc.. and you call it easy way 🤨

Parrot1986

Crafting is such an easy gold mine once you’ve put the work in to get it maxed out on as many alts as possible.
I do writs on 12 alts pretty much daily and get 40-50k a day from that. I get loads of surveys and gold mats meaning I never spend money on mats and start selling them when I get to 300 of each.
I also get master writs from those and roughly have 6k of them stacked. Each week I sell 1 or 2 attainable stations and get 200-400k for very little effort.

That method isn’t going to get you the most gold and it’s not beginner friendly but once you’ve been playing a while it’s easy to get 1-2m a month without much effort.

From a new player perspective I’m just levelling on NA and at level 36 I’ve alresdy got 300k gold from questing looking recipes etc. Some of that might be a bit of luck but at that level you really shouldn’t need to spend any gold at all.

JumpmanLane

Getting money in this game is EASY. Selling trash to an NPC is not how you go about it.

Beardimus

Nic727 wrote: »

Hi,

I really love ESO even if I'm not playing a lot like most of you, but it's been a while I'm thinking to write this thread. It's about the ESO economy (gold).

Getting gold in the game is way too hard if you don't sell items to other players directly or if you are luck in your guild store. My problem is that you can get a lvl 50 gold weapon and it will only sell for 20 gold to a vendor.

I personally don't use the guild vendor a lot and getting money in the game is so long. I'm only getting around 100 gold/hour by defeating bosses and selling some stuffs really fast.

Is there any way Zenimax could change how the economy work?

For example, items could be more and more expensive depending of the rarity and the level. (I'm talking about selling to normal vendor).

Thank you

Gold is very easy to make in game, and selling trash to vendors is not the way. Even a bad set Gold weopon will get you 10k from a trader. But up to 100k for a decent set.

If you don't want to trade that's you not adapting to the game. Flooding the game with gold is not the answer.

Do writs is another option 4k a day per toon. People went crazy for the free 100k in September not realising you can make that every month doing writs alone. And sell tempers etc from refining.

MartiniDaniels

I’m imagining this awesomness, 15 alts, 90 writs, 50k from writs. then steal-pickpocket to fence limit on each, another 30-40k from theft. Then random daily dungeon and bg on each alt, then ashlander dailys, summerset dailys, CWC dailys, pledges, you may got 300k+ per day that way, but if you are so prone to tedious and repetitive work you may go to the office and be your boss favorite errant guy, high salary and benefits guaranteed 👍🏻

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

@Nic727 if it was easy it wouldn't mean anything...just keep in mind if they lets say increase the amount that means inflation so it would be the same thing...

siddique

Farm dolmens and play battlegrounds to get purple rings and necklaces. Deconstruct them until you have ten zircon grains.

Refine them to Zircon plating and sell it for anything between 30 to 40k gold.

Easy peasy.

kargen27

yodased wrote: »

you don't need a guild or a store to sell your items. Use tamrieltradecentre.com for an overview of the market listings for the items you want to sell and then go to the 3 alliance capitals, craglorn and summerset.

Announce in zone you want to sell X for Y price. Even if they see it after you zone, they will send you a private message. .

Many people sell exclusively this way to reduce the overhead being in a high requirement guild causes.

Adding to this you can link things in zone chat and ask for a price check, Usually a few people will respond with a master merchant quote (assuming PC). If you are on a console you will have to be more trusting that players are giving you realistic prices.

mague

Nic727 wrote: »

Getting gold in the game is way too hard if you don't sell items to other players directly or if you are luck in your guild store. My problem is that you can get a lvl 50 gold weapon and it will only sell for 20 gold to a vendor.

I personally don't use the guild vendor a lot and getting money in the game is so long. I'm only getting around 100 gold/hour by defeating bosses and selling some stuffs really fast.

You get over 100 just by fishing. I dont sell at the guild vendor at all and i never had any money issues. But i do crafting missions on all professions on one character and a few dailies. Undaunted solo is 15 minutes work and pays well. There are more dailies then i have time to play. Armor and weapons i rather deconstruct for the materials and rares.

munster1404

I'm not a member of any guild and I have 4.4 million from doing daily writs and selling to NPC merchants.

Gargath

I'm not doing any dailies or the writs but have no issues with gold.
I don't believe in this "I'm only getting around 100 gold/hour by defeating bosses and selling some stuffs really fast."
You would get much more than 100g from killing human mobs in that hour.

And let me say this straight OP, the gold lies on the ground in piles, you just need to know what to do . ZOS will not change the economy which is fine, it's you who must learn and adapt . It took me some time but now I know what to do, and you will know too.

A single tip for free: make an alt who is a thief.
A Khajiit stamina nightblade, equipped with easily obtainable medium sets
- Night Mother's Embrace (5 pcs.) - drops in Deshaan
- Night Terror (3 pcs.) - drops in Stormhaven
With proper luck and skills your cat will earn 10-20k gold a day (with maxed out Legerdemain Trafficker passive).

Sevalaricgirl

VaranisArano wrote: »

Increasing the amount of gold you can get by selling items to NPC vendors will increase the amount of gold in circulation. That leads to inflation. To combat inflation, ZOS would have to increase gold sinks to take gold back out of the economy - things like Housing, guild trader bids, repair costs, Outfit System, and COD costs.

So unless ZOS wants to adjust their gold sinks to account for inflation, I doubt they'll increase the NPC vendor prices.

Especially when there is a simple solution: join a trading guild. There are plenty of guilds with decent traders and low or no fees/requirements. If you want to make more gold, spend that hour farming alchemy reagents and crafting materials and sell those to other players in the guild trader or in zone chat if you prefer to collect in bulk.

No, what ZOS needs to do is rework trading. They need to do an auction house. They needed to do an auction house from the beginning, not this stupid forcing guilds on people to sell their stuff. Sorry, though I really enjoy the game, I think that is the stupidest decision they made.

mairwen85

The only sensible way to rework trading would be to control pricing and force out monopolisation through an official tamriel traders market for common items (not specialist or made to trade) Unlike an auction house items have a fixed upper price and traders operate at or below it. Guilds can still operate as they do (hopefully one day with a proper search interface) but can no longer demand extortionate prices as potential customers will turn to the market. Of course, that upper band would have to still allow for players to earn nicely.

IwakuraLain42

Hymzir wrote: »

Bosses as a rule do not drop gold, and aren't really a source for it. They drop other valuable or useful stuff depending on the boss in question. Getting gold from monsters means grinding mobs - go to one of the Public dungeons that has a good mob density and a handy route to run over and over and over again.

Popular choices are Nchuleftingth, Rkindaleft, Sunhold, Obsidian Scar, Razak's Wheel and the Vile manse. Chapter dungeons come with the benefit of additional rare drops, but for simple gold grinding Vile Manse is my personal favorite. Just run around the upper level grinding mobs while listening to some podcast or Youtube video and generate tons and tons of gold.

Any dungeon, or any place with lots of mobs, will do the trick, but public dungeon mobs tend to drop lot more gold than items. Like 50 or more gold per drop and come in large packs. Though not all of them drop gold every time, but a single mob pack will generate couple of hundred gold. Kill 10 mob packs and you got 2k in gold. With a properly specced and geared AOE build it takes less 12 seconds to wipe a mob pack of 10. Grind a way for an hour or two and make serious bank in the process.

You should add that this only really works if you are alone in the public dungeon, as every player near you reduces the gold gain dramatically. I would recommend the Vile Manse and Razak's Wheel as they have Imperial mobs and they drop more gold then any other mob. If you can craft a simple armor set in the Impen trait as this reduce your repair cost, leave the dungeon when the durability drops to 0.