PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for Multi-Bidding

Dusk_Coven

(EDITED)

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

ZOS need to lay out, explicitly, what it is they think the Trade System does, and why and how it does it.
Only then can we as paying customers hold them properly to account for their ability to deliver to those specifications.

I'm gonna put my conspiracy theory hat on and venture to say their goals for the Guild Stores are not something most players would get behind, even if they recognized the need for it from the point of maintaining the game. Like a gold sink.

I am trusting that it's for the good of the game somehow, but if they don't want to open up even more cans of worms by telling us their goals and getting criticized for it; or showing too much of the mechanics and exposing the game to exploitation or people pushing the limits...

It would be nice to get guidance from them about their objectives. But if they never tell us openly what the goals for the design of the Guild Stores are, I can't say I'd blame them.

Merlight

Fiktius wrote: »

Every single time when a big guild is gonna get outbid, thanks to back up system the domino effect will be going down to bottom of the chain where a small guild will get a hit and be dropped out of the map entirely, just because they were unlucky enough to be in the same chain were domino went forwards.

You're deliberately ignoring the guild (let's call them DominoZero) that started it. Winning their bid over "a big guild" makes the kiosk previously occupied by DominoZero available for others. Every guild in the chain except DominoZero saves gold. If some small guild gets dropped out entirely because they didn't have or lost their backup, then it means some other guild, that previously didn't have a kiosk, now has one.

martinhpb16_ESO

Merlight wrote: »

Fiktius wrote: »

Every single time when a big guild is gonna get outbid, thanks to back up system the domino effect will be going down to bottom of the chain where a small guild will get a hit and be dropped out of the map entirely, just because they were unlucky enough to be in the same chain were domino went forwards.

You're deliberately ignoring the guild (let's call them DominoZero) that started it. Winning their bid over "a big guild" makes the kiosk previously occupied by DominoZero available for others. Every guild in the chain except DominoZero saves gold. If some small guild gets dropped out entirely because they didn't have or lost their backup, then it means some other guild, that previously didn't have a kiosk, now has one.

Sorry too much of a simplification. A shuffle like you describe would only be the case if there were enough kiosks to go around, but there aren't. Also I don't think Fik would deliberately ignore anything if it was a real possibility.

Also the reality of all that swapping around is higher bids, increased dues, stress on GMs and pressure on weaker guilds

anitajoneb17_ESO

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Sorry too much of a simplification. A shuffle like you describe would only be the case if there were enough kiosks to go around, but there aren't. Also I don't think Fik would deliberately ignore anything if it was a real possibility.

LoL.
So according to your reasoning (which you believe to not be over-simplified ? Lol lol lol), what's is going to happen to the spot freed by "DominoZero" ?

Merlight

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Also I don't think Fik would deliberately ignore anything if it was a real possibility.

Alright, bad choice of words on my side. Maybe he just forgot, but the point stands. He described a domino effect where each guild falls into its backup spot, except the last guild that falls off the table, but forgot to consider the spot that was freed by the guild who kicked the first one. It was an oversimplification to begin with, and a flawed one.

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Also the reality of all that swapping around is higher bids, increased dues, stress on GMs and pressure on weaker guilds

That may very well be the end result, but I tend to think the market can sort it out.

Sorcery

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

AzraelAcid

Okay, I really have to echo the sentiments of almost everyone on this thread.

I've been playing since beta. I've been a member and officer in several trade guilds. In that time I've helped to manage and maintain day to day trader guild activities i.e fundraising for trader bids.

It's almost always been a large chore at best and a nightmare at worst
So much that many people burn out over time. I know the GM's do a lot. I've seen the work first hand. Guild officers also feel that pressure to perform, especially in trade guilds. GM's rely heavily on officers to perform weekly duties to ensure a competitive bid.
People have invented ways to make fundraising incentivized. There are many ways trader guilds do this: dues, weekly sales quotas, donation minimums, point scale systems, auctions, raffles, giveaways, etc.

I took a break from ESO for about a year, because the pressure of doing this day to day feels like actual work. This is the second time I've had an ESO hiatus.
Since I've been back, I've made it clear that I don't want any leadership responsibilities, because I'd just like to enjoy the game.

I can tell you that multi-bidding will increase these activities exponentially. You'll effectively crush any such thing as a "laid back" trading guild.
Many members will leave due to the perceived non-stop harassment they feel from officers and GM's. Even trader guilds with the best of intentions for their members sometimes push a bit too far.

ZOS before you implement this change I HIGHLY recommend that you actually meet with the GM's and officers of small and medium trading guilds. I also suggest meeting with the leadership of large successful trading guilds. Listen to them. Understand them. Put yourself in those shoes. Nobody wants to be a slave driver. I think if you hosted a stream about this subject alone, you'd find a lot of GM's will be receptive and willing to give you their input.

All I'm hearing is a resounding NO, with some even begging you to leave this out of UD23. Do your fan base a favor and hear them out. This kind of change can have completely unintended consequences.

My suggestions are, if you want a player run economy with a free market, then make it a truly free market. Open an auction house, or allow people to list their wares at any trader they choose, without having to belong to a guild just for selling purposes. I really hope you all hear them out. It would do some good.

Respectfully,
Azrael

anitajoneb17_ESO

Sorcery wrote: »

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

I bet you're a GM of a trading guild, believing they're (you're) the only one to have the right to express an opinion on the matter. I mean, after all, traders are just users, right ? They know nothing, can't think, therefore shouldn't say.
Quid erat demonstrandum.

And again (and again and again and again) : no, I'm not trolling. I'm pointing out obvious wrongs in people's reasoning, asking them to clarify. I'm not provoking, I'm not assaulting, I'm not trolling, I'm not off-topic, and I have every right to participate in the debate.

And finally, asking me repeatedly to "prove" my legitimacy via a visit card and asking me over and over and over whether or not I'm a GM or officer in a trading guild and if so, which one, isn't very constructive, is it... ? I will NOT answer that question (which proves nothing, one way or the other) simply because I think I don't have to. That question is totally irrelevant.

martinhpb16_ESO

Merlight wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Also I don't think Fik would deliberately ignore anything if it was a real possibility.

Alright, bad choice of words on my side. Maybe he just forgot, but the point stands. He described a domino effect where each guild falls into its backup spot, except the last guild that falls off the table, but forgot to consider the spot that was freed by the guild who kicked the first one. It was an oversimplification to begin with, and a flawed one.

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Also the reality of all that swapping around is higher bids, increased dues, stress on GMs and pressure on weaker guilds

That may very well be the end result, but I tend to think the market can sort it out.

Thanks for the reply, good to chew it over. However there aren't enough spots to go around. if we had 100 trader spots and 100 guilds your scenario would play out. Also trader spots arent equitable in terms of their location for trading. So there is increased demand for the better spots. So even with a cascade system someone is still likely to lose out because not every spot will have had multi-bids. What I am saying is that multiple guilds will be bidding on the same backup spots.

I hope that makes sense?

Even with multi-bidding open to all it wont be equitable for guilds because it still relies on the availability of gold. Also some factions exert significantly more influence than others so again bidding is not equitable.

I agree with you the market will always find its own level, but unfortunately it is likely to have a detrimental effect on weaker guilds with less resources and influence. Also there is more chance for conflict.

We already have one major faction leader from PC EU posting in this thread and laying out a scenario whereby he is indicating that he is already planning to scatter bid against another faction because he is being hit by a troll guild. The assumption there is that the troll guild is being funded by a rival. Albeit with the veiled threat of being hypothetical.

There are just too many nuances in this that mean a simple shuffle each week will play out. And in my opinion this is the serious oversight that Zos are making.

martinhpb16_ESO

Sorcery wrote: »

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

Dont feed the troll. Literally just ignore or it gets derailed. She just wants people to argue back.

anitajoneb17_ESO

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Sorcery wrote: »

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

Dont feed the troll. Literally just ignore or it gets derailed. She just wants people to argue back.

No.
I want people to open their minds to the potential benefits for everyone of the new system. I understand that you disagree, but you should know better than accusing people you disagree with of trolling.

Back to topic : in your reasoning, what happens to the kiosk set free by "DominoZero" ?

Dont_do_drugs

We already have one major faction leader from PC EU posting in this thread and laying out a scenario whereby he is indicating that he is already planning to scatter bid against another faction because he is being hit by a troll guild. The assumption there is that the troll guild is being funded by a rival. Albeit with the veiled threat of being hypothetical.

Isn't he coming up with that threat since over a year? I am more confused about someone complaining about bots and goldselling, while a lot of people know, it made him good golds and he has been heavily involved with that. Not to mention that his cancerous behaviour with backup-bidding and bullying mid-range hubs and threatening to bid on specific guilds for speaking out on backup-exploit on forums is one of the major reasons that we have to discuss this multi-bid idea from zos now... and then he compares himself with Meridia, deadra of light.....

Sorcery

Many guilds already have increased requirements by double from this change, that falls onto the members of those Guilds to fund raise even more or be culled. That's the negative part to multi bidding. You become more competitive, increase requirements or you fall behind. I don't see that as a good thing in this change, heck i'd prefer a auction house if this is the route we're taking..and i say that as a GM that's well enough funded to benefit from this change...it won't affect me..but there is many that it will affect.

Not every guild out there has enough gold to sustain 1 bid, let alone 10. If anything there should be only 1 backup bid or 2 at max..this would help the lower guilds actually stand a better chance while also being able to advance in locations if they choose to in the future.Guilds that have been around since beta like my own already are well prepared for this change..some have been prepared years in advance with war chests for bid wars...so how will this benefit new guilds trying to get into the system? Musical chairs with each location being bid on by 100 guilds? that will never let them stabilize, keep this route and even guilds in the middle of nowhere will have requirements, no more casual trade guilds because that wouldn't fund enough by itself...sure a wonderful gold sink at the cost of many communities out there.

Remember this won't effect guilds at the very top by far, many have already doubled requirements, purged 50+ to keep up with this change.What will happen is once a top guild loses it'll ripple down to the bottom. You'll have a guild in location A lose, take out a guild in B, then that guild knocks someone down in C..all the way to the bottom..and that's just only if 1 guild were to lose.

If this change must happen please consider 1 or 2 bids rather than 10 backup bids. Have guilds be more strategic with bidding rather than just slapping down 10 bids which covers nearly 2 entire cities.This also allows the small guilds to afford the extra bids without trying to fund millions right off the bat for 10 bids.

@ZOS_PhilipDraven

Sorcery

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Sorcery wrote: »

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

Dont feed the troll. Literally just ignore or it gets derailed. She just wants people to argue back.

Yeah i know , they're the type to take opposing sides in most every topic just to get a reaction back. Seen it before, waste of time and not even entertaining truthfully.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Sorcery wrote: »

Not every guild out there has enough gold to sustain 1 bid, let alone 10.

See ? You come up again with that same false argument.
A guild does NOT need 10 times the gold to place 10 bids ! That is just plain wrong and shows that you haven't even tried to give the new system any objective thought.

Let's assume you need 10M to get a spot in your desired location, which has 6 traders. You can maximize your chances by bidding on all 6 traders - which requires 60M, but you have 12M in the guild bank.
Fine. Now borrow 50M from your guild members (NO ! THAT'S NOT HARD ! Many - and I mean MANY - players involved with trading sit on mountains of gold). As long as none of your bids is higher than your actual own funds (12M), you are 100% ensured to reimburse your members straight after trader flip, and that a ZERO COST, ZERO RISK operation. Because you can only ever win ONE bid. No matter how many you've placed.

Stop saying that guilds don't have enough funds to place multiple bids. THIS IS FALSE.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Sorcery wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Sorcery wrote: »

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Honestly seems you're just trolling this post, so really are you even a GM of a trade guild? If so where even? This first of all is mainly a topic affecting trade GMs, and you seem to just go on attacking random people on the thread isn't very productive is it.

Dont feed the troll. Literally just ignore or it gets derailed. She just wants people to argue back.

Yeah i know , they're the type to take opposing sides in most every topic just to get a reaction back. Seen it before, waste of time and not even entertaining truthfully.

I wish you understood the meaning of "ignoring" :-)
But I guess that will come in handy for you in order to avoid my remarks and questions based on truth.

Urigall

I'm not a GM so I might be talking out of turn. I'm only a lowly trader as well as a lowly buyer. But the changes will affect everyone, not just GMs.

Being compelled to move from a preferred spot might be an argument against the new system.

If the changes shake up the trader spots, so be it. Occupation of a spot for long periods doesn't confer the right to remain there permanently. Winning a bid one week should not lead to the outcome of next week's bid being a foregone conclusion: a spot should be acquired through a competitive process. Saying "we don't like the changes because we'll have to move" presupposes there is an inalienable right to permanent occupation of any, given spot. There is no automatic "right" to retaining the occupation of a spot.

The key issues are 1) what are the ramifications for all guilds b) what do they mean for traders and c) how will the average player be affected? Everything else is of secondary importance, including not wanting to move from one spot to another. Why even bother with a weekly bidding process for certain kiosk spots, if they are unlikely to change hands? Squatter's rights?

Getting rid of the ghost guilds gets one problem out of the way. Another problem will then arise if the multiple bidding system adversely impacts upon the trader map and, thus, causes too much uncertainty for traders. At first sight the impact looks like it will be one of a ripple down effect, one that will lead to some guilds being pushed off the ladder. That is THE issue. Guild spots changing hands won't lead to the demise of the trading system. Spots will still be filled, still be sold and gold will still be sunk.

Fiktius

Merlight wrote: »

Fiktius wrote: »

Every single time when a big guild is gonna get outbid, thanks to back up system the domino effect will be going down to bottom of the chain where a small guild will get a hit and be dropped out of the map entirely, just because they were unlucky enough to be in the same chain were domino went forwards.

You're deliberately ignoring the guild (let's call them DominoZero) that started it. Winning their bid over "a big guild" makes the kiosk previously occupied by DominoZero available for others. Every guild in the chain except DominoZero saves gold. If some small guild gets dropped out entirely because they didn't have or lost their backup, then it means some other guild, that previously didn't have a kiosk, now has one.

I'm not ignoring the fact that this "DominoZero" got now a spot since they won the bid. Their members will be happily selling now items in that spot for a week.
However rest of the guilds in the chain are sitting somewhere where they originally didn't want to be and of course people can say at some degree: "Too bad for you, just bid higher."

Wealthier guilds can bid higher indeed and they will do it at the next week, but the harm of such a domino chain becomes higher when we go forwards to the lower tiers at the same chain. It's only logical that guilds does consider how much gold they will place on their back up spots and they try to guess how much gold the lower tier guilds usually are expected to bid on that kind of spots. These "sniping" guilds which are intending to use their spots as back ups will make sure to bid higher, for increasing their chance to win in case they really need that spot, if primary bid is lot.
And this is something which will be much more significant and harmful at bottom of the chain, where casual guilds have very minimal chance to get a trader, if they happen to be in this domino chain, due they have no funding to get even one bid high enough to hold the trader.
Are casual guilds supposed to say now to the members:
"Sorry folks, no requirements times are over and in case you want to remain in the guild, you need to sell X or donate Y" ?
That's a loss of variety of different kind of guilds this community usually could provide for players in the game.
Very pity. Unless these small guild leaders happens to be ultra rich, then they got much less reasons to worry about lol.

So like I said before: wealthier guilds can deal with this easier way and fund massive bids across Tamriel if necessary, meanwhile smaller guilds do not have that kind of funding and therefore this multi-bidding system is much more harmful for medium and small tier guilds.

silvereyes

Urigall wrote: »

At first sight the impact looks like it will be one of a ripple down effect, one that will lead to some guilds being pushed off the ladder. That is THE issue. Guild spots changing hands won't lead to the demise of the trading system. Spots will still be filled, still be sold and gold will still be sunk.

Of course there will still be a trader system. It's the only way available in the game for people to trade short of spamming WTS in zone chat, so people will make it work.

However, I think it's a bit simplistic to say that small guilds getting pushed out will be the only negative effect on players. I'm just a lowly trader / buyer as well, but I recognize that the decisions that trade guild GMs make due to major economic system changes have a direct impact on me. Some examples:

• When selling crown gifts for gold was introduced to the system, sales / raffle ticket requirements in all my trade guilds more than doubled.
• When the guild sales history problems started and ZOS disabled MM's access to price data, one of my no-requirements trade guilds that that funded the trader out of the GM's own pocket stopped being a trade guild.
• When one of my trade guilds' kiosks repeatedly lost their trader due to an alliance targeting the trader, they ended up doubling requirements and moving to a better spot.

While the GMs'/officer's opinions on the topic as players has no more weight than any other players' opinions, their decisions affect up to 500 sellers per guild. Whether their fears are real or imagined, the effect that those fears have on the decisions they make is very real for their guild members.

One of Phil's stated aims for multi-bidding was to reduce "pressure on [trading guilds] to place exorbitant bids". The only people who can really give feedback on whether the feature accomplishes that goal - the ones who place the bids - have largely responded that multi-bidding will have the opposite effect.

This worries me, not only because I hate to see more stress added to already stressed people, many of them friends. It worries me because I can easily see some just saying "screw this" as one of my guilds already has. It worries me because meeting increased requirements will undoubtedly mean people leaving guilds. It worries me because I can see lots of players being pushed out of the trader system entirely.

Sure, all this has happened before. Sure the system will adjust. But if the stated purpose of multi-bidding is to improve trading and guild management, I think it will largely fail at this goal.

Urigall

silvereyes wrote: »

However, I think it's a bit simplistic to say that small guilds getting pushed out will be the only negative effect on players

That wasn't my point of view in the context of impact. I could have made it clearer - my fault.

From my commentary:

-- The key issues are 1) what are the ramifications for all guilds

Another problem will then arise if the multiple bidding system adversely impacts upon the trader map

At first sight the impact looks like it will be one of a ripple down effect --

"All guilds" means every guild that might be adversely affected. All guilds might take a hit.

"the trader map"" means the way it will change overall. All guilds might take a hit.

"the ripple effect" means guilds will potentially be pushed down from their current "tier" The end result will be the weakest/poorest guilds getting the royal shaft, over and above the impact upon many, other guilds.

I should have stated all of that more clearly. If the changes do lead to what we think they will lead - bad.

chess1ukb16_ESO

Hi Urigall your question "what are the ramifications for all guilds" and other follow ups..let me see if I can give you my perspective...

- Bids will go up for the first few weeks, probably first few months out of nerves at the new system and knowledge you can never again risk a 'cheap bid week'
- Over time the excess gold in the system will start to drain and bids will normalise out of necessity, bar for those that buy gold to support their bidding. This could take to Xmas tbh.
- Few Guilds if any will occupy a single kiosk 50 out of 52 weeks as they have for the last few years. This is a huge shock to the system as people are very possessive of their kiosk(s) me included.
- Guilds will spread bids across other kiosks of the same quality as their own; plus the odd hopeful up bid and cautious insurance bid on lower quality kiosks to ensure they have something in the event all other bids fail.
- Every Guild from the top down will move more frequently as a result but remember there are the same amount of Guilds and kiosks as now so those that are better performing and have income will absolutely secure something most weeks even at the bottom end.
- Social, roleplay or PvP guilds that just want a Trader somewhere will likely lose out more often than not unless they are able to secure a lot of donations.

What happens in the first few weeks is not necessarily indicative over what will happen in 6 months. There is an enormous amount of gold in individuals Banks and until that is thinned things will absolutely be chaotic. Some players might get reckless and overspend and start well but run low over time; some may be too cautious. This will be a pressure/stress point for GM's. Bidding has always been stressful after U23 it will be ten times more so and some may honestly pack it in as a consequence. Others will take their place.

However, this new multi-bid system will inevitably thin the gold which is important and must happen and over time make it easier for new an aspiring hardworking and ambitious Guilds to get a foothold, albeit that is likely as I said going to take a few months to drain the huge gold reservoirs out there.

Then the best performing Guilds will be able to bid and win on the better locations just like now and the only issue we will all face is players getting access to gold externally via buying it either legitimately or otherwise.

Dont_do_drugs

u cannot buy gold, when its sunk.

martinhpb16_ESO

silvereyes wrote: »

[*] When selling crown gifts for gold was introduced to the system, sales / raffle ticket requirements in all my trade guilds more than doubled.

This. I've mentioned this before on forums that crown selling has had a massive impact on trading.

Its a difficult one for Zos because they love the income from players selling crowns for game gold, but its has increased bids massively across the board. We used to say wow when overbidders bid 10m but now that feels only above average.

If Zos wants to monitor and help the cornerstone of the economy they need to think about the impact of such decisions like legalising crown gift selling for ingame gold.

Got the $, you get the crowns, you get the gold, you get advantages in trading.

anitajoneb17_ESO

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Got the $, you get the crowns, you get the gold, you get advantages in trading.

The gold paid for crowns isn't created out of thin air, it's gold transferred from one player to another. If it is used for bidding for trader spots, it's redirected straight into a gold sink.

I understand and agree that it is unfair for trading guilds (although they're not so picky when it comes to collecting taxes and sales figures from bot sellers).

However, I don't see any way that ZOS could consider as negative something that is 1/ good for the game (more gold being redirected straight into the sink) and 2/ good for ZOS ($$$).

sylviermoone

Apologize in advance for the wall of text to come....

I have been playing ESO since beta. I wasn't always a GM of a trade guild; that responsibility came years later. As I've seen the name of my guild specifically mentioned in threads related to the issue of multi-bidding, I'd like to just put out there for the record that Angry Unicorn Traders is not a "legacy" trade guild. We were a new guild once, and we built and scraped and saved to become the guild we are. ANYONE CAN DO THIS, if they're willing to work hard and build a community of like-minded players. Considering that there are literally MILLIONS of players currently without access to the in-game economy (per ZOS's own estimates of the numbers of players minus the amount that can be serviced by the existing kiosks), the opportunity to put together a community of 500 players that doesn't have access and are willing to work to gain access should be quite high. Most people that create successful new trading guilds utilize existing, high traffic guilds to sell their items, and then use that gold to fund their new venture. Just like if you were to create a new business by saving money earned from your existing job to fund it.

Trading and the economy in ESO were always meant to revolve around your guild. When the game launched, you could only access the guild stores of guilds you were in. While we have a much more robust economy with the addition of kiosks, it is still a guild centered economy. At launch, selling and buying between your guildmates was all that was necessary. As the game and player base matured and more gold was introduced into the game, a larger economy (and gold sink) was warranted. The addition of kiosks fulfilled this purpose. Each week, hundreds of millions of gold is removed from circulation via kiosk bids. Altering the way the economy functions without introducing a new mechanism to sink this amount of gold would be unwise for the overall health of the game economy.

The fact is that we as GM's HAVE asked for a feature such as this, for quite some time. Pain points within the bidding system itself have caused the issue of shadow guilds and back up guilds to arise (at least on PC/NA, though I understand the reason for ghost guilds on console to be different). In the heat of the moment, when trying to hire an empty kiosk moments after flip on Sunday night, it is far too easy to accidentally lock your guild into a bid you never intended to place. Other kiosks in the game, specifically in outlaw refuges, have been bugged since they were introduced, and attempting to hire what appears to be an empty location instead can lock you into a bid YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU'RE MAKING. At this point, most serious GMs I know would rather go without a kiosk than risk bidding on an apparently empty outlaw's refuge location.

We have long asked for the ability to rescind a bid within a reasonable amount of time (24-48 hours from the time the bid is placed) to correct for systemic flaws in the bidding process. I believe that this is part of the intent of the multi-bidding process. Locking a kiosk, or making guilds that own a kiosk unable to disband, will help with the issue of ghost and shadow guilds, as well.

HOWEVER - I believe there are some serious potential flaws with multi-bidding. I have serious concerns with the load on the servers as they are attempting to process bids each week. Every week, it seems the delay between when kiosks are supposed to flip and when that information actually gets pushed out to our clients lengthens just a little bit. Admittedly, the delay is just shy of about 2 minutes at this point; compounding this by the potential of every guild to bid on up to 10 different kiosks seems too much. It is unclear how this change will affect the time it takes for kiosk ownership to flip each week, and that load cannot be properly tested on PTS; therein lies my biggest issue with this change. Moreover, as the performance of the system has degraded over time, we can expect that any delays introduced with multi-bidding will only increase over time as the system ages. For this reason, it is my belief that 10 bids are too many, and limiting each guild to 2 or 3 bids is a better place to start.

Another flaw with multi-bidding as it's proposed is that the risk is greatly reduced. The risk inherent in the system currently requires GM's to think strategically about how much they will bid and where. Backup bids carry no risk which is what will cause bid amounts everywhere to rise. I suggest a small amount of a lost bid be non-refundable (something like 2%) to encourage GMs to continue to think strategically about how and where they will allocate their resources.

Of course, the biggest issue overall is the lack of access to the economy for the vast majority of players and the burden the system places on buyers. If we presume that there are 9 MILLION players of ESO, and that those players are spread evenly across the platforms (I know they aren't, but for the sake of illustration...) that's 2.25 million players per platform. Currently, there is something like 218 kiosks per server, not including Cyrodiil keeps. If we presume NO player overlap (which again, is not the case), that means only 109,000 players can access the economy on any given week through the purchase of a guild trader. OUT OF OVER 2 MILLION.

This can't be solved by just throwing more kiosks into the mix, though. The competitive nature of the kiosk system is precisely what makes it effective as a gold sink. The effectiveness of certain locations over others drives this competition. It would be my suggestion to increase the number of guilds that can be represented at a kiosk to at least 3. This increases access to the kiosk system while preserving the competition over location, without increasing the number of places a buyer needs to travel to find their item. Further, I would suggest that in each main city of every zone, a single access point is placed at which buyers can search for their items. This reduces the number of interactions a buyer needs to make in order to find the item they are looking for. This would reduce some of the pain points from a buying perspective.

Increasing the number of guilds supported per kiosk to 3 only triples the number of people that have access to the kiosk system, though, which means only 327,000 out of over 2 million. For this reason, small marketplaces should be introduced, either in capital cities or in conjunction with player housing to allow EVERYONE to list up to a certain number of items (I suggest 5-10), at a higher rate of "tax" than at current guild traders. This opens the economy to super casual players while preserving the integrity of the guild centered economy.

All of these changes in tandem with one another can open some access to the guild kiosk system for newer guilds, create access to the economy for very new and very casual players, and reduce some pain points from the perspective of the buyer while still maintaining the kiosk system as a backbone of the ESO experience. This game has matured to a point where the current system no longer functions well for the vast majority of players. Just as the economy evolved with the addition of guild kiosks, it now needs to evolve into something more.

Urigall

chess1ukb16_ESO wrote: »

What happens in the first few weeks is not necessarily indicative over what will happen in 6 months. There is an enormous amount of gold in individuals Banks and until that is thinned things will absolutely be chaotic.

At last. Someone who has thought beyond the immediate impact.

I too think there will be initial chaos. You are absolutely correct - the immediate effects will not, necessarily, be indicative of how the system will bed down over time. Accumulated gold needs to be drawn out of the economy as a first step. Actually, the first step will be getting rid of the ghost guilds. Getting rid of that exploit will probably have an impact that will only become apparent over time. Long overdue.

Thus, it's going to be a bit of a fiznuck for a long time. Your timescale seems perfectly possible.

One could say "why subject us to this stress?" An understandable sentiment. Conversely, the kiosk bidding system is shot through with dodgy practices. Change was inevitable.

Are there less stressful ways to encourage kiosk rotation and facilitate more chances for guilds who don't have huge war chests? Don't know. It's tempting to suggest taking out the ghost guilds would have been enough. I'm not so sure. If there was an easier (more palatable might be a better way to put it) method, ZoS would have taken it.

At first blush the changes instinctively result in...WTH? I've said before that I think there's more to them than meets the eye. The effect over time needs to be considered - absolutely agree.

SantieClaws

ZOS_PhilipDraven wrote: »

The guild trader system is a cornerstone of the in-game economy in ESO, but over time the enormous pressure on trading guilds to have a guild trader every single week has led to behaviors which reduce competition and negatively impact trader customers. Tactics employed to ensure guild trader ownership each week, such as the generation of alternate “shadow” guilds to bid on additional locations as well as guild trader speculation and resale through guild dissolution, often lead to fewer traders populated with goods and massive amounts of wasted gold.

The multi-bidding feature is part of an initiative to provide in-game supported methods for players to have fallback trader bidding options without the associated drawbacks for both guilds and their customers. In addition to multi-bidding, we are also removing the ability for guild traders to be transferred through guild dissolution in an upcoming PTS update for Update 23. We avoided making that change prior to the multi-bidding feature because we wanted to ensure trading guilds weren’t entirely dependent on winning their one single bid each week, which puts even more pressure on them to place exorbitant bids.

We appreciate the concerns being raised regarding this change and we are absolutely committed to monitoring the impact of this feature, as well as potentially making additional adjustments as necessary to ensure the ongoing health of the in-game economy.

Many good evenings.

This one thanks you for your response but has some thoughts and concerns which even the brightest moons could not dispel.

This one shares your concern about the pressure on the system producing undesirable behaviours.

These are but a symptom though of the underlying issue which is far too few traders.

If you do not have plans to address this in the long term then all you will find that one kind of problem behaviour gets replaced with another one.

This one has mentioned before that while there is limited space in the world to place traders you have unlimited instanced space in the form of housing.

Let people buy or craft a small, medium or large trader for their homes.

Small sells only things you list yourself.

Medium you get to choose from one of your guilds.

Large lists items from all of your guilds.

This allows for an almost infinite number of new trading slots and provides an incentive for house visits.

As long as the proportion of trading stalls to trading guilds remains so out of balance you will be constantly playing whack the mole with trying to prohibit unfair behaviour. You deal with one thing and another will crop up. The only solution is enough traders to go around - so then you really are looking for a good space and not just the desperate scrabble for any place at all like it is for so many guilds now.

The multi bidding will hurt medium and small guilds the most and entrench the untouchable position of the biggest and wealthiest trading guilds. This is not good for traders or customers no.

This one hopes for the best but really fears the worst from this change.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

VaranisArano

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

ZOS_PhilipDraven wrote: »

The guild trader system is a cornerstone of the in-game economy in ESO, but over time the enormous pressure on trading guilds to have a guild trader every single week has led to behaviors which reduce competition

In what way is it a "cornerstone"?

SPECULATION: Extremely intense competition for kiosks involving huge bids is one of the objectives of the guild trader system because it is a gold sink, a way to remove gold from the system as more and more players enter it.
Unlike a real economy, there is unlimited gold and resources.

Maybe this is reading too much into it but the mention of "behaviors that REDUCE competition" might suggest they would like to see more competition -- and more gold exiting the system.

And without knowing what their goals are for the guild trader system, applying our own standards of "reasonable" might be completely irrelevant to them.

And that works if, and ONLY IF, the purpose of a Trade System is to act as a Gold Sink.
In that case the current system is indeed a cornerstone of what they want for the Trade System.


I would argue that the function of a Trade System is to "facilitate ease of trade for both sellers and buyers".
In which case the current system is not a cornerstone, it is a hindrance.


ZOS need to lay out, explicitly, what it is they think the Trade System does, and why and how it does it.
Only then can we as paying customers hold them properly to account for their ability to deliver to those specifications.

All The Best

It does both of those, and more, with the end result that none of it works as well as it could for any one purpose. In fact, most major game systems exist for multiple reasons, some of which serve the players and some of which serve the Devs in ways that may not immediately benefit players.

It is a major gold sink. First up, there's a flat gold sink on every sale (3.5%) that just vanishes. Any time a guild bids more than they receive from the guild tax (3.5% of all sales), which is pretty often in guilds that have raffles and auctions, that's an extra gold sink. Even a guild that never bids more than they earn is putting that 3.5% from the guild tax into the gold sink.

It does facilitate ease of trade. I've personally never had a problem finding a trade guild with the right requirements to join when I wanted to - they are often advertised on PC/NA. YMMV on other servers/platforms. In accordance with ZOS' stated intentions way back before the game launched, the spread out nature of guilds allows players to "shop around" for items with different prices.

It prevents the devaluation of rare gear - this was another original design intent of ZOS. They'd noticed that auction house style games tended to make end game gear very cheap and easy to acquire.

Its a pretty important social mechanism for players. Yeah, some trading guilds are purely about the trade, but every one I've been in there was a lot of socializing going on, particularly around events like the auctions.

There are also some benefits to limiting access to trade from the perspective of the Devs.
1) limited kiosks and sale slots means a limit on how much sales info is generated and handled by the servers - we saw that too much information can cause problems with the recent Guild History issues on PC.
2) Its a powerful incentive to get players into guilds, which are the main avenue of socialization in ESO. You can trade without a guild, but zone chat sales take more time.
3) it creates a very decentralized system where, without addons like TTC, players spend more time in game shopping around, (ESO has a lot of systems designed to get players to spend more time in game, so presumably the Devs see this inefficient design as beneficial to the bottom line.) Moreover, the decentralize system is more resistant, though not immune, to price manipulation.


So while I can't speak to ZOS' ideals for the guild trader system, just by looking at how it functions right now, I see where it has multiple purposes that the Devs find very useful. I'd suggest it has 3 primary benefits.

1. Trader bids in excess of the 3.5% guild sales tax are a major gold sink.
2. Trade guilds tie ease of trading to socializing with other players in guilds, when guilds are ESO's main avenue of socializing.
3. The limited and decentralized trading system fits ZOS' intent for players acquiring items AND doesn't break their server with information demands.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

sylviermoone wrote: »

Of course, the biggest issue overall is the lack of access to the economy for the vast majority of players and the burden the system places on buyers. If we presume that there are 9 MILLION players of ESO, and that those players are spread evenly across the platforms (I know they aren't, but for the sake of illustration...) that's 2.25 million players per platform. Currently, there is something like 218 kiosks per server, not including Cyrodiil keeps. If we presume NO player overlap (which again, is not the case), that means only 109,000 players can access the economy on any given week through the purchase of a guild trader. OUT OF OVER 2 MILLION.

^ Someone gets it.

I was roundly condemned as a liar for pointing this out 3 years ago.


All The Best

Gandrhulf_Harbard

VaranisArano wrote: »

It prevents the devaluation of rare gear - this was another original design intent of ZOS. They'd noticed that auction house style games tended to make end game gear very cheap and easy to acquire.

Where had they noticed this? Because it is something I have NEVER once seen in any game I have played over the last decade that has an AH.

Furthermore, something that could have far more readily been resolved by making said gear BoP, or BtA (Bound To Account).


All The Best