What happened to the price of Columbine ?

Reyleigh

A couple months ago it used to sell for 140-180 per unit
And now its 500-600 ?
To my knowledge there wasn't any new recipe or anything so where does this come from ?
Making the necessary pots for one week of pvp now costs 150-200k gold ?

Nestor

I need to sell some Columbine....

Donny_Vito

Wow, I cannot imagine a 300% increase in Columbine. Something seems off.

stvwhitewalker

i've played this game since release and have never had to buy any of this its all over the place just pick it

Danksta

stvwhitewalker wrote: »

i've played this game since release and have never had to buy any of this its all over the place just pick it

And how many tri pots do you make per week?

OlumoGarbag

Reyleigh wrote: »

A couple months ago it used to sell for 140-180 per unit
And now its 500-600 ?
To my knowledge there wasn't any new recipe or anything so where does this come from ?
Making the necessary pots for one week of pvp now costs 150-200k gold ?

4 imperial cities turned to 2 imperial cities. Now you cant peacefully farm telvar anymore which gave a ton of columbine.
Its time for an IC overhaul

newtinmpls

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

4 imperial cities turned to 2 imperial cities. Now you cant peacefully farm telvar anymore which gave a ton of columbine.
Its time for an IC overhaul

Interesting; that makes a lot of sense.

Nulami

Did the farming bots go on vacation?

Synaki

I think it is bc of the new provisioning recipe, bewitched sugar skulls, + midyear mayhem also increased demand and it never recovered.

Kahnak

It's most likely because of the Bewitched Sugar Skulls. It's the BIS tri-stat food.

VaranisArano

Danksta wrote: »

stvwhitewalker wrote: »

i've played this game since release and have never had to buy any of this its all over the place just pick it

And how many tri pots do you make per week?

I've been tracking my farming in the Hollow City for a bit mostly to sate my own curiosity. Because let's be honest: if you wanna farm flowers instead of Tel Var, you farm the Hollow City loop.

After 6 hours:
Total Columbine: 273
Average Columbine per hr: 46

And for anyone interested in Cornflower, the other expensive flower.
Total Cornflower: 230
Average Cornflower per hr: 38

Mind you, both of those are pretty in line with my totals and averages for the other flowers, especially given that I'd expect at least some of the other players farming the same instance to beeline for the expensive mats while sometimes leaving more of the less desirable ones unpicked.

So as someone who does farm reagents? It really kinda is all other the place if you dedicate some time to actually gathering it from the right places. But then I'm using tripots in PVP and still haven't worked all the way through my stack of crown tripots from the daily rewards, so YMMV.

xWarbrain

The cost of potion materials is getting to be too much. People that strictly play the guild trader economy are ruining it for the rest of us. The cost of Bugloss on Xbox NA shot up to 60k a stack, Columbine is over 40k. Mountain Flower over 20K now. Even Tears went from 13k to almost 20k. I can't afford Tri-Pots. I burn through them in PvP, probably 3-4 stacks a week.

People spend hours traveling from zone to zone, buying all of the Bugloss or Columbine or whatever and relisting it at the major city traders. Then they start competing with each other and raising it by tiny increments.

I tried farming for the mats myself, it took almost 2 hours to find 4 Bugloss, Columbine & Mountain Flower. I'd burn through 16 potions in about 16 minutes of combat.

You know in zone chat when people are listing items they want to buy for half the market value, and others chime in with "scammer! hes a scammer, you can get twice that price for your kuta!"? Guess what? It's not a scam. It's the only way to potentially drop the cost of materials other than Zos flooding the market with materials. They could of course buy the materials at those low costs and the guild traders to in turn buy it from them cheaper anyway, but some of it would reach the market first.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say here I guess is....send me free Bugloss. /rant

Donny_Vito

Conspiracy theory....

All those stingy PvE'ers who kill bosses in IC all day are coming together to subtly raise the prices.

Kingslayer513

Reyleigh wrote: »

A couple months ago it used to sell for 140-180 per unit
And now its 500-600 ?
To my knowledge there wasn't any new recipe or anything so where does this come from ?
Making the necessary pots for one week of pvp now costs 150-200k gold ?

Idk where you're getting this data from. On PC NA it's been selling at around 400 for the past year at least. Yes, it has recently gone up to higher prices. I think it's largely due to higher than usual pvp activity.

DragonRacer

xWarbrain wrote: »

You know in zone chat when people are listing items they want to buy for half the market value, and others chime in with "scammer! hes a scammer, you can get twice that price for your kuta!"? Guess what? It's not a scam. It's the only way to potentially drop the cost of materials other than Zos flooding the market with materials. They could of course buy the materials at those low costs and the guild traders to in turn buy it from them cheaper anyway, but some of it would reach the market first.

Perhaps PS4 NA is different, but 99% of those folks going zone-to-zone buying materials at far-under trader cost are simply turning around and selling that stock at the inflated trader prices in their own traders and/or potentially bulk-selling it to folks/guilds for personal use or re-selling.

All they are doing is taking advantage of folks who want to make a little coin right now or aren't in a trading guild or don't know average prices well. They aren't doing it to try and universally lower prices.

Tatanko

xWarbrain wrote: »

People spend hours traveling from zone to zone, buying all of the Bugloss or Columbine or whatever and relisting it at the major city traders. Then they start competing with each other and raising it by tiny increments.

Any proof of this? You would practically need to be one of these people to understand their scheme on such a level. That or you're making it up.

Synaki

Tatanko wrote: »

Any proof of this? You would practically need to be one of these people to understand their scheme on such a level. That or you're making it up.

It's really not complicated, and easy to understand that this is a way to make gold. Buy at small traders where ppl offer cheap because they need to do so to lure anyone out into the wilderness, then resell for big gold in Belkarth or Vivek or Mournhold, where the busy folk buy in bulk.

phileunderx2

I don't think I have ever seen columbine for less than 300 gold. Get in the habit of picking up everything you see whenever you are out doing things. Many players don't do this and then they wonder why stuff costs so much.

Firstmep

Tatanko wrote: »

xWarbrain wrote: »

People spend hours traveling from zone to zone, buying all of the Bugloss or Columbine or whatever and relisting it at the major city traders. Then they start competing with each other and raising it by tiny increments.

Any proof of this? You would practically need to be one of these people to understand their scheme on such a level. That or you're making it up.

Err not really, anyone with a decent capital can do this, many people used to do the same as well with gold mats, and the relist them when new sets came out for big profits.

Go on youtube and look up Blobeso, dunno if he is still playing or not, but he used to be one of the major flippers/traders back in the day.

For the record im not aganist anyone playing the economy, its there, go for it. But the fact that IC gives 10x as much herbs as picking flowers is kind of stupid.
I usually farm IC on a quiet morning once every few weeks and thats enough to have enough herbs for months.
They really should introduce herbs as rewards for other activites, and maybe touch up IC rewards as well.
Most days its the same group of few ppl running around in Imp Phys set farming bosses, usually magsorcs, and yeah good luck taking their stones when they have 60k mag they can just streak away into the distance,ah whatever.

Im sure the people who spend 8 hours a day running around in IC farming bosses wouldnt want to status quo to change, but theres really no reason why things like columbine are so scarce otherwise. I still remember when they introduced the sellable tokens for trials, so people could affor their pots, but Zeni never adjusted those either for price fluctuations.

Anyway my advice is, pick an eary morning time when IC is otherwise dead, or if you can, just follow the dedicated farmers.
Some of them do get pissy when you farm bosses with them, and try to hide away the bosses inside buildings, so be wary of that too.

Nestor

xWarbrain wrote: »

I tried farming for the mats myself, it took almost 2 hours to find 4 Bugloss, Columbine & Mountain Flower. I'd burn through 16 potions in about 16 minutes of combat.

You are farming in the wrong places. Stop Farming where everyone else does.

I can find enough reagents in 15 minutes to make a stack of Tripots.

Donny_Vito

Nestor wrote: »

xWarbrain wrote: »

I tried farming for the mats myself, it took almost 2 hours to find 4 Bugloss, Columbine & Mountain Flower. I'd burn through 16 potions in about 16 minutes of combat.

You are farming in the wrong places. Stop Farming where everyone else does.

I can find enough reagents in 15 minutes to make a stack of Tripots.

I have to question that stat. In order to get enough reagents to make a stack you'd need 50 of each type, so 150 different flowers needed.

15 minutes = 900 seconds.

Which means about every 6 seconds you are picking another flower, which just isn't possible unless you are an RNG god and getting 2x for every flower and therefore you can go 12 seconds in between.

Nevasca

What server are you on?

First, there is a lot of things that could be going on, and some that are definitly going on:

1. Some group of people are controlling the prices. This is actually rather common, targeting one specific item and buying in all major guilds then reselling for a really big price. It's especially easy to do on PC because tools like Tamriel Trade Center exists. It's more easy to do with stuff like Perfect Roe and Columbine since it's they are not abundant materials like spider eggs for example. Since you said in a couple of months, this could be what happened. On PC/NA I remember columbine being 300+ last year, I can easily see it going up to 500s on this method. I dont actively trade anymore so I can't tell you when the prices went up.

2. Gold inflation. This is happening as we speak, and is a problem on every MMO. There isn't many ways to burn gold on ESO for rich people. 1 Million used to be a lot in the year ESO launched, nowadays I'd be surprised if a max leveled never hit 1M at least once. What this means is that a lot of people have more gold than they can spend, but materials that are scarce don't lose value (Like gold mats, Columbine, etc) so instead their price in gold geta increased overtime, similar to inflation in the real world, except in MMO it's much more accelerated and quite honestly, inevitable. With gifting, I am betting gold is more evenly distributed since selling crown items started to be a thing, anyone with ESO+ has a lot of leftover crowns. This means a lot of people have an easy access to high amounts of gold from richer players, this accelerates inflation even more, since that gold isn't deleted, just traded. Crowns used to be 100/g ea, on PC/NA it's between 225-250 now. The inflation is quite obvious when you look at crown prices. Since Columbine is one of the (if not the) most valuable alchemy ingredient, it makes sense the price goes up quite fast as inflation goes up. If inflation is the answer, perhaps you are missremembering the last time you payed attention to Columbine prices.

3. Columbine became more scarce with the Imperial City changes, making easy farm a little bit harder. I honestly doubt this is it, when trade guilds want to farm ICP they zerg it down with > 10 people, so it's pretty damn safe still considering people barely pvp there.

I betting on both 1 and 2.

Kingslayer513

Tatanko wrote: »

xWarbrain wrote: »

People spend hours traveling from zone to zone, buying all of the Bugloss or Columbine or whatever and relisting it at the major city traders. Then they start competing with each other and raising it by tiny increments.

Any proof of this? You would practically need to be one of these people to understand their scheme on such a level. That or you're making it up.

Welcome to the eso economy lol. Large scale item flipping is EXTREMELY commonplace. This is hardly something that needs to be proven since everyone and their uncle is doing it.

And technology is only making it easier. TTC's widespread adoption means that newly listed items are added to the public database almost immediately. A lot of us are running scripts now that monitor TTC for good deals and notify you the moment something goes up. Good deals will be gone within minutes and relisted in a major city for a higher price. And this is just basic item flipping, not even going into market manipulation which is a whole other topic.

xWarbrain

Tatanko wrote: »

xWarbrain wrote: »

People spend hours traveling from zone to zone, buying all of the Bugloss or Columbine or whatever and relisting it at the major city traders. Then they start competing with each other and raising it by tiny increments.

Any proof of this? You would practically need to be one of these people to understand their scheme on such a level. That or you're making it up.

You've never spent a stupid amount of time trying to find resources at a price you can afford by going to most or all of the zones? I have and I know there are people that find it fun to make gold by doing this. Like how some people are really into housing, these people play the economy.

Actual proof? No, I don't record conversations I have with people... but if you go to Deshaan and see 20 stacks of Columbine listed at 42k each with 30days left, listed by one seller, and zero columbine under 42k (or any Columbine under 210 per) in the other 5 stalls, you can draw a reasonable conclusion that this person is buying low and selling high. And that's within one city. Then they buy all the Grahtwood, Wayrest, Craglorn & Vvardenfell Columbine under 210 a piece and sell it at their Mournhold trader for 42k a stack. Then they travel out further and buy from more zones, etc.

Then someone with even more gold buys all of their 42k stacks and lists them again for 43.5k (or whatever would net a profit after guild costs). All they have to do is buy any stacks that pop up in guild stores under their price and resell it at their price.

Its called setting the market. It takes a lot of travel time and load screens, and a ton of gold to start. Anyone on Xbox NA can see proof of this by going to all of the zones and searching for "Bugloss".

xWarbrain

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

xWarbrain wrote: »

I tried farming for the mats myself, it took almost 2 hours to find 4 Bugloss, Columbine & Mountain Flower. I'd burn through 16 potions in about 16 minutes of combat.

You are farming in the wrong places. Stop Farming where everyone else does.

I can find enough reagents in 15 minutes to make a stack of Tripots.

I have to question that stat. In order to get enough reagents to make a stack you'd need 50 of each type, so 150 different flowers needed.

15 minutes = 900 seconds.

Which means about every 6 seconds you are picking another flower, which just isn't possible unless you are an RNG god and getting 2x for every flower and therefore you can go 12 seconds in between.

6 seconds of picking those specific alchemy reagents too, plus Tears.

Starlock

Hmm... time to start selling all those alchemy mats I almost never use again! Yaaay!

Donny_Vito

Starlock wrote: »

Hmm... time to start selling all those alchemy mats I almost never use again! Yaaay!

Yes, that is always a good idea. I love seeing someone who just dropped their ESO+ and is cleaning out their crafting bag.....YES!

Emma_Overload

Wow, that's crazy. I have TENS of THOUSANDS of Columbine just sitting around because I am too lazy to log in to sell it.

Buff Sorcs until they are viable, and I will happily flood the market!

Reyleigh

Playing on PC EU
Whats the IC changes got to do with columbine ?

Royaji

Reyleigh wrote: »

Playing on PC EU
Whats the IC changes got to do with columbine ?

Alchemy satchels you can buy with Tel Var are the main source of alchemy mats on the market. The fastest way to farm Tel Var is to farm IC bosses in an empty campaign. Since the amount of IC campaigns has been reduced the effectiveness of Tel Var farming has been reduced as well. As a result, there is less alchemy mats like columbine on the market and their price has gone up.

Granicus

One of the many, many broken things in this game is the way it handles Guild trading. I get that some people love flipping items to make more and more gold, but that makes it so much more difficult for people who just want to use the materials/gear. The purpose of this game is not to corner the market. If that is what you’re here for please go play another game and ruin their economy. You are making this game less enjoyable for many others.

Another MMORPG game I have played for years has a global auction house which works well, is fair, honest and easy to use. You see everything, and supply and demand alone drive the prices. There is no wide disparity in prices to make a killing on and drive the prices into the roof. You also don’t get people who are trying to manipulate the market by selling common cheap low grade items for 1M gold to try to explode the ‘market’ price.

I’m sure people will disagree with my comments here. When they are done flipping items for the day and come read the Forums.