PC|NA Hyperinflation is out of control

Sanctum74

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

False, a global auction house would make it much easier for people to control the market. That’s what’s great about the current system is with so many guild traders it’s almost impossible to manipulate the market.

If you want something bad enough either farm it for free or pay the going rate based on the current economy.

Eedat

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

Lol global auction houses make price fixing a hundred times easier. Lower volume, high demand items in particular go absolutely ballistic. Stop reaching. You can get into a prime trade location with little to no dues

ThePedge

Bring back the bots

VaranisArano

ThePedge wrote: »

Bring back the bots

Bring back the TOS-breaking bots who force real player farmers into unfair competition with automated accounts who can farm 24/7 until ZOS eventually deletes them just so players can buy cheaper mats?

Hmm. Interesting choice on your part and on the folks who agree with you.


Its always a little depressing to me, but not exactly surprising when I see players who are willing to support TOS-breaking bots over real players when it hits them in the pocketbook. I understand the benefit to those players, of course. Bots mean greater supply, which means cheaper prices, which means players who have neither the time nor inclination to farm mats or gold for themselves get a much better deal. Unfortunately, that benefit is rather selfishly at the expense of the real players who do put the time in to farm materials for sale and, as you know, bots are against the TOS for what I should hope are obvious reasons.

As someone who does farm mats, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, and who sees these automated accounts jogging their way through starter zones on a set, repetitive path, or guarding particular nodes, or most egregiously bot-training their way through farming and sometimes quest areas...don't bring back the bots.

sarahthes

Perhaps letting bots run rampant for too long (leading to an excess of gold) followed by removing them (leading to a scarcity of mats during a time when demand is higher than ever) is jointly responsible?

I am aware of some attempts at furnishing mat price manipulation. It's apparently been ongoing since approximately July. But I don't have the details as I'm not the one tracking it, some of the housing/crafting guilds are keeping an eye on it.

VaranisArano

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

I just want to examine the logic of the idea that casual players lacking spots in trading guilds is why we have a supply problem leading to higher prices.

Because that doesn't really make sense.

I mean, I do understand the contrast with the Auction House idea. There, everyone who picks up 5 ruby ash off of the ground can sell it immediately, so materials ought to be plentiful and thus cheap. Under the guild trader system, 5 ruby ash isn't going to cut it in most guilds that have requirements, so the supply of mats will be lower and the prices naturally somewhat higher.

Sounds good, right?
But when we delve into the specifics of ESO regarding the thread topic, that's not really how this works.

Let's circle back to the topic of the thread: tempering alloys, dreugh wax, chromium plating, and cornflower.

Of these, cornflower is the only one readily available to casual players. Anyone can walk by one while questing and grab it. I did that just yesterday while rescuing the Silvenar. Now, I don't get a lot while questing, but enough for me to allow that cornflower is an item who's supply, similar to the 5 ruby ash example above, might benefit from allowing every player to list what they find.

But tempering alloys, dreugh wax, and chromium playing? You get that in two ways: you farm a bunch of mats (the drop rate is approx. 1 in 200 for gold improvement mats) or you do high level crafting writs. Okay, add a third method in maxed crafting hirelings if you log on every 12 to 24 hours.

How many casual players are farming and refining enough raw materials to produce extra improvement mats to sell?
How many casual players are doing their crafting writs every day to produce enough extra improvement mats to sell?
How many casual players are logging in regularly to harvest their maxed crafting hireling mails to receive extra improvement mats to sell?

Honestly? The players who make that their daily business generally aren't casual. So, probably not that many. Of the casual players who do, we're not looking at some vast supply of untapped improvement mats that's been locked away in casual players' banks and crafting bags that would otherwise be sold if only we had an auction house.

Nor are casual players who DO have a stash of mats they want to sell locked out of the trading guild system. This is somewhat anecdotal here, but when I had to look for a new trading guild, explaining that I had a backlog of reagents and crafting mats to sell was a fast ticket to acceptance. I only stuck with that guild for a month because we weren't a good fit, but in the meantime, they got the guild tax from me selling my backlog. That's an easy way for a very casual player to participate in the trading system if they don't want to commit to a guild.


Now, if you want a real culprit when it comes to locking improvement materials out of the economy, look no further than ZOS' Crafting Bag. How many players hoard up their extra improvement mats in there and just never sell them? I'll admit that I'm guilty of "But I might need to gold out X, Y, and Z someday!" to justify sitting on two hundred tempering alloys that realistically I'm probably not going to use. Cornflower? I've got like 800 sitting in my Crafting Bag on the, I dunno, off chance that I'll suddenly need to craft 3200 potions with it.

fred4

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet: One of the sources of alchemy ingredients is Imperal City. Buying apothecary parcels with Tel Var yields a disproportionate amount of Columbine. When those parcels were introduced, Columbine prices fell from around 450 down to below 200, though I don't know whether that was the only factor. At any rate, prices are now back up.

Since everyone is collecting sets, it is currently more profitable to buy loot boxes with your Tel Var, either to collect yourself or to sell. This is increasing the value of Tel Var and, hence, the price of everything coming out of IC. Hakeijo hasn't gone up by that much (yet), but I think it's a factor.

Eedat

VaranisArano wrote: »

ThePedge wrote: »

Bring back the bots

Bring back the TOS-breaking bots who force real player farmers into unfair competition with automated accounts who can farm 24/7 until ZOS eventually deletes them just so players can buy cheaper mats?

Hmm. Interesting choice on your part and on the folks who agree with you.


Its always a little depressing to me, but not exactly surprising when I see players who are willing to support TOS-breaking bots over real players when it hits them in the pocketbook. I understand the benefit to those players, of course. Bots mean greater supply, which means cheaper prices, which means players who have neither the time nor inclination to farm mats or gold for themselves get a much better deal. Unfortunately, that benefit is rather selfishly at the expense of the real players who do put the time in to farm materials for sale and, as you know, bots are against the TOS for what I should hope are obvious reasons.

As someone who does farm mats, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, and who sees these automated accounts jogging their way through starter zones on a set, repetitive path, or guarding particular nodes, or most egregiously bot-training their way through farming and sometimes quest areas...don't bring back the bots.

To be fair, pretty much everyone in the world is like this. Yourself and I included.

Kwoung

fred4 wrote: »

Since everyone is collecting sets, it is currently more profitable to buy loot boxes with your Tel Var, either to collect yourself or to sell. This is increasing the value of Tel Var and, hence, the price of everything coming out of IC. Hakeijo hasn't gone up by that much (yet), but I think it's a factor.

Hakeijo has gone crazy over the past 6 months. I used to pay 14K tops for it and was able to buy as much as I needed very consistently, many times scoring bulk deals in the 10-12K range. Fast forward to today and the average price is over double that... at 29.2k each. I am completely surprised IC isn't packed with telvar farmers 24/7.

VaranisArano

Eedat wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

ThePedge wrote: »

Bring back the bots

Bring back the TOS-breaking bots who force real player farmers into unfair competition with automated accounts who can farm 24/7 until ZOS eventually deletes them just so players can buy cheaper mats?

Hmm. Interesting choice on your part and on the folks who agree with you.


Its always a little depressing to me, but not exactly surprising when I see players who are willing to support TOS-breaking bots over real players when it hits them in the pocketbook. I understand the benefit to those players, of course. Bots mean greater supply, which means cheaper prices, which means players who have neither the time nor inclination to farm mats or gold for themselves get a much better deal. Unfortunately, that benefit is rather selfishly at the expense of the real players who do put the time in to farm materials for sale and, as you know, bots are against the TOS for what I should hope are obvious reasons.

As someone who does farm mats, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, and who sees these automated accounts jogging their way through starter zones on a set, repetitive path, or guarding particular nodes, or most egregiously bot-training their way through farming and sometimes quest areas...don't bring back the bots.

To be fair, pretty much everyone in the world is like this. Yourself and I included.

Yeah, sure, everyone prioritizes their convenience to one degree or another, sometimes at the expense of others. That's one reason why I think its important to note that bots are breaking the TOS we all agreed to in order to play ESO.

A certain amount of (understandable) selfishness is inherent to humanity. One reason why we have rules we agree to is to ensure that our desire for our own benefit doesn't ruin the game for others who are also playing as intended.

And I didn't really get into it above, but bots do cause problems for the game in enough ways that ZOS is correct to remove them:
Bot trains lock down easy farming areas, forcing out real players.
Bots price real players out of the easily bottable markets - examples: fleshfly larva, clean pelts when those items launched
Bots force real players into unfair competition due to limited vs unlimited time to farm
Some bots fuel goldsellers, who are also breaking the TOS

Supporting bots, and asking ZOS to allow them back into the game...I understand why some players say this, but I strongly disagree. As a general principle of mine, automated accounts who are breaking the TOS should not be allowed by ZOS to be a detriment to the real players who are playing ESO as intended. Competition is healthy when its between real players, not when its between a real player and a TOS-breaking automated bot account.

JinMori

You're gonna have to worry about another kind of inflation soon enough.

Gilvoth

current materials prices are amazingly, and unbelievably High.

Kidgangster101

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

False, a global auction house would make it much easier for people to control the market. That’s what’s great about the current system is with so many guild traders it’s almost impossible to manipulate the market.

If you want something bad enough either farm it for free or pay the going rate based on the current economy.

Yet alot of pc players use the addon to let you see items prices/selling locations ..... Again how is that any different than a global auction house? Y'all's logic is so backwards 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Varana

a) They have to physically travel to all these places, so it can take a considerable amount of time to cover even all the major hubs.
b) You can list items only in your guild stores. Crafting mats are listed in almost every guild store in the game. Unless those "few" traders somehow belong to 100 guilds simultaneously, they're not responsible for the prices.
Do you even play the game?
c) TTC is not real time. It has quite a bit of delay and is missing a lot.
d) MM doesn't tell you anything about what's currently listed, and it doesn't tell you anything about guilds that you're not in.
e+f) Repeating the points about the addons because it's important.

At this point, we should probably blame animation cancelling and proc sets as well.

VilniusNastavnik

I was talking about this in guild discord last night.
I have been running round trying to find items on the cheap because I refuse to buy anything over a reasonable price.
I look at TTC, lets use Dead Water Chests as an example from last week during the AEST hours when bugger all people are online.
Chest 30K 1 hour ago (sold)
Chest 100K 30 minutes ago (still listed)
It honestly looks like people are scalping. Buying cheap selling high.
To fix this, Items should be bound to your account the moment you purchase something from the store so that you cannot buy cheap, sell high. This should hopefully bring prices down as the high end sellers will not be able to compete with the low end sellers selling for cheaper and will be forced to bring their prices down.

jaws343

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

I was talking about this in guild discord last night.
I have been running round trying to find items on the cheap because I refuse to buy anything over a reasonable price.
I look at TTC, lets use Dead Water Chests as an example from last week during the AEST hours when bugger all people are online.
Chest 30K 1 hour ago (sold)
Chest 100K 30 minutes ago (still listed)
It honestly looks like people are scalping. Buying cheap selling high.
To fix this, Items should be bound to your account the moment you purchase something from the store so that you cannot buy cheap, sell high. This should hopefully bring prices down as the high end sellers will not be able to compete with the low end sellers selling for cheaper and will be forced to bring their prices down.

It isn't the flippers fault that a player is selling something drastically under its going rate. And really, the only person hurt by this is the person who was trying to take advantage of that other player.

Player A: The seller set a price and got the gold for that price.
Player B: The buyer paid the price asked and felt there is more value in the item to resell in another location.

So what if Player C can't buy it at the lower price. Player C's input in the transaction is pretty irrelevant. Both Player A and B got exactly what they wanted out of the transaction. To further limit that is nonsense and would only work to undermine the trading economy and do more harm to Player A, the seller, than any flippers.

Plus, take something like crafting mats. Would these have to be tracked separately? Would upgrading have to prioritize Trader purchased mats over farmed mats to avoid players using their farmed mats before their trader bought mats and being unable to sell what they don't need? It's a needless mess over complaints that some players can't get the good deals on goods before other players.

fred4

Kwoung wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Since everyone is collecting sets, it is currently more profitable to buy loot boxes with your Tel Var, either to collect yourself or to sell. This is increasing the value of Tel Var and, hence, the price of everything coming out of IC. Hakeijo hasn't gone up by that much (yet), but I think it's a factor.

Hakeijo has gone crazy over the past 6 months. I used to pay 14K tops for it and was able to buy as much as I needed very consistently, many times scoring bulk deals in the 10-12K range. Fast forward to today and the average price is over double that... at 29.2k each. I am completely surprised IC isn't packed with telvar farmers 24/7.

What platform? Prices aren't that crazy on PC EU.

In terms of IC being packed, there is only so much Tel Var you can take out. Bosses and mobs drop a fixed amount, which is shared between the farmers that partook in a kill. Therefore it doesn't matter whether one guy is soloing all the bosses or whether it's a whole zerg. What does matter is how much the flags are being fought over. It benefits the playerbase as a whole, if IC is mostly in the hands of a single faction.

People tend to run after the bosses, though lately I also see the mobs being decimated quite a bit.

NoSoup

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

I was talking about this in guild discord last night.
I have been running round trying to find items on the cheap because I refuse to buy anything over a reasonable price.
I look at TTC, lets use Dead Water Chests as an example from last week during the AEST hours when bugger all people are online.
Chest 30K 1 hour ago (sold)
Chest 100K 30 minutes ago (still listed)
It honestly looks like people are scalping. Buying cheap selling high.
To fix this, Items should be bound to your account the moment you purchase something from the store so that you cannot buy cheap, sell high. This should hopefully bring prices down as the high end sellers will not be able to compete with the low end sellers selling for cheaper and will be forced to bring their prices down.

You're 100% right, I do believe the bigger problem is the flippers actively driving the price up not from demand or supply issues but because they can. As others have said there are entire guilds dedicated to this now and for those that don't want to accept the practice is happening because they can't rationalise why they would do it, its because many of them sell gold for USD.

Because its not a select one or two people doing it, it makes sense that many of the culprits would be on the forums saying "nah, nah its the stickerbook!".

The game really should introduce a market timer like steam has on a lot of their games whereby once an item is brought in a guild store it can't be relisted for 2 weeks.....

VilniusNastavnik

jaws343 wrote: »

It isn't the flippers fault that a player is selling something drastically under its going rate. .

The going rate determined by the wealthier players in the game.

NoSoup

fred4 wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Since everyone is collecting sets, it is currently more profitable to buy loot boxes with your Tel Var, either to collect yourself or to sell. This is increasing the value of Tel Var and, hence, the price of everything coming out of IC. Hakeijo hasn't gone up by that much (yet), but I think it's a factor.

Hakeijo has gone crazy over the past 6 months. I used to pay 14K tops for it and was able to buy as much as I needed very consistently, many times scoring bulk deals in the 10-12K range. Fast forward to today and the average price is over double that... at 29.2k each. I am completely surprised IC isn't packed with telvar farmers 24/7.

What platform? Prices aren't that crazy on PC EU.

In terms of IC being packed, there is only so much Tel Var you can take out. Bosses and mobs drop a fixed amount, which is shared between the farmers that partook in a kill. Therefore it doesn't matter whether one guy is soloing all the bosses or whether it's a whole zerg. What does matter is how much the flags are being fought over. It benefits the playerbase as a whole, if IC is mostly in the hands of a single faction.

People tend to run after the bosses, though lately I also see the mobs being decimated quite a bit.

Dude, go and look at TTC for PC/NA right now. The first 4 pages are all between 32k - 33k, there is 2 pages dedicated to one guild.........

tmbrinks

NoSoup wrote: »

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

I was talking about this in guild discord last night.
I have been running round trying to find items on the cheap because I refuse to buy anything over a reasonable price.
I look at TTC, lets use Dead Water Chests as an example from last week during the AEST hours when bugger all people are online.
Chest 30K 1 hour ago (sold)
Chest 100K 30 minutes ago (still listed)
It honestly looks like people are scalping. Buying cheap selling high.
To fix this, Items should be bound to your account the moment you purchase something from the store so that you cannot buy cheap, sell high. This should hopefully bring prices down as the high end sellers will not be able to compete with the low end sellers selling for cheaper and will be forced to bring their prices down.

You're 100% right, I do believe the bigger problem is the flippers actively driving the price up not from demand or supply issues but because they can. As others have said there are entire guilds dedicated to this now and for those that don't want to accept the practice is happening because they can't rationalise why they would do it, its because many of them sell gold for USD.

Because its not a select one or two people doing it, it makes sense that many of the culprits would be on the forums saying "nah, nah its the stickerbook!".

The game really should introduce a market timer like steam has on a lot of their games whereby once an item is brought in a guild store it can't be relisted for 2 weeks.....

So... now everybody who doesn't agree with you is violating the ToS and selling gold?

...and we're all flippers and scammers because we put forth a reasonable explanation such as the stickerbook because it doesn't jive with what you think is true.

when you have to resort to ad hominum attacks, you've lost your argument entirely.

Sanctum74

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

False, a global auction house would make it much easier for people to control the market. That’s what’s great about the current system is with so many guild traders it’s almost impossible to manipulate the market.

If you want something bad enough either farm it for free or pay the going rate based on the current economy.

Yet alot of pc players use the addon to let you see items prices/selling locations ..... Again how is that any different than a global auction house? Y'all's logic is so backwards 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Add ons don’t help you visit 200+ traders and bypass load screens, but hey the conspiracy theories are always amusing.

Pauwer

Wait what, i can sell 1 corn flower for 1k? I have like 950 of them, i never use 'em. Is it payday for me?

VaranisArano

NoSoup wrote: »

The game really should introduce a market timer like steam has on a lot of their games whereby once an item is brought in a guild store it can't be relisted for 2 weeks.....

If there's one thing that'll make all our performance problems better, its introducing a two week countdown timer for every single item that's bought on the server.

Right?

tmbrinks

Pauwer wrote: »

Wait what, i can sell 1 corn flower for 1k? I have like 950 of them, i never use 'em. Is it payday for me?

I guess a few... at the very top of the scale... have sold for 1k each.

But most are selling for quite a bit less than that. But those that are accusing us of being gold sellers and scammers have to sensationalize their numbers by picking the absolute worst case scenario and the outliers to make their "point"

Calm_Fury

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

The real cause is not having a global auction house. A lot of casual players don't meet a demand for trader guild therefore their items never make it to the trader bored. Hence the richer players get to manipulate the market by getting the most traveled places in the game.

But hey I've said this numerous times and somehow I was told this type of inflation could never happen in this exact trader system...... And here we are today and it's happening while I'm on a long break from this game and enjoying my global auction house on ff14.......

False, a global auction house would make it much easier for people to control the market. That’s what’s great about the current system is with so many guild traders it’s almost impossible to manipulate the market.

If you want something bad enough either farm it for free or pay the going rate based on the current economy.

Exactly.

I'm not sure how many traders are now in the game, but I bet it is something close do 200.

Just try going to 50 of those, and time yourself. Then multiply with 4. That is how long it would take to go to all traders in game (and that is cheating since some traders are not in capitals close to shrines and take forever or one more loading screen to get to - like Outlaws ones).

I even have a small challenge: to to Tamriel Trade Centre right now, search for Tempering Alloys. Just extrapolate the number of listings and the price to see how much it would cost to buy half of that to control the market.

Then you add exercise 1 and exercise 2 and see how simply impractical and basically impossible it would be for someone or a group of someones to go around buying all gold mats and flipping them effectively.

Even if a crazy hermit is in a cave somewhere in this lockdown simply playing ESO 20 hours a day, I assure you that by the time they finish doing that one every trader, 20% of the traders would already have new Alloy listings.

You simply cannot control the market with a few people with those really popular items with thousands of listings. It just can't be done.

jaws343

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

It isn't the flippers fault that a player is selling something drastically under its going rate. .

The going rate determined by the wealthier players in the game.

The going rate is set by what players are willing to spend on the item. Even wealthy players are often frugal. That's how they became wealthy.

Flippers can set the price at what they want but if they set it too high it won't sell.

silvereyes

NoSoup wrote: »

I do believe the bigger problem is the flippers actively driving the price up not from demand or supply issues but because they can

I always get very confused when I see this sort of logic. How can someone drive up materials prices without respect to supply or demand? I got a B+ in micro-economics, so maybe there's some lesson I didn't catch because I was doodling in my notebook that day.

• Materials in this game are nearly unlimited commodities. The game constantly respawns nodes and enemies. The only limit on supply is the time taken to go around picking them up, killing things, doing writs, etc.
• You say flippers drive up prices because they can. But why can they?
• If materials prices are so high that they exceed the opportunity cost of farming the same materials, won't people just farm instead? For example, if someone lists a Tempering Alloy for 1 million gold, it would be ridiculous to buy it because you can farm an Alloy in much less time than it would take to earn 1 million gold.
• If players continue to buy materials at what you consider a high price, doesn't that - by definition - mean that there's demand for them at that price?

I'm genuinely curious. How could someone in this game artificially manipulate the price on a material for which supply is only limited by the willingness to pick something up off of the ground?

iksde

kiLLahweSPe wrote: »

On PC/EU theres a group of players which recently go around and bought Dreughwax, Platings, Rosin and Alloy. After that one night where nothing was in stores prices went up, doubled even for alloy and almost doubled on Dreughwax. Best you can do is sell your stuff now for high prices and wait till another saturation kicks in and it goes down again.

Certainly not the first time this is happening, and most likely not the last time.

so where is your god now? - my questio targetet to people being against AH arguing with cases like in quote is only AH experience and it cant be done with current system xD

silvereyes

jaws343 wrote: »

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

The going rate determined by the wealthier players in the game.

The going rate is set by what players are willing to spend on the item. Even wealthy players are often frugal. That's how they became wealthy.

Flippers can set the price at what they want but if they set it too high it won't sell.

I agree that this is what's happening, but at the same time, I think @VilniusNastavnik makes a decent point. Despite the arguments about free market vs. price manipulation we see, I don't think that's what actually bothers people.

I think that a lot of the frustration people have is less about the mechanics of the high prices, and more about the fact that there is large wealth gap in the game, and they are on the losing side of that gap.

In such a large game, there are always going to be a bunch of folks who will naturally have the means and willingness to spend more. There's not really any magic to making gold in this game. Anyone can do it. But certain players will possess the qualities (enjoy making gold, more disposable time, optimized gold-making chars, IRL money to sell Crowns for gold, etc) that it takes to want to continually attain a lot of gold and spend a lot of gold.

They aren't being unethical by being willing to spend more. They just don't value gold equally as everyone else, and that can drive up prices for everyone else.

I don't really know what, if anything, can be done about it, though. To me, it seems like a natural feature of any MMORPG that enables player-to-player trading and offers a variety of ways to attain in-game currency.