Thoughts on Guild Traders and Economics

JN_Slevin

Ard01 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

My idea to combat the way overpriced items would be like a "deposit". Go for like 30% of the listing price, which you get back once its sold. Then people have an incentive to actually sell their stuff.

Additionally different tax brackets for each guild would be very interesting, it could cause the good traders moving to lower areas to get a bigger cut of their sales.

And the inflation part, everything got more expensive. Atleast on PC-EU Kutas rose from ~2,1k to 2,8k since the beginning of the year. The bid prices went completely nuts. Materials rose even though there are more of them around since the new CP update. There is 100% a lack of goldsinks.
But i dont think its a good idea to put the burden of removing gold solely on trade guilds. I think the best idea would be to increase other goldsinks and add new ones.
I have been talking about this for years, but make a mount and sell it for 10-50m Gold. This mount will solely have the purpose of showing off once wealth.
Status symbols work, everyone wants to be "better" than their peers.

And if im being honest, i dont see that inflation going away anytime soon. And as we have seen, they cant just add more supply to combat it. This never works. Supply and demand will always catch up.

Tax brackets would just force more overland sales.

The best idea to date IMO has been to include real status/wealth items like multi-million dollar mounts and such. The game definitely needs a higher-in-game luxary item gold market.

Issue with the overland sales is that its work, selling an item in a store you already have is not, so people will be okay with paying a cut if they dont have to run around hoping some dude wants to buy their stuff. So i doubt it will change much there.

khyrkat wrote: »

Let's pay 10% to AH for sale, let's pay 2% price for listing. Amount of gold guild owners make is just ridiculous. And trading guilds only encourage idiotic behavior like "we will kick you if you try to sell your 2mil gold worth thing outside of guild" suuuuuuure, coz you lose your cut and wont be able to buy this new house yes? Ridiculous. People doing stupid things to people and then complaining people do stupid things to people = logic failed.

First: the requirements are made because there is a finite amount of slots in guilds (500) If that is full, why should someone who doesnt do anything be allowed to be in there and somebody who would do their part shouldnt? The people who are in a guild and dont do ANYTHING do not deserve to be in the guild as they have shown nothing but disregard to the community and the work the guildleaders are doing.

khyrkat wrote: »

True, there is not much to spend gold on (unless we count in those selling loot runs which actually should be eliminated), some mounts could be made available but again, in general Auction House so this eliminates most of manipulations. Like many say - sure, you can try to sell crowns at 1:1000 but we're not bound to buy at that price. General AH would regulate market better than guilds, not everyone checks TTC and if they do, not many are aware of price manipulations going on there.

Second: Auctionhouse wont work, the Megaservers are too big for it, and im frankly sick of that discussion since it would destroy one of the features that makes ESO unique. Whole communities were created solely on the topic of trading, its one of the most fun activities i have had in gaming as a whole.

rumple9

Oliviander wrote: »

At first - I really like the guild trader system and wouldn't want to change it in its basics.
But at the moment I see 2 problems in economics I would like to adress:

1. There is a substantial inflation going on - which indicates that there are to few gold sinks in the game.

2. The Guildstores are crowded with overpriced Items that usually will never sell
and I guess this often not because of ignorance but to manipulate the marketprices of some items.
(to make even make rather high prices of some items looking cheap)

To adress these issues I would suggest the following.

1. Raise the listing price for an item from 1% to 10% of the called price, so that nobody lists items just for show.
Do not refund the listing price in any case

2. Give the guilds the possibility to add an additional selling fee that could range between 1% and 10% (instead of the fixed 7% as it is now)
and which is deducted from the selling price in case the item is sold.
Split this selling fee 50/50 between the guildbank and the global gold sink.

So guilds could call for higher fees at top places to pay the guild traders.
and each transaction would sink between 10.5 % up to 15% from each transaction
and even non sold items would sink 10% of their called price.

I guess this would bring more dynamics to market.

Don't you realise this will increase prices further???????

Doc45

I like the gratification that comes with signing into sales or scanning trader listings for TTC after listing to see the sales go through within the hour, and I have more gold than I know what to do with, so I price items low enough to pretty much make sure they sell fast. I'm sure there are others like me, and it helps keep a check on inflation. I check current guild listings to undercut 'em, which may be annoying to some, but I'd argue 1: It brings people to the trader where they may buy additional items, and 2: If it's too good a deal, someone can buy it to get it off the market and try to flip it. I hope most sales don't go to those who would seek to flip the items, but I can only control what I can control. Sitting on a gold pile can be beneficial to buyers when the seller lists items, because there is little incentive to try and maximize profit.

As others have mentioned, there's always the option to farm oneself. I do agree raising listing fees and having variable sales fees would have very unintended consequences including far more zone spamming of looking to sell/buy items as well as people leaving guilds that increase their sales fees.

Listing items at far above their value may fool some, but buyers should be aware. Most (maybe all) social guilds have plenty of people that will provide price checks from add-ons, and people like me will provide them in zone chat if someone tries to sell an item far above MM/ATT/TTC. Overall, I don't really see any problem that needs fixing.

AlnilamE

JN_Slevin wrote: »

My idea to combat the way overpriced items would be like a "deposit". Go for like 30% of the listing price, which you get back once its sold. Then people have an incentive to actually sell their stuff.

Additionally different tax brackets for each guild would be very interesting, it could cause the good traders moving to lower areas to get a bigger cut of their sales.

And the inflation part, everything got more expensive. Atleast on PC-EU Kutas rose from ~2,1k to 2,8k since the beginning of the year. The bid prices went completely nuts. Materials rose even though there are more of them around since the new CP update. There is 100% a lack of goldsinks.
But i dont think its a good idea to put the burden of removing gold solely on trade guilds. I think the best idea would be to increase other goldsinks and add new ones.
I have been talking about this for years, but make a mount and sell it for 10-50m Gold. This mount will solely have the purpose of showing off once wealth.
Status symbols work, everyone wants to be "better" than their peers.

And if im being honest, i dont see that inflation going away anytime soon. And as we have seen, they cant just add more supply to combat it. This never works. Supply and demand will always catch up.

OK, but Kutas used to go for 4,000+. I'd never sell a Kuta for less than 3k. I'll have to check what they are averaging now once the servers come back.

And I'm going to assume you are not into housing. Because if you were, you would realize how much of a gold sink that is. Some of my guildies go broke at the luxury vendor on a bi-weekly basis depending on what's for sale. And that's not counting all the furnishings you buy from the vendors and achievement vendors around the different zones.

Setting up a house properly can cost millions.

JN_Slevin

AlnilamE wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

My idea to combat the way overpriced items would be like a "deposit". Go for like 30% of the listing price, which you get back once its sold. Then people have an incentive to actually sell their stuff.

Additionally different tax brackets for each guild would be very interesting, it could cause the good traders moving to lower areas to get a bigger cut of their sales.

And the inflation part, everything got more expensive. Atleast on PC-EU Kutas rose from ~2,1k to 2,8k since the beginning of the year. The bid prices went completely nuts. Materials rose even though there are more of them around since the new CP update. There is 100% a lack of goldsinks.
But i dont think its a good idea to put the burden of removing gold solely on trade guilds. I think the best idea would be to increase other goldsinks and add new ones.
I have been talking about this for years, but make a mount and sell it for 10-50m Gold. This mount will solely have the purpose of showing off once wealth.
Status symbols work, everyone wants to be "better" than their peers.

And if im being honest, i dont see that inflation going away anytime soon. And as we have seen, they cant just add more supply to combat it. This never works. Supply and demand will always catch up.

OK, but Kutas used to go for 4,000+. I'd never sell a Kuta for less than 3k. I'll have to check what they are averaging now once the servers come back.

And I'm going to assume you are not into housing. Because if you were, you would realize how much of a gold sink that is. Some of my guildies go broke at the luxury vendor on a bi-weekly basis depending on what's for sale. And that's not counting all the furnishings you buy from the vendors and achievement vendors around the different zones.

Setting up a house properly can cost millions.

Are you on NA? Because the average price of Kutas was since 2016 always between 1,8k and 2,2k on PC-EU.

Yes, housing is a great goldsink, but only for that target group, we need more goldsinks like housing, if you are not into housing 5-10m Gold is enough forever in ESO. And it takes maybe 2-3 Weeks for even inexperienced players to get that much with enough determination.

PizzaCat82

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

JN_Slevin

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

JN_Slevin

Another idea which just came to me, is selling the new Seals of Endeavor things for A TON of gold. So people with way too much can buy it or people who are missing like 1 or 2 can buy those via gold. But you gotta make it very expensive so the quests are still the better option.

Blacknight841

tmbrinks wrote: »

Everything in this game can be gotten through gameplay. Nobody is "locked" out of getting anything themselves.

Theoretically yes, all items can be acquired through gameplay, but in reality that is not always the case for all items. You can’t farm aetheric ciphers, it’s hard enough to farm Atherial dust. You can’t go and farm the morrowind banner fo the 6th house. I have yet to see one on the Xbox na server. Even when it comes to certain gated sets, some players can’t farm them because they are not efficient enough or even welcomed into top trial groups, or have time to sit and grind certain areas. So yes they can technically be gained through gameplay but there are things that will always be out of reach and locked from players getting it themselves.

Ard01

Blacknight841 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Everything in this game can be gotten through gameplay. Nobody is "locked" out of getting anything themselves.

Theoretically yes, all items can be acquired through gameplay, but in reality that is not always the case for all items. You can’t farm aetheric ciphers, it’s hard enough to farm Atherial dust. You can’t go and farm the morrowind banner fo the 6th house. I have yet to see one on the Xbox na server. Even when it comes to certain gated sets, some players can’t farm them because they are not efficient enough or even welcomed into top trial groups, or have time to sit and grind certain areas. So yes they can technically be gained through gameplay but there are things that will always be out of reach and locked from players getting it themselves.

This then justifies why the said items should cost so much. It is perfectly reasonable then for those items to be VERY expensive.

AlnilamE

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

It takes about 36 million to buy all the houses available for gold, FYI.

That's one of my plans.

PizzaCat82

AlnilamE wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

It takes about 36 million to buy all the houses available for gold, FYI.

That's one of my plans.

I have about 80 houses right now.

VaranisArano

1. Nobody shows evidence that this is overall inflation, as opposed to rising prices due to high demand and limited supply. Is it too much to ask for evidence before we go asking for gold sinks?

2. Listing fees are already non-refundable.

3. Look, if you really think there's inflation and we need a gold sink, then ZOS should be the ones setting the additional sales tax amounts, not guilds. ZOS are the ones who actually have the data on inflation (aka, how much gold is actually in the system), not guilds. So by all means, ask ZOS in increased the sales taxes/listing fees, but it's counterproductive to let guilds decide the amount if your intent is to use that as a gold sink. In fact, if you let guilds lower it past 7%, you've got less of a gold sink. Completely counterproductive to your stated goals.

4. Sales taxes and listing fees are a flat, regressive tax. If I'm selling 1 million worth of raw materials and nirncrux a week, what do I care if I lose 200k of that to your maximum listing fee/sales tax? I made 800k profit,, more than enough to buy any "necessity" in the game.

Meanwhile, the player who sells 10k a week loses 2k of their profit to the same fees, and is going to miss that 2k a lot more.

tmbrinks

Blacknight841 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Everything in this game can be gotten through gameplay. Nobody is "locked" out of getting anything themselves.

Theoretically yes, all items can be acquired through gameplay, but in reality that is not always the case for all items. You can’t farm aetheric ciphers, it’s hard enough to farm Atherial dust. You can’t go and farm the morrowind banner fo the 6th house. I have yet to see one on the Xbox na server. Even when it comes to certain gated sets, some players can’t farm them because they are not efficient enough or even welcomed into top trial groups, or have time to sit and grind certain areas. So yes they can technically be gained through gameplay but there are things that will always be out of reach and locked from players getting it themselves.

That's a different issue.

Nobody is gated from farming for anything. Whether you can is a different thing. Thankfully we can sell those items for those that can't farm, whether that's due to lack of time, lack of skill, or whatever.

You can't even sell top trial gear, so not sure how that ties into "guild traders"...

Doc45

Arguing there needs to be more gold sinks is like arguing billionaires need more yachts and jets available to them. It does nothing to effect the prices of goods desired by the majority. The difference between irl and in game is, you limit only yourself in how much gold you can make. Choose to farm or not. The new CP structure even allows for choosing to allocate more points to gold obtained. You don't need someone to hire you to gain gold in this game, so it's entirely a personal choice. Spend time where you want; spend gold where you choose.

Most of the people I know in this game that have played 4-5 years don't have significant amounts of gold. They spend it, whether that be on motifs, housing, supporting trader bids (a loss for most guilds), guild auctions, contributing to guild houses, etc.

"1. There is a substantial inflation going on - which indicates that there are to [sic] few gold sinks in the game." There's absolutely no data to back that up. From what I've seen, any inflation is related to normal supply/demand conditions, and the anniversary event provided the ability to gain so many items that the prices of many were driven down.

"2. The Guildstores are crowded with overpriced Items that usually will never sell
and I guess this often not because of ignorance but to manipulate the marketprices of some items.
(to make even make rather high prices of some items looking cheap)".

If they'll never sell, that shows buyers are aware of what the prices should be, so there's no problem. I get the higher prices could drive up TTC averages, but the overall effect is likely insignificant especially given the availability of MM or ATT to check actual sales. In any case, the market will only support what the market will support.

PizzaCat82

JN_Slevin wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

Crown selling can be both a gold sink and a transfer. Discord brokers already take a %, just do the same within the game.

VaranisArano

Blacknight841 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Everything in this game can be gotten through gameplay. Nobody is "locked" out of getting anything themselves.

Theoretically yes, all items can be acquired through gameplay, but in reality that is not always the case for all items. You can’t farm aetheric ciphers, it’s hard enough to farm Atherial dust. You can’t go and farm the morrowind banner fo the 6th house. I have yet to see one on the Xbox na server. Even when it comes to certain gated sets, some players can’t farm them because they are not efficient enough or even welcomed into top trial groups, or have time to sit and grind certain areas. So yes they can technically be gained through gameplay but there are things that will always be out of reach and locked from players getting it themselves.

All three examples you give are of extremely rare items, none of which are actually necessary for progression. So in your search for exceptions, it seems to me that you quite effectively "proved the rule." That's especially true of the "necessary" items that people complain are overpriced, like crafting mats, housing mats, improvement mats, nirncrux, and cornflower/other reagents. Compared to aetherial dust, these are as common as dirt and you actually CAN farm for all of them.

As for sets, you point to "gated" Bind on Pickup sets, which have nothing to do with the thread topic of inflation, prices, or guild traders since they are, well, Bind on Pickup. To counter your point, the gear that players need to get into those trials to begin acquiring BOP gear sets IS readily available for sale on guild traders in the form of dropped and crafted sets. Again, once you've got a basic gear set, you can PUG normal dungeons and trials, and then you're in your way to farming for the gear you want.


Your overall point seems to be that players are held back from acquiring everything in game by either their lack of time or their lack of capability (I agree), so therefore not everything is acquirable in game through gameplay (I disagree.)

This is an MMO. Everything in this game can be acquired through gameplay, which necessitates that a player must have the time and capability to play. No, a brand new player will not acquire perfected trial gear soon, but that does not mean perfected trial gear cannot be acquired through gameplay.

One cannot approach an MMO with the idea that you can skip some content or spend only a little time on it, and still reap ALL the rewards. That's just not how MMOs function.


Side note: I have a Aetheric Cipher. I got it by doing dailies during an Anniversary Event. Is this incredibly rare? Yes. Was it acquired through gameplay? Yes, absolutely.
When I farmed at my peak in starter zones, I would get an aetherial dust probably once every other week. Is this out of reach for players who don't have as much time to farm as I did? Yes. Was it acquired through gameplay? Yes, absolutely.

VaranisArano

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

Crown selling can be both a gold sink and a transfer. Discord brokers already take a %, just do the same within the game.

Wouldn't the Discord broker just be another form of gold transfer, since the gold is transfered to that player, not really as a gold sink where gold is actively removed from the game?

PizzaCat82

VaranisArano wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

Crown selling can be both a gold sink and a transfer. Discord brokers already take a %, just do the same within the game.

Wouldn't the Discord broker just be another form of gold transfer, since the gold is transfered to that player, not really as a gold sink where gold is actively removed from the game?

I'm saying use a game mechanic to trade and have the game take a cut. Gold would be actively removed.

VaranisArano

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

Crown selling can be both a gold sink and a transfer. Discord brokers already take a %, just do the same within the game.

Wouldn't the Discord broker just be another form of gold transfer, since the gold is transfered to that player, not really as a gold sink where gold is actively removed from the game?

I'm saying use a game mechanic to trade and have the game take a cut. Gold would be actively removed.

Oh, then sure! Yeah, it'd be great to have ZOS actually provide a safe trade mechanism for crown gifts and gold, so the gold sink would be well worth the benefit to players.

Oliviander

rumple9 wrote: »

Don't you realise this will increase prices further???????

And why should that be ?
This would take a massive amount of gold out of the game
and therefore the over all prices will sink.

PS: I am actually one of the profiteers of the current situation.
But I worry that the direction this gold overflow is leading to, is not good for the game !

wolfie1.0.

Blacknight841 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Everything in this game can be gotten through gameplay. Nobody is "locked" out of getting anything themselves.

Theoretically yes, all items can be acquired through gameplay, but in reality that is not always the case for all items. You can’t farm aetheric ciphers, it’s hard enough to farm Atherial dust. You can’t go and farm the morrowind banner fo the 6th house. I have yet to see one on the Xbox na server. Even when it comes to certain gated sets, some players can’t farm them because they are not efficient enough or even welcomed into top trial groups, or have time to sit and grind certain areas. So yes they can technically be gained through gameplay but there are things that will always be out of reach and locked from players getting it themselves.

you can technically farm for them, it just will take an extraordinarily amount of time, but eventually RNG can be defeated. Granted its not probable or efficient to do so, but it IS possible. Which in no way undermines the statement. the true reality is that there isn't anything that you can put up in the guild traders that you haven't been able find naturally in game with a time investment. Even event items return in some capacity.

However, Time is the REAL currency of ALL MMO's, We have it, ZOS wants it, but we as players have limited amounts of it. Time is the most valued of resources for us. This means several things. First anything that will save us time is of value. Secondly, we as players prioritize how we spend our time either actively or passively, lastly time spent doing one thing means we are not doing another.

ZOS with CP 2.0 and sticker book set collecting gave players a HUGE set of things to spend their time on, that maybe they weren't doing before. with sticker book players are chasing set pieces that are sub par or not part of their builds or play styles. with CP 2.0 we find ourselves grinding XP to get to CP cap. These are HUGE time sinks.

so what does this have to do with the economy? simply that time spent farming these two activities means that they are not spending their time doing things like farming mats. stuff that some of us used to do in order to get those improvement items needed to get gear to the highest level. Materials that are needed for players who are more inclined to grind master writs than to sell them. Master Writs are the most efficient way to grind xp for crafters and people that don't want to spend hours killing things. As a result these things get hoarded, people are willing to pay more for them and prices go up.

May i also remind everyone that hoarding mats is extremely easy in ESO? you just need to give ZOS a sub fee every month, quarter, semi-annually, annually, and bam instant and infinite storage for mats. Which means that players can sit on stacks of improvement items until needed. why i myself went through stacks of said item doing master writs. Items, which i either purchased or farmed, and that i normally would have sold off. but i needed them for exp for more CP until i reach my CP goals. I am not the only player doing this either. but it is saving me time. time that i need to do other things that i enjoy in game.

ManDraKE

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Economy is NOT SIMPLE! In the real world rising or falling oil prices are pushing consumer prices in general, even when the procuction or distribution is fairly uneffected by consumption of oil, gas or any related derivative of oil.

Real world economy would tell you that if you have an inflation problem, is because you currency emision is higher than the monetary demand. If you want to fix inflation of ESO gold, you need to cut down on the big gold emision sources, like crafting writs with 99982323 characters. Gold sinks, taxes, etc wont solve the issue, besides some temporal relief until the market adapt itself.

If you want to cut down inflation, you need to slow down the gold printing machine. To start i would put a dimish returns curve in the gold from crafting writs rewards so after 2-3 character it gives very little gold. What is the point of having 15 characters doing writs daily? what values bring to the gameplay? Then take a similar approach to other gold farming mechanism whatever they are (im a bit out of touch with other gold farming sources since crafting and trading gives me already more gold that i would ever need, i dont do housing so i only use gold for mats, and even with having dozens of gold sets, im still sitting in almost 20millon gold)

heaven13

Ard01 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

My idea to combat the way overpriced items would be like a "deposit". Go for like 30% of the listing price, which you get back once its sold. Then people have an incentive to actually sell their stuff.

Additionally different tax brackets for each guild would be very interesting, it could cause the good traders moving to lower areas to get a bigger cut of their sales.

And the inflation part, everything got more expensive. Atleast on PC-EU Kutas rose from ~2,1k to 2,8k since the beginning of the year. The bid prices went completely nuts. Materials rose even though there are more of them around since the new CP update. There is 100% a lack of goldsinks.
But i dont think its a good idea to put the burden of removing gold solely on trade guilds. I think the best idea would be to increase other goldsinks and add new ones.
I have been talking about this for years, but make a mount and sell it for 10-50m Gold. This mount will solely have the purpose of showing off once wealth.
Status symbols work, everyone wants to be "better" than their peers.

And if im being honest, i dont see that inflation going away anytime soon. And as we have seen, they cant just add more supply to combat it. This never works. Supply and demand will always catch up.

Tax brackets would just force more overland sales.

The best idea to date IMO has been to include real status/wealth items like multi-million dollar mounts and such. The game definitely needs a higher-in-game luxary item gold market.

It would be awesome if we could regularly have new houses added that could be bought with crowns OR gold. Stop limiting housing to cash shop only.

Add mount armor. Stop including it as default or horse training effects and let us decide what kind of armor we want. Let us dye it. Basically an outfit system, but for mounts. (And then maybe we can have no mount armor/bridles/saddles for in our houses so the poor thing aren't stuck in saddles forever).

Add a barbershop. Let me change my hair color and pay you for it. Black haired Altmer, please!

JKorr

TheForFeeF wrote: »

I do think there needs to be a change to the trading system, but I don't think this is the correct way.

Personally, I think the best way would be an Auction House. People always bash this and complain that areas will then be empty, but that is just an unfortunate state of MMO progression. The other reason people bash the Auction House is because they are in/own Trading Guilds that control part of the economy and 100m isn't enough for them (just a figure of speech).

What an Auction House does is:

- Gets rid of price scalping

- People controlling the economy: Introduces competitive selling (arguably, the current system should do that in theory, but it really doesn't. You have traders in Vivec City putting prices as high as they can, yet you have traders in Grahtwood putting prices under market value).

- Making stuff hard-to-find, easy to find: No more going to TTC, finding an item posted 3 minutes ago for it to not be there anymore.

- Encouraging new players to sell/buy: You hear this a lot, but there are a lot of trading guilds that take advantage of newer players who don't know better. Charging them stupid amounts, only for the guild to kick them a day later. The free trading guilds don't really work either as they either ask for a stupid amount of sales per week, or end up dissolving before your items are sold. Granted there are some good ones out there, but they are all full.

The best way to get around the "areas will be empty issue" is to have an Auction House in each Zone's main city. It is that simple.

Honestly, the current trading system is designed to be taken advantage of. We are the only MMO that has this system, and it clearly doesn't work well at all. All the other MMOs have Auction Houses and I don't see nearly as many complaints about it compared to what I see about our system.

Divines, the baseless conspiracy ranting is always so much fun. Except when it isn't. This isn't the first time that the idea that guildmasters are only interested in gold, make tons of gold off the guild, and can force guild members to price items to control the market has come up. No one has ever actually produced evidence this is true. In the other threads, guild masters and officers have posted to the contrary.

One place to find all the items with low prices and buy them, then relist at any price you want to charge because until others get their act in gear, you've just cornered the market. Versus https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Guild_Traders and having to work to find low prices to flip for a profit. What exactly is wrong with someone listing sky-high prices in Vivec, and a totally different player in a different guild listing the same mats for lower in Windhelm? Surprise; price your items too high and they won't sell. "Competitive pricing" is already in effect. Players aren't idiots. How much they are willing to pay for something is balanced against the amount of time it would take them to get the item on their own.

Please don't drag out TTC. TTC only works for the people who opt into the system. Someone doesn't scan and load their items, no one using TTC can find them. TTC also opens the possibility of scamming because it shows what items were priced at, and not what they actually sold for. People have done bait and switch schemes in the past.

I am *ever* so grateful you stated that free trading guilds don't work. I'll let my guildmasters know the guilds are going to be dissolving any second now. Not. I've never belonged to a guild that required dues or sales of any amount since the game started and there were NO traders. I'm in 5 guilds; one has no interest in trading outside the guild, 3 are social guilds that have no focus on trading but still get a trader consistently, and 1 "real" trading guild. Selling sporadically, not filling all the slots in my trading guild when I do sell I'm at 8.6 million. Sometimes I think about how much I could make if I actually put a little effort into it.

There is nothing stopping anyone from joining a free trading guild, or a social guild that has a trader. Best way of finding out whether you want to play Elder Trading Online, actually. And you can ask other players in your guilds "Do you know of a good trading guild with no dues or low dues?" There is no legal contract saying you are locked into a guild for 2 years once you join. If something isn't working for how you play the game, drop the guild and find another.

JN_Slevin

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

JN_Slevin wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

You want more gold sinks? Make crown selling easier.

Make more things available for gold (like, make all normal horses available, then guars, senches, wolves, bears, etc. Non exotics.

Make houses available for gold.

Add more and better furniture sellers.

Crown selling is not a gold sink, its a gold transfer! No gold gets removed from the game via the crown market

But yes, more things available for gold is the best option.

Crown selling can be both a gold sink and a transfer. Discord brokers already take a %, just do the same within the game.

Yeah correct, ZOS could do something, but as it stands Crown trading does nothing to the overall economy, there is no tax or anything. I personally dont agree with enriching people to buy carry runs or mats or traderbids with real life money. Im not against Crown trading but i am very much against players getting 100% of the gold in that.

DukeCybran

It's true that by increasing the tax threshold the market will go stagnant but in an unhealthy way, and this is an encouragement for item-to-item trade.

Too much manipulation in the market will lead us to a dangerous tendency, which some people IRL have already experienced a lot.

VaranisArano

Oliviander wrote: »

rumple9 wrote: »

Don't you realise this will increase prices further???????

And why should that be ?
This would take a massive amount of gold out of the game
and therefore the over all prices will sink.

PS: I am actually one of the profiteers of the current situation.
But I worry that the direction this gold overflow is leading to, is not good for the game !

Because sellers will also pass along the cost to the buyer when they can. It'll be most obvious in items that players need but don't want to farm.

One of my most common "rare item" sales is Potent Nirncrux. The price varies based on the trait meta, but its usually a steady seller. Additionally, the only barrier to entry to the market is time - a level 3 player can farm Craglorn for Nirncrux. So I'll use that as an example.

Say I sell potent nirncrux for 25k each, for 23k profit now. The listing fee + sales taxes increase by 20%. To make the same profit, I now sell the Potent nirncrux 29k each.

You still need the Potent nirncrux. Your choice is to farm Craglorn until you get your own Potent nirncrux or to buy at my new, higher price. (And for me, because I ordinarily sell at a bargain price, 29k is easily within the range most players will pay for Potent nirncrux at main city traders. So my stuff will sell, even in the current market, much less if all the Potent Nirncrux gets marked up 13% to account for the increased gold sinks.)

And that's how an increase in sales tax gets passed on to customers who don't want to farm for items themselves. Craglorn is still there, just waiting for you to farm your own Potent nirncrux if you don't want to pay me.

Yes, it takes more gold out of the game - something like 15% of that sale gets yeeted into non-existence by ZOS through a 10% listing fee + 5% gold sink from sale taxes.

But yes, it now costs players more to buy.

Ard01

VaranisArano wrote: »

Oliviander wrote: »

rumple9 wrote: »

Don't you realise this will increase prices further???????

And why should that be ?
This would take a massive amount of gold out of the game
and therefore the over all prices will sink.

PS: I am actually one of the profiteers of the current situation.
But I worry that the direction this gold overflow is leading to, is not good for the game !

Because sellers will also pass along the cost to the buyer when they can. It'll be most obvious in items that players need but don't want to farm.

One of my most common "rare item" sales is Potent Nirncrux. The price varies based on the trait meta, but its usually a steady seller. Additionally, the only barrier to entry to the market is time - a level 3 player can farm Craglorn for Nirncrux. So I'll use that as an example.

Say I sell potent nirncrux for 25k each, for 23k profit now. The listing fee + sales taxes increase by 20%. To make the same profit, I now sell the Potent nirncrux 29k each.

You still need the Potent nirncrux. Your choice is to farm Craglorn until you get your own Potent nirncrux or to buy at my new, higher price. (And for me, because I ordinarily sell at a bargain price, 29k is easily within the range most players will pay for Potent nirncrux at main city traders. So my stuff will sell, even in the current market, much less if all the Potent Nirncrux gets marked up 13% to account for the increased gold sinks.)

And that's how an increase in sales tax gets passed on to customers who don't want to farm for items themselves. Craglorn is still there, just waiting for you to farm your own Potent nirncrux if you don't want to pay me.

Yes, it takes more gold out of the game - something like 15% of that sale gets yeeted into non-existence by ZOS through a 10% listing fee + 5% gold sink from sale taxes.

But yes, it now costs players more to buy.

Exactly, I have literally farmed hundreds of potents and even now have 60 in stock. Not uncommon for me to have a stack of 200+ but many never even see one when they farm. It is easy for me to pass the costs along to a buyer.

SilverBride

Kurat wrote: »

I don't even care about trading anymore because theres nothing to spend gold on.

What about these? This is where most of my gold goes.

• Houses
• Furnishings
• Luxury Furnishings
• Patterns, recipes etc.
• Mats to craft Furnishings