The "WTS Companion sash 100k" problem

Edaphon

I fail to see the problem here.

Buying from other players has always been just a supplementary way to get stuff. The usual way is to play the actual game and farm/craft it yourself.

If you're too lazy to do that and don't want to pay the current prices then just wait a few weeks. Companion gear will be dirt cheap in no time at all.

VaranisArano

Edaphon wrote: »

I fail to see the problem here.

Buying from other players has always been just a supplementary way to get stuff. The usual way is to play the actual game and farm/craft it yourself.

If you're too lazy to do that and don't want to pay the current prices then just wait a few weeks. Companion gear will be dirt cheap in no time at all.

Keep in mind that you can't farm it like player gear - drops are far more random without specific farm locations like, say, player weapons - and you can't craft it either. You can't even improve the companion gear you find.

Either buy it, or depend on even steeper RNG than we've faced for any player gear set since One Tamriel.

Netheniel

Y'all are forgetting something important...


New players have a chance to win the lottery and buy their dream home. It's a win-win for everybody.

Kalik_Gold

Zos let players create crafted companion gear?

ghost_bg_ESO

i'm dragging mirri with me to level up, in her white gear and already have 2 - 3 from every gear part with different traits, green and blue, even jewelry - drops for new players are ok.

for who wants purple with specific traits it is a problem of a type: "i want it now!"... and that's why prices are like this...

LadyNalcarya

VaranisArano wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The price of new Chapter items is always sky high. New, broke players can buy white quality gear to tide them over until supply increases and prices drop.

I'd rather complain that ZOS has taken a step backwards in quality of life with Companion gear.

Think about it:
- if we want Player gear, we know exactly what to kill for a reasonable chance to get it.
- once we get it, we can transmute it to any known trait
- once we get it, it's included in the ssticker book, so we don't have to carry it around in case it later becomes the meta

Companion gear? Haha, it's like ZOS decided all those quality of life changes that benefit players should go out the window as soon as Companions arrive. Gotta get players to grind somehow!

How many sets are there for companions?

There are no sets with bonuses for Companions.

But that's not really the point.

There are 9 traits for their equipment, so figure about 324 items, if you wanted to collect them all in the Stickerbook, assuming no transmutation. Researching the traits would suck for completionists, but you can knock out a few important ones pretty fast and that would open up Transmutation.

Remember the bad old days when players ran Maelstrom Arena over and over again hoping for a sharpened Inferno staff, because there was no other way to get the correct trait?

We're back to that with Companion gear. Yes, you can buy it from guild traders, but that's no excuse for poor game design. Lets look at what happens when you try to equip your companions yourself. If you want an heavy chest with the Quickened trait, you have no idea where to farm it, and if you get a heavy chest with the aggressive trait on it instead, you have no way to change the trait. You've got about a 1 in 300 chance to get what you want, assuming you don't care about quality. If you do, add the green/blue/purple RNG on top of that. And if you throw out that Agressive piece, and it becomes the meta next update, it's gone - you have to search for it again.

In contrast, consider how player gear farming has changed. If you want an overland chest piece and don't want to pay for it, you know to go farm a world boss. Once you get it, you can improve the quality and transmute it to the trait you want. If you decide not to use it, it's in your stickerbook to be recreated if you need it later.


There's no reason to throw out the Quality of Life Advancements that we've gotten for player gear farming, except that ZOS wants us to grind, grind, grind for Companion gear.

But unlike Maelstrom staves, companion items are tradable, so people don't have to grind for specific gear pieces. It also gives new/casual players a chance to earn some extra gold. There's a lot of players who don't care about any type of minmaxing and use "meta" as an insult, so they can just sell their drops.
Prices are sky high now, but that's the case with any new items: motifs, gear and such. There's also this glitch that made companion gear disappear, who knows how many blues and purples were lost this way. I expect the price to go down drastically in a few weeks.

FrancisCrawford

At least for easier content, good companion gear is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

For example, @DarcyMardin and I duoed nWGT with our companions at Level 6 or so, in their original white gear. (In fact, I screwed up and left 3 or 4 pieces off of mine.)

They didn't die much.

PigofSteel

I just sell high now because people buying like mad blue and purple haha. Or maybe flippers want to establish price range...

Ippokrates

Today i got my first green companion ring. I am so happy ^^

But one thing is bothering me - those people who are selling this equipment. Do they really don't want to keep it for themselves and test it? Instead they prefer to sell unique equipments cause virtual money are their priority. But what if next patch companions would so massive boost they would turn into meta? At least for solo. Then they would grind even more? ^^

VaranisArano

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The price of new Chapter items is always sky high. New, broke players can buy white quality gear to tide them over until supply increases and prices drop.

I'd rather complain that ZOS has taken a step backwards in quality of life with Companion gear.

Think about it:
- if we want Player gear, we know exactly what to kill for a reasonable chance to get it.
- once we get it, we can transmute it to any known trait
- once we get it, it's included in the ssticker book, so we don't have to carry it around in case it later becomes the meta

Companion gear? Haha, it's like ZOS decided all those quality of life changes that benefit players should go out the window as soon as Companions arrive. Gotta get players to grind somehow!

How many sets are there for companions?

There are no sets with bonuses for Companions.

But that's not really the point.

There are 9 traits for their equipment, so figure about 324 items, if you wanted to collect them all in the Stickerbook, assuming no transmutation. Researching the traits would suck for completionists, but you can knock out a few important ones pretty fast and that would open up Transmutation.

Remember the bad old days when players ran Maelstrom Arena over and over again hoping for a sharpened Inferno staff, because there was no other way to get the correct trait?

We're back to that with Companion gear. Yes, you can buy it from guild traders, but that's no excuse for poor game design. Lets look at what happens when you try to equip your companions yourself. If you want an heavy chest with the Quickened trait, you have no idea where to farm it, and if you get a heavy chest with the aggressive trait on it instead, you have no way to change the trait. You've got about a 1 in 300 chance to get what you want, assuming you don't care about quality. If you do, add the green/blue/purple RNG on top of that. And if you throw out that Agressive piece, and it becomes the meta next update, it's gone - you have to search for it again.

In contrast, consider how player gear farming has changed. If you want an overland chest piece and don't want to pay for it, you know to go farm a world boss. Once you get it, you can improve the quality and transmute it to the trait you want. If you decide not to use it, it's in your stickerbook to be recreated if you need it later.


There's no reason to throw out the Quality of Life Advancements that we've gotten for player gear farming, except that ZOS wants us to grind, grind, grind for Companion gear.

But unlike Maelstrom staves, companion items are tradable, so people don't have to grind for specific gear pieces. It also gives new/casual players a chance to earn some extra gold. There's a lot of players who don't care about any type of minmaxing and use "meta" as an insult, so they can just sell their drops.
Prices are sky high now, but that's the case with any new items: motifs, gear and such. There's also this glitch that made companion gear disappear, who knows how many blues and purples were lost this way. I expect the price to go down drastically in a few weeks.

I've already addressed much of that, and none of it excuses ZOS' decision to return to bad game design they've moved away from with player gear.

Yes, we can buy companion gear from traders. So what? We can buy overland gear from traders too, and it's still beneficial to know exactly where to farm our jewelry, chest pieces, and weapons if we want to do so ourselves instead of paying others for it. It would be beneficial to have the same type of known locations to farm types of Companion gear too.

Yes, players don't have to care about the meta, but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial to be able to transmute overland gear instead of farming it or buying it again in a new trait if you decide to try something different. Theorycrafters do it all the time. It would be beneficial to be able to transmute and recreate Companion gear from the stickerbook. Oh, and it would be really beneficial to be able to improve Companion gear.


I don't care about the high prices - new, rare items are always priced way too high after a Chapter launch. Companion gear is no different and prices will drop in the coming weeks.

What I do care about is that ZOS went back to a bad, outdated, and now defunct system for acquiring Companion gear.

Your excuse of "But new players can make gold selling their drops now" doesn't justify bad game design, especially since you yourself admit you think prices are going to drop soon. Does the short-term gold gain of new players really justify this?
- not knowing where to farm specific types of Companion gear
- not being able to improve Companion gear
- not being able to transmute Companion gear
- not being able to collect Companion gear in the stickerbook for future use

That's all bad game design that ZOS has fixed when it comes to player gear. The only reason they didn't extend it to Companion gear isn't because Companion gear is tradeable and new players can make gold now. It's because the Devs wanted another high RNG MMO grind for the new items.

Ilsabet

Ippokrates wrote: »

But one thing is bothering me - those people who are selling this equipment. Do they really don't want to keep it for themselves and test it? Instead they prefer to sell unique equipments cause virtual money are their priority. But what if next patch companions would so massive boost they would turn into meta? At least for solo. Then they would grind even more? ^^

It's not a bad idea to sell items when prices are high, with the expectation that prices will go down as supply increases and demand decreases. If you can sell an item now for a relatively high price and then re-buy it later when prices are lower, you end up with the item plus some extra money in your pocket.

TequilaFire

At those prices mine can just go naked. lol

Ippokrates

Ilsabet wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

But one thing is bothering me - those people who are selling this equipment. Do they really don't want to keep it for themselves and test it? Instead they prefer to sell unique equipments cause virtual money are their priority. But what if next patch companions would so massive boost they would turn into meta? At least for solo. Then they would grind even more? ^^

It's not a bad idea to sell items when prices are high, with the expectation that prices will go down as supply increases and demand decreases. If you can sell an item now for a relatively high price and then re-buy it later when prices are lower, you end up with the item plus some extra money in your pocket.

Yeah, cause few months ago we all have seen how shorts works for GameStop

molecule

VaranisArano wrote: »

It's because the Devs wanted another high RNG MMO grind for the new items.

As 'Companions' was the major feature of this chapter they need to drag it out so the player numbers stay high for longer and call it a success. If farming was easy then people would lose interest quickly and numbers drop when they realise that it is just a novelty that the community was not crying out for.

Jaimeh

Between the fragments, the companion gear and companion quests on alts, the shadowfen lead, the change to mukrmire prologue dailies... it's the most grindtastic chapter yet. I'm just glad I did the prologue dailies before the change, there is zero justification for that change. As for gear, I'll equip my companions if and when I find gear, or if prices drop. Again, very little justfication on that front, it's not as if gear is make or break. They just want us to spend time on the game, but this chapter is really aggressive on that regard.

crazepdx

Ippokrates wrote: »

Ilsabet wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

But one thing is bothering me - those people who are selling this equipment. Do they really don't want to keep it for themselves and test it? Instead they prefer to sell unique equipments cause virtual money are their priority. But what if next patch companions would so massive boost they would turn into meta? At least for solo. Then they would grind even more? ^^

It's not a bad idea to sell items when prices are high, with the expectation that prices will go down as supply increases and demand decreases. If you can sell an item now for a relatively high price and then re-buy it later when prices are lower, you end up with the item plus some extra money in your pocket.

Yeah, cause few months ago we all have seen how shorts works for GameStop

It worked great for retail, not so much for the big guys.

SilverBride

The market will be whatever players allow it to be. If something is way overpriced, don't buy it. Prices will drop.

Yuffie91

Just out off curiousity as my MM doesn't seem to be working how much do blue staves/axes/arm pads sell for?

ADarklore

Yuffie91 wrote: »

Just out off curiousity as my MM doesn't seem to be working how much do blue staves/axes/arm pads sell for?

It depends... greens you can usually get for under 50K, blues are usually over 50K... purples... don't even want to go there.

Yuffie91

ADarklore wrote: »

Yuffie91 wrote: »

Just out off curiousity as my MM doesn't seem to be working how much do blue staves/axes/arm pads sell for?

It depends... greens you can usually get for under 50K, blues are usually over 50K... purples... don't even want to go there.

Aw man..I sold a blue staff for 10k thinking it seemed a solid price . Explains why it was gone so fast lol

DinoZavr

just in case,
Mirri level 5 as DPS in white gear has survived on normal FG1, Spindle1, EH1, CoH1 (though she resetted Ilabmrils twins at least 5 times, even though i was usiing Y+clicks) and Arx Corinium no deaths. I was soloing these to level her up and had to slot Undauned taunt though.
Good girl Mirri

Starlight_Whisper

Knowledge is power...if you had read patch notes you would of had companion in gear already for idk 250 gold.

carly

I just don't buy items anymore unless it's something rare - otherwise patience will get you what you need in the end. I looted a purple companion item today and 3 green items the past few days just questing on my own with my companion. She does really well without being fully decked out and I"m enjoying playing with her.

I learned the hard way with furnishing plans in the past - people sell the new ones for insane prices but if you wait a few weeks, the prices go way down and by then I've looted many of them anyway. I would just ignore the crazy prices and play the game, you'll get the drops without having to 'grind' or spend money you don't have. If you always try to keep up with the 'Jones's' you won't enjoy the game.

xv1_me

My response is going to be the same as people making threads that mats like freight wax are priced too high.

If you can’t afford companion gear, increase your income or don’t gear them out in blue and purple the first week it’s released?

I sell plenty of purple items well over 1 mil because they are rare drops and a lot of people don’t want to spend hours a day farming bosses and pve mobs.

I disagree completely with OP entire post. End game is whatever people want it to be. Just because it was stated as “never be solo” doesn’t mean it’s only for new players who can’t make gold.

Good job on companions zos and everyone keep the prices high!

Thanks.

Saucy_Jack

Here's my rationale for pricing purple gear the way I do:

First, it's a brand new chapter, meaning NO ONE had companion gear (or even companions) before this. So the market's brand spanking new.

Second, there's *consistently* a subset of the playerbase who are always saying either a) gold's too easy to make, b) there's nothing to spend gold on, or c) both. So you have a niche market of players who are willing to pay premium prices SIMPLY because there's now something new to spend gold on.

Third, there's also a subset of players who want to have "the best" or "the meta" immediately rather than grind/farm for it, and purple companion gear is stuff they can actually buy because it's not player-bound.

Fourth, a quick search for companion purple rings on TTC currently shows 6 pages of listings. At ten listings per page, that's 60 purple rings assuming that none of the listings are duplicates, though likely some of them are, so let's say it's more like 50-60 purple rings. If a companion uses two rings, that means there's enough on the market to gear up 25-30 companions, max. Out of ALLLLLL the playerbase on the NA server, out of ALLLLLL the people who bought Blackwood, there's enough to gear up 25-30 companions with purple rings, that's it. And that's not even considering on/off-trait. So if the supply's that low, of *course* the prices will be higher.

My prices aren't meant to rip people off; they're meant to cater to a market that I know exists based on historical ESO market trends from previous chapter updates.

Nestor

My companions are doing just fine in the gear that they are given at the start. I see no reason to worry about the gear, it will show up when it shows up.

Icy_Waffles

Are you just upset that if you buy your way through this, it’s gonna be expensive for a while?

VampReworkFailed

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

ZOS put the Companion system in the game to help newer players who need assistance clearing base game content.
i.e they have no cash. (for some reason ZOS decided to also set the drop rate so low as the player would have died of old age before equipping one companion but that is a separate issue)

The Community "Lets gouge the price, scalp the market and price Companion Noob gear Higher than BIS character gear or some gold items."
(PowerstripWojak.jpg)

The Community seem to think that just because aa system is new it is automatically for end game players, but no end game player is using a companion in place of another player, nor should they.... So can we ALL just use a little common sense and price things accordingly, Companion gear for the % effectiveness gain would be priced as trash gear in any other situation, show a bit of kindness to the new players for whom an 8K maxed DPS fitted companion would make a difference, thanks.

I'm sorry but if new players need help clearing base game content they probably shouldn't be playing the game to begin with.

ESO is so *** easy I've witnessed plenty of friends who have never played an MMO able to just go in and win every fight in the overland/questing/base game stuff.

Companions weren't made for just them because even ZoS knows how easy their questing content is. Nobody looks at ESO's overland and goes 'yup, having an extra companion would make things so much easier'

You can already 3 shot pretty much every mob with any spammable ability.

cyberjanet

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

. (for some reason ZOS decided to also set the drop rate so low as the player would have died of old age before equipping one companion but that is a separate issue)

Exactly why I skipped the prepurchase here after playing on the PTS for a considerable time.
And I really could die of old age before equipping a character.
Not all players are 18 years old.

Abigail

Just shows that predatory capitalism is taking over every aspect of our lives. Choked over all the white gear listed in the guild stores for 5000 coins, then all the chat items going for 150K. Lotta these conniving bastages need hot grease shot up their posterior ejection mechanisms.