Central Sales Information is Desperately Needed!

FlopsyPrince

I just spent an hour looking around for Blue Heavy Bolstered Companion gear.

Impossible to find less than 10x more than what TTC says is the suggested price.

One of the normal claims against this is that someone would lock the market on things, when this is exactly what is being done now!

I am fairly sure we will never get a central auction house, but at least let me find who is selling something NOW even if I have to rush there to get it. At least then I could not waste my time either randomly looking or relying on what an addon (PC only) tracks. Neither is working well now nor is it making for a good experience!

MidniteOwl1913

Hmm, what platform are you on? I'm on PSNA.

The sellers in Mournhold, Wayest and Elden Root have most things. I like shopping in-game IRL. I can look around for you for likely sellers.

Maybe instead of an auction house, we should have personal shoppers... ;-)

Nerouyn

I really hate this aspect of the game. I only use it when absolutely necessary. Like style motifs I really, really, really want or recently just starting to play with companions, gear for them.

But I use the website.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade

It's nowhere near 100% reliable but if you see something as listed for sale in the last hour or so and the price isn't ridiculously cheap - i.e. likely to be snapped up instantly - then there's a fair chance it'll still be there.

For companion gear you can find that by searching for items by their traits.

Danikat

I'm another one who never used guild traders until I found out about Tamriel Trade Center because it's not worth the hassle. Even with TTC it's not perfect, but at least I'm working off potentially out of date information instead of guessing at random.

I know some people consider trading to be it's own mini game and they're willing to spend a lot of time trawling through traders hoping to stumble across what they want, or I guess just anything they can re-sell on their own trader. But for me that's a complete waste of time. If I wanted to play a trading game I'd play one that's actually designed for it and so makes it interesting, not an interruption to an RPG.

I'd love them to put something like TTC into the game. Keep the seperate guild traders if the inconvenience is really that important, but at least give players a way to know where to start looking for things they want to buy.

I think it would help the hardcore traders too, because I would not be surprised to learn the majority of players have never bought from a guild trader, or very rarely done so because the menu itself is entirely different to all the other merchants and stores in the game in that you have to search before seeing even a sample of what's available, and finding something you actually want has several additional steps which aren't explained at all.

I'm in 2 social guilds with traders and even then when the subject of using them comes up in guild chat it's very common for someone to say they never use them because they've looked at guild traders a couple of times but they never had anything for same.

Lillisia

I agree!

I am really starting to despise Trading.

For 1) It's too hard to find things. I don't want to spend an hour of my game time, or more, running across all of Tamriel in search of something that is supposed to be there but isn't. (Creates Stress)
For 2) It takes more addons then I wish to have installed to try to price things reasonably and to make all of Trading combined play nicely with itself.
For 3) I don't appreciate being forced to use an addon for Guild History. (Just to clarify, I have no issue with the addon author.)
For 4) Most Trading guilds (at least the ones with a well visited Trader spot) have sales requisites in place in order to keep their spot. And sometimes those sales requisites can't be met. (Creates Stress)
For 5) Having to keep adjusting the price of something you listed to sell because of how much the prices fluctuates day by day.
* I now just list stuff and let the item listing expire if it hasn't sold by then. Then sell it to a merchant or decomp it if I need the mats.
Or if I am running out of Bank Space and need to list some of the High Value items I store in my bank, I pull the about to expire listings and then list the High Value items.

I really miss how much smoother Trading was before U41. And even then it wasn't as smooth as it could be.

Now I have to run Guild History across all my guilds.
Then do TTC Guild Scans to keep the listings fresh.
All before I can even start playing the game.
And pray that ATT picks up everything that I sold within the guilds I am in. Sometimes it don't and I have had a sale sit in my my mail that says it sold 3 days ago but still doesn't show up on the ATT window.

I have recently just started to decomp things that I could've sold on Traders, instead of listing them. Or I sell them to a Merchant I ran across while playing the game.
The only things I am now mainly putting up to sell on Traders are just things like Motifs, Style Books, Recipes and Furnishing Recipes (that I have already learned), High Value Furnishings, Companion Gear, and occasionally a high value Material or 2 (so I can met the Guild sales requisite). Usually that is Perfect Roe.

I am seriously considering leaving the 2 Trading guilds I am in now and uninstalling all the Trading related addons I have installed.
It's just became too much of a chore and a waste of my game time.

Desiato

Trading in ESO, as it currently exists is a play style as essential to some as PVE or PVP. It has always been a foundational part of the game that should not be replaced by a bland global auction house that would create as many or more issues as it would seem to solve.

What the OP is proposing would just be a logical step towards a global auction house. Sure there sites that approximate the function the OP is looking for on PC, but they have inherent flaws that reduce the impact an in-game tool would have.

Beyond that, Trade guilds are the social backbone of ESO. They are essential for drawing new players into the community. They give opportunities for players to work together to build, maintain and participate in.

This kind of post is akin to the "turn IC into a public dungeon" or "make cyrodiil a pve zone" posts we occasionally see without consideration for the players who have enjoyed content like that for a decade.

So many posters in this forum fail to understand the diversity of the ESO community and that players enjoy it in a multitude of ways. They seem to think everything should be for them and fit them like a glove.

spartaxoxo

If you're on PlayStation and want to find a difficult item

First check the big 3 capitals. Stormhaven, Mournhold, and Grahtwood.

If you don't find what you're looking for there, next try the busy tier 2 cities. Vivec, Alinor, and Leyawiin.

If you still don't, look at the other chapter towns. Gonfalon Bay, Solitude, Rimmen, etc.

If you still don't, then good luck. Try the rest of the map.

It's been extremely rare for me to need to do that last step though. Most things are in either in the big 3 towns or one of the tier 2 places.

Wildberryjack

I tend to prefer a central AH but I do see one advantage in this system. Often you will have one player list an item for way below value then others do the same either from not paying attention to just not caring. The end result is something that was valuable now isn't and you can either sell yours for pennies or just keep it since its value has been destroyed. I see this constantly on WoWs AH and it's plain annoying.

NoxPerpetuo

Okay. What if you had a Shopping Assistant npc or even an interactive ‘board’ in the environment somewhere that would show you 3 - 5 randomized listings for an item you searched? (So, not EVERY listing for a specific item, just some of them, so you could know if a specific item is for sale at all, and have a general idea on the price.) Maybe this assistant/board could skip out on showing prices all-together and just show you where any item is currently for sale, so then you wouldn’t even need to limit how many listings you could see to prevent market cornering. What if, as part of the item listing UI, you could also select whether your item appears in these lists, or only in your guild trader? (And set the Boolean to default ‘no’ to prevent careless listers from screwing the market.) Obviously, to keep the feel of ‘goin’ shoppin’, you’d still need to hurry over to the actual trader(s) where the item is for sale if the assistant/board happens to show you a really good doodad you just gotta have. No buying at the board/assistant.

If I want to buy a candle, let’s say, I don’t want to drive to EVERY store in town. I want to drive to some stores that sell candles, even if I don’t know how much they charge. If I’m a hardcore sale-hunter, I might visit several stores to compare prices. If I just want a candle, I’ll drive to one store and buy the first one I like.

valenwood_vegan

Personally, I tend to think that at least something with functionality similar to TTC should be built into the game.

But then again, given all the issues lately (most directly relevant perhaps being the difficulties with getting the new guild history system in a mostly-functional state), I have my doubts that some form of centralized listings *could* be added any time soon, even if it was desired by the powers that be.

OsUfi

Nope. I like the shopping experience in ESO. All main hubs usually have everything you need. Auction houses always feel like they remove the MMO part of MMORPGs for me.

Dawnblade

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I just spent an hour looking around for Blue Heavy Bolstered Companion gear.

Impossible to find less than 10x more than what TTC says is the suggested price.

One of the normal claims against this is that someone would lock the market on things, when this is exactly what is being done now!

I am fairly sure we will never get a central auction house, but at least let me find who is selling something NOW even if I have to rush there to get it. At least then I could not waste my time either randomly looking or relying on what an addon (PC only) tracks. Neither is working well now nor is it making for a good experience!

Would be nice - though doubtful something ZOS could pull off without a massive re-write of the system.

Heck, they can't even keep the PTS database from bleeding into the live database, mail still sometimes fails to arrive without zone swapping or relogging, and current guild history (including sales data) consistently breaks.

A bigger issue IMO is the highly limited number of trading slots available. They should increase the supply of slots by increasing guild account limits, increasing trade slots per account per guild, and maybe even adding more traders or allowing more than one guild per trader.

All of the above would increase the supply which would have an indirect effect on the ability to find items (more people would be able to list more items) without changing the underlying mechanics of individual guilds with traders spread throughout the game world.

But again, this is ZOS and ESO - who knows if adding more supply to the system is even possible, most likely it would just overwhelm the servers and cause more issues.

Titansteele

War never changes

FlopsyPrince

Nerouyn wrote: »

I really hate this aspect of the game. I only use it when absolutely necessary. Like style motifs I really, really, really want or recently just starting to play with companions, gear for them.

But I use the website.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade

It's nowhere near 100% reliable but if you see something as listed for sale in the last hour or so and the price isn't ridiculously cheap - i.e. likely to be snapped up instantly - then there's a fair chance it'll still be there.

For companion gear you can find that by searching for items by their traits.

I used that and still couldn't find anything in a reasonable price range. I know TTC thought the reasonable range was <10K gold, but all I could find were almost 100K gold!

Now, if that was truly accurate I would have known and bit the bullet, but the TTC listings were no longer there so someone was almost guaranteed to be buying low and repricing.

That is the flaw. If the game told me the CURRENT prices I would at least go to the right place and pay what the going rate is. Impossible to know that for sure now, even with TTC!

FlopsyPrince

Dawnblade wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I just spent an hour looking around for Blue Heavy Bolstered Companion gear.

Impossible to find less than 10x more than what TTC says is the suggested price.

One of the normal claims against this is that someone would lock the market on things, when this is exactly what is being done now!

I am fairly sure we will never get a central auction house, but at least let me find who is selling something NOW even if I have to rush there to get it. At least then I could not waste my time either randomly looking or relying on what an addon (PC only) tracks. Neither is working well now nor is it making for a good experience!

Would be nice - though doubtful something ZOS could pull off without a massive re-write of the system.

Heck, they can't even keep the PTS database from bleeding into the live database, mail still sometimes fails to arrive without zone swapping or relogging, and current guild history (including sales data) consistently breaks.

A bigger issue IMO is the highly limited number of trading slots available. They should increase the supply of slots by increasing guild account limits, increasing trade slots per account per guild, and maybe even adding more traders or allowing more than one guild per trader.

All of the above would increase the supply which would have an indirect effect on the ability to find items (more people would be able to list more items) without changing the underlying mechanics of individual guilds with traders spread throughout the game world.

But again, this is ZOS and ESO - who knows if adding more supply to the system is even possible, most likely it would just overwhelm the servers and cause more issues.

TTC can track some things (just not the exact present state). Surely ZOS could do the same with a basic database query with a time gated interface within the game. I would even write the query for them if they would give me access! (Something they would not do.)

FlopsyPrince

OsUfi wrote: »

Nope. I like the shopping experience in ESO. All main hubs usually have everything you need. Auction houses always feel like they remove the MMO part of MMORPGs for me.

Great arguments! Nothing about not being able to find something! Or a good price to sell something for!

BTW, the "grandaddy" of the modern MMO has had an Auction House its entire life (at least all the life I know of (World of Warcraft) so the better argument is that an MMO without a central AH is the odd one out. Though I am not arguing for that. I just want a way to find things!

Nerouyn

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I used that and still couldn't find anything in a reasonable price range. I know TTC thought the reasonable range was <10K gold, but all I could find were almost 100K gold!

I don't use that addon. I do my best to make a judgement based on memory and what's there right now.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Now, if that was truly accurate I would have known and bit the bullet, but the TTC listings were no longer there so someone was almost guaranteed to be buying low and repricing.

That is the flaw. If the game told me the CURRENT prices I would at least go to the right place and pay what the going rate is. Impossible to know that for sure now, even with TTC!

The website is absolutely accurate insofar as the item was seen by someone using the addon at that store at that price and at that time.

What it doesn't do is remove or mark listings as sold once they're gone. That's the only unknown, until you go along to the store and look for yourself.

Northwold

The trading system is pretty ridiculous and precisely the opposite of ZOS's claimed "do anything you like however you like whenever you like" ethos. Buying something can end up an extraordinary waste of time (literally an hour plus just looking for something to find it isn't on sale). Selling anything involves player-controlled gates, alienating casual players and people who plain don't want to waste their time playing that way.

Honestly, I've no idea what kind of player it's supposed to be of interest to except players whose entire game is trading -- in which case, why not play a trading MMO? Trading, after all, is a fundamental back end system that can be relevant to almost every other aspect of gameplay in ESO. It's not a mere gameplay type, like trials, say, or Tales of Tribute. So what on earth would possess a gameplay designer to mangle it like this?

But for whatever reason, ZOS appear to have no intention of changing it.

Nerouyn

Northwold wrote: »

So what on earth would possess a gameplay designer to mangle it like this?

Guilds, guilds, guilds.

This and many other irritating game design elements are geared towards driving players into guilds. Because the positive social benefits of playing with other players, makes it less likely for players to quit a game.

Definitely not saying I like this part of the game. As I said above, I really don't. But I do understand their intent.

Northwold

Nerouyn wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

So what on earth would possess a gameplay designer to mangle it like this?

Guilds, guilds, guilds.

This and many other irritating game design elements are geared towards driving players into guilds. Because the positive social benefits of playing with other players, makes it less likely for players to quit a game.

Definitely not saying I like this part of the game. As I said above, I really don't. But I do understand their intent.

Yes. Many problems of ESO design seem to stem from forgetting that before people get there people have to like the game *first*. It's utterly weird. See also the lack of attention paid to the new player experience.

Nerouyn

Northwold wrote: »

Yes. Many problems of ESO design seem to stem from forgetting that before get there people have to like the game *first*.

Made me lol.

Took me back to my first time playing and spending crazy amounts of time shuffling primarily crafting materials back and forth between alts.

Cancel sub.

Dawnblade

Northwold wrote: »

The trading system is pretty ridiculous and precisely the opposite of ZOS's claimed "do anything you like however you like whenever you like" ethos. Buying something can end up an extraordinary waste of time (literally an hour plus just looking for something to find it isn't on sale). Selling anything involves player-controlled gates, alienating casual players and people who plain don't want to waste their time playing that way.

Honestly, I've no idea what kind of player it's supposed to be of interest to except players whose entire game is trading -- in which case, why not play a trading MMO? Trading, after all, is a fundamental back end system that can be relevant to almost every other aspect of gameplay in ESO. It's not a mere gameplay type, like trials, say, or Tales of Tribute. So what on earth would possess a gameplay designer to mangle it like this?

But for whatever reason, ZOS appear to have no intention of changing it.

The design is what it is to create the illusion of scarcity (direct from early ZOS developer comments).

This is why the market is both distributed (traders all over the place) and highly limited (limited number of traders, one guild per trader, limited number of player slots per guild, and limited number of trading slots per player).

My understanding is they had a 'fear' that with a megaserver and a central market, even actual rare items would seem to be common as they would appear more often in the market just due to the megaserver population.

Northwold

Dawnblade wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

The trading system is pretty ridiculous and precisely the opposite of ZOS's claimed "do anything you like however you like whenever you like" ethos. Buying something can end up an extraordinary waste of time (literally an hour plus just looking for something to find it isn't on sale). Selling anything involves player-controlled gates, alienating casual players and people who plain don't want to waste their time playing that way.

Honestly, I've no idea what kind of player it's supposed to be of interest to except players whose entire game is trading -- in which case, why not play a trading MMO? Trading, after all, is a fundamental back end system that can be relevant to almost every other aspect of gameplay in ESO. It's not a mere gameplay type, like trials, say, or Tales of Tribute. So what on earth would possess a gameplay designer to mangle it like this?

But for whatever reason, ZOS appear to have no intention of changing it.

The design is what it is to create the illusion of scarcity (direct from early ZOS developer comments).

This is why the market is both distributed (traders all over the place) and highly limited (limited number of traders, one guild per trader, limited number of player slots per guild, and limited number of trading slots per player).

My understanding is they had a 'fear' that with a megaserver and a central market, even actual rare items would seem to be common as they would appear more often in the market just due to the megaserver population.

I can see that there would be thoughts behind it at the beginning. What I don't understand is why they continue with the system in that original design now. Why? Just to please a small niche of players who are very vocal? It's damaging to the broader game and most especially, I imagine, to new player attachment.

OsUfi

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

Nope. I like the shopping experience in ESO. All main hubs usually have everything you need. Auction houses always feel like they remove the MMO part of MMORPGs for me.

Great arguments! Nothing about not being able to find something! Or a good price to sell something for!

BTW, the "grandaddy" of the modern MMO has had an Auction House its entire life (at least all the life I know of (World of Warcraft) so the better argument is that an MMO without a central AH is the odd one out. Though I am not arguing for that. I just want a way to find things!

Why are you always so salty in your replies?

Also I'd argue the grand daddy is Ultima not WoW, and UO never had an auction house. Everyone had a house with their own vendors.

belial5221_ESO

They already did account wide achieves, and more,and still have other server lag,jsut not as bad as before.More data recieving/sending would make it alot worse,when 10s or 100s of thousands are constantly updating.It would also cost more for different servers,and have a small team to pay to keep it maintained.TTC can do it cause addon pricing updated once a day,and realtime is only updated from few ppl at a time on a cheap/free server host.

FlopsyPrince

Nerouyn wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I used that and still couldn't find anything in a reasonable price range. I know TTC thought the reasonable range was <10K gold, but all I could find were almost 100K gold!

I don't use that addon. I do my best to make a judgement based on memory and what's there right now.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Now, if that was truly accurate I would have known and bit the bullet, but the TTC listings were no longer there so someone was almost guaranteed to be buying low and repricing.

That is the flaw. If the game told me the CURRENT prices I would at least go to the right place and pay what the going rate is. Impossible to know that for sure now, even with TTC!

The website is absolutely accurate insofar as the item was seen by someone using the addon at that store at that price and at that time.

What it doesn't do is remove or mark listings as sold once they're gone. That's the only unknown, until you go along to the store and look for yourself.

And that is my point about having real-time data IN THE SYSTEM.

OsUfi wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

Nope. I like the shopping experience in ESO. All main hubs usually have everything you need. Auction houses always feel like they remove the MMO part of MMORPGs for me.

Great arguments! Nothing about not being able to find something! Or a good price to sell something for!

BTW, the "grandaddy" of the modern MMO has had an Auction House its entire life (at least all the life I know of (World of Warcraft) so the better argument is that an MMO without a central AH is the odd one out. Though I am not arguing for that. I just want a way to find things!

Why are you always so salty in your replies?

Also I'd argue the grand daddy is Ultima not WoW, and UO never had an auction house. Everyone had a house with their own vendors.

Well, Warcraft was the most common. Far more people have played WoW than UO. Though perhaps your experience varies enough that UO seems to be the norm. Did that have any player-to-player sales method at all? I would also probably call it an MMO ancestor myself.

Perhaps I could have been more relaxed, but just saying "its great as is" doesn't address any of the raised concerns.

katanagirl1

The lack of a centralized system for trading I think is more immersive, and I would guess is why it was set up this way, in addition to other arguments I have seen.

It also likely creates more trading opportunities than just looking up what you need, going straight there, and purchasing it. With the current system you have to shop around and visit multiple traders, looking for a good deal, and taking a chance that the best deal will not sell while you are searching. You probably also find things you weren’t looking for and also purchase them as well.

I like that it rewards those who take time to learn how to use the system to its full advantage.

Desiato

If the game had built-in TTC, players would still travel to a destination to find someone else bought it for the best price first. In fact, that result would be more common because everyone would do it.

Then they would complain about that here, not understanding why they just can't buy it within that interface without the legwork.

I preferred trading in ESO before the TTC paradigm, but it is survivable because it's not perfect. Trading still rewards those who go out to find the deals on foot based on their knowledge and intuition. It is a game unto itself.

The key here is that you don't always have to get the best deal. If one lets go of that unrealistic obsession, they can find whatever they want quickly.

But like most posts in this forum, everyone wants the best result for them, even if it's impossible in a multiplayer game. Some people just can't take not getting the best result, and therefore they are impossible to consistently please.

freespirit

@FlopsyPrince which server are you after the items on?

If it's PC-EU send me a pm, I have a fairly healthy stash of blue companion gear, I may have something you can use, no charge! 🙂

Hamfast

While I like TTC and yes, items listed there (more so if prices low) are gone before you can get to them... But @FlopsyPrince , I see from your signature you are on PC and PS4/PS5, if you are talking about the PS Servers, TTC does not report on items on that server, just PC/NA and PC/EU...

Necrotech_Master

Wildberryjack wrote: »

I tend to prefer a central AH but I do see one advantage in this system. Often you will have one player list an item for way below value then others do the same either from not paying attention to just not caring. The end result is something that was valuable now isn't and you can either sell yours for pennies or just keep it since its value has been destroyed. I see this constantly on WoWs AH and it's plain annoying.

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

the system we have now somewhat prevents this

it would be nice though if they did add some NPC in that you could say "im looking for X item" and they could at least tell you the zones with traders that had one listed, it might make it easier to find the item your searching to buy