Tired of the Player Market System

Vayek

I love this game. I have played off and on since Beta.
But the one complaint I've had since the very beginning was this fragmented market system we have.

Where we need to make/join a guild and bit on traders so we can post something for sale to other players. And then juggle 5 guilds.

Then, when trying to find something specific to buy, I have to a third party website and search for the thing. That tells me what trader NPC has it from what guild. Then I have to go back into the game, and search for that trader. Find the item in the trader. Then go back to that previous website and repeat the entire process to find the next thing I'm looking to buy.

This entire process is a giant pain in my ***. And I seriously doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.
Is it possible to maybe get a new system installed where it's a single unified market? Maybe many locations to go, but a single market tied to those locations.
This would at least save the money and time sink of bidding on vendors for guild leaders.

Veinblood1965

I 100% agree with this. While we are at it how about something better than only being able to send someone six items at a time via mail. Really six??

BlueRaven

I am not saying the current way is the best, but I extremely dislike centralized AHs like in wow. This feels a bit like going to stores in the real world, where multiple stores may have the same product at wildly different costs. Or I may stumble across an item at a steep discount.

I don’t RP but I like how the current system feels more “real” than a centralized market.

Also as has been said a ton of times, those guild trader bids act as much needed gold sinks.
(And if you don’t like being in 5 guilds no one is forcing you to be in that many.)

jcaceresw

For me, I would like to have more Guild Slots. The game now have millions of items for sale and even having five trading guilds is not enough to sell all those items. Worse with the new changes to the guild sale timers (from 30 days down to 14).

Northwold

BlueRaven wrote: »

Also as has been said a ton of times, those guild trader bids act as much needed gold sinks.
(And if you don’t like being in 5 guilds no one is forcing you to be in that many.)

It's worth pointing out that it's questionable, to say the least, that the guild trader bids achieve anything as gold sinks except to cool a small portion of the inflation the guild trader system *itself* creates.

People say the guild traders deal with inflation better than a centralised auction house. Honestly, if you think about it logically, it is the very opposite. Price competition doesn't function properly in ESO because the traders are so widely distributed that people never see the full range of pricing. What happens in practice, even on PC (where people could use TTC), is that a lot of players simply go to the small number of major trading hubs and whatever is sold there sets the prevailing prices for the game, regardless of bargains offered further afield.

Lack of price discoverability --> inflation.

Likewise, by gating selling behind guilds, players who want to buy stuff but don't want to join a guild to sell stuff will get the gold to buy things from in game activities, eg public dungeon trawling. That is creating money that was not already in the game. That causes inflation. The lack of access of these players to selling also constrains supply. More inflation.

So, there are arguments for the guild traders. People like the chance to find bargains, people like having unique traders, etc. But inflation and gold sinks really isn't one of them. Realistically, it is a strong argument *not* to have guild traders.

FelisCatus

To quote a portion of my Steam review: "Trade guilds function like a criminal syndicate. The rich get richer and they profit off of your sales by getting an automatic tax cut but then will have the audacity to push you into donating on top of that and threaten to kick you if you don't. If you don't meet your "sales quota" expect to be kicked too. As the Joker said "all you people care about is money" pretty much true there. I won't even go into how the richest 1% players have formed a cartel and literally play the market and manipulate prices. Mass purchasing a bulk amount of one item then marking up the price and selling it higher. They don't even need the money it's just pure greed."

valenwood_vegan

No thanks on an auction house; love the unique trading system that allows for varied pricing and deal-shopping; and love the trading guild communities filled with friendly, active, helpful, and engaged players that it fosters; though yes... trading could use QoL improvements - particularly to help people on console or who otherwise can't or don't use addons.

I was honestly starting to get a little worried because we haven't had this post in a bit, it used to be almost weekly! Relieved to see the same folks returning to rehash the same arguments again. I'm sure *this time* zos will drop everything and change it after ten years! Good luck.

BixenteN7Akantor

FelisCatus wrote: »

To quote a portion of my Steam review: "Trade guilds function like a criminal syndicate. The rich get richer and they profit off of your sales by getting an automatic tax cut but then will have the audacity to push you into donating on top of that and threaten to kick you if you don't. If you don't meet your "sales quota" expect to be kicked too. As the Joker said "all you people care about is money" pretty much true there. I won't even go into how the richest 1% players have formed a cartel and literally play the market and manipulate prices. Mass purchasing a bulk amount of one item then marking up the price and selling it higher. They don't even need the money it's just pure greed."

What a weird statement to me, at least in PC-EU the taxes from sales don't even pay for 25% of trader bids costs. In smaller traders spots it can go over 80% of bid costs but in the best spots the costs are inflated due to blackmarket gold.
But for the market manipulation part, I can say some players do it on their own, alone, but no global mafia of guilds rich guys profiting of the poor.

Of course there are large guilds with questionnable practices or outright scammy pratices that I won't name here. Find the good ones.

Also let's remind that sales tax isn't 7% to the guild. It's 3,5% to the guild and 3,5% voided.

FelisCatus

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

To quote a portion of my Steam review: "Trade guilds function like a criminal syndicate. The rich get richer and they profit off of your sales by getting an automatic tax cut but then will have the audacity to push you into donating on top of that and threaten to kick you if you don't. If you don't meet your "sales quota" expect to be kicked too. As the Joker said "all you people care about is money" pretty much true there. I won't even go into how the richest 1% players have formed a cartel and literally play the market and manipulate prices. Mass purchasing a bulk amount of one item then marking up the price and selling it higher. They don't even need the money it's just pure greed."

What a weird statement to me, at least in PC-EU the taxes from sales don't even pay for 25% of trader bids costs. In smaller traders spots it can go over 80% of bid costs but in the best spots the costs are inflated due to blackmarket gold.
But for the market manipulation part, I can say some players do it on their own, alone, but no global mafia of guilds rich guys profiting of the poor.

Of course there are large guilds with questionnable practices or outright scammy pratices that I won't name here. Find the good ones.

Also let's remind that sales tax isn't 7% to the guild. It's 3,5% to the guild and 3,5% voided.

You clearly haven't met the 1% then. They do exist and are happy to boast about it if you are on good terms with them.
If guilds can't afford the bidding costs then that's a fundamental flaw of the current system that the devs should address.

valenwood_vegan

The secret guild trader mafia must have all gone on vacation for the summer on PC/NA at least, as prices have been falling and are continuing to fall rapidly on most items.

There are certainly players out there who try to manipulate the market (and would do so in an auction house system as well, believe it or not), and there are guilds that engage in bad practices. However, the large trading guilds I've been in are actually run by players who devote a significant amount of their time and their own gold to maintaining a good trader and a welcoming community for their members, with minimal requirements such as logging in and selling each week and/or making a small donation.

There are *many* guilds outside of the top trading locations that have no requirements at all other than logging in and occasionally selling something (or even JUST logging in weekly or bi-weekly).

Painting them all with one brush as evil criminal thugs is sad and really not even deserving of the time I put into this response.

JustLovely

This sounds like another request for a central auction house. Big no thank you on that for me. Inflation is too steep as it is now. A central auction house will just make inflation way worse.

Desiato

If people think market manipulation is bad now, it would be 100x worse with a global auction house. It would dominated by automated scripts just like rl markets are.

Trade guilds are the social backbone of the community. Far from a "criminal syndicate", they are generally maintained by selfless teams of admins who dedicate a lot of time to run events that contribute to community engagement.

Sure there's market manipulation and unscrupulous people as those are factors in every single human system. If it involves people, those things are impossible to avoid. They are not representative of the whole, however.

Furthermore, ESO's trading system isn't merely an accessory. It is a fleshed out play style itself. For many players, it is the game as much as questing, trials and pvp. 10 years in, they don't deserve other players advocating to remove from the game what they hold dear.

It's always amazing to me how people in this forum can advocate removing or dramatically changing a significant potion of the game that is enjoyed by others. This is akin to the people who advocate converting IC and Cyrodiill to PVE zones.

There are a huge range of trade guilds. Many of them have no requirements other than to login once every few weeks. It's pretty easy to get by with just one. I think a big problem is people are too obsessed with buying and selling at what they perceive to be optimal prices.

ThelerisTelvanni

Well the traiding system is rather annoying to use. Locking up an Item on a 3rd party website to traveling the world to find out if the cheepest listing is still there is so tideous and time consuming. I honestly do not like doing that! I often visit 10 or more guild traders for one item...

I understand why some are against a centralised AH! It makes it far to easy for skamplers to buy up the stock of items they don't need and sell them at a higher price. But at least it saves time!

And to those that say yaeh thats fun gameplay to buy up stuff and sell it for a higher price: NO IT IS NOT! It is annoying as [snip]!

Some part of me whishes that items were just dropping at a resonable rate that you do not need to use the trade system at all. It is so frustrating...

[edited for profanity bypass]

FlopsyPrince

JustLovely wrote: »

This sounds like another request for a central auction house. Big no thank you on that for me. Inflation is too steep as it is now. A central auction house will just make inflation way worse.

Once again this is repeated with absolutely no evidence.

The current system almost certainly pushes inflation up more as noted prior to this post.

I am impressed that many people who correctly note that the current system sucks have posted/replied here. It is frustrating to try and find something, even with TTC on the PC, let alone without it on console.

The current system may have seemed creative, but the "it just feels bad" knee jerk rejection of a Central AH is astounding at best.

FlopsyPrince

ThelerisTelvanni wrote: »

Well the traiding system is rather annoying to use. Locking up an Item on a 3rd party website to traveling the world to find out if the cheepest listing is still there is so tideous and time consuming. I honestly do not like doing that! I often visit 10 or more guild traders for one item...

I understand why some are against a centralised AH! It makes it far to easy for skamplers to buy up the stock of items they don't need and sell them at a higher price. But at least it saves time!

And to those that say yaeh thats fun gameplay to buy up stuff and sell it for a higher price: NO IT IS NOT! It is annoying as [snip]!

Some part of me whishes that items were just dropping at a reasonable rate that you do not need to use the trade system at all. It is so frustrating...

People buy up lower priced stuff with the current system, a fact that is completely ignored!

Flipping will happen no matter the system. Claiming it is exclusive to a central AH is ludicrous. Try to find companion gear now for the "suggested" TTC price and you will see that some people live to play the "flipping" game for those pieces, as just one example. Not needed often, but a pain to find when you do need them!

[edited to remove quote]

Anifaas

The reason things are so cheap right now is because the last event created a glut of materials.

I agree the current guild trader system is absurd. A central auction house is way more sensible.

Fortunately, there is World of Warcraft. They know how to manage an economy and a trading system quite well.

Necrotech_Master

i dont mind the current system, i have more moderate trade guilds to sell items, but hardly buy much myself

i think theres 2 parts to the system:

selling stuff
and buying stuff

for selling stuff, i think the market is fine as is, because it does prevent issues that centralized auction houses cause

for buying stuff, i do wish they made it a little easier to find stuff, instead of going to each guild trader and searching, if you wanted to find a specific item

this is where it would be nice to have some kind of NPC you could talk to which would allow you to search all guild stores to see where an item is posted if it i was a more specific item, and to prevent issues with flipping, the actual prices would be hidden, this would just be to help buyers find the items they were looking for (as there is several hundred guild traders, and would provide more visibility to items listed in more remote locations without needing to rely on 3rd party software to do so, which would in the long run also help people on console too lol)

FlopsyPrince

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i dont mind the current system, i have more moderate trade guilds to sell items, but hardly buy much myself

i think theres 2 parts to the system:

selling stuff
and buying stuff

for selling stuff, i think the market is fine as is, because it does prevent issues that centralized auction houses cause

for buying stuff, i do wish they made it a little easier to find stuff, instead of going to each guild trader and searching, if you wanted to find a specific item

this is where it would be nice to have some kind of NPC you could talk to which would allow you to search all guild stores to see where an item is posted if it i was a more specific item, and to prevent issues with flipping, the actual prices would be hidden, this would just be to help buyers find the items they were looking for (as there is several hundred guild traders, and would provide more visibility to items listed in more remote locations without needing to rely on 3rd party software to do so, which would in the long run also help people on console too lol)

You are wrong on the selling end. Sure, you can get a reasonable idea on common stuff. But how much is a rare pattern, painting, or other furniture worth? Good look finding that out, even with TTC, let alone without it.

The current system sucks on both ends. But most people don't need it often enough to matter.

I (and others) have suggested some fixes (like being able to find where something is listed NOW in game) but even those ideas get rejected. Your idea is the same but will almost certainly not happen, though it would do a LOT to help things. Though hiding the price is silly. Flipping will happen no matter what. Don't prevent it, just let prices settle on what they do.

So we stumble on.

kevkj

Is the shadow wizard money gang in the room with us right now?

tsaescishoeshiner

I would certainly be bothered by the current system without addons--they should consider working something like TTC into the game, the same way they've added target markers and other features that give parts of what popular addons add.

There are some nice things about the current system--it gets guilds to do fundraising events, it encourages people to not list too much, you interact with a physical merchant in the world. I'm kind of neutral on the issue overall.

It would be really, really nice if we could join social guilds without losing out on trader slots.

Necrotech_Master

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i dont mind the current system, i have more moderate trade guilds to sell items, but hardly buy much myself

i think theres 2 parts to the system:

selling stuff
and buying stuff

for selling stuff, i think the market is fine as is, because it does prevent issues that centralized auction houses cause

for buying stuff, i do wish they made it a little easier to find stuff, instead of going to each guild trader and searching, if you wanted to find a specific item

this is where it would be nice to have some kind of NPC you could talk to which would allow you to search all guild stores to see where an item is posted if it i was a more specific item, and to prevent issues with flipping, the actual prices would be hidden, this would just be to help buyers find the items they were looking for (as there is several hundred guild traders, and would provide more visibility to items listed in more remote locations without needing to rely on 3rd party software to do so, which would in the long run also help people on console too lol)

You are wrong on the selling end. Sure, you can get a reasonable idea on common stuff. But how much is a rare pattern, painting, or other furniture worth? Good look finding that out, even with TTC, let alone without it.

The current system sucks on both ends. But most people don't need it often enough to matter.

I (and others) have suggested some fixes (like being able to find where something is listed NOW in game) but even those ideas get rejected. Your idea is the same but will almost certainly not happen, though it would do a LOT to help things. Though hiding the price is silly. Flipping will happen no matter what. Don't prevent it, just let prices settle on what they do.

So we stumble on.

i dont use TTC for pricing at all lol, i do use an addon to help with the pricing though (arkadius trade tools, which goes off of actual sales i see in the guilds im in)

sure i dont always have data on an item, and ill either make a judgement call to guess a price, or just not sell it right then until i have some more data

"how much is something worth" when everything has no intrinsic value is going to be highly subjective per person

using a hypothetical, you could get some furnishing item, that using data is worth about 30k gold (for example), someone who isnt into housing might not want to spend that much on said item and it might only really be value of 10k to them, a housing person who was really interested in it, could probably decide to pay upwards 50k gold for it if they were really wanting it

for me i when i pvp i get a lot of gear i dont usually need, however im not going to price gouge it, ill usually list it for like 5-15k depending on the set its from (such as ones not from rewards of the worthy), and quality (if its green, blue, purple)

in the end all i care is that it sells because i dont want the item in my inventory, but figure someone out there would want this item

valenwood_vegan

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

This sounds like another request for a central auction house. Big no thank you on that for me. Inflation is too steep as it is now. A central auction house will just make inflation way worse.

Once again this is repeated with absolutely no evidence.

The current system almost certainly pushes inflation up more as noted prior to this post.

I am impressed that many people who correctly note that the current system sucks have posted/replied here. It is frustrating to try and find something, even with TTC on the PC, let alone without it on console.

The current system may have seemed creative, but the "it just feels bad" knee jerk rejection of a Central AH is astounding at best.

Respectfully, your opinions are not supported by any evidence either, despite your attempts to state them as fact.

BlueRaven

Northwold wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Also as has been said a ton of times, those guild trader bids act as much needed gold sinks.
(And if you don’t like being in 5 guilds no one is forcing you to be in that many.)

It's worth pointing out that it's questionable, to say the least, that the guild trader bids achieve anything as gold sinks except to cool a small portion of the inflation the guild trader system *itself* creates.

People say the guild traders deal with inflation better than a centralised auction house. Honestly, if you think about it logically, it is the very opposite. Price competition doesn't function properly in ESO because the traders are so widely distributed that people never see the full range of pricing. What happens in practice, even on PC (where people could use TTC), is that a lot of players simply go to the small number of major trading hubs and whatever is sold there sets the prevailing prices for the game, regardless of bargains offered further afield.

Lack of price discoverability --> inflation.

Likewise, by gating selling behind guilds, players who want to buy stuff but don't want to join a guild to sell stuff will get the gold to buy things from in game activities, eg public dungeon trawling. That is creating money that was not already in the game. That causes inflation. The lack of access of these players to selling also constrains supply. More inflation.

So, there are arguments for the guild traders. People like the chance to find bargains, people like having unique traders, etc. But inflation and gold sinks really isn't one of them. Realistically, it is a strong argument *not* to have guild traders.

There is a lot wrong here but let’s just hit on the main ones.

•••

The guild trader bids take millions upon millions out of the system per week. That is a gold sink. That is not “questionable”. It is a gold sink.

•••

Sellers are not privy to some super secret “this is how much things should sell for” list, any more than any buyer does. Thusly;

“ Lack of price discoverability --> inflation.”

… is false.

Why? Because this lack of price discovery works against sellers just as much as buyers. People can put things up for far less than what they are worth just as easily as overpricing it.

•••

Ok…

“ Likewise, by gating selling behind guilds, players who want to buy stuff but don't want to join a guild to sell stuff will get the gold to buy things from in game activities, eg public dungeon trawling. That is creating money that was not already in the game. That causes inflation. The lack of access of these players to selling also constrains supply. More inflation.”

I have read this several times and I don’t understand this paragraph. Are you claiming that guild traders are to blame for gold rewards from dungeons causing inflation? If I kill a mob while questing, and it gives me 25g, is it somehow the guild traders fault for this “inflation”?
I am completely confused.

People get gold all the time in game for doing activities. This added gold “inflation” is not the fault of guild traders.

•••

Anyway, what I believe this all boils down to is that there are people out there who have anxiety against joining guilds. I get that.
I don’t like doing dungeons with pugs, for basically the same reason.
That is really the only flaw in this system. I get it, but there are so many friendly guilds out there with traders that I hope everyone can find a home somewhere.

One last thing about the current system is that there is not a whole lot of reasons in eso to be in a guild in the first place. And many guilds are so friendly that many players stay with eso, just to stay with their friends. I am not sure if zos wants to disrupt that. Or at least give fewer reasons for people to join guilds in the first place.

Arizona_Steve

I am also a huge advocate for the global auction house. The guild trader system is exclusionary and allowing all players to trade their items would increase supply and reduce prices.

There is no reason why a "sales tax" couldn't be levied on sales to remove gold from the system.

Northwold

BlueRaven wrote: »

[cut for space]

The point on the selling gate is that it pushes players to perform an activity that generates gold from ingame (rather than player) means that they otherwise would not do, thereby driving new gold creation. New gold entering the player economy is inflationary. People don't go round certain dungeons in a loop for literally three hours for fun, for example. That subcategory of player would not play that way at all if they could sell into the player economy other than via guilds -- their money would be coming from other players as money already in the economy.

On the supply point, a player who does not sell is a crimp on supply. They could each be walking around with ten thousand columbine, for example. That never enters the economy.

The trader bid system encourages guild leadership in the most frequented locations to levy higher dues. Again, inflationary -- those dues then get baked into prices at those locations, creating a self fulfilling prophecy that spills into all pricing in the game. You may see a gold sink and, yes of course, it is a gold sink. But you are seeing a gold sink that is itself driving price inflation(!!!). Which isn't very useful, as gold sinks go, even if we want to pretend that it sinks even a material fraction of the inflation that goes on.

Regarding the proposition that a lack of price discoverability leads to inflation being "false", two points.

1. As I already state, the prices end up set from locations like Mournhold (because those are the locations where prevailing prices are easiest to discern, in addition to being the locations with by far the highest footfall from buyers who simply cannot be bothered with the multizone, trader by trader shopping experience, and consequently the highest volume of sales) and from there fed through the majority of the player economy. I can't say I've found Mournhold a great location for bargain hunting.

2. In competition economic theory lack of price discoverability / transparency is viewed as a key indicator of a market where prices can be pushed higher than they would be in a competitive market, so, yes, people *might* be charging too low, but the human inclination to acts of charity does not normally win out in trading behaviour.

As I say, there are other arguments for guild traders, including that they encourage guild membership (although, honestly, if people are only joining guilds to sell items, ZOS needs to give the guild experience more thought because plenty of MMOs manage perfectly well without such a stick).

Just that the inflation claim does not stack up.

Necrotech_Master

Arizona_Steve wrote: »

I am also a huge advocate for the global auction house. The guild trader system is exclusionary and allowing all players to trade their items would increase supply and reduce prices.

There is no reason why a "sales tax" couldn't be levied on sales to remove gold from the system.

there is already a tax which is "sunk" from the system, but it amounts to only about 2.5% of the value (part of it is an up front listing fee, and the other is a portion extracted from the sale of the item)

and no from my experience, a central auction house usually leads to further increased prices because its much easier to corner the market (sellers paradise, buyers nightmare)

not to mention central auction house would mean 0 point to all the guild trader stuff we have and would remove a massive gold sink (bidding on the guild traders), which would further exacerbate the price increases inherent in a central market

sarahthes

The majority of trade guilds don't charge dues or have extreme activity requirements.

CrashTest

No to a centralized auction house because it just makes it easier for the rich players to monopolize the market.

A better option would be to add the functionality of Tamriel Trade Centre to the game, so we don't have to use third party sites to find things for sale. We can just search from within the game and be done with it. This also helps console players who can't use addons.

vsrs_au

A centralised market would certainly be immersion-breaking and non-lore friendly, because this is supposed to be a continent on which three factions at war with each other, so why would they share a common trading system?

FlopsyPrince

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

This sounds like another request for a central auction house. Big no thank you on that for me. Inflation is too steep as it is now. A central auction house will just make inflation way worse.

Once again this is repeated with absolutely no evidence.

The current system almost certainly pushes inflation up more as noted prior to this post.

I am impressed that many people who correctly note that the current system sucks have posted/replied here. It is frustrating to try and find something, even with TTC on the PC, let alone without it on console.

The current system may have seemed creative, but the "it just feels bad" knee jerk rejection of a Central AH is astounding at best.

Respectfully, your opinions are not supported by any evidence either, despite your attempts to state them as fact.

More than a few have noted the same here.

FlopsyPrince

CrashTest wrote: »

No to a centralized auction house because it just makes it easier for the rich players to monopolize the market.

A better option would be to add the functionality of Tamriel Trade Centre to the game, so we don't have to use third party sites to find things for sale. We can just search from within the game and be done with it. This also helps console players who can't use addons.

I will ask again, can you provide some "proof" of the monopolization argument and way that does not happen now?