Tired of the Player Market System

radiostar · June 25

Global Auction Chat Channel (covers the world except trials, etc) or Local Auction Chat Channel (covers all zone land) would help to locate sellers or buyers.

CrashTest · June 25

I know people who monopolize certain items on the market. They have a billion+ gold and inflate prices. The only thing stopping them from monopolizing everything is the fact that they have to dedicate many hours daily to travel to every trader in Tamriel and then search them. A central AH is their dream.

Necrotech_Master · June 25

TaSheen wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

I just spend two hrs going from trader to trader to try and find the motif I needed for a master writ.

If we had an auction house it would have taken 30 seconds.

I truly hate the guild trader system, it seems designed to benefit certain guilds and be a pain for the rest of us.

I won't do that. If it's not available in Vivec at what I consider a reasonable price, I delete the writ.

lol, i would certainly not say no to writs if you wanted someone to put it to use than delete it lol

working on grandmaster crafting tables and still need about 65,000 vouchers to finish them lol

Davvy123 · June 25

I'd like to see an Auction House.

As has been said above by several, Guild Traders are a big PITA.

It's lame that I have to go to TTC or ESO-Hub to shop for things I need in game.

Most of the time when I get to the traders listed by those sites, the items are gone, or available only at higher prices.

Each shopping project devolves in frustrating hops all over Tamriel. The load screens are terribly annoying, it is truly a pain.

90% of the time, I end up buying the first instances of the items I need, no matter how much higher they are than the "average" price shown by TTC, because I just couldn't stomach going on traveling all over Tamriel.

So yeah, I'll be happy when ZOS revamps this whole system.

darvaria · June 25

I want to see an AH. AND limits on Max bid listings A lot of players only play to make gold. And WHAT do they really do with that much gold?

I've seen a lot of suspicious activity on TTC. Like ink listings for 300K plus. WHY?

jaws343 · June 25

darvaria wrote: »

I want to see an AH. AND limits on Max bid listings A lot of players only play to make gold. And WHAT do they really do with that much gold?

I've seen a lot of suspicious activity on TTC. Like ink listings for 300K plus. WHY?

The only thing a max listing price would do is basically dry up the market entirely for super rare items.

You think someone is going to want to spend their time farming a 1 in a million item to sell it for pennies. Good luck farming all those dungeon motifs that players pay out for in guild traders, or the trial motifs, or rare plans.

Grim_Slaughterfish · June 25

An auction house would be great time saver. Preferably one that has the built in feature of not being able to resale anything purchased until 14 days have passed.

TaSheen · June 25

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

I just spend two hrs going from trader to trader to try and find the motif I needed for a master writ.

If we had an auction house it would have taken 30 seconds.

I truly hate the guild trader system, it seems designed to benefit certain guilds and be a pain for the rest of us.

I won't do that. If it's not available in Vivec at what I consider a reasonable price, I delete the writ.

lol, i would certainly not say no to writs if you wanted someone to put it to use than delete it lol

working on grandmaster crafting tables and still need about 65,000 vouchers to finish them lol

I won't mess with guild traders at all, so no selling. If you're on PC NA or PC EU, I'll send you the ones I can't or don't want to do. Free.

Necrotech_Master · June 25

TaSheen wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

I just spend two hrs going from trader to trader to try and find the motif I needed for a master writ.

If we had an auction house it would have taken 30 seconds.

I truly hate the guild trader system, it seems designed to benefit certain guilds and be a pain for the rest of us.

I won't do that. If it's not available in Vivec at what I consider a reasonable price, I delete the writ.

lol, i would certainly not say no to writs if you wanted someone to put it to use than delete it lol

working on grandmaster crafting tables and still need about 65,000 vouchers to finish them lol

I won't mess with guild traders at all, so no selling. If you're on PC NA or PC EU, I'll send you the ones I can't or don't want to do. Free.

sounds good to me, PC NA (see my forum sig lol)

TaSheen · June 25

I didn't have sigs enabled, but got it now. I'm not sure how many I have around right now, but I'll start forwarding when I get ones I'm not interested in spending a lot to fill.

I already got the 3 sets of GM stations I needed, so....

Idelise · June 25

I'd be so happy if there was a centralised market... even if it took a larger cut than guild traders. I'd use it.
Would actually save me money long-time, with no donations or anxiety over getting kicked for not doing enough contributions...

Necrotech_Master · June 25

Idelise wrote: »

I'd be so happy if there was a centralised market... even if it took a larger cut than guild traders. I'd use it.
Would actually save me money long-time, with no donations or anxiety over getting kicked for not doing enough contributions...

i just dont join guilds that require "dues", if people want to contribute to help, thats fine, but dont make it a requirement lol

ive been in many guilds over the years, about 80% of which i was in purely to be able to trade, i even remember way back early on when there was no guild traders and you could only sell within your guild

if i wasnt meeting my personal sales expectations (because the guild was dying), i left the guild
if the guild instituted dues after not having dues, i would either A) leave the guild on my own, or B ) stay in the guild and continue selling until the guild kicked me

usually took me less than a day or 2 to find another trade guild that didnt require dues

kargen27 · June 25

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

not gonna happen.

the players who dedicate their play time to making millions of gold will show up on this list with " claims " of how bad an AH is and how wonderful this system is, and of course will "claim" this is what the majority wants.

They also will invent different imagined detriments of the AH system and extoll how so much "better" this system is. They will claim its so easy to manipulate an AH and not so for the Trader system.

And of course no actual evidence is ever shown, one way or the other.

Played in a number of mmos. All the others used an AH. Never... let me repeat, Never... had any issues with it. Might have some level requirement (like 10th) to be able to sell or buy, but that was a minimal issue. It is always a better system to give ALL players instant access to an AH, and to be able to locate the item and lowest price for the item you want, and do it in 3 minutes or less. That is what an AH does.

But unless the Company can be convinced that this is a QOL issue that will improve the game, Nothing is going to change.

Okay which is easier going to 200 different locations or going to one location? Answer that one question and you have the evidence you need as to why this system is harder to manipulate than a central economy would be.

Er, this logic works in support of both arguments. Why? Because if the system is so unappealing to casual buyers that they don't shop like this (and they don't), it leaves the system wide open to players who make trading their whole game and spend their whole time flipping, etc. The whole point of markets and market economies is to make economies behave efficiently by pooling information and goods in one place. ESO doesn't have one -- trading is artificially atomised across many different traders and artificially made inaccessible to people who, for obvious reasons, are unwilling to spend an hour plus shopping -- and therefore leaves inefficiencies open to exploitation by those with a desire to do so.

In effect, the trading system doesn't distribute the bulk of the market around a lot of different locations, it artificially concentrates it around a few heavily visited locations with a lot of traders in one place, meaning the whole player economy is disproportionately impacted by a small proportion of all the traders (and goods for sale) out there in the world.

Now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that ESO's trading system makes such distortions possible? That's really in the eye of the beholder. But, honestly, I think ESO went badly down the wrong path with trading by turning it into a mini game. This is an MMO. Trading is a system that, in theory, is meant to support all other aspects of play. Instead, they turned it into a game inandof itself, and that creates annoyances for how you play everything else.

It's not quite of the same level of import, but in MMO terms it's not that far off locking inventory management behind a mini game. It's just plain daft for an MMO that is not overtly an MMO themed around trading.

Players deciding not to participate has nothing to do with which system would be easier to manipulate. I responded to a post about market manipulation. If you want to discuss the problem of people not participating we can do that also but it is a different conversation.
To your point though I wouldn't mind if each zone had one central location where you could see the items for all the traders in that one zone. The central board would not show prices and you would need to actually go to the trader to make the purchase. This would allow players looking for bargains to continue doing so and would allow players that just want the item no matter the cost to go to the most convenient trader and get it.
For some the economy in ESO isn't a mini game but is end game. They easily put as much time into trading as progression groups put into being able to finish hard mode vet trials. The market as we have it now allows all to participate at a level they wish and those that spend more time by right have better benefits. Just like trials, PvP and other activities in the game. The economy is so much more than a mini game of a lot of people. Enough so that they would leave the game if the current system were removed.

ShadowPaladin · June 25

All of you central AH fans [Snip], I have the perfect solution for you

!!!

Its a solution with which you won't need to travel through all of Tamriel, you won't need to bid and or compete with other players, you won't need to think about setting prices and you won't need to do anything at all

!

Guess what it is?!

NPC-Traders selling everything for set prices !!!!

The only thing(s) you will need are certain achievements for certain items

.

You want an Aetheric Cipher? No problem, you just need to have learned the *Psijic Ambrosia receipt* and then you can buy one for 2mio gold from an NPC-Vendor, or you can try your luck by farming for it

!

You want some Motif-Pages from a motif, which drops in a dungeon or trial? No problem, you just need to have completed a certain achievement for doing something in this dungeon or trial and you can buy them for set prices from a vendor (50k chest, 50k guards, 20k helmet, 20k gloves, 20k boots, 10k belt, 10k shoulders, 15k for each weapon)!

You need resources? No problem, too! You can farm them yourself or you can buy them from a NPC-Vendor for 500g per unit IF you don't have maxed out your crafting skills and don't have the master crafter achievement or if you do, you will get them for 100g per unit

.

Great solution, wouldn't you all say

?!

No more inflation, since no one would push prices beyond reasonable levels and because there would be no need to farm endlessly gold. Also, no more arguments about prices which are too low or too high and we would have the perfect gold sinks

!

The only downside would be that ZOS could and would dictate the prices

!

[Edited for bait]

the1andonlyskwex · June 26

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

All of you central AH fans [Snip], I have the perfect solution for you !!!

Its a solution with which you won't need to travel through all of Tamriel, you won't need to bid and or compete with other players, you won't need to think about setting prices and you won't need to do anything at all !

Guess what it is?!

NPC-Traders selling everything for set prices !!!!

The only thing(s) you will need are certain achievements for certain items .

You want an Aetheric Cipher? No problem, you just need to have learned the *Psijic Ambrosia receipt* and then you can buy one for 2mio gold from an NPC-Vendor, or you can try your luck by farming for it !

You want some Motif-Pages from a motif, which drops in a dungeon or trial? No problem, you just need to have completed a certain achievement for doing something in this dungeon or trial and you can buy them for set prices from a vendor (50k chest, 50k guards, 20k helmet, 20k gloves, 20k boots, 10k belt, 10k shoulders, 15k for each weapon)!

You need resources? No problem, too! You can farm them yourself or you can buy them from a NPC-Vendor for 500g per unit IF you don't have maxed out your crafting skills and don't have the master crafter achievement or if you do, you will get them for 100g per unit .

Great solution, wouldn't you all say ?!

No more inflation, since no one would push prices beyond reasonable levels and because there would be no need to farm endlessly gold. Also, no more arguments about prices which are too low or too high and we would have the perfect gold sinks !

The only downside would be that ZOS could and would dictate the prices !

I know you're being sarcastic, but that really does sound way better than the current system. I don't sell stuff in on guild traders, and I'd rather put my gold into a sink than have it drive inflation.

[Edited quote]

kurbbie_s · June 26

a centralized market sucks. No thanks

FlopsyPrince · June 26

jaws343 wrote: »

A little anecdote I always remember every time this discussion comes up.

Back in like early 2018 I think it was, around when Necropotence was thriving and the staves were hot commodities in the right traits. I had just reached 4 million gold in the bank and noticed that the staves were selling for around 40K off trait and around 70K with the right trait.

Well, I was newly filled with gold and decided I would attempt to make some more. So, I spent around 10 hours across 3 days going to every single trader in the game. All of them, in thieves guilds, in back country stalls. I bought every single listed necropotence stave in every trader that was priced under 30K. I think I spent close to 2.5M on staves, somewhere near 100+ staves I bought.

I then listed all of the off trait ones at 40K and all of the good traits at 60K... Ended up doubling my investment for the most part. But, within a week, the off trait staves stopped selling. Why? Because I wasn't running a monopoly, I was flipping poorly priced items at a more normalized market value. But, that week from when I last bought a poorly priced stave to when I noticed mine stopped selling well, other players had listed their own staves at more bargain pricing.

I still made profit, and was eventually able to sell them all (after lowering the pricing down to 30-35K. But, ultimately, my only impact on the market was a brief moment of listings a ton of initially under-priced items at a price that capital city traders were regularly selling those items at.

And this is why a monopoly here just isn't an actual thing. With an AH, I could have sat in one location, and purchased any listing that was lower than the listings I had up, all the time, without effort. In perpetuity, or until the item is no longer sought after. And then, the most common lowest priced item in the market will ALWAYS be the one I posted. Rather than the ones posted by tons of other players that take effort to seek out and relist.

AND others could have seen the higher price much quicker and crafted/sold their own staves as well. That is a much better way to settle prices than obscuring them as it does now.

FlopsyPrince · June 26

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

All of you central AH fans [Snip], I have the perfect solution for you !!!

Its a solution with which you won't need to travel through all of Tamriel, you won't need to bid and or compete with other players, you won't need to think about setting prices and you won't need to do anything at all !

Guess what it is?!

NPC-Traders selling everything for set prices !!!!

The only thing(s) you will need are certain achievements for certain items .

You want an Aetheric Cipher? No problem, you just need to have learned the *Psijic Ambrosia receipt* and then you can buy one for 2mio gold from an NPC-Vendor, or you can try your luck by farming for it !

You want some Motif-Pages from a motif, which drops in a dungeon or trial? No problem, you just need to have completed a certain achievement for doing something in this dungeon or trial and you can buy them for set prices from a vendor (50k chest, 50k guards, 20k helmet, 20k gloves, 20k boots, 10k belt, 10k shoulders, 15k for each weapon)!

You need resources? No problem, too! You can farm them yourself or you can buy them from a NPC-Vendor for 500g per unit IF you don't have maxed out your crafting skills and don't have the master crafter achievement or if you do, you will get them for 100g per unit .

Great solution, wouldn't you all say ?!

No more inflation, since no one would push prices beyond reasonable levels and because there would be no need to farm endlessly gold. Also, no more arguments about prices which are too low or too high and we would have the perfect gold sinks !

The only downside would be that ZOS could and would dictate the prices !

It would be better than the current system as you would have perfect information on pricing!

[Edited quote]

Idelise · June 26

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

All of you central AH fans [Snip], I have the perfect solution for you !!!

Its a solution with which you won't need to travel through all of Tamriel, you won't need to bid and or compete with other players, you won't need to think about setting prices and you won't need to do anything at all !

Guess what it is?!

NPC-Traders selling everything for set prices !!!!

The only thing(s) you will need are certain achievements for certain items .

You want an Aetheric Cipher? No problem, you just need to have learned the *Psijic Ambrosia receipt* and then you can buy one for 2mio gold from an NPC-Vendor, or you can try your luck by farming for it !

You want some Motif-Pages from a motif, which drops in a dungeon or trial? No problem, you just need to have completed a certain achievement for doing something in this dungeon or trial and you can buy them for set prices from a vendor (50k chest, 50k guards, 20k helmet, 20k gloves, 20k boots, 10k belt, 10k shoulders, 15k for each weapon)!

You need resources? No problem, too! You can farm them yourself or you can buy them from a NPC-Vendor for 500g per unit IF you don't have maxed out your crafting skills and don't have the master crafter achievement or if you do, you will get them for 100g per unit .

Great solution, wouldn't you all say ?!

No more inflation, since no one would push prices beyond reasonable levels and because there would be no need to farm endlessly gold. Also, no more arguments about prices which are too low or too high and we would have the perfect gold sinks !

The only downside would be that ZOS could and would dictate the prices !

I genuinely would like that - as it would create a baseline for the prices of all auction houses.

[Edited quote]

vsrs_au · June 26

barney2525 wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

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?

As compared with the "Lore" of any character from any Faction being able to travel into the Enemy's territory and freely buy items that can be used against that Faction? And to freely allow them to come into your territory and you very willingly sell them items that they will use against Your Faction?

I'm not seeing the rationale.

Yes, the existing system is not lore friendly either, I grant you that. But then neither are the cartoonish animation style mounts, pets, etc. that roam Tamriel. Perhaps the only way to make the current trading system a bit more lore-friendly is to allow characters to only buy/sell in zones belonging to their alliance - it would never happen, of course, because it would upset too many players.

dk_dunkirk · June 26

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

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.

Once again, I'm looking to complete a motif/style set, and someone has decided to buy literally every copy of the last piece I need, and mark it up by 10x. For a week now, every time I try to find one in TTC, and go to the vendor it's listed at, it's gone.

I'm looking for a Maelstrom's Sword style page. According to TTC, it should run between 80-120K. I saw ONE copy at ONE vendor for 1.2M, but it didn't even show up on TTC. It should have. I'm running the client, and I personally saw it! Something very strange is going on here with this item. The listings on TTC keep getting repeated. Somehow, it shows up at the same vendor within the past half hour, hour after hour, but it's never there.

TTC both enables me to find something I'm looking for, but also allows people to manipulate the market. It's a very love-hate relationship with me. It wouldn't be so bad, I guess, if this were a rare occurrence, but this has happened to me at last a dozen times, and it's just as frustrating and annoying every time.

xilfxlegion · June 26

Davvy123 wrote: »

I'd like to see an Auction House.

As has been said above by several, Guild Traders are a big PITA.

It's lame that I have to go to TTC or ESO-Hub to shop for things I need in game.

Most of the time when I get to the traders listed by those sites, the items are gone, or available only at higher prices.

Each shopping project devolves in frustrating hops all over Tamriel. The load screens are terribly annoying, it is truly a pain.

90% of the time, I end up buying the first instances of the items I need, no matter how much higher they are than the "average" price shown by TTC, because I just couldn't stomach going on traveling all over Tamriel.

So yeah, I'll be happy when ZOS revamps this whole system.

theyre not revamping it. thankfully

dk_dunkirk · June 26

Regarding inflation, there's one reason, and one reason alone for inflation in this game, and it's the same reason in the game as it is in real life: printing money. Why does everything cost twice as much money now as it did before COVID? Because the government has "printed" 40% of all dollars in the history of the country in the past 4 years.

How do you "print money" in the game? Doing writs. More people are doing more of this activity than before. A lot more. Many people I know in-game don't just have lots of toons; they have multiple accounts with lots of toons, and they do writs with all of them. That's what drives inflation. Nothing else, because here's a limit to how much money you can make per time in every other aspect of the game. The problem is writs.

I have 10 toons now, just to do writs as a defensive measure, so that I can gather enough gold upgrade mats such that I don't need to buy them. I find that's just enough to keep a comfortable supply for me.

ZOS has tackled the problem of runaway prices for commodities and "learnables" by flooding the market through the previous and current event, and that's great for everyone except people who farm those things, but that money is still floating around the system, and it has to lead to other distortions of the economy.

xilfxlegion · June 26

darvaria wrote: »

I want to see an AH. AND limits on Max bid listings A lot of players only play to make gold. And WHAT do they really do with that much gold?

I've seen a lot of suspicious activity on TTC. Like ink listings for 300K plus. WHY?

the first day they were listing them at 300k. the next day they were 100k. now you can find them for around 60k.

whenever something is shiny and new people list it for big money and then the market corrects itself.

Cheveyo · June 26

CrashTest wrote: »

I know people who monopolize certain items on the market. They have a billion+ gold and inflate prices. The only thing stopping them from monopolizing everything is the fact that they have to dedicate many hours daily to travel to every trader in Tamriel and then search them. A central AH is their dream.

No, it isn't.

The current system is their dream because they can control the market.

A centralized system introduces something the current system lacks: COMPETITION. The wealthy will introduce items at a high price and people will refuse to pay for them, like what happens now. But unlike what happens now, in a centralized system someone else will come along and list the same item at a lower price. At first the wealthy will purchase those items to try and resell higher, but it wont work and it will have FORCED them to invest some of their wealthy back into the market, and someone who would have not been able to make any money before, suddenly has a nice sum to work with. Then someone else will come along and sell the item cheaper again. And then someone else will sell it even cheaper. Then someone else will sell it cheaper still. And the cost of every item on the market declines as a result. Some people will attempt to short the market, but it wont work the vast majority of the time.

In the current system, the wealthy can control the cost of everything because they control who can sell and where. Which means they can list items at ridiculous prices and simply wait. They have no competition, so they have nothing to worry about.

Northwold · June 26

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

not gonna happen.

the players who dedicate their play time to making millions of gold will show up on this list with " claims " of how bad an AH is and how wonderful this system is, and of course will "claim" this is what the majority wants.

They also will invent different imagined detriments of the AH system and extoll how so much "better" this system is. They will claim its so easy to manipulate an AH and not so for the Trader system.

And of course no actual evidence is ever shown, one way or the other.

Played in a number of mmos. All the others used an AH. Never... let me repeat, Never... had any issues with it. Might have some level requirement (like 10th) to be able to sell or buy, but that was a minimal issue. It is always a better system to give ALL players instant access to an AH, and to be able to locate the item and lowest price for the item you want, and do it in 3 minutes or less. That is what an AH does.

But unless the Company can be convinced that this is a QOL issue that will improve the game, Nothing is going to change.

Okay which is easier going to 200 different locations or going to one location? Answer that one question and you have the evidence you need as to why this system is harder to manipulate than a central economy would be.

Er, this logic works in support of both arguments. Why? Because if the system is so unappealing to casual buyers that they don't shop like this (and they don't), it leaves the system wide open to players who make trading their whole game and spend their whole time flipping, etc. The whole point of markets and market economies is to make economies behave efficiently by pooling information and goods in one place. ESO doesn't have one -- trading is artificially atomised across many different traders and artificially made inaccessible to people who, for obvious reasons, are unwilling to spend an hour plus shopping -- and therefore leaves inefficiencies open to exploitation by those with a desire to do so.

In effect, the trading system doesn't distribute the bulk of the market around a lot of different locations, it artificially concentrates it around a few heavily visited locations with a lot of traders in one place, meaning the whole player economy is disproportionately impacted by a small proportion of all the traders (and goods for sale) out there in the world.

Now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that ESO's trading system makes such distortions possible? That's really in the eye of the beholder. But, honestly, I think ESO went badly down the wrong path with trading by turning it into a mini game. This is an MMO. Trading is a system that, in theory, is meant to support all other aspects of play. Instead, they turned it into a game inandof itself, and that creates annoyances for how you play everything else.

It's not quite of the same level of import, but in MMO terms it's not that far off locking inventory management behind a mini game. It's just plain daft for an MMO that is not overtly an MMO themed around trading.

Players deciding not to participate has nothing to do with which system would be easier to manipulate. I responded to a post about market manipulation. If you want to discuss the problem of people not participating we can do that also but it is a different conversation.
To your point though I wouldn't mind if each zone had one central location where you could see the items for all the traders in that one zone. The central board would not show prices and you would need to actually go to the trader to make the purchase. This would allow players looking for bargains to continue doing so and would allow players that just want the item no matter the cost to go to the most convenient trader and get it.
For some the economy in ESO isn't a mini game but is end game. They easily put as much time into trading as progression groups put into being able to finish hard mode vet trials. The market as we have it now allows all to participate at a level they wish and those that spend more time by right have better benefits. Just like trials, PvP and other activities in the game. The economy is so much more than a mini game of a lot of people. Enough so that they would leave the game if the current system were removed.

The point about players not participating is that that, factually, is how the economy operates. You can't operate on a hypothetical of "if every player did this the economy would be great" and argue that players not doing that is therefore irrelevant to what you're saying. What you were saying about the supposed difficulty of manipulating the market simply *wasn't* logical, contrary to what you asserted, because players *do not* engage with the economy in the way they in principle could.

I have a real issue with gating selling behind guild membership but, that point aside, yes, any kind of step to centralise listing information compared to the current setup would at least be progress.

the1andonlyskwex · June 26

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

not gonna happen.

the players who dedicate their play time to making millions of gold will show up on this list with " claims " of how bad an AH is and how wonderful this system is, and of course will "claim" this is what the majority wants.

They also will invent different imagined detriments of the AH system and extoll how so much "better" this system is. They will claim its so easy to manipulate an AH and not so for the Trader system.

And of course no actual evidence is ever shown, one way or the other.

Played in a number of mmos. All the others used an AH. Never... let me repeat, Never... had any issues with it. Might have some level requirement (like 10th) to be able to sell or buy, but that was a minimal issue. It is always a better system to give ALL players instant access to an AH, and to be able to locate the item and lowest price for the item you want, and do it in 3 minutes or less. That is what an AH does.

But unless the Company can be convinced that this is a QOL issue that will improve the game, Nothing is going to change.

Okay which is easier going to 200 different locations or going to one location? Answer that one question and you have the evidence you need as to why this system is harder to manipulate than a central economy would be.

Er, this logic works in support of both arguments. Why? Because if the system is so unappealing to casual buyers that they don't shop like this (and they don't), it leaves the system wide open to players who make trading their whole game and spend their whole time flipping, etc. The whole point of markets and market economies is to make economies behave efficiently by pooling information and goods in one place. ESO doesn't have one -- trading is artificially atomised across many different traders and artificially made inaccessible to people who, for obvious reasons, are unwilling to spend an hour plus shopping -- and therefore leaves inefficiencies open to exploitation by those with a desire to do so.

In effect, the trading system doesn't distribute the bulk of the market around a lot of different locations, it artificially concentrates it around a few heavily visited locations with a lot of traders in one place, meaning the whole player economy is disproportionately impacted by a small proportion of all the traders (and goods for sale) out there in the world.

Now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that ESO's trading system makes such distortions possible? That's really in the eye of the beholder. But, honestly, I think ESO went badly down the wrong path with trading by turning it into a mini game. This is an MMO. Trading is a system that, in theory, is meant to support all other aspects of play. Instead, they turned it into a game inandof itself, and that creates annoyances for how you play everything else.

It's not quite of the same level of import, but in MMO terms it's not that far off locking inventory management behind a mini game. It's just plain daft for an MMO that is not overtly an MMO themed around trading.

Players deciding not to participate has nothing to do with which system would be easier to manipulate. I responded to a post about market manipulation. If you want to discuss the problem of people not participating we can do that also but it is a different conversation.
To your point though I wouldn't mind if each zone had one central location where you could see the items for all the traders in that one zone. The central board would not show prices and you would need to actually go to the trader to make the purchase. This would allow players looking for bargains to continue doing so and would allow players that just want the item no matter the cost to go to the most convenient trader and get it.
For some the economy in ESO isn't a mini game but is end game. They easily put as much time into trading as progression groups put into being able to finish hard mode vet trials. The market as we have it now allows all to participate at a level they wish and those that spend more time by right have better benefits. Just like trials, PvP and other activities in the game. The economy is so much more than a mini game of a lot of people. Enough so that they would leave the game if the current system were removed.

The point about players not participating is that that, factually, is how the economy operates. You can't operate on a hypothetical of "if every player did this the economy would be great". They don't.

Part of why the current system is so easy to manipulate is that so many people are not participating. The anti-AH crowd vastly underestimates how much bigger (and therefore harder to manipulate) the economy will get if it isn't limited to the few thousand people in guilds with big city traders

Northwold · June 26

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

not gonna happen.

the players who dedicate their play time to making millions of gold will show up on this list with " claims " of how bad an AH is and how wonderful this system is, and of course will "claim" this is what the majority wants.

They also will invent different imagined detriments of the AH system and extoll how so much "better" this system is. They will claim its so easy to manipulate an AH and not so for the Trader system.

And of course no actual evidence is ever shown, one way or the other.

Played in a number of mmos. All the others used an AH. Never... let me repeat, Never... had any issues with it. Might have some level requirement (like 10th) to be able to sell or buy, but that was a minimal issue. It is always a better system to give ALL players instant access to an AH, and to be able to locate the item and lowest price for the item you want, and do it in 3 minutes or less. That is what an AH does.

But unless the Company can be convinced that this is a QOL issue that will improve the game, Nothing is going to change.

Okay which is easier going to 200 different locations or going to one location? Answer that one question and you have the evidence you need as to why this system is harder to manipulate than a central economy would be.

Er, this logic works in support of both arguments. Why? Because if the system is so unappealing to casual buyers that they don't shop like this (and they don't), it leaves the system wide open to players who make trading their whole game and spend their whole time flipping, etc. The whole point of markets and market economies is to make economies behave efficiently by pooling information and goods in one place. ESO doesn't have one -- trading is artificially atomised across many different traders and artificially made inaccessible to people who, for obvious reasons, are unwilling to spend an hour plus shopping -- and therefore leaves inefficiencies open to exploitation by those with a desire to do so.

In effect, the trading system doesn't distribute the bulk of the market around a lot of different locations, it artificially concentrates it around a few heavily visited locations with a lot of traders in one place, meaning the whole player economy is disproportionately impacted by a small proportion of all the traders (and goods for sale) out there in the world.

Now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that ESO's trading system makes such distortions possible? That's really in the eye of the beholder. But, honestly, I think ESO went badly down the wrong path with trading by turning it into a mini game. This is an MMO. Trading is a system that, in theory, is meant to support all other aspects of play. Instead, they turned it into a game inandof itself, and that creates annoyances for how you play everything else.

It's not quite of the same level of import, but in MMO terms it's not that far off locking inventory management behind a mini game. It's just plain daft for an MMO that is not overtly an MMO themed around trading.

Players deciding not to participate has nothing to do with which system would be easier to manipulate. I responded to a post about market manipulation. If you want to discuss the problem of people not participating we can do that also but it is a different conversation.
To your point though I wouldn't mind if each zone had one central location where you could see the items for all the traders in that one zone. The central board would not show prices and you would need to actually go to the trader to make the purchase. This would allow players looking for bargains to continue doing so and would allow players that just want the item no matter the cost to go to the most convenient trader and get it.
For some the economy in ESO isn't a mini game but is end game. They easily put as much time into trading as progression groups put into being able to finish hard mode vet trials. The market as we have it now allows all to participate at a level they wish and those that spend more time by right have better benefits. Just like trials, PvP and other activities in the game. The economy is so much more than a mini game of a lot of people. Enough so that they would leave the game if the current system were removed.

The point about players not participating is that that, factually, is how the economy operates. You can't operate on a hypothetical of "if every player did this the economy would be great". They don't.

Part of why the current system is so easy to manipulate is that so many people are not participating. The anti-AH crowd vastly underestimates how much bigger (and therefore harder to manipulate) the economy will get if it isn't limited to the few thousand people in guilds with big city traders

Absolutely!

Necrotech_Master · June 26

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

not gonna happen.

the players who dedicate their play time to making millions of gold will show up on this list with " claims " of how bad an AH is and how wonderful this system is, and of course will "claim" this is what the majority wants.

They also will invent different imagined detriments of the AH system and extoll how so much "better" this system is. They will claim its so easy to manipulate an AH and not so for the Trader system.

And of course no actual evidence is ever shown, one way or the other.

Played in a number of mmos. All the others used an AH. Never... let me repeat, Never... had any issues with it. Might have some level requirement (like 10th) to be able to sell or buy, but that was a minimal issue. It is always a better system to give ALL players instant access to an AH, and to be able to locate the item and lowest price for the item you want, and do it in 3 minutes or less. That is what an AH does.

But unless the Company can be convinced that this is a QOL issue that will improve the game, Nothing is going to change.

Okay which is easier going to 200 different locations or going to one location? Answer that one question and you have the evidence you need as to why this system is harder to manipulate than a central economy would be.

Er, this logic works in support of both arguments. Why? Because if the system is so unappealing to casual buyers that they don't shop like this (and they don't), it leaves the system wide open to players who make trading their whole game and spend their whole time flipping, etc. The whole point of markets and market economies is to make economies behave efficiently by pooling information and goods in one place. ESO doesn't have one -- trading is artificially atomised across many different traders and artificially made inaccessible to people who, for obvious reasons, are unwilling to spend an hour plus shopping -- and therefore leaves inefficiencies open to exploitation by those with a desire to do so.

In effect, the trading system doesn't distribute the bulk of the market around a lot of different locations, it artificially concentrates it around a few heavily visited locations with a lot of traders in one place, meaning the whole player economy is disproportionately impacted by a small proportion of all the traders (and goods for sale) out there in the world.

Now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that ESO's trading system makes such distortions possible? That's really in the eye of the beholder. But, honestly, I think ESO went badly down the wrong path with trading by turning it into a mini game. This is an MMO. Trading is a system that, in theory, is meant to support all other aspects of play. Instead, they turned it into a game inandof itself, and that creates annoyances for how you play everything else.

It's not quite of the same level of import, but in MMO terms it's not that far off locking inventory management behind a mini game. It's just plain daft for an MMO that is not overtly an MMO themed around trading.

Players deciding not to participate has nothing to do with which system would be easier to manipulate. I responded to a post about market manipulation. If you want to discuss the problem of people not participating we can do that also but it is a different conversation.
To your point though I wouldn't mind if each zone had one central location where you could see the items for all the traders in that one zone. The central board would not show prices and you would need to actually go to the trader to make the purchase. This would allow players looking for bargains to continue doing so and would allow players that just want the item no matter the cost to go to the most convenient trader and get it.
For some the economy in ESO isn't a mini game but is end game. They easily put as much time into trading as progression groups put into being able to finish hard mode vet trials. The market as we have it now allows all to participate at a level they wish and those that spend more time by right have better benefits. Just like trials, PvP and other activities in the game. The economy is so much more than a mini game of a lot of people. Enough so that they would leave the game if the current system were removed.

The point about players not participating is that that, factually, is how the economy operates. You can't operate on a hypothetical of "if every player did this the economy would be great". They don't.

Part of why the current system is so easy to manipulate is that so many people are not participating. The anti-AH crowd vastly underestimates how much bigger (and therefore harder to manipulate) the economy will get if it isn't limited to the few thousand people in guilds with big city traders

central auction houses make it far easier to manipulate because the flipper or monopolizer doesnt have to go anywhere or even do anything really to monitor items

they search for item, and buy up all items under a certain price, and then relist at a higher price or hoard the items and trickle sell them

ive seen that kind of thing happen in games with a central auction house, its great to sell items in that market, and sucks to buy in that market because of how expensive everything is

i could work with whichever system, but ive had experience with centralized and decentralized systems across many games, and the centralized ones i always always can make money easier because everything sells at such high prices, the decentralized ones you have to focus on selling items that people actually want to buy

centralized ones you just list it 10-20% under the minimum listing price and your item will guarantee sell within a day if not hours or even minutes

MoonPile · June 26

It's kind of hilarious and insane that the entire PC economy essentially relies on one guy keeping a 3rd-party website going FOR FREE.

I don't even know how console players do it. At least we have a website to check, rather than load-screening between dozens of locations just in hopes of finding what we need. I wouldn't play without addons; so massively appreciate all the volunteer devs that make them.