Has the bottom fallen out of the market for guild sales?

LaintalAy

Charlesce wrote: »

Glad you asked (not really)! I need additional overhead on every toon to be able to do daily writs, accept expired trader listings, and to hold gear to do rnds on either of the 3 roles, and not have to constantly shuffle inventory. This way I can actually go more than 1 day doing stuff without having to perform inventory maintenance on all toons.

Are you actually trying to use maths to disprove my experience? i know how much space i need and I know how many mules I need to keep things running smoothly and not reduce my game to 99% inventory management. I've tried holding all surveys on 2-3 toons and it inevitably leads to me needing to do way too much inventory management on said toons. Spreading it out to all 6 is the way I've found to ensure I have the available overhead I need to do my dailies and things

As for the DLC thing, I may be wrong, or it may have changed, but when I used to only have eso+, I only got base game surveys + wrothgar and craglorn. As I transitioned away from eso+ by purchasing DLCs outright, my dailies magically started giving me surveys for more zones. It may be that I just didn't notice before, or things changed (but I'm quite sure it was indeed the case that I only got base-zone surveys before purchasing DLCs), but regardless, the point remains that it's inventory fodder AF with surveys. (although this may be a moot point if the rumors are true that they're revamping surveys, for now it's this way)

ummm....

Wereswan

EdjeSwift wrote: »

Charlesce wrote: »

I need 6 mules JUST TO HOLD SURVEYS. Another mule to hold mat stacks, another mule to hold provis/alchemy daily turn-in mats, and 2 more mules to hold random rarely used stuff. All 8 of my furnishing coffers are full with master writs because I save them for double XP like a non-wasteful person. I need 10 mules JUST to hold stuff. I said earlier maxing bag space is 3.6M. That means I need 1.8M just to hold stuff on my 10 mules, without an ESO+ bag.

Why? 6 Mules? There are less than 200 Surveys in the game currently. If it's a mule just for Surveys you can use just one since it's "mule" and doesn't need gear/consumables. Here's the list:

DLC/Chapters: (60)
Gold Road Surveys - 6
Necrom Surveys - 6
High Isle Surveys - 6
Blackwood Surveys - 6
Western Skyrim Surveys - 6
Northern Elsweyr Surveys - 6
Vvardenfell Surveys - 6
Wrothgar Surveys - 18

Non-Alliance Lands:(30)
Craglorn Surveys - 18
Coldharbour Surveys - 12

Pact Lands (30)
The Rift - 6
Eastmarch - 6
Shadowfen - 6
Deshaan - 6
Stonefalls - 6

Covenant Lands (30)
Bangkorai - 6
Rivenspire - 6
Al'ikr Desert - 6
Stormhaven - 6
Glenumbra - 6

Dominion Lands (30)
Reaper's March - 6
Malabal Tor - 6
Greenshade - 6
Grahtwood - 6
Auridon - 6

There are six types of survey maps in the game, so presumably they're concentrating each group on one alt.

EdjeSwift

Wereswan wrote: »

There are six types of survey maps in the game, so presumably they're concentrating each group on one alt.

They explained why and that wasn't it.

TaSheen

I've had ESO+ for all the 7 years I've played.... I've always had surveys from all available DLCs since the beginning....

Charlesce

TaSheen wrote: »

I've had ESO+ for all the 7 years I've played.... I've always had surveys from all available DLCs since the beginning....

I'm not sure then why I thought that, either way, inventory fodder

TaSheen

Charlesce wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I've had ESO+ for all the 7 years I've played.... I've always had surveys from all available DLCs since the beginning....

I'm not sure then why I thought that, either way, inventory fodder

There was never any doubt that I would sub (now 4 accounts, paid annually) - I subbed the other two MMOs I played (required subs) so it wasn't an issue for me. I've therefore never had the inventory issue. I keep a TON of surveys on my mains (all 8 of them - I play all 4 accounts on both PC megaservers) so I'm covered if an endeavor wants harvesting, or I just run out of something making gear for a new CP 160. I tend to not pay much attention to how much stuff I have, since I've had the craft bag for so long....

oldbobdude

LaintalAy wrote: »

Charlesce wrote: »

Most likely the same people who are saying prices coming down is a good thing are the same people who are unwilling to farm for an hour.

Good luck maxing out your bag space on alternate toons when dreugh wax inevitably drops to 5k each. But hey, at least you'll be able to farm quests to get the gold you need to buy stuff. At the current state of things, it's almost more lucrative to spend my time farming vet trials for Undaunted Plunder than it is to go farm nodes.

When chromium plating was 500k each, sure it was 500k each, but guess what, all you had to do was farm for a couple hours and you were a millionaire.

Perfect Roe used to be worth your time to fish for yourself at 100k. There's no way I'm fishing for over an hour for a chance at 1 Perfect Roe every ~110 fish if said Roe is worth a paltry 40k, and flipping it into Ambrosia is just a more convoluted way to inevitably lose money.

Newcomers ought to stop disregarding what old hats are warning them about. It's not a bunch of shills trying to gatekeep being rich - it's a lot of people with extensive knowledge and experience about the ESO market who are seeing huge red flags everywhere they look in the market. You can't gatekeep being rich if all it took to get rich was just farm for a few hours. Crowns are not coming down in price and neither are guild trader bids. Old hats are seeing that this is not sustainable because there are 3 things that are resistant or entirely unaffected by the whims of the market: Guild trader bids, Crown costs, and bag space upgrades (maxing bag space on 20 toons will cost ~3.6 million). Some houses are over 1 million as well, these too will become too expensive for us mere mortals to afford when dreugh wax drops to 5k each.

Not one Guild is forced to maintain a 'trading spot' in any location, anywhere. They choose this. They then pass the cost of this strategy onto their members. No-one is forcing Guild members to stay at these guilds. These players choose this.

The 'exchange rate of Crowns' cannot possibly have any effect on Guild sales turnover.
You cannot technically 'sell' Crowns. This is a private exchange between individual players, even when using an intermediary.

The real problem with ESO is that everyone comes to this game not understanding just how much time is required to play it.
As people have recently point out: Time is money. Feel free to join the dots up, yourself.

Your post really highlights just how out-of-control a lot of players are. Nothing that you describe is essential to playing the game. You don't actually need houses. You don't need to buy 12 extra character slots for the sole purpose of 'storing items' You don't even need to a million gold pieces in your bank at any one time to but something that you 'need'.

There is nothing required by this game that you NEED to spend 1 000 000gp on. Nothing.

Trading and housing are both end game activities. Might as well say trials or trifectas or hard modes or vet content isn’t really needed to play the game. When I play the trading game I want to watch my stack grow. The gold has no real value but it is one way I play the game.

freespirit

LaintalAy wrote: »

Charlesce wrote: »

Most likely the same people who are saying prices coming down is a good thing are the same people who are unwilling to farm for an hour.

Good luck maxing out your bag space on alternate toons when dreugh wax inevitably drops to 5k each. But hey, at least you'll be able to farm quests to get the gold you need to buy stuff. At the current state of things, it's almost more lucrative to spend my time farming vet trials for Undaunted Plunder than it is to go farm nodes.

When chromium plating was 500k each, sure it was 500k each, but guess what, all you had to do was farm for a couple hours and you were a millionaire.

Perfect Roe used to be worth your time to fish for yourself at 100k. There's no way I'm fishing for over an hour for a chance at 1 Perfect Roe every ~110 fish if said Roe is worth a paltry 40k, and flipping it into Ambrosia is just a more convoluted way to inevitably lose money.

Newcomers ought to stop disregarding what old hats are warning them about. It's not a bunch of shills trying to gatekeep being rich - it's a lot of people with extensive knowledge and experience about the ESO market who are seeing huge red flags everywhere they look in the market. You can't gatekeep being rich if all it took to get rich was just farm for a few hours. Crowns are not coming down in price and neither are guild trader bids. Old hats are seeing that this is not sustainable because there are 3 things that are resistant or entirely unaffected by the whims of the market: Guild trader bids, Crown costs, and bag space upgrades (maxing bag space on 20 toons will cost ~3.6 million). Some houses are over 1 million as well, these too will become too expensive for us mere mortals to afford when dreugh wax drops to 5k each.

Not one Guild is forced to maintain a 'trading spot' in any location, anywhere. They choose this. They then pass the cost of this strategy onto their members. No-one is forcing Guild members to stay at these guilds. These players choose this.

The 'exchange rate of Crowns' cannot possibly have any effect on Guild sales turnover.
You cannot technically 'sell' Crowns. This is a private exchange between individual players, even when using an intermediary.

The real problem with ESO is that everyone comes to this game not understanding just how much time is required to play it.
As people have recently point out: Time is money. Feel free to join the dots up, yourself.

Your post really highlights just how out-of-control a lot of players are. Nothing that you describe is essential to playing the game. You don't actually need houses. You don't need to buy 12 extra character slots for the sole purpose of 'storing items' You don't even need to a million gold pieces in your bank at any one time to but something that you 'need'.

There is nothing required by this game that you NEED to spend 1 000 000gp on. Nothing.

Your last sentence actually proves you have little idea how people choose to play this game.....

Note I say "choose"

Many people consider themselves to be "completionists" ie they wish to collect every achievement in the game, so they infact do need houses.......

Just to gain the Count/Countess title you must first get the Hero of the Aldmeri Dominion, Hero of the Daggerfall Covenant and Hero of the Ebonheart Pact achievements, and save up a total of 11,380,000 gold to buy Serenity Falls Estate, Daggerfall Overlook, and Ebonheart Chateau.

There are many, many other achievements tied to housing.

Just because you don't consider something like housing necessary doesn't mean others don't. it is a totally valid part of the game and 1,000,000gold will not even scratch the edges of it!

Deserrick

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Charlesce wrote: »

When you've purchased DLC's separately (as opposed to having them included in eso+), the daily writs give you surveys for more and more different zones. (e.g. if you purchase western skyrim dlc you'll get western skyrim surveys, whereas if you have eso+ and didn't specifically purchase the DLC, you'll only get surveys on base game zones

Um...I get surveys from all zones and use ESO+.

TaSheen wrote: »

I've had ESO+ for all the 7 years I've played.... I've always had surveys from all available DLCs since the beginning....

Just curious, did you only use ESO+ , or did you ever buy any chapter collections? During ESO+ trials, I only received surveys for base game areas and Vvardenfell, but when I started buying chapters, I received surveys for the areas in the chapter I bought.

LaintalAy

edited

sleepy_worm

-edit-

I have 3 Northern Elsweyr surveys and I don't own Elsweyr. But those could have come from an event, right?

TaSheen

Deserrick wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Charlesce wrote: »

When you've purchased DLC's separately (as opposed to having them included in eso+), the daily writs give you surveys for more and more different zones. (e.g. if you purchase western skyrim dlc you'll get western skyrim surveys, whereas if you have eso+ and didn't specifically purchase the DLC, you'll only get surveys on base game zones

Um...I get surveys from all zones and use ESO+.

TaSheen wrote: »

I've had ESO+ for all the 7 years I've played.... I've always had surveys from all available DLCs since the beginning....

Just curious, did you only use ESO+ , or did you ever buy any chapter collections? During ESO+ trials, I only received surveys for base game areas and Vvardenfell, but when I started buying chapters, I received surveys for the areas in the chapter I bought.

I bought chapters as they arrived. Every one of them, even Greymoor though I really only wanted it for the house. I'm not actually sure what you mean by "chapter collections".

I've never bought any of the DLCs - I've gotten some free like everyone else.

SaffronCitrusflower

Please, there is no reasonable justification for the 14 day limit on listing items. Please revert this change as it was a horrible change.

LaintalAy

edited

PDarkBHood

I have to admit, I really like these changes. The market was due for a correcting and I am glad. Some prices are still way too high though. Lower your prices to a buyable price and you will sell your junk. Remember, it is the consumer that sets the price, not you the retailer - this somewhat applies even to a pseudo-market like eso's market place.

LaintalAy

edited

JustLovely

PDarkBHood wrote: »

I have to admit, I really like these changes. The market was due for a correcting and I am glad. Some prices are still way too high though. Lower your prices to a buyable price and you will sell your junk. Remember, it is the consumer that sets the price, not you the retailer - this somewhat applies even to a pseudo-market like eso's market place.

So lets follow your reasoning to it's end point.

First of all, it is the seller that sets the price, not the buyer. The buyer can choose not to buy, but they can't dictate what the seller opts to charge. (in any market, real or virtual)

In the end, there will be no reason to participate in trade guilds because there will be no gold in it for the seller, thus no items for buyers to purchase. People just won't even bother with trade guilds and sales at all. And that is exactly the direction things are heading. Guilds are already folding because the market is so bad right now. In the end we'll all just not even bother with trying to sell anything so it won't matter what buyers might be willing to buy or what they will be willing to pay.

In the end, there will just be far less participation and time spent playing ESO.

The 14 day listing limitation is one of the worst ideas ZOS has ever had and time will show that to be the case.

Arrodisia

Many players here have mentioned there are many factors which are causing this problem.

1. playable content delivered has been declining
2. low amount of fun additions on a regular basis = new races, weapons, classes (1 class approx. every other expansion for our grand total of 7 meanwhile many other games deliver more than double and triple these amounts)
3. performance issues in different parts of content
4. often slow relases of QoL changes and bug fixes
5. negative change to listings timer..
6. loss of PvE/PvP raiding communities (we need time and content to rebuild these)
...

These kinds of things are needed to keep MMO's fresh and brimming with life. New players do not flock to games with low pop servers.
When these things aren't done, or not done in a noticable enough volume, the population drops. When the population drops we see less demand to trade.

The common misconception that this will help players with less gold is wrong. Players who have a lot of gold will continue to have it. Those who are new and have no savings in their banks will be unable to earn gold at a decent pace to buy homes, furnishings, gear, upgrades, and so on because the items they pick up while leveling and playing normally have significantly less value now.

When prices drop too low players won't bother to gather items and sell them anymore. When average players see significantly less progress to unlocking these features they'll just quit playing. This isn't a small change within the economy like many times in the past.

Zenimax may consider implementing more innovative systems, most especially a fleshed out guild system encouraging and rewarding activity and adding larger, more vibrant expansions, classes, and so on to stimulate steady server population growth.

Can this situation be turned around? Yes
Will it be turned around? Maybe

Have fun all

spartaxoxo

JustLovely wrote: »

First of all, it is the seller that sets the price, not the buyer. The buyer can choose not to buy, but they can't dictate what the seller opts to charge. (in any market, real or virtual)

It is neither. The seller can't just pick any price they please an expect to sell things. They have to set it at the price the market allows not what they personally feel they should get, or they'll lose money.

Likewise, the buyer can't just refuse to buy anything unless it's extremely dirt cheap because the seller will simply exit the market if the item is sold below cost.

Instead both buyer and seller follow the market.

RomanRex

the devs are making regular changes that largely benefit newer players.

i cut back playing the game for a variety of reasons. i don’t think i’m alone in that. older players like me with 10’s of millions in the bank have stopped buying.

demand is the real driver for any market going down. lower demand means lower prices. it’s that simple.

Anifaas

LaintalAy wrote: »

Not one Guild is forced to maintain a 'trading spot' in any location, anywhere. They choose this. They then pass the cost of this strategy onto their members. No-one is forcing Guild members to stay at these guilds. These players choose this.

The 'exchange rate of Crowns' cannot possibly have any effect on Guild sales turnover.
You cannot technically 'sell' Crowns. This is a private exchange between individual players, even when using an intermediary.

The real problem with ESO is that everyone comes to this game not understanding just how much time is required to play it.
As people have recently point out: Time is money. Feel free to join the dots up, yourself.

Your post really highlights just how out-of-control a lot of players are. Nothing that you describe is essential to playing the game. You don't actually need houses. You don't need to buy 12 extra character slots for the sole purpose of 'storing items' You don't even need to a million gold pieces in your bank at any one time to but something that you 'need'.

There is nothing required by this game that you NEED to spend 1 000 000gp on. Nothing.

Following this logic to conclusion: you do not NEED to play this game. Get back to work.

JanTanhide

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Hello All,

I thought it was just my imagination, but then my trade guild head publicly said that sales for pretty much everything had dropped off.

I was wondering who else had noticed that it was getting more difficult to sell?

Same here. Seems like nothing sells anymore unless I rock bottom it and only then it's things like rings and necklaces people use for decon.

Every day i log in I get several expired sale items and usually zero sales. Seems like the Guild Trader system has been destroyed.

CrazyKitty

JanTanhide wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Hello All,

I thought it was just my imagination, but then my trade guild head publicly said that sales for pretty much everything had dropped off.

I was wondering who else had noticed that it was getting more difficult to sell?

Same here. Seems like nothing sells anymore unless I rock bottom it and only then it's things like rings and necklaces people use for decon.

Every day i log in I get several expired sale items and usually zero sales. Seems like the Guild Trader system has been destroyed.

Yes, the market is really, really, really bad for everything these days. They should have doubled the listing days for items, not halved it considering how slow the market is now.

Getting a bunch of "item expired" returns every time I log on is making me want to log on less as well.

LaintalAy

edited

Roxxsmom

JanTanhide wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Hello All,

I thought it was just my imagination, but then my trade guild head publicly said that sales for pretty much everything had dropped off.

I was wondering who else had noticed that it was getting more difficult to sell?

Same here. Seems like nothing sells anymore unless I rock bottom it and only then it's things like rings and necklaces people use for decon.

Every day i log in I get several expired sale items and usually zero sales. Seems like the Guild Trader system has been destroyed.

Indeed. The only things I am selling are really low value items like cooking recipes. I've been steadily dropping prices to significantly below what my add ons are telling me is "average" that used to make me gold--crafting mats, motifs, less common furnishing recipes etc--but they still aren't selling. Some of the issue is prices are in free fall, so today's "blue or green" bargain is overpriced tomorrow. But I am guessing it's ultimately because players simply aren't buying these items much anymore, presumably because most players either have them all and because people aren't crafting as much as they used to, even with a recent expansion.

Having a bunch of unsold items in my inbox each day and no sales doesn't make me feel like logging on as often either, though now I feel like I "have to" because the inbox fills up very quickly.

Necrotech_Master

JustLovely wrote: »

PDarkBHood wrote: »

I have to admit, I really like these changes. The market was due for a correcting and I am glad. Some prices are still way too high though. Lower your prices to a buyable price and you will sell your junk. Remember, it is the consumer that sets the price, not you the retailer - this somewhat applies even to a pseudo-market like eso's market place.

So lets follow your reasoning to it's end point.

First of all, it is the seller that sets the price, not the buyer. The buyer can choose not to buy, but they can't dictate what the seller opts to charge. (in any market, real or virtual)

In the end, there will be no reason to participate in trade guilds because there will be no gold in it for the seller, thus no items for buyers to purchase. People just won't even bother with trade guilds and sales at all. And that is exactly the direction things are heading. Guilds are already folding because the market is so bad right now. In the end we'll all just not even bother with trying to sell anything so it won't matter what buyers might be willing to buy or what they will be willing to pay.

In the end, there will just be far less participation and time spent playing ESO.

The 14 day listing limitation is one of the worst ideas ZOS has ever had and time will show that to be the case.

if guilds are folding is because they dont know how to pivot and operate differently (a lot of businesses have failed because of this in RL in a changing market)

the 14 day listing period hasnt really changed much, i made a combined 300k in sales last week, which is about average for me almost every week for the last year, excluding weeks in which i made a random chance high value item sale (such as a full motif book or new furnishing plans i had duplicates of)

the only reason a lot of the guilds were maintaining what they were doing was charging their members so they could continue ridiculously high bids on traders

whats going on is market change, large influx of mats (starting anniversary event, then continued in the zenithar event since you could get boxes farming nodes, and now continues because its the only viable way to farm ink for scribing), so theres been significantly more farming in the past 4 months

for certain things this lead to a huge surplus in supply

all guilds need to do is bid less on traders, basically bid in proportion to their overall income (between the tax from sales + donations by members), but demanding dues of like 50-100k per week per member puts more on the members, and those who are unable to meet this requirement will leave the guild

if the guild does not pivot to require less in dues, thats why a guild will fold

the guilds that required low or no dues from members will be more likely to get into the trading game at that point if the big conglomerate guilds cant sustain or change themselves

Adaarye

sarahthes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

- Fatigue from 30 straight days of events including an extended Jubliee
- Fatigue and crankyness from farming those style pages.

That's when I noticed a sudden drop in how much my crafting mats were selling for, and those are were my main source of income.

I used to sell all the gold mats I got every day but now I'm holding most of them back because I hate taking such a loss.

I'm not saying that prices should go back to what they were before but they need to stop dropping and level out.

Well, as long as I still need to pay the same price for a guild trader I'm going to be selling the highest volume I can at the highest price it will sell for, which I have dropped every week. I'm sure a lot of others are doing the same, so the price is likely to continue falling.

Selling has turned into a race to the bottom unfortunately.

Adaarye

It's not worth my time to farm mats anymore when I can't get a fair price for them.

[Edit to correct spelling]

Adaarye

You're right. I don't need to play and currently, I'm not.
Work? I'm retired. But there's gardening; guitars and keyboards sitting idle; a table waiting for model trains to be unpacked and run. thanks for reminding me.

Exactly. I've been doing other things I enjoy rather than playing ESO.

[Edit: Quote went wonky]

rothan117

All those saying they keep logging in to find expired items in their mail boxes and that the 14 day limit is the problem. With the way prices have been dropping due to over supply and decreased demand, if it has not sold in 14 days it was not going to sell. Ever. The 14 day limit has nothing to do with the decline in prices, that decline started long before the 14 day limit went in. I had noticed it before the Anniversary event but it vastly accelerated with the Anniversary Event and has just kept going from there due to Zenithar drops and the tepid reception of Gold Road. It sure did not take long for the new zone to become pretty sparsely populated. The fact that it is effecting all prices, not just mats that get farmed trying to get ink drops tells me that the overall demand for items dropped off a cliff.