So my trade guild is closing...

loosej

MJallday wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

I'm planning to leave my top 3 merchant guilds on PC/EU as well.

The 500k sales per week target is achievable, but the method I used to make money (crafting dailies) is no longer worth it.

Spending an hour a day doing dailies on 20 characters and an additional 2-3 hours on weekends for master writs and surveys was manageable when I was making around 5-6M per week. Now that the earnings have dropped to about 2M per week and are continuing to decline, it’s no longer viable.

I don’t think we’ve hit rock bottom yet. Personally, I foresee the game facing serious issues in the coming months or years, including potential declines in player numbers (we already see it in Steam charts, and don't tell me it's only due to covid pandemic) and dissatisfaction within the community.

“Sales targets”
“Quotas “
“Guild fees”

And this is why I’m glad on Xbox this doesn’t really exist. There’s a couple of trading guilds but tbh there’s still so much choice it’s irrelevant

It’s quite simple to solve this entire mess

1. Maximum 30 items can be sold per month. So you’ll have to price competitively
2. Every item you sell is Bind on Pickup, so can’t be flipped
3. Guild traders can only be used once in a row. So you can’t have the same one the next time.

That should solve a few issues

I think you're overlooking some side effects of the solutions you propose.

1. This means that I'd only list my highest value items, and at the highest price possible. Supply would become a fraction of what it is today, cheap items wouldn't be listed, and prices for items that do sell would skyrocket.
2. I'll use crafting materials as an example. If I buy a full stack of chromium or dreugh because there's a double xp event and I want to burn through all my master writs, I'm well aware that the person selling that stack is probably flipping. I'm paying extra for the time they spent buying 1 of them here, 3 of them there..., and I'm okay with that because it's something I wouldn't do myself. If that goes away, I won't start visiting every trader to go buy those individual items. I'll adjust my playstyle and buy them in advance whenever I happen to visit a trader and look for them. If somebody buys your stuff to try and flip it, guess what: you just made sale and have a free trade slot to list something else. If you make 10k selling something you picked up while playing, and they earn 5k by spending time on the ttc website and visiting traders, who just got the better deal?
3. I don't think I'd be opposed to that, but need more coffee to consider the possible implications.

JiubLeRepenti

Pelanora wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

I'm planning to leave my top 3 merchant guilds on PC/EU as well.

The 500k sales per week target is achievable, but the method I used to make money (crafting dailies) is no longer worth it.

Spending an hour a day doing dailies on 20 characters and an additional 2-3 hours on weekends for master writs and surveys was manageable when I was making around 5-6M per week. Now that the earnings have dropped to about 2M per week and are continuing to decline, it’s no longer viable.

I don’t think we’ve hit rock bottom yet. Personally, I foresee the game facing serious issues in the coming months or years, including potential declines in player numbers (we already see it in Steam charts, and don't tell me it's only due to covid pandemic) and dissatisfaction within the community.

Yea because the cost of living in tamriel is just outrageous with the high mortgages and rates and taxes and insurance and fees to dungeon owners, how are you breaking even on earning only 2M a week. Did you have to let the servants go yet?

It seems you've never done housing.

Furnishing a 700 items house with some nice items costs between 6 and 10M. I have something between 10 and 20 very large items houses. And all of them are full. So yea, basically, this costs a lot. I made between 300 and 400M in three years, but only have 35M in bank. All the rest was spent in housing. So no, I'm not paying high mortgages and rates and taxes and insurance and fees, but paying beds, walls and tables that easily cost 20-50k each.

mitchtheelder

i hope that lots of small guilds that lost their spots unite and make open trade day on weekend or any other day and start trading by using game CHAT.

Ive seen that game chat lost its function and rarely ppl use it. I hope someone bring some new initiative and change how the trades are made in general.

I think zos should change the trading process in game and figure out another way for gold to be removed from the game.

dk_dunkirk

LaintalAy wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

It just takes money from those who didn't know better and puts it in the hands of the ones who know a better price. Fine if the lower priced seller just wanted a quick sale, but the current system hides the true optimal price from many players, especially on console. That is not good game design.

• The ESO game design has no effect on the presence of flipping.
• Flippers are only players who sell items for more than they paid for them.
• There is no "true optimal price". There is only an 'average price' generated by the addons that you use.

Using Potent Nirncrux as the example:

• Flipper buys one for 15000 and sells it later for 20000. Making 5000.
• You find one and sell it for 12000. Making 12000.

The original seller made 15000 less costs
The flipper made 5000 less costs
Both guilds made some tax from one sale or the other.
Who's the numpty here?

You'll possibly come along and respond with "but I lost 7000".
But you can't make 'a loss' on something that cost you nothing. Unless you spend money to give it away...

The people causing inflation are actually those that don't run to the locations where the bargains are; but instead shop only at Vivec or Mournhold and CHOOSE to pay the highest prices around.
It isn't greedy traders
It isn't greedy guilds
It is isn't flippers

It is buyers that can't be bothered to shop around for a better price.

The thing that causes inflation is printing money. This is econ 101. More money in the system? Prices rise to meet it. Why was the economy so broken on PC compared to console? Printing money, in the form of doing writs on many, many toons, facilitated by mods. I have "only" 10 crafting toons. That's 50K gold a day if I do writs, plus extra upgrade mats, AND hireling emails. I did this to try to "farm" upgrade mats so that I didn't have to buy them from traders. I only do writs across all of these toons during crafting events, but I know many people have a lot more toons, and do writs every day. Mods are the difference between the platforms, and that is the source of the extra money floating around the system on PC.

And don't try to say that high prices are the fault of lazy buyers. I've collected (almost) all of the motif pages. Do you know how many times I've tried to find the last page of a set, only to find that some jerk has bought every one of them in circulation, and relisted them for ten times what they had been going for? I've honestly lost count.

dk_dunkirk

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

@BlueRaven
The maximum amount of currency you can carry is 7FFFFFFF or 1111111111111111111111111111111 in binary, not the complete 32, just 31 ones. That is 2147483647 gold. I am pretty sure its that number, but I am not enough of a geek to know why. 😅

Above 200 million in sales is rare, but its possible. I agree, hitting that every week is probably inflated for reasons of ego. Hitting such a number once takes a lot of preparation.
And that is just revenue, not profits.

If that's true, then the database field/variable type for holding the value of your gold is a *signed* 32-bit integer. (The final bit would hold the +/- sign.) But again, if this is true, why would they design the system to hold a negative amount of gold?

tauriel01

With the tools we all have available to us--TTC, MM, ATT--it is ridiculously easy to manipulate the market. These tools do not automatically filter out the outliers in prices. All you have to do is get a buddy and take turns posting stuff at stupid high prices then buying it. The massive number of uneducated traders will post stuff at the slightly higher average price today. Then tomorrow, because so many others bought at the slightly higher price, the average price gets even higher. And so on. And yes, lazy purchasers who will just buy what's handy at whatever price also feeds into this.

You can clearly see on some graphs over time, there is no shortage of supply or increased demand, yet that line keeps going up. Or my personal favorite... two distinct lines, both showing lots of sales, but one much higher priced than the other. Clearly no shortage of supply there. It is SO FREAKING EASY to manipulate this market. And players have been doing it since the beginning of ESO time. You want them to stop? Insist the addon devs include automatic outlier filtering. Or better yet, insist ZOS gives us the tools rather than rely on random people who may or may not have our or the game's best interests in mind when creating an addon.

twev

mitchtheelder wrote: »

i hope that lots of small guilds that lost their spots unite and make open trade day on weekend or any other day and start trading by using game CHAT.

Ive seen that game chat lost its function and rarely ppl use it. I hope someone bring some new initiative and change how the trades are made in general.

I think zos should change the trading process in game and figure out another way for gold to be removed from the game.

I image quite a lot of gold is removed from the game as players log out and just never log back in, leaving resources in their inventory and bank databases for the rest of the game's lifespan.

The game may have sold 20 million licenses over the years, but there is a huge percentage of those licenses that are inactive and will never be played again.
There are a lot of resources and gold that have fallen into that black hole resource sink over the years, and more is lost every day.

LalMirchi

Soon seven years in and only two of my guilds have ever been closed. The only common point of reference was that both had dues requirements and did most often have prime locations.

I did note this with chagrin as one does get fond of one's guilds and took my time in choosing replacements. Strangely enough the guilds with no requirements to pay dues have persisted and my sales have not suffered in quantity, only in price.

My rough mental yardstick is the classic Intricate jewelry item falling in price: Lets's say 2.5 K dropping to 0.5K now.

As Grandfather said : "When the storm rages one should hold the rudder firmly and steer very carefully."

I used to trade every day, now just once a week. I still gather the gold, just not as much as before.

As trading is just one of the many activities I enjoy in this game I will weather this out.

twev

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

It just takes money from those who didn't know better and puts it in the hands of the ones who know a better price. Fine if the lower priced seller just wanted a quick sale, but the current system hides the true optimal price from many players, especially on console. That is not good game design.

• The ESO game design has no effect on the presence of flipping.
• Flippers are only players who sell items for more than they paid for them.
• There is no "true optimal price". There is only an 'average price' generated by the addons that you use.

Using Potent Nirncrux as the example:

• Flipper buys one for 15000 and sells it later for 20000. Making 5000.
• You find one and sell it for 12000. Making 12000.

The original seller made 15000 less costs
The flipper made 5000 less costs
Both guilds made some tax from one sale or the other.
Who's the numpty here?

You'll possibly come along and respond with "but I lost 7000".
But you can't make 'a loss' on something that cost you nothing. Unless you spend money to give it away...

The people causing inflation are actually those that don't run to the locations where the bargains are; but instead shop only at Vivec or Mournhold and CHOOSE to pay the highest prices around.
It isn't greedy traders
It isn't greedy guilds
It is isn't flippers

It is buyers that can't be bothered to shop around for a better price.

The thing that causes inflation is printing money. This is econ 101. More money in the system? Prices rise to meet it. Why was the economy so broken on PC compared to console? Printing money, in the form of doing writs on many, many toons, facilitated by mods. I have "only" 10 crafting toons. That's 50K gold a day if I do writs, plus extra upgrade mats, AND hireling emails. I did this to try to "farm" upgrade mats so that I didn't have to buy them from traders. I only do writs across all of these toons during crafting events, but I know many people have a lot more toons, and do writs every day. Mods are the difference between the platforms, and that is the source of the extra money floating around the system on PC.

And don't try to say that high prices are the fault of lazy buyers. I've collected (almost) all of the motif pages. Do you know how many times I've tried to find the last page of a set, only to find that some jerk has bought every one of them in circulation, and relisted them for ten times what they had been going for? I've honestly lost count.

I admit to being slightly pedantic, here, but:
Considering that all acquired resources in the game that aren't 'bind on pick-up' or 'bind on equip' are fungible, with no way to identify any specific items through any form of chain of custody (nothing has a serial number on it as an identifier) - there's really no way for the player base to track any item, much less collections of items beyond any single sale and over a large number of player's individual inventories and private transfers that the items may pass through before any possible next sale on any number of far-flung traders over the course of hours, days, or weeks.

And, there are a lot of players, hundreds of guild traders, and multi-thousands of transfers every day that the servers are up.
Even the devs can't track quantities of gold or individual items when an exploit allows some nefarious actors to acquire resources and then disperse them through several branching transactions to multiple recipients.

All that we have to go by is that TTC may list items being marketed at a good price at a specific location, the item being sold before we get there, and similar items offered for sale at higher prices elsewhere.

It's possible that those may be the 'same (generic) items', but there's really no way to tell unless a seller states that the higher priced item was one from their inventory that they previously acquired from a lower priced sale, possibly with the intention of flipping.
But don't discount the fact that a lot of stuff bought at low prices are frequently bought by normal players for immediate personal use, or bought to store for later use for crafting daily writs, master writs or outfitting at a later date.

It's really hard to generalize beyond the fact that we know flipping does occur, and that there is a population of players who trade in the markets as their own form of 'end game'.

Pevey

LalMirchi wrote: »

Soon seven years in and only two of my guilds have ever been closed. The only common point of reference was that both had dues requirements and did most often have prime locations.

I did note this with chagrin as one does get fond of one's guilds and took my time in choosing replacements. Strangely enough the guilds with no requirements to pay dues have persisted and my sales have not suffered in quantity, only in price.

My rough mental yardstick is the classic Intricate jewelry item falling in price: Lets's say 2.5 K dropping to 0.5K now.

As Grandfather said : "When the storm rages one should hold the rudder firmly and steer very carefully."

I used to trade every day, now just once a week. I still gather the gold, just not as much as before.

As trading is just one of the many activities I enjoy in this game I will weather this out.

Having played 7 years, if you were selling intricates before arcanist released, along with 2 additional character slots, you probably remember the price of intricates in general being around where they are now. The prices have fallen as demand has fallen as fewer and fewer people are leveling new character versus when a huge proportion of players were leveling 1-2 new toons. Jewelry has been hit slight harder (I think the price a few years ago was around 750g per) because people used to be especially interested in maxing JC asap on a new toon for doing daily writs to get those super expensive chromium grains.

LalMirchi

Pevey wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Soon seven years in and only two of my guilds have ever been closed. The only common point of reference was that both had dues requirements and did most often have prime locations.

I did note this with chagrin as one does get fond of one's guilds and took my time in choosing replacements. Strangely enough the guilds with no requirements to pay dues have persisted and my sales have not suffered in quantity, only in price.

My rough mental yardstick is the classic Intricate jewelry item falling in price: Lets's say 2.5 K dropping to 0.5K now.

As Grandfather said : "When the storm rages one should hold the rudder firmly and steer very carefully."

I used to trade every day, now just once a week. I still gather the gold, just not as much as before.

As trading is just one of the many activities I enjoy in this game I will weather this out.

Having played 7 years, if you were selling intricates before arcanist released, along with 2 additional character slots, you probably remember the price of intricates in general being around where they are now. The prices have fallen as demand has fallen as fewer and fewer people are leveling new character versus when a huge proportion of players were leveling 1-2 new toons. Jewelry has been hit slight harder (I think the price a few years ago was around 750g per) because people used to be especially interested in maxing JC asap on a new toon for doing daily writs to get those super expensive chromium grains.

Absolutely agree! But I do not view trade as a main activity for me in game, it is by the side, albeit sometimes lucrative but mostly rather boring. I do have a rough mental yardstick to determine general goods value and it just happens to be intricate jewelry for me atm.

Veinblood1965

WitchyKiki wrote: »

I left my high-traffic trade guild because the dues/requirements did not lower despite the economy taking a nosedive. The truth is, that ESO was suffering from inflation that was speculative. I had reported countless members on high-traffic guilds for massively buying items to post at higher prices. Some people had 220M on sales PER WEEK by manipulating the market.

The problem right now is people are still operating under the rules of the old economy, and while I benefited greatly from it I'm also glad the economy finally corrected itself.

The high trade guilds will continue to dominate for a while til the cash runs dry. It will take a few more months, but hopefully your guild will come back.

This is exactly what I am looking at right now. I just vendor stuff I find in-game it's hardly my main activity.

Dues of 25 to 30k per week.
Listing times cut from 30 days to 15 days with no corresponding lowering of listing fees and sales declining at the same time.

Taking a loss now it's not worth the time, easier to just give stuff away. I've lowered my prices considerably just to get rid of stuff and still hardly any sales. It feels like the amount of buyers has declined.

Considering stopping any vendoring at all due to all this it's a waste of time really.

Hamfast

I wonder how many of you remember when a Potato sold for 7 Million Gold... the price of a potato when through the roof... proof of market manipulation? Perhaps...

The optimal price of any item is the price you (or someone else) is willing to pay... based only on the whim of the purchaser, not the opinion of anyone else... if you are willing to pay 7 million gold for a single potato, then that is the optimal price for that potato

Inflation is caused by the money supply, not the price one sells items. ESO has an endless supply of Gold, just like real life, the Government (ESO in this case) prints money to pay for things beyond what the taxes bring in, (ESO creates gold to reward players for doing things) So more money chasing the same amount of goods and services causes the inflation.

The Guild Traders are a Money sink, while they grant us a way to turn items (regardless of the cost to us) into Gold, they cost the guild who rents them an amount of gold depending on what they bid on that kiosk. We post an item for sale, (there is a listing fee) and when it sells, the guild, and the kiosk (ESO Tax) takes some of what you sold the item for, you get the rest, and you are happy the item sold (Why else would you sell it for what you did?).

Nharimlur_Finor

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

And don't try to say that high prices are the fault of lazy buyers. I've collected (almost) all of the motif pages. Do you know how many times I've tried to find the last page of a set, only to find that some jerk has bought every one of them in circulation, and relisted them for ten times what they had been going for? I've honestly lost count.

I'm too lazy to fish. I pay for perfect roe if I need it. Flippers buy that up too.

CrashTest

You have to adjust to the new economy or die and be replaced by those who have. The guilds and players who have adjusted are still going strong.

It makes no sense to still bid as if you're in the old economy and keep high requirements for your guild members.

FlopsyPrince

LaintalAy wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

It just takes money from those who didn't know better and puts it in the hands of the ones who know a better price. Fine if the lower priced seller just wanted a quick sale, but the current system hides the true optimal price from many players, especially on console. That is not good game design.

• The ESO game design has no effect on the presence of flipping.

This is completely false.

This game is a pure example of this. You have to go to many different guild vendors to find the "normal" price for anything, especially something that is not common. A central auction house would make that data immediately available. Choosing either is a "game design choice" and thus has a major impact on some flipping.

That doesn't mean flipping can't or doesn't happen on games with a Central AH, but ESO makes it much more profitable and easier for those willing to focus on that part of the game to do so since most people will not devote the time to find the true price of something they earn (and can resell) in game.

The ESO game design has no effect on the presence of flipping.

There is nothing in the Guild system; and nothing in the default banking interface supplied in ESO, that enables, supports, or facilitates the idea of flipping.

I see you didn't read what I wrote. Normal players cannot find out the true value of something. That is a game design issue.

I read what you wrote. I have no idea what you are on about anymore.

If you can't see the point that the only way to find the true price of most things is to run to 100+ traders all over the place then nothing will impact your thinking. That was a game design decision, not central details. (TTC makes some for the PC, but not for console.)

That is my core point. A game design choice hides information. Even the TTC prices ignore what was bought to flip, of necessity.

A central AH (different game design choice) would at least make it clear the price of anything on the market now.

FlopsyPrince

Hamfast wrote: »

I wonder how many of you remember when a Potato sold for 7 Million Gold... the price of a potato when through the roof... proof of market manipulation? Perhaps...

The optimal price of any item is the price you (or someone else) is willing to pay... based only on the whim of the purchaser, not the opinion of anyone else... if you are willing to pay 7 million gold for a single potato, then that is the optimal price for that potato

That is a very incomplete picture. If the normal price for that potato is 7 million, then someone who sells it for 100 is massively losing out, whether they know it or not.

This is the problem with a rare motif that someone gets from a random drop may not realize. TTC only runs on PC, not consoles. So central information is missing on many items.

I have no problem with flipping per se. What I do not like is when the game encourages it by requiring me to travel to 100+ guild traders just to find what an item might be selling normally for now. TTC can help with that, but is imperfect since it shows prices paid for items that are immediately flipped because they were massively underpriced.

DenverRalphy

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

kargen27

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

TheMajority wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

TheMajority wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

I left my high-traffic trade guild because the dues/requirements did not lower despite the economy taking a nosedive. The truth is, that ESO was suffering from inflation that was speculative. I had reported countless members on high-traffic guilds for massively buying items to post at higher prices. Some people had 220M on sales PER WEEK by manipulating the market.

The problem right now is people are still operating under the rules of the old economy, and while I benefited greatly from it I'm also glad the economy finally corrected itself.

The high trade guilds will continue to dominate for a while til the cash runs dry. It will take a few more months, but hopefully your guild will come back.

why would you report someone for that? how is that against the TOS?

I was reporting them to guild leaders because thats a tactic that is frowned upon on some guilds. Said person was also trying to rip me off by telling me to list certain items lower, when I did and they instantly sold, I realized they bought it, and saw them list the items much higher. So yes, I reported them to the guild leaders who promptly kicked these people out.

that context was something needed in your first post it just sounded like you was randomly reporting people for flipping. yeah, that person was clearly actually scamming you which is different from flipping.

Well, they were flipping. This type of behavior contributes to the type of inflation we were seeing in the game. Flipping is anti-consumer friendly and detrimental to the economy.

Flipping the vast majority of the time is buying items listed below market price and relisting them at market price. That doesn't contribute to inflation.

A bit confused here: so a buyer arriving late pays more to a middleman rather than buying directly from the original seller at a lower price. How is this not inflation when enough people do this?

It has little affect on the going market price as it is listed at the going market price. Inflation in game is when prices increase beyond the ability to make gold increases. Listing items at market price doesn't do that.

kargen27

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

TheMajority wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

TheMajority wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

I left my high-traffic trade guild because the dues/requirements did not lower despite the economy taking a nosedive. The truth is, that ESO was suffering from inflation that was speculative. I had reported countless members on high-traffic guilds for massively buying items to post at higher prices. Some people had 220M on sales PER WEEK by manipulating the market.

The problem right now is people are still operating under the rules of the old economy, and while I benefited greatly from it I'm also glad the economy finally corrected itself.

The high trade guilds will continue to dominate for a while til the cash runs dry. It will take a few more months, but hopefully your guild will come back.

why would you report someone for that? how is that against the TOS?

I was reporting them to guild leaders because thats a tactic that is frowned upon on some guilds. Said person was also trying to rip me off by telling me to list certain items lower, when I did and they instantly sold, I realized they bought it, and saw them list the items much higher. So yes, I reported them to the guild leaders who promptly kicked these people out.

that context was something needed in your first post it just sounded like you was randomly reporting people for flipping. yeah, that person was clearly actually scamming you which is different from flipping.

Well, they were flipping. This type of behavior contributes to the type of inflation we were seeing in the game. Flipping is anti-consumer friendly and detrimental to the economy.

Flipping the vast majority of the time is buying items listed below market price and relisting them at market price. That doesn't contribute to inflation.

It just takes money from those who didn't know better and puts it in the hands of the ones who know a better price. Fine if the lower priced seller just wanted a quick sale, but the current system hides the true optimal price from many players, especially on console. That is not good game design.

Again no prices are hidden. Any player with an investment in time can easily discover market price.

kargen27

TybaltKaine wrote: »

Imagine citing buyers as the cause of inflation as opposed to price gouging and market manipulation.

What rot.

explain how someone can manipulate the market when there are over 200 vendors in game scattered across all the zones. How are they tracking all those vendors? TTC doesn't do it for them. Bargains are often gone before they even get posted there.

katanagirl1

Market price is always changing. The PC TTC add-on works fairly well I guess when the economy is stable. Right now prices have been going down rapidly so that average is going to be an average from days or even weeks ago.

As a guideline market price is something lower than the lowest price you can find in traders at that particular moment. The items priced below that are selling but the ones priced above are still there.

Again, as mentioned above the three main capitals set the price for the most part so searching far-flung traders might get you a better price but not in most cases.

This is not rocket science, you get a few samples and then you can go from there.

Nharimlur_Finor

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

If you can't see the point that the only way to find the true price of most things is to run to 100+ traders all over the place then nothing will impact your thinking. That was a game design decision, not central details. (TTC makes some for the PC, but not for console.)

That is my core point. A game design choice hides information. Even the TTC prices ignore what was bought to flip, of necessity.

A central AH (different game design choice) would at least make it clear the price of anything on the market now.

1. [snip] There's a workaround for that.
2. There is no TRUE PRICE for anything. [snip]
3. It can't be hidden if it doesn't exist. This is why you can't "find" it.
[snip]

Only when you consider this last point, will many of the 'why did they do THAT?' questions suddenly have an answer.

You aren't ever going to get an auction house in ESO.

Even if they change their mind about it, it's too late, this game will have no further development outside the yearly carrot to keep us playing and buying flashy horses.

finally WHO THE BLIMMIN HECK CARES IF FLIPPERS BUY YOURS OR MY GOODS?
I don't.
I got the money.
They got the goods.
If someone only shops at Vivec and pays the flipper more for the same item, then that doesn't have much to do with me.

[edited for bashing]

FlopsyPrince

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

spartaxoxo

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

I literally just checked the price of a motif by looking at the traders next to me and then sold it successfully. I did this on console.

Pelanora

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

I'm planning to leave my top 3 merchant guilds on PC/EU as well.

The 500k sales per week target is achievable, but the method I used to make money (crafting dailies) is no longer worth it.

Spending an hour a day doing dailies on 20 characters and an additional 2-3 hours on weekends for master writs and surveys was manageable when I was making around 5-6M per week. Now that the earnings have dropped to about 2M per week and are continuing to decline, it’s no longer viable.

I don’t think we’ve hit rock bottom yet. Personally, I foresee the game facing serious issues in the coming months or years, including potential declines in player numbers (we already see it in Steam charts, and don't tell me it's only due to covid pandemic) and dissatisfaction within the community.

Yea because the cost of living in tamriel is just outrageous with the high mortgages and rates and taxes and insurance and fees to dungeon owners, how are you breaking even on earning only 2M a week. Did you have to let the servants go yet?

It seems you've never done housing.

Furnishing a 700 items house with some nice items costs between 6 and 10M. I have something between 10 and 20 very large items houses. And all of them are full. So yea, basically, this costs a lot. I made between 300 and 400M in three years, but only have 35M in bank. All the rest was spent in housing. So no, I'm not paying high mortgages and rates and taxes and insurance and fees, but paying beds, walls and tables that easily cost 20-50k each.

I do housing. I don't do posh housing. They do not cost six to ten million to furnish.

So I guess you will be letting the servants go, the way you live.

Pelanora

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

Where have you got the idea from there is a value on a good, independent of what any one person wants to pay? Some platonic price we dimly find our way towards? Where have you got this idea from?

If I buy something for 10 dollars, it's worth ten dollars to me. Or rather, the opportunity cost of whatever i might have got for ten dollars. That's it's value. That's it.

If you could have found someone who would pay 100 dollars, then you've missed out on some money. But that's not to confuse value of the good, with value to the person. It's not some intrinsic property of the good. It's finding someone who wants to pay 100 vs 10.

That is very different from saying 'what is the value of the good' instead that's saying 'where can I find someone who's rich'. It's about the buyers values, not the goods values.

This is why ostrich feathers in hats aren't worth much these days, but made many people quite rich, once upon a time. The feathers haven't changed some fundamental property of value, the buyers just don't want 'em anymore.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

I literally just checked the price of a motif by looking at the traders next to me and then sold it successfully. I did this on console.

And what does that prove? Did you get the optimal price? Please see me anytime you want to sell motifs worth 50K plus and want to sell them for 100 gold based on the prices near you.

Did you really miss the point?

FlopsyPrince

Pelanora wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

Where have you got the idea from there is a value on a good, independent of what any one person wants to pay? Some platonic price we dimly find our way towards? Where have you got this idea from?

If I buy something for 10 dollars, it's worth ten dollars to me. Or rather, the opportunity cost of whatever i might have got for ten dollars. That's it's value. That's it.

If you could have found someone who would pay 100 dollars, then you've missed out on some money. But that's not to confuse value of the good, with value to the person. It's not some intrinsic property of the good. It's finding someone who wants to pay 100 vs 10.

That is very different from saying 'what is the value of the good' instead that's saying 'where can I find someone who's rich'. It's about the buyers values, not the goods values.

This is why ostrich feathers in hats aren't worth much these days, but made many people quite rich, once upon a time. The feathers haven't changed some fundamental property of value, the buyers just don't want 'em anymore.

What does this have to do with how much a given motif or recipe is worth? The rare PvP food one is worth quite a lot, but you may not find the true price in the current system.

Talking about feathers has nothing to do with the topic.

Though all of you who want to penalize players go ahead and support a broken system.

Necrotech_Master

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Who needs to check 100+ traders to set their price? I play on PS NA, and all I check are the 3 alliance hubs.

For bigger ticket items, If I'm listing at my alliance city trader I list it competitively with everybody else around me. If I'm listing at a DLC trader I'll list it a bit cheaper, and make sure none of the other stalls in the same zone are listing it cheaper than me.

For general goods / smaller ticket items, I just set my own price based solely on the stalls near me.

And I do just fine. I'm not hurting for sales by any stretch of the meaning. The guilds I'm in aren't struggling either.

How much is a given motif worth? Something similar? Just checking the 15 or so traders you note is not sufficient, especially in the likely case none of them have that item. Sure it may work for common mats, but those are not the key money makers.

a given motif is worth exactly how much it sells to an NPC vendor for, that is the hard true value of an item

players are just willing to pay a lot more for said items lol