Zos should put more effort and time into Eso economy

AlnilamE

I'm on PC, but I've been happily reporting every RMT seller I see in zone chat, and ZOS has been letting me know they have taken action against them.

Orbital78

AlnilamE wrote: »

I'm on PC, but I've been happily reporting every RMT seller I see in zone chat, and ZOS has been letting me know they have taken action against them.

Don't worry they have hundreds of more free Epic games accounts most likely.

AvalonRanger

No

Not real money except crown.

Fischblut

Yes

I think something really needs to be done: implement official currency exchange, and add many gold sinks.

As an example, I play GW2 which has both of these features. There are many crazy gold sinks in game, and it seems this is the very thing which allows everyone to spend their preferred currency.

Default exchange rate there increased from "120 gold per 400 gems" to "180 gold per 400 gems" in the past two years, but it's still not bad, because earning gold didn't become more difficult. They are also introducing too many fancy cosmetics (look for pictures of Beach wear, we really can't dream of such revealing costumes in ESO) and do lot of sales. No breathing room now, there is always something everyone wants in the store This is the only reason I can see for such permanent rate increase there.

Compare this to ESO's increase in gifting rate - from "400 gold per crown" to "2400 gold per crown" in the past 3 years I don't know how people earn enough gold to justify this rate - I still earn gold at the very same rate as few years ago (even worse, because too many items are much cheaper to sell now), so I can't see any reason for such high exchange rate, and I can't justify wasting my gold on it.

I would think Housing is insane gold sing (I spent more gold on furniture than the Ebonheart Chateau costed to buy), but it's clearly not enough...

Introduce more stuff to buy with lot of gold. For example:

1) new Mounts and Pets for many millions of gold (can be additionally tied to achievements)

2) titles which require player to spend lot of gold for certain achievements. Magnate title, for example, for some noble goals. King/Queen of thieves for paying many millions as bounty to Guards/Fences.

3) Legendary crafting system, where Grand Master Crafters buy stuff (together with completing lengthy achievements). Allow them to craft weapons and armor with unique styles and effects/trails/sounds upon completions of those achievements.

4) bound outfit/weapon styles etc which require lot of gold (together with achievements to unlock them)

5) more expensive Houses available for gold (plus achievements), and titles for owning them all

This way, there will be many stuff to do in game, many ways to spend gold, and someone will always need to use official currency exchange to convert their crowns to gold (because not many players would be able to afford so many cool stuff without help of currency exchange)

As it is currently, economy situation is boring and depressing, in my opinion

VoxAdActa

No

I do think one thing that could help is for ZOS to make it so more of the available mats are useful/in demand. Right now, it's radically inconsistent. We have some mats that are in very high demand because hundreds of them are needed for basically anything, like heartwood, some mats that briefly experience a demand spike when a few durable things come out that need them (then fall off once everyone has made those 2–3 things), like ancient sandstone, and some mats that are a worthless waste of space, like the other 90ish% of the style materials and just about all of the trait stones.

Reducing the amount of, say, mundane runes required in crafting and increasing the amount of, say, emeralds or lion fangs to replace it will help more evenly distribute prices.

I also agree that ESO needs more gold sinks, but I'm not great a theorizing what those should be.

Freelancer_ESO

EvilGoatKing wrote: »

JHartEllis who is a stream team member, has degrees in business, etc etc, did like 3 hour presentation covering the game economy & its issues and ideas for them to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg4oeeLWMqs

If they wont listen to or respond to him what chance do you think any of us have?

I don't have a degree in business but, much of the content on the slides looks a bit dicey to me. (You'll notice one of the items mentioned is getting implemented tho)

If you increase the power of gear you will be increasing the gap between players based on gearing which can make content creation harder as well as create annoyances for players. It can also create a greater pressure to follow the meta/make optimized picks. I've got a dozen characters I probably should re-gear at the moment but, I'm not doing it even tho I have the transmutes/materials because I don't want to waste them on a mistake.

The bidding auction based system suggestions run into the potential issue that the bidders will likely lean towards flippers as they are the individuals that aren't going to be in a hurry to get an item as well as being the individuals with the capital to let it sit and wait. This would especially be true for the lots of 20 items as they would also be the ones that would know what all of the items are worth combined.

Reducing the 1% listing fee will make it cheaper for sellers to list items at ridiculous prices in hopes that they eventually sell.

Removing the Outfit Change cost will devalue both the Tokens and the Slots which are sold for Crowns.

Raising the Event Ticket limit will enable players to skip events they aren't interested in while getting the stuff from them. Players could easily use the end of the year event to massively stockpile.

katanagirl1

Fischblut wrote: »

I think something really needs to be done: implement official currency exchange, and add many gold sinks.

As an example, I play GW2 which has both of these features. There are many crazy gold sinks in game, and it seems this is the very thing which allows everyone to spend their preferred currency.

Default exchange rate there increased from "120 gold per 400 gems" to "180 gold per 400 gems" in the past two years, but it's still not bad, because earning gold didn't become more difficult. They are also introducing too many fancy cosmetics (look for pictures of Beach wear, we really can't dream of such revealing costumes in ESO) and do lot of sales. No breathing room now, there is always something everyone wants in the store This is the only reason I can see for such permanent rate increase there.

Compare this to ESO's increase in gifting rate - from "400 gold per crown" to "2400 gold per crown" in the past 3 years I don't know how people earn enough gold to justify this rate - I still earn gold at the very same rate as few years ago (even worse, because too many items are much cheaper to sell now), so I can't see any reason for such high exchange rate, and I can't justify wasting my gold on it.

I would think Housing is insane gold sing (I spent more gold on furniture than the Ebonheart Chateau costed to buy), but it's clearly not enough...

Introduce more stuff to buy with lot of gold. For example:

1) new Mounts and Pets for many millions of gold (can be additionally tied to achievements)

2) titles which require player to spend lot of gold for certain achievements. Magnate title, for example, for some noble goals. King/Queen of thieves for paying many millions as bounty to Guards/Fences.

3) Legendary crafting system, where Grand Master Crafters buy stuff (together with completing lengthy achievements). Allow them to craft weapons and armor with unique styles and effects/trails/sounds upon completions of those achievements.

4) bound outfit/weapon styles etc which require lot of gold (together with achievements to unlock them)

5) more expensive Houses available for gold (plus achievements), and titles for owning them all

This way, there will be many stuff to do in game, many ways to spend gold, and someone will always need to use official currency exchange to convert their crowns to gold (because not many players would be able to afford so many cool stuff without help of currency exchange)

As it is currently, economy situation is boring and depressing, in my opinion

If you guys want more gold sinks on PC NA that’s fine, but at least on my console server we are struggling to make gold as it is after the reduced listing times for guild traders, and housing is a sufficient gold sink by itself for me already. I have to pace myself when buying new furnishing plans when many are more than 1M gold. There are still some Necrom and Apocrypha plans that I don’t have yet.

VoxAdActa

No

I honestly don't understand the complaints about the reduced listing times regarding the economy. Oh no, another 1% tax for listing a item for 30 days.

If the government told Wal-Mart that they were going to tax them 1% more, Wal-Mart would increase prices to account for the tax. Nobody IRL would ever reduce their prices 15-20% to avoid paying a 1% tax, but that seems to be what a lot of people are saying about ESO's extra 1% tax on items that hang around for longer than 14 days. How does that make sense to anyone? We're collectively eating a 20% profit loss to avoid eating a 1% profit loss? That's ludicrous.

I do get the complaints about increased micromanagement, but I don't at all understand how the connection between "lower sale prices" and "paying 1% more to list items for the same time period" has become so widespread. It just doesn't make any sense.

Twohothardware

Yes

ESO needs Crossplay enabled to solve the main economy issue which is lack of demand from low player counts.

After that they need to change gold level crafting mats to only drop from max level resources and get rid of the chance of obtaining high level resources when your crafting is lvl 1. This eliminates all of the lvl 3 bots that are the primary source of crating mats that flood the ESO market.

Gold sellers could then also be removed from the game by using AI to detect and auto-ban them from chat whenever it detects the typical stuff they spam in zones.

James-Wayne

Yes

Change the gold currency and reset everything. Increase drop rate of everything by up to 500% and let every player rejoice and enjoy the game without worrying about economy.

SilverBride

No

I am in a trading guild so I can afford the things in game that I enjoy and avoid the things I don't.

I have a lot of houses, around 50 by last count, and I decorate them all. Buying furnishings is expensive so I make what I can. But patterns aren't cheap, or the mats to craft them.

I do not farm mats because I hate farming more than almost anything. So I buy what I need rather than spend hours doing something I hate.

If there were more gold sinks, or if drop rates of the items I sell were increased by a lot, it could ruin one of my favorite game activities.

I make money selling crafting mats, but I also spend a lot on furnishing mats. I don't see this as a bad thing.

kargen27

No

Fischblut wrote: »

I think something really needs to be done: implement official currency exchange, and add many gold sinks.
Default exchange rate there increased from "120 gold per 400 gems" to "180 gold per 400 gems" in the past two years, but it's still not bad, because earning gold didn't become more difficult. They are also introducing too many fancy cosmetics (look for pictures of Beach wear, we really can't dream of such revealing costumes in ESO) and do lot of sales. No breathing room now, there is always something everyone wants in the store This is the only reason I can see for such permanent rate increase there.

Compare this to ESO's increase in gifting rate - from "400 gold per crown" to "2400 gold per crown" in the past 3 years I don't know how people earn enough gold to justify this rate - I still earn gold at the very same rate as few years ago (even worse, because too many items are much cheaper to sell now), so I can't see any reason for such high exchange rate, and I can't justify wasting my gold on it.
(

The difference being gold and gems in GW2 are both in game currencies that can't be sold between players. Makes sense for the company to be able to adjust the exchange rate. Crowns are not in game currency. Crowns are purchased by players outside the game for real life currency so it makes sense that they get to set the price.

With GW2 the only influence on the exchange rate is game generated. With crowns the price can be affected in a large part by circumstances outside of the game.

Northwold

Twohothardware wrote: »

ESO needs Crossplay enabled to solve the main economy issue which is lack of demand from low player counts.

After that they need to change gold level crafting mats to only drop from max level resources and get rid of the chance of obtaining high level resources when your crafting is lvl 1. This eliminates all of the lvl 3 bots that are the primary source of crating mats that flood the ESO market.

Gold sellers could then also be removed from the game by using AI to detect and auto-ban them from chat whenever it detects the typical stuff they spam in zones.

I'm not sure it's just lack of demand from low player counts. There's the lack of demand, too, caused by players not participating in the economy and consequently not having much gold to buy anything *because being able to sell items is currently gated behind guild membership*.

katanagirl1

VoxAdActa wrote: »

I honestly don't understand the complaints about the reduced listing times regarding the economy. Oh no, another 1% tax for listing a item for 30 days.

If the government told Wal-Mart that they were going to tax them 1% more, Wal-Mart would increase prices to account for the tax. Nobody IRL would ever reduce their prices 15-20% to avoid paying a 1% tax, but that seems to be what a lot of people are saying about ESO's extra 1% tax on items that hang around for longer than 14 days. How does that make sense to anyone? We're collectively eating a 20% profit loss to avoid eating a 1% profit loss? That's ludicrous.

I do get the complaints about increased micromanagement, but I don't at all understand how the connection between "lower sale prices" and "paying 1% more to list items for the same time period" has become so widespread. It just doesn't make any sense.

Maybe it’s different on PC. For me it’s more about inventory space and needing to have income. If I fill up the trader and nothing sells, then further sale items back up into my inventory and I have to deal with that. Also, if they don’t sell, then no earnings. It’s not about paying to relist, unless it’s a very expensive item.

It’s the same as department stores not being able to sell regularly priced items so they put them on sale to get something for them, even if it is a loss. The next season of items is coming and they need room for them as well.

scrappy1342

I'm not sure it's just lack of demand from low player counts. There's the lack of demand, too, caused by players not participating in the economy and consequently not having much gold to buy anything *because being able to sell items is currently gated behind guild membership*.

this. i stopped buying things years ago when i wasted an entire day trying to hunt down some style motifs and furniture patterns that weren't on any of the traders that ttc had them listed on. the economy was great when you had all these flippers running around buying things up and listing them higher on more accessible traders. i know we'll never get real numbers on population... but a lot of these ppl are gone and the sales just aren't there. prices have dropped down to what they were 4+ years ago but at least then you could still list things for current prices and have it sell. listing things at current prices now, they sit and half the time they don't sell. it's turned into a gamble just to try to sell things.

i would love to see an auction house in the game. have always hated the trader system. someone mentioned about X amount of ppl threaten to leave if they put an auction house in. how many ppl have left because it doesn't have one? played other mmo's that had them... never had the problems these ppl are talking about with small numbers of ppl controlling the prices on everything. if i did run across that unknowingly, then it was working in my favor. when wow first put in the game tokens, i was able to drop my subscription and pay with in game gold for years until i quit playing (not by choice. years ago, they made the game completely unplayable on a satellite connection). putting an auction house in would make things worse before they got better, though. i would certainly love to be able to sell all this junk in my craft bag that has a use, but just isn't worth taking up one of my few precious trading slots. trait/cooking mats/etc. are useful. ppl need them. luckily if new ppl need them and they are in a decent guild, ppl just give them away because trying to find them on a trader when you need them is impossible.

flaxegg

No

scrappy1342 wrote: »

I'm not sure it's just lack of demand from low player counts. There's the lack of demand, too, caused by players not participating in the economy and consequently not having much gold to buy anything *because being able to sell items is currently gated behind guild membership*.

this. i stopped buying things years ago when i wasted an entire day trying to hunt down some style motifs and furniture patterns that weren't on any of the traders that ttc had them listed on. the economy was great when you had all these flippers running around buying things up and listing them higher on more accessible traders. i know we'll never get real numbers on population... but a lot of these ppl are gone and the sales just aren't there. prices have dropped down to what they were 4+ years ago but at least then you could still list things for current prices and have it sell. listing things at current prices now, they sit and half the time they don't sell. it's turned into a gamble just to try to sell things.

i would love to see an auction house in the game. have always hated the trader system. someone mentioned about X amount of ppl threaten to leave if they put an auction house in. how many ppl have left because it doesn't have one? played other mmo's that had them... never had the problems these ppl are talking about with small numbers of ppl controlling the prices on everything. if i did run across that unknowingly, then it was working in my favor. when wow first put in the game tokens, i was able to drop my subscription and pay with in game gold for years until i quit playing (not by choice. years ago, they made the game completely unplayable on a satellite connection). putting an auction house in would make things worse before they got better, though. i would certainly love to be able to sell all this junk in my craft bag that has a use, but just isn't worth taking up one of my few precious trading slots. trait/cooking mats/etc. are useful. ppl need them. luckily if new ppl need them and they are in a decent guild, ppl just give them away because trying to find them on a trader when you need them is impossible.

This, so much. I've been playing on and off since 2016, and it would be 100% true to say that the lack of auction house has been a motivator for me to take my years-long hiatuses every time (usually it's a combination of things, but the trader system's role is not minor). I've always found it easier to make good money in auction house systems, too. Just different preferences I guess.

LalMirchi

Yes

Absolutely Yes!

For starters let's put the Global Auction House question to rest, the devs should issue a definitive opinion on this. Dithering and vague statements only leads to more confusion.

With that said the entire Guild functionality does seem to need a good shake up.Aiding the Guild Masters with useful tools and in-game functions (not addons) should be the primary focus for a first foray.

spartaxoxo

Yes

LalMirchi wrote: »

For starters let's put the Global Auction House question to rest, the devs should issue a definitive opinion on this. Dithering and vague statements only leads to more confusion.

They have said no in the past, although it was a long time ago. So, I suppose a new "no" would be useful. Another user compiled a list of dev responses on the topic.

Edit: replaced link with better comment made by same user since it condensed the information and is quotable.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Before we rehash all the pros/cons of Auction Houses and Guilds, here's ome reminders of ZOS' intentions and official comments for Guild Traders.

March 2013: "Will there be an auction house?" asked of Creative Director Paul Sage @5:00 into the video: https://www.buffed.de/TESO-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Spiel-15582/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Creative-Director-Paul-Sage-aeussert-sich-zur-Item-Progression-zu-Mounts-und-zum-Gildensystem-im-Video-1072227/

August 2014: Benefits of Guilds - "The Road Ahead" https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1059

August 2014: Introduction of PVE Guild Traders - Creating ESO: Identity and Update 3 https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1087

May 2014: Lack of an Auction House - Ask Us Anything Variety Pack # 14: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/947

April 10, 2015: ESO Live @ https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3924079#Comment_3924079

April 28,2015 : ESO Live "Ask Us Anything" @37:40 "Player guilds are actually an integral part of our world and trader access is a key benefit to guild membership. We don't have any plans to change this at this time." Also, the transcripte: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1760019#Comment_1760019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N17KZ_ZCK0&list=PLZng8hzxXSt6-402bM1G2UuZbtnlrMn0z&index=23

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2875274#Comment_2875274



There well may be more. I don't regularly watch ESO Live, so I only pick up those comments when someone on the forums referenced a specific ESO Live.

Are those going to convince the pro-AH crowd? Probably not. Hope springs eternal, and there's all sorts of arguments about "Well, they said they weren't and then they did!" or "But all of those are old quotes!"

Sure. Whatever. If you really want an Auction House, I don't expect the Devs' thinking to convince you. You want what you want. To be frank, I'm pretty sure an undated "Nope, still not doing it" wouldn't stop the debate.

The above links are for the people going "What have the Devs actually said about the possibility of an Auction House?"

So far? A resounding "No."

XSTRONG

Yes

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Leave ZOS out of the economy and let players sort it out through supply and demand.

There will be no demand of anything if Zos dosent add tradeable stuff that players need.

Sets, mats, new glyphs, etc etc

sans-culottes

Yes

Northwold wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

ESO needs Crossplay enabled to solve the main economy issue which is lack of demand from low player counts.

After that they need to change gold level crafting mats to only drop from max level resources and get rid of the chance of obtaining high level resources when your crafting is lvl 1. This eliminates all of the lvl 3 bots that are the primary source of crating mats that flood the ESO market.

Gold sellers could then also be removed from the game by using AI to detect and auto-ban them from chat whenever it detects the typical stuff they spam in zones.

I'm not sure it's just lack of demand from low player counts. There's the lack of demand, too, caused by players not participating in the economy and consequently not having much gold to buy anything *because being able to sell items is currently gated behind guild membership*.

This would actually be one of the bigger hurdles for crossplay, etc. At least on PSN, gold inflation is not as high as it is on PC. Likewise, Crowns usually go for, like, 100-200 gold/Crown.

While the cartels that run the major trading guilds would be all right—and by that, I mean the handful of people running those many guilds—it would be something of a shock to other players. That’s not to say this couldn’t eventually be overcome.

barney2525

No

It's a Player Based economy for a reason.

Worse thing that could happen is ZOS setting prices and just turning everything into an in-game store.

sans-culottes

Yes

barney2525 wrote: »

It's a Player Based economy for a reason.

Worse thing that could happen is ZOS setting prices and just turning everything into an in-game store.

I’m not sure anyone has suggested this, though.

barney2525

No

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Whatever they did last year to fix the inflation was very much welcome.

That's no secret. They used event reward boxes to flood the market with in-game items that had been selling for high prices, like Perfect Roe.

Flood the market, prices go down. It's not rocket science.

SerafinaWaterstar

No

Ability to sell is not ‘gated’ - there are many guilds that have a free trader (I belong to 3, all sell stuff regularly).

And I take issue with someone complaining about trading guilds on PSEU - I belong to one of the Silk Road trading guilds and they are helpful & fair.

But yes, I would love to be able to buy more things like mounts etc in-game rather than have to spend crowns or consider having to buy crates for gems. Or get involved in dubious gold-for-crowns transactions.

sans-culottes

Yes

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Ability to sell is not ‘gated’ - there are many guilds that have a free trader (I belong to 3, all sell stuff regularly).

And I take issue with someone complaining about trading guilds on PSEU - I belong to one of the Silk Road trading guilds and they are helpful & fair.

But yes, I would love to be able to buy more things like mounts etc in-game rather than have to spend crowns or consider having to buy crates for gems. Or get involved in dubious gold-for-crowns transactions.

It’s fine that you like or participate in these guilds. I am a member of at one, and they do a good job—plaudits. There’s no denying that this exists, though, and that the ability to engage in this form of trade depends on membership in a guild. This is a form of gated access, especially when compared to the auction house model.

While I can’t speak to the guild you’re talking about, it’s very common for the bigger guilds to have dues—this is nothing new. No one is criticizing the people, etc. However, this has also led to monopolies and the central direction of multiple trade guilds through single parties. Cui bono?

PS. I should add that I know and like people in many of these guilds—including the GMs. It just so happens that this is sort of a counterexample to the idea that centralized auction houses lead to cartels of price fixers.

VoxAdActa

No

There is definitely a big subset of ESO players that resent being asked to engage with other people for any reason; those folks are also going to be annoyed at needing to join a guild with a trader to sell stuff (effectively, without zone chat). The question of dues—high, cheap, or free—is a whole 'nother issue.

I don't think it's a great strategy to change more game systems to support the segment of the player base that desperately wishes ESO was a single-player game, though.

I can't deny that an AH is fantastic for buyers; the folks manipulating the market can make bank off of volume in such a system, so they'll have no trouble listing heartwood for 100gp each and selling 3000 stacks. Especially when their scraper bots automatically find any that's listed less, snatch it up in seconds, and flip it. An individual wouldn't bother (unless it's a fantastic deal), because they're not making enough money even in the best case to support the time required for that sort of activity, but when you're dealing with tens of thousands of mats, it adds up and becomes profitable.

That's how basic mats work in GW2, and we already have more than one person on these forums who has admitted/humble-bragged about having been a part of groups that do it in WoW. So no, someone who's only buying and not trying to sell probably wouldn't notice anti-competitive market manipulation strategies. Buyers will only notice when harvesters and motif-grinders get tired of wasting their time on an activity that provides basically negligible returns and stop doing it.

That doesn't even take into account the price crash that will come from the "this is my single-player game" crowd cleaning out their banks/craft bags. Again, fantastic for shoppers... until the harvesters stop selling their excess altogether. There's a whole list of things that are already equally profitable to vendor as they are to list (filled soul gems and most types of sanded wood, for instance). That list is only going to grow with an AH, even assuming that every ESO player is honorable and fair and would never stoop to any form of artificial market shadiness.

Good luck getting ruby ash for writs when the woodcutters start vendoring it (since they don't feel like waiting 3 days for an extra 100gp). Or, assuming even a small contingent of less honorable players, get ready to see trains of bots running around in the newbie zones factory-farming wood for the AH. Trading guilds make that sort of thing much less common for several reasons. First, all the bot accounts have to be accepted into a guild (or make a guild), and second, those guilds aren't going to make enough money on cheap bulk mats to afford expensive bids for prime traders, so the cheap mats would only be for sale in one out-of-the-way spot. Bidding on traders dramatically cuts down on the amount of profit a business based exclusively on volume can make. Also, gathering all the shady bot accounts under one banner makes it super easy to mass-ban them when they're discovered and someone snitches. It's not impossible to do all this now, but it's logistically taxing and requires extra steps. An AH removes all of those barriers.

Northwold

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Ability to sell is not ‘gated’ - there are many guilds that have a free trader (I belong to 3, all sell stuff regularly).

And I take issue with someone complaining about trading guilds on PSEU - I belong to one of the Silk Road trading guilds and they are helpful & fair.

But yes, I would love to be able to buy more things like mounts etc in-game rather than have to spend crowns or consider having to buy crates for gems. Or get involved in dubious gold-for-crowns transactions.

Surely that is the definition of a gate. In other MMOs, you just put your item on the trading system. That's it. If people want more buyers in the game, there need to be more effective mechanisms in the game for players to sell and so have the money to buy (and no, this does not necessarily mean an auction house, although it's interesting that the arguments against an auction house were voiced at length in this thread before anyone had even mentioned the point!). At the moment, a lot of players plain are not selling. They consequently do not buy.

sans-culottes

Yes

VoxAdActa wrote: »

There is definitely a big subset of ESO players that resent being asked to engage with other people for any reason; those folks are also going to be annoyed at needing to join a guild with a trader to sell stuff (effectively, without zone chat). The question of dues—high, cheap, or free—is a whole 'nother issue.

I don't think it's a great strategy to change more game systems to support the segment of the player base that desperately wishes ESO was a single-player game, though.

I can't deny that an AH is fantastic for buyers; the folks manipulating the market can make bank off of volume in such a system, so they'll have no trouble listing heartwood for 100gp each and selling 3000 stacks. Especially when their scraper bots automatically find any that's listed less, snatch it up in seconds, and flip it. An individual wouldn't bother (unless it's a fantastic deal), because they're not making enough money even in the best case to support the time required for that sort of activity, but when you're dealing with tens of thousands of mats, it adds up and becomes profitable.

That's how basic mats work in GW2, and we already have more than one person on these forums who has admitted/humble-bragged about having been a part of groups that do it in WoW. So no, someone who's only buying and not trying to sell probably wouldn't notice anti-competitive market manipulation strategies. Buyers will only notice when harvesters and motif-grinders get tired of wasting their time on an activity that provides basically negligible returns and stop doing it.

That doesn't even take into account the price crash that will come from the "this is my single-player game" crowd cleaning out their banks/craft bags. Again, fantastic for shoppers... until the harvesters stop selling their excess altogether. There's a whole list of things that are already equally profitable to vendor as they are to list (filled soul gems and most types of sanded wood, for instance). That list is only going to grow with an AH, even assuming that every ESO player is honorable and fair and would never stoop to any form of artificial market shadiness.

Good luck getting ruby ash for writs when the woodcutters start vendoring it (since they don't feel like waiting 3 days for an extra 100gp). Or, assuming even a small contingent of less honorable players, get ready to see trains of bots running around in the newbie zones factory-farming wood for the AH. Trading guilds make that sort of thing much less common for several reasons. First, all the bot accounts have to be accepted into a guild (or make a guild), and second, those guilds aren't going to make enough money on cheap bulk mats to afford expensive bids for prime traders, so the cheap mats would only be for sale in one out-of-the-way spot. Bidding on traders dramatically cuts down on the amount of profit a business based exclusively on volume can make. Also, gathering all the shady bot accounts under one banner makes it super easy to mass-ban them when they're discovered and someone snitches. It's not impossible to do all this now, but it's logistically taxing and requires extra steps. An AH removes all of those barriers.

While your concerns about potential market manipulation under an auction house system are understandable, the current guild trader setup doesn’t actually prevent the very behaviors you describe. In fact, top trading guilds—often run or coordinated by the same small circle of players—frequently engage in exactly the kind of price arbitrage and market manipulation you’re worried about. The absence of a centralized marketplace doesn’t eliminate flipping; it simply makes price transparency opaque, giving even more power to those willing and able to exploit informational asymmetry.

Furthermore, your argument that introducing a centralized marketplace would empower bot-farmers and crash prices doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny. Bots and farmers already exist precisely because of ESO’s fragmented system, which incentivizes cornering local markets and flipping goods in multiple small trader stalls. A unified marketplace, by contrast, would actually make such behaviors more visible—and easier for Zenimax to monitor and intervene against.

Regarding the idea that centralized trading favors those who see ESO as a “single-player game,” that’s a misrepresentation. Accessibility isn’t about catering solely to solo-oriented players, but about addressing a widespread frustration among players who find it cumbersome—or exclusionary—to have their ability to engage economically tied directly to joining high-fee guilds. The current system doesn’t encourage social play so much as gatekeep economic participation behind high guild fees and insider access.

Moreover, suggesting harvesters would suddenly stop providing essential materials due to an auction house ignores basic economic incentives. Supply adjusts to demand, and if ruby ash or other resources became scarce or undervalued, then their prices would rise, incentivizing gatherers to resume production. Your hypothetical scenario—woodcutters vendoring ruby ash out of frustration—is not realistic. Materials necessary for daily writs will always maintain stable demand; there’s no rational reason sellers would choose negligible vendor prices over a liquid auction market.

Ultimately, a single, transparent market structure would likely reduce market manipulation, increase fair competition, improve player accessibility, and even discourage botting by centralizing economic oversight. While your concerns about price manipulation are valid, the guild trader system hasn’t solved them; it has only obscured them from easy view.

Northwold

sans-culottes wrote: »

Ultimately, a single, transparent market structure would likely reduce market manipulation, increase fair competition, improve player accessibility, and even discourage botting by centralizing economic oversight. While your concerns about price manipulation are valid, the guild trader system hasn’t solved them; it has only obscured them from easy view.

I'd go so far as to say the guild trader system actually makes these issues very considerably worse, because the reality is that it is an economy based in Mournhold, Vivec, etc --ie a small subset of the total number of people actually selling -- because so many players simply cannot be bothered to look at traders further afield. So a small fraction of players paticipating in the overall economy can manipulate prevailing market prices in ALL of it, and there is no real countervailing force from sellers located outside those locations. The latter are basically irrelevant, economically speaking, except as a paradise for flippers to perpetuate price-maintaining behaviour.

There have been a number of threads that go into the fallacies of "the guild traders prevent manipulation", "the guild traders stop inflation" (they don't -- the bidding system *causes it*, as does driving players to use non-trading means to get gold to buy things by putting a hoop in the way of being able to sell, as does having a whole load of players who simply don't sell materials and items, strangling supply), etc in huge depth so I'm keeping it short here!

VoxAdActa

No

Northwold wrote: »

Ultimately, a single, transparent market structure would likely reduce market manipulation, increase fair competition, improve player accessibility, and even discourage botting by centralizing economic oversight. While your concerns about price manipulation are valid, the guild trader system hasn’t solved them; it has only obscured them from easy view.

I'd go so far as to say the guild trader system actually makes these issues very considerably worse, because the reality is that it is an economy based in Mournhold, Vivec, etc --ie a small subset of the total number of people actually selling -- because so many players simply cannot be bothered to look at traders further afield. So a small fraction of players paticipating in the overall economy can manipulate prevailing market prices in ALL of it, and there is no real countervailing force from sellers located outside those locations. The latter are basically irrelevant, economically speaking, except as a paradise for flippers to perpetuate price-maintaining behaviour.

There have been a number of threads that go into the fallacies of "the guild traders prevent manipulation", "the guild traders stop inflation" (they don't -- the bidding system *causes it*, as does driving players to use non-trading means to get gold to buy things by putting a hoop in the way of being able to sell), etc in huge depth so I'm keeping it short here!

Only if you're not willing to go somewhere else.

Of course, actually comparison shopping for things instead of making assumptions will show that prices fluctuate perfectly naturally, there's no artificial deflation or inflation happening, and the "I don't want to leave Elden Root" premium on guilds in that city (where it's most noticeable) is only about 15%. Popping over to Skywatch or Daggerfall (or even Belkarth) solves that problem.

An AH is "pay what you pay." You don't have the option to buy something quick vs find a deal. It's all the lowest possible price in a race to the bottom. Yeah, that's great for you. I get it. You get the Wal-Mart effect until the smaller individual harvesters can no longer stay in business and quit.

I just love how folks who have spent, at best, a fraction of the time carefully analyzing the markets of multiple MMOs, with spreadsheets and pattern-revealing graphs and direct experimentation, as I have are sitting here telling me I'm wrong about the system I've most deeply interacted with since 2016.

I dunno, maybe macroeconomics is totally different on console.

sans-culottes wrote: »

While your concerns about potential market manipulation under an auction house system are understandable,

Point of correction: directly observed, not "understandable."

the current guild trader setup doesn’t actually prevent the very behaviors you describe.

No? So we've been in a race to the bottom without natural price fluctuations responding to events, scarcity, and changing demand curves? Oh wait, we have. Multiple add-ons and a website anyone can access have been specifically designed to catalogue and report on exactly that, if you don't want to take my word for it.

In fact, top trading guilds—often run or coordinated by the same small circle of players—frequently engage in exactly the kind of price arbitrage and market manipulation you’re worried about.

Do they? Like how? What commodities are currently under the thumb of a price-fixing cartel that's so vast you can't escape it by going to a different city and looking in different traders? Where, specifically, have you observed this phenomenon?

The absence of a centralized marketplace doesn’t eliminate flipping

I never said "flipping" was the problem, I said the problem was bots that scrape AH price data, either in real time or at specific time intervals, will find prices lower than the arbitrary set price, triggering other bots to buy them immediately and relist them at the arbitrary set-price, ensuring only the very lucky can get a commodity or an item for even 1gp less, while also ensuring a huge quantity of the commodity or item that must be completely sold through before it can be sold for even 1gp more.

it simply makes price transparency opaque, giving even more power to those willing and able to exploit informational asymmetry.

There's a whole website that addresses this exact issue. There are multiple add-ons that will tell you if you're getting a deal or if you're getting ripped off, in the guild trader UI, with little popup tooltips. And if you're averse to both websites and add-ons, and are that concerned about paying bottom dollar, you have five stores right next to you wherever you're standing, and five more in every city in the game, right next to wayshrines, so shopping around is trivial.

And even in the cases where a local market has adapted to the lack of desire of customers to shop around, the premium tops out at about 15%, excluding the cases where someone has listed a stack of jazbay grapes at 10,000gp because they're using their guild trader and system mail as an ersatz storage chest.

Furthermore, your argument that introducing a centralized marketplace would empower bot-farmers and crash prices doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

Boy, it would sure be nice if we had a dozen other games with a central AH to look at to see which of us was right.

Bots and farmers already exist precisely because of ESO’s fragmented system, which incentivizes cornering local markets and flipping goods in multiple small trader stalls.

You're not going to make the ~500 million gp every week to corner all five Belkarth traders on leather from Auridon bears. Once trader bidding is gone, though, it doesn't matter how fast you make the profit, which means bots doing high-volume-low-margin sales become extremely profitable over time.

A unified marketplace, by contrast, would actually make such behaviors more visible—and easier for Zenimax to monitor and intervene against.

That's exactly the opposite effect that every prior game I've engaged with that has an AH has seen. A guild consisting of 500 bots is much easier for ZOS to see.

Accessibility isn’t about catering solely to solo-oriented players, but about addressing a widespread frustration among players who find it cumbersome—or exclusionary—to have their ability to engage economically tied directly to joining high-fee guilds. The current system doesn’t encourage social play so much as gatekeep economic participation behind high guild fees and insider access.

All they have to do is wait 45 seconds in any first-zone of any alliance to see a guild recruitment advertising a dues-free trader. Wait 5 minutes and they'll have their pick of 5 or 6. It's not about "high fees" (which are negligible until you get to the serious high-end traders in Belkarth; even my casual low-dues/low-sales guild sometimes manages to get a spot in Elden Root or Rawl). It's about not wanting to interact with other humans even when it's made as easy as it could possibly be.

Moreover, suggesting harvesters would suddenly stop providing essential materials due to an auction house ignores basic economic incentives. Supply adjusts to demand, and if ruby ash or other resources became scarce or undervalued, then their prices would rise, incentivizing gatherers to resume production.

Really? Hasn't happened for wood below Ruby. Hasn't happened for filled soul gems. Hasn't happened for leather. Hasn't happened for potency runes. Hasn't happened for provisioning items.

Your hypothetical scenario—woodcutters vendoring ruby ash out of frustration—is not realistic.

And yet, after taxes, it's still more profitable to vendor sanded wood and most types of leather than it is to list them. It's already happened for certain commodities right now. It's there. Out in the world. Right now. An AH is not going to make that better; it's going to make it worse.

Materials necessary for daily writs will always maintain stable demand; there’s no rational reason sellers would choose negligible vendor prices over a liquid auction market.

And yet, we'll frequently not bother picking nirnroot because it's just not worth the time to hunt it out, and just barely worth the time to watch the animation if it's between us and something more profitable.

Ultimately, a single, transparent market structure would likely reduce market manipulation, increase fair competition, improve player accessibility, and even discourage botting by centralizing economic oversight.

Boy, it sure would be nice if we had a dozen other games with a central AH that we could look at to see which of us is right.