ESO’s Trading System

Furyous

I just spent hours trying to figure out how to get a guild trader for my tiny guild and still came away confused. Honestly, I feel like giving up. How do I sell a handful of items without turning it into a full time job, and without spending more on traders and fees than I make from selling them?

Other MMOs solved this years ago:

• In World of Warcraft, you walk up to the auction house NPC and instantly see every item listed across the server.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, the market board works the same way: one interface, all goods.
• Even older titles like EverQuest II or Star Wars: The Old Republic let you search globally and buy directly.
• And the original EverQuest, now over a quarter of a century old, has a universal in‑game search and all traders in one area.

ESO, on the other hand, forces players into a system that feels like organized chaos:

• You must bid on traders, but there is no way to know how much is enough. The system gives no guidance, so you are left guessing. Lose the bid, and you are locked out until the next week, only to blind bid again and lose again.
• There are 288 traders scattered across the world. Do I really need to port around endlessly just to figure out who to bid on and what the going rate even is?
• If you bid on multiple traders and win more than one, what happens? The rules are unclear, and the process feels like trial and error.
• On top of blind bids, ESO already takes a percentage cut when items sell through traders. The costs stack up fast.
• Running zone to zone, checking kiosks in obscure corners, is tedious. After 20 minutes and 10 ports, I usually give up. Who thought this would be a fun way to play?
• Worst of all, the system is basically UNUSABLE without third party websites and add ons. This is the only game I know where you cannot search for what you want inside the game itself. I am not going to check 288 traders in places I do not even know exist just to find a widget for my house. How do console players or anyone without add ons buy anything?

Meanwhile, players who just want to sell or buy a few items are left behind, or they are forced to join a so‑called “trading guild” where they are charged a weekly fee so the guild can pay the trader’s extortion bids. I have been in these guilds, and their entire focus turns into generating enough gold from members to cover the exorbitant blind bids required to keep their trader from week to week.

The result is a system that feels less like a fair economy [snip]. Bid more, wait a week, try again, repeat the cycle. Whether you give up or join a trading guild, the design drains gold and time instead of making trading accessible.

I am posting this because I want to understand how this benefits the game. From where I stand, it looks like a full time job with no clear path for regular players to participate. Why hasn’t ESO adopted a universal auction house like every other MMO figured out years ago?

PS:
Another frustrating thing is not being able to tell if an item is sold before going zone to zone and checking each vendor. I want mundane runes, not an “around the world in 80 minutes” race to try and find someone that still has them after checking the third party website to see who even had them.
[edited for bashing]

Tandor

The trading system in my view is without doubt the worst aspect of the game, and by and large the only players who lobby against any attempt to get it changed are those with billions of gold in the bank from it.

twisttop138

As a swtor player that came here many years ago, I still think the guild trader system is not good. Beware though, nothing brings out the master debaters like dissing the trader system.

Gabriel_H

Furyous wrote: »

Other MMOs solved this years ago:

• In World of Warcraft, you walk up to the auction house NPC and instantly see every item listed across the server.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, the market board works the same way: one interface, all goods.
• Even older titles like EverQuest II or Star Wars: The Old Republic let you search globally and buy directly.
• And the original EverQuest, now over a quarter of a century old, has a universal in‑game search and all traders in one area.

The difference is you can be part of 5 guilds in ESO. In WoW, FFXIV, and SW you are limited to 1, and 2 for EQ2.

I suspect the original intent was that most trading would happen inter-guild and NPC traders were basically just flavour.

Obviously player actions have altered things, and worsened a broken system (the amount of the bids).

darkriketz

Totally agree. For years I've seen major trading guild members — and by that I mean those who make the most gold through sales each week — demanding insane amounts of gold or sales as weekly fee, to the point that you can identify which guild to avoid if you want to dodge these fees, and I've never thought it was justified in the first place because the objective only is to compete with other guilds for the best spots in Tamriel.
Which, obviously, leads to tremendously escalating amounts of gold — the more you bid, the more you competitors must bid, so you must react, and so on.

Often it reaches the point that these players demand such an trading efficiency that could be compared to a company full job (guys, you remember it's a game, right ?) and don't question their own demands because "that's how it works, we need that to keep our spot."
Honestly, I was lucky enough to have spots in a guild that isn't too demanding, and I leave this guild as soon as I don't need it anymore or if I intend to take an ESO break, so someone can take the spot in my place. But most of the time, since I have a trading friend who, I think, is into gold (at his humble scale) while I'm not (much, only for housing or crowns purchasing purpose), I just sell him for lower prices whatever I have to sell and he gets to make some benefit in his guilds. I just leave the nasty trading business to him, really.

This system needs to be less competitive and more globalized. I can't imagine how console players can play without TTC and ATT.

Furyous

Moved PS to original post

valenwood_vegan

So imo there are kind of two reasons - first and foremost, zos management designed the trading system to be decentralized and different, (and to kinda nudge people into guilds and promote trading as a more of an "activity" that can be engaged in more deeply by players who enjoy it; and to act as a gold sink via trader bids) and they really like it (or at least *liked* it - I don't know how the new studio head and game director feel).

And the other issue is data and databases, an area where the game already struggles mightily and zos has been forced to make various changes to reduce database size (such as AwA and 14 day listing timers). So I assume this makes the move to a centralized trading system a little more complex and may be an additional reason why they haven't really tried to tackle the issue.

As for arguing for or against the system... well some players really hate it and some really enjoy it so I'll leave that to others - the above is merely my attempt to offer some explanation of why the unusual trading system exists.

Munkfist

As someone that has run many trade guilds, and still partakes in the trading system in a very casual manner, I absolutely love the system.

If I want something specific, I either farm it myself, or use the third party sites to help locate it.
If I just want to look around for deals, I visit each kiosk and browse to my liking.

There are many, many trade guilds without dues, even in the most popular locations, and with the third party sites, location has a limited meaning to it outside of just foot traffic sales.

This game has one of my favorite trading systems, as you can use it in so many ways. I wouldn't bother trading at all if this were done through a central auction house, it would just take the dynamics out of it for me.

twisttop138

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

So imo there are kind of two reasons - first and foremost, zos management designed the trading system to be decentralized and different, (and to kinda nudge people into guilds and promote trading as a more of an "activity" that can be engaged in more deeply by players who enjoy it; and to act as a gold sink via trader bids) and they really like it (or at least *liked* it - I don't know how the new studio head and game director feel).

And the other issue is data and databases, an area where the game already struggles mightily and zos has been forced to make various changes to reduce database size (such as AwA and 14 day listing timers). So I assume this makes the move to a centralized trading system a little more complex and may be an additional reason why they haven't really tried to tackle the issue.

As for arguing for or against the system... well some players really hate it and some really enjoy it so I'll leave that to others - the above is merely my attempt to offer some explanation of why the unusual trading system exists.

You make a good point. It is for sure unique. I can understand why some folks like it but most people aren't big traders and don't care about uniqueness or the prices of flux being standardized because everyone will just list for 1 gold less. Or not being able to get deals. They just wanna go buy the thing in the easiest way possible. (Totally using this as an example, not that this is your opinion)

I always thought it was weird that you need an addon to know prices and where to get stuff without having to go way out of your way. Being on PS5 we only just got add-ons and our trading addon was for Xbox. Apparently the guild that makes the addon made a ps specific one but there's no prices for most stuff. That is so cool they do it but man it would be so much easier if people didn't have to do free coding work and check every trader every week to make an add on with manually input prices (I'm told this is how they do it) Even without an auction house, a search would be fantastic.

darkriketz

Munkfist wrote: »

As someone that has run many trade guilds, and still partakes in the trading system in a very casual manner, I absolutely love the system.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the 1% top billionaires also love neo-liberalism too.
But here we're talking about a failing system that is forced to console players - that is, not you, obviously - who have to travel all around Tamriel everytime they need anything. Them, and PC players who don't use third party system.
Also, the tremendous amounts of gold needed so trading guilds can be visible in the first place.

Furyous

Gabriel_H wrote: »

The difference is you can be part of 5 guilds in ESO. In WoW, FFXIV, and SW you are limited to 1, and 2 for EQ2.

I suspect the original intent was that most trading would happen inter-guild and NPC traders were basically just flavour.

Obviously player actions have altered things, and worsened a broken system (the amount of the bids).

Being part of 5 guilds doesn’t solve the frustration points I raised.
It doesn’t take the grind out of running from zone to zone only to find the item you wanted is already sold out. It doesn’t make blind bidding any clearer or less punishing.

I find no benefit from the 5 guild allowance when it comes to the issues in my original post:

• Endless travel just to check kiosks.
• No way to know the items gone before you get there.
• Blind bids with no guidance.
• Reliance on third‑party sites and add‑ons.

Whether you’re in 1 guild or 5, the system is still tedious, confusing, and inaccessible. Multiple guild slots don’t fix the design flaws, they just spread the frustration across more groups.

PeacefulAnarchy

Munkfist wrote: »

If I want something specific, I either farm it myself, or use the third party sites to help locate it.
and with the third party sites, location has a limited meaning to it outside of just foot traffic sales.

How would you like it without those sites though? Sounds like they are important to making ESOs system work for you.


I think there are ways the game could add the discoverability of those sites to complement the current trading system

My idea would be to keep the current aystem as is, but add:
1) An NPC that lists locations for any items you ask it for with no prices
2) After being unsold for a week, items get crosslisted in an auction house type trader.

This keeps the current value of guild traders, while allowing discoverability of rare items, and allowing the easy buying benefits of an auction house system without the cheap deal benefits that can cause market manipulation in an auction house system. The current trader system keeps the guild trader bidding and location value without shutting people out completely. It adds a dimension of effort vs money where currently that only kind of exists for mats.

I would also add
3. Allow people to list a small number of items in the auction house system directly, for those who don't have access to a guild trader. If the amount that can be sold is restricted this keeps people from using it for flipping while allowing a broader economy. Could also restrict it by gold amount instead so people can sell 100 green recipes but not 10k dreugh wax, or some combination of the two.

SummersetCitizen

I like ESO’s trading system.

Gabriel_H

My point was this:

Furyous wrote: »

It doesn’t take the grind out of running from zone to zone only to find the item you wanted is already sold out. It doesn’t make blind bidding any clearer or less punishing.

Wasn't the intent. So it isn't simply the design that needs to be changed, but the intent behind it too. If ZOS re-designed the system but kept the same intent, eventually the same problems will re-emerge.

My issue with the system is the bid mechanics. Guilds keep trying to outbid each other, which then falls on players to sell more, which then turns it into a job.

The kiosk system isn't something that I'd want to see go. It adds a sense of realism. After all the internet and mass comms don't exist in Tamriel.

Furyous

Gabriel_H wrote: »

My point was this:
The kiosk system isn't something that I'd want to see go. It adds a sense of realism. After all the internet and mass comms don't exist in Tamriel.

Wait, so let me get this straight...
It’s “realistic” to instantly port across dimensions, to instantly mail items to anyone anywhere, and to chat with guildmates from every corner of the world, but somehow traders can’t use the same tools that every other player and NPC already uses constantly?

That’s not realism, that’s selective logic. The kiosk system isn’t immersive, it’s just clunky. If Tamriel can support magical teleportation and global communication, it’s not a stretch to imagine a universal marketplace too.

SolarRune

You've made your opinion very clear, Furyous, that doens't make other people's opinions selective logic or less important - just because they like a part of the game or dont see the issue with part of the game, it is not inherently wrong because it is different to your opinion.

Gabriel_H

Furyous wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

My point was this:
The kiosk system isn't something that I'd want to see go. It adds a sense of realism. After all the internet and mass comms don't exist in Tamriel.

Wait, so let me get this straight...
It’s “realistic” to instantly port across dimensions, to instantly mail items to anyone anywhere, and to chat with guildmates from every corner of the world, but somehow traders can’t use the same tools that every other player and NPC already uses constantly?

That’s not realism, that’s selective logic. The kiosk system isn’t immersive, it’s just clunky. If Tamriel can support magical teleportation and global communication, it’s not a stretch to imagine a universal marketplace too.

Adding realism to something unrealistic isn't selective logic. It's adding realism.

Global comms =/= Global mass comms.

tomofhyrule

This is where “convenience” and “precedent from other games” conflicts with “precedent from the game we’re in.”

A lot of people say over and over “but but but a full auction house doesn’t mean that one player controls the market in game XYZ!” But that’s not ESO - it’s perfectly possible (and expected, from some) that they will sit on TTC and run to every other trader to buy all of the “Crafting Motif 69: Nice” pages in the world so that they can try to flip them for 10x the price. Having hundreds of guild traders makes that process harder because said player needs to run to each one in turn, which means it is not as easy for one player to control the market. Allowing a central location where they (or let’s face it - an addon) can buy every page within a second of listing one anywhere means we absolutely would end up with a few players who already have incredible capital just controlling the price of everything.

Changing the trading system to be like other games won’t mean that all other players will instantly change their mindset.

I do think there are improvements they could make: making TTC functionality native would be great (but the current game may not be able to handle that with memory/space restrictions, but ZOS could host something of the sort on their own companion website and not on a third-party site). I also think that a restrictive guildless trader (few slots and high fees) could allow players who refuse to join guilds to still sell things, but still follow ZOS’s goal of encouraging players to join guilds.

However, let’s not pretend that every guild requires fees. I had a social guild since I started that would get a trader about 75% of the time and charged no fees. They usually got an out-of-the-way trader and I could sell things for cheap. When I got more into the game, I got a proper trade guild in a central location and stuff sells way faster and for higher prices - my guild doesn’t charge a fee per se, but they do ask guild members to contribute by selling lots of high value items, buying from the trader, or buying raffle tickets (which is what I do).

From what I’ve seen, most of the people who complain about various Trade Guild Mafias are also the players who categorically refuse to join guilds for any reason, or those who have smaller guilds and want central locations without the work required to get there.

The current trading system is about the only major gold sink left in the game, considering we don’t get many gold houses. They directly keep the economy healthy by disallowing rampant inflation, which we already see is a problem because of how fast Dolgubon’s can make gold for people.

You are allowed to join a mid-tier trade guild and do as much or as little with them as you like. There’s no penalty for putting the guild chat on ignore (I have a special chat tab to ignore all guild chatter when I need to focus), and if they are asking for fees that you think are too high, you can find a trade guild that suits your needs. But as little as I know about trading in this game, I do know that leading a trade guild is a horribly thankless job, and I am so happy and thankful that the GM of my guild makes it a painless thing to be a member.

allochthons

Console got add-ons that help sellers: The add-ons give a price range that items have been listed for, based on data scraped from guild traders. For TSC, that was XBox data, but now PS players can use the playstation browser to upload data they collect.

From bethesda.net:

TSC Data Hub

What Does This Addon Do?

TSC Data Hub captures recent guild trader sales (items, price, timestamp, guild info) for each of your guild slots. It batches those sales, keeps track of what has already been submitted, and queues URL links you can open on your console browser to send the data to TSC.

Which no one is going to do, the PS browser is awful, and who wants to leave the game to upload the data?

Console doesn't have any add-on that I'm aware of that helps buyers find items. Unlike PC, we have no way to find out if the item we want is for sale at all, and where.

I've complained about this before. On console, it takes literal hours to check every guild trader in the game for an item. And since every new zone adds 5-6 new traders, it's just getting worse.

Furyous

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Adding realism to something unrealistic isn't selective logic. It's adding realism.

Global comms =/= Global mass comms.

I don't think you understand the phrase “selective logic.”

It means you are choosing where to apply your idea of “logic” while ignoring everything else that does not follow the same reasoning. In this case, you accept instant teleportation, instant mail, and global guild chat as fine, but then claim traders cannot use similar tools because of “realism.” That is exactly what selective logic is.

Ph1p

Whether one likes the system or not, to me it looks mainly like a consequence of ESO's megaserver structure. People often reference WoW, but they have hundreds of servers and an auction house only serves a handful of connected servers I believe - although commodity materials are now centralized per region I think.

In contrast, ESO was set up with just one megaserver per platform and region. So any centralized trading system would likely be much larger than a typical WoW auction house. It seems to me that ZOS' answer to that was the decentralized guild trader system we have today.

Now, of course it's absolutely feasible to make a central trader work for ESO and other MMOs have done so. But given the continuing push to reduce server strain (account-wide achievements, hybridization, DoT tick frequencies, mail retention times, etc.), it looks unlikely that ZOS is going to spend resources on something that will impact server performance. And at this point, switching to a central system would just be a giant middle finger to the hundreds of guilds and volunteers that have emerged from trading. I doubt ZOS wants to risk such a self-inflicted disruption to their player communities.

Gabriel_H

Furyous wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Adding realism to something unrealistic isn't selective logic. It's adding realism.

Global comms =/= Global mass comms.

I don't think you understand the phrase “selective logic.”

It means you are choosing where to apply your idea of “logic” while ignoring everything else that does not follow the same reasoning. In this case, you accept instant teleportation, instant mail, and global guild chat as fine, but then claim traders cannot use similar tools because of “realism.” That is exactly what selective logic is.

Yeah, the one appearing to have issues with words would be you. I said it added a sense of realism. I didn't say it made the whole thing realistic.

Edit: There's magic in the world, right? Ok, cool. I want to conjour up 10 trillion gold.

allochthons

I should make clear I don't blame the add-ons for console's guild trader woes. They're doing everything they can with the tools they have available.

The guild trader system is simply awful on consoles.
No one I know price checks outside the capitals and a few other places, unless they are really looking for something. I haven't price-checked outside of Mournhold in months.

scrappy1342

Furyous wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

The difference is you can be part of 5 guilds in ESO. In WoW, FFXIV, and SW you are limited to 1, and 2 for EQ2.

I suspect the original intent was that most trading would happen inter-guild and NPC traders were basically just flavour.

Obviously player actions have altered things, and worsened a broken system (the amount of the bids).

Being part of 5 guilds doesn’t solve the frustration points I raised.
It doesn’t take the grind out of running from zone to zone only to find the item you wanted is already sold out. It doesn’t make blind bidding any clearer or less punishing.

I find no benefit from the 5 guild allowance when it comes to the issues in my original post:

• Endless travel just to check kiosks.
• No way to know the items gone before you get there.
• Blind bids with no guidance.
• Reliance on third‑party sites and add‑ons.

Whether you’re in 1 guild or 5, the system is still tedious, confusing, and inaccessible. Multiple guild slots don’t fix the design flaws, they just spread the frustration across more groups.

i absolutely hate the trading system with a passion. i remember in my early days wasting 2 entire days trying to track down some motifs to get some master writs out of my inventory... never did find the motifs, even though they were listed on ttc. and it put a stop to any buying on my end. i just farmed anything i needed after that. for a few years, i enjoyed selling things, but that is gone now too. things sell for a mere fraction of what they used to and it took all the fun out of it.

ideally... your sales tax your guild makes would cover your bid. and this is how things worked in the beginning. but it doesn't anymore. if you want a trader, you are going to have to supplement your sales tax with donations. i would suggest joining a trade guild if you want to sell. there are plenty of decent guilds out there that keep traders and don't charge any fees or have any requirements other than logging into the game

Northwold

Preach.

Trading -- a fundamental back end system that is more or less ancillary to almost all aspects of gameplay in any MMO -- was designed, seemingly, to prioritise its behaviour as a minigame for its own sake first, leaving its importance to almost every player, including those many, many players who have no interest whatever in the minigame, as an afterthought. And every change to it made since is still about the minigame experience, not what trading does to the rest of the game.

It is easily the biggest issue I have with ESO and every single time I quit the game for a year plus it's because I get fed up with the trading system and the ridiculous hoops you have to go through to find things you're looking for, and because you can't sell anything in a sane manner without joining a trading guild.

SolarRune

Not only killing off a whole ecosystem of guilds - but the loss of probably the single biggest gold sink would have the potential to cause alot of turbulence on the economy, to keep balanced, tax on sales through a AH would have to be huge (guessing something in the region of 50% or possibly more) or income streams would have to be massively reduced but that would leave the big gold hoarders at a massive advantage.

scrappy1342

there's actually quite a few guilds that got killed off when the economy tanked >.> but they'd just need to add another gold sink. like... an actual gold sink that affects all players and not just guild masters. would be easy enough to add in mounts/pets/houses/furniture/costumes, etc. that can only be paid for with gold. they could also add the option to pay for more of the existing things with gold, but i'm sure they don't want to take away from crown sales.

FullMax

Well, who knows. If we make a single auction house for the entire server, then all the merchants from all locations will disappear, or become pointless. Everyone will start crowding around a single banker, which ruins the visuals and the overall experience.

DragonRacer

Most of the original post’s questions have been answered and now the ages old argument for and against the ESO trader system begins again.

Which I have zero interest in engaging.

But I did want to answer one question that was left hanging:

“If you bid on multiple traders and win more than one, what happens? The rules are unclear, and the process feels like trial and error.”

You cannot win more than one trader. You can place bids on up to 10 traders. The highest winning bid becomes your trader for the week and your bid amount disappears into the gold sink black hole. The other bids you placed, that gold is returned to your guild bank. If none of your bids was the highest to win, then you get no trader and all gold you had bid is returned to your guild bank.

The system calculates your bids from highest to lowest. So if you bid 10 million on Trader A and 5 million on Trader B, it checks your Trader A first and if the bid wins, it doesn’t even check your others, just refunds the rest. If you bid the same amount across all traders (5 million at Trader A, then 5 million at Trader B and another 5 million at Trader C), then the system checks in the timed order you placed them, as in it checks Trader A’s bids, then B and C and so on.

You can also view the bidding order you’ve made in your View Bids portion of the guild menu. It will show order of bids from top to bottom, with highest bid at top OR if all bids are same amount, the first bid you placed is at top and then descending down in order.

Munkfist

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

If I want something specific, I either farm it myself, or use the third party sites to help locate it.
and with the third party sites, location has a limited meaning to it outside of just foot traffic sales.

How would you like it without those sites though? Sounds like they are important to making ESOs system work for you.

I would still love the system, it's a convenience at best. It's an mmo game, the grind is real. If you don't want to travel to traders for the item you want, you could almost always farm it yourself. If that's not an option for you for whatever reason, then start traveling around.

Very rarely do I use the sites. The game is old, most of us that enjoy the system have built up stockpiles of whatever it may be that we need, including gold.

I understand the newer crowd wanting this to just be made easy for them, but part of the fun is running around.

ApoAlaia

To answer OP's question: yes.

Despite fierce competition we had a good thing going alas this fellow turned up:



And business went south, fast, so we had to diversify.

Me and my crew, we moved operations to ESO. Gig's been great.