Is the game economy working for you?

Musonius

SirJesto

Don't understand the question.

mandrakethebard_ESO

Yes

A bit more detail to this question *would* be helpful I think, but I'm pretty sure I know how to answer this. The economy (such as it is) is working just fine for me. I'm crafting and helping out my skills. Furthermore, I have joined a few trade guilds (i.e. Guilds formed for the express purpose of operating a Guild Store) and have managed to obtain a large number of items that I needed, while making enough on the side to speed up my acquisition of backpack and bank slots. So yeah, there's a functioning economy that works nicely.

The only thing that I would suggest is, perhaps, an in-game trade guild registry to make it easier for players to find them and see their basic stats. I know everyone is jonesing for an auction house or similar game-wide mechanic, but I think that the trade guilds make for a much more interesting trading experience and that the only drawback is that many people just aren't finding them or able to get into them (since there's a 500 person guild limit).

Beryl

No

No, for me personally it does not work.
I am not happy with:
- the present functionality of the Guild Stores (not enough filters, no search by name, no sort by price per item etc),
- the constant spam WTS in all zone chats,
- the ridiculously high fee for COD items or selling the in a Guild Store,
- high repair costs combined with small vendor price of items you loot.

I am still trying to adapt and find my spot here, but so far - no, for me the existing system does not work. It does not make me happy.

luizterra23

No

Beryl wrote: »

I am still trying to adapt and find my spot here, but so far - no, for me the existing system does not work. It does not make me happy.

Does not make me happy either =(

Comet201

Yes

Short answer, yes it works but requires more micro-management than I usually care to do towards it. However, it also changes how the community will form.

Longer answer: System needs some tweaks and the convenience charge for CoD and guild banks is pretty high. Possibly adding in some additional chat channels/filters would help, as of now zone is just flooded with spam (and gold farmers).
Though I will also note 4 of my 5 guilds are for trade purposes.

CoD system needs to be re-worked, I can tell you from experience trying to CoD 2 items @ 1000g each in a single mail incurred a 440 gold postage fee, while putting them in two separate mails incurred a 110 postage fee each.

In order to avoid the CoD charges and open a local trade has it's own difficulties, such as two players being the same town, but in different instances. I've humorously grouped with the player I intended to trade and saw that even though our "markers" were on-top of each other, we were in separate instances of the same town, and one either needed to re-log, or use the travel to party member feature in order to appear next to one another. Minor nuances like this make it more difficult.

Kayvee

No

I really do not enjoy the fact that I'm required to join a guild in order to access the equivalent of an auction house.

Edit: repair costs are astronomical. I usually just replace the piece instead of repairing because it's simply too punitive.

Fonzz

No

I find it almost imposable to find anything in the guild store. Some kind of search must be added.

I have joined 3 guilds just for trade and one of them has the limit of members. I think that to have a successful store you would want at lease 2000 different people in each guild. Or maybe whenever you list something it shows up for all guilds not just 1. If these guilds could be larger the way ZOS is doing the economy may work but as it is, it's killing one of the things I enjoy about MMO's. 500 people is no where near enough people for selling or buying what you want or need.

Comet201

Yes

Yeah a text search in guild stores and additional filters would be helpful

luizterra23

No

The zone chat have been doomed to become a trade spam site, because there is no efficient (neither cheap) way to trade your own goods. The result of it is the huge amount of wasted items that we throw away because farming from mobs is largelly more efficient than trading goods for acquiring gold. The economy becomes staggered, and the fun of collecting and crafting goods is lost along with it's purpose.
Either way, If it's not supposed to have some serverwide Auction House in the game, at least the COD feature should be exempt of charges, and the Guild Store having it's posting fee cutted by half.

It becomes a paradigm that we should not be allowed to spam chat as while the game pushes us of doing so.

Evanis

No

michael.tyrrb14_ESO wrote: »

I find it almost impossible to find anything in the guild store. Some kind of search must be added.

I hear you. I am more than shocked that the lack of this most basic functionality made it past beta.

michael.tyrrb14_ESO wrote: »

I have joined 3 guilds just for trade and one of them has the limit of members. I think that to have a successful store you would want at lease 2000 different people in each guild. Or maybe whenever you list something it shows up for all guilds not just 1. If these guilds could be larger the way ZOS is doing the economy may work but as it is, it's killing one of the things I enjoy about MMO's. 500 people is no where near enough people for selling or buying what you want or need.

How many of us have belonged to a guild with a roster that was hundreds strong, but only a small fraction these "members" were actually active? I belong to four trade guilds with hundreds of members each, but yet I find *one* bottle of dwarven oil to purchase at 500g. Sorry, but I only look stupid... No thanks... There is something *very* wrong with that and this example only underscores the problem. I think that 2000 *active* members is a bare minimum for this economy to have any hope of success, and even then that figure may not be high enough. In its present form, the economy is not working for me. I am an avid crafter and unless ZOS rethinks this entire economic experiment, I may have to move on.

Jirki88

This question is about as vague as a banished ghost. So I'm not even going to vote on this since it's not the least obvious what the answers actually mean in relation to the question.

Sazzmo

No

My biggest personal complaint about the trade system is that it's pretty difficult to figure out what items are rare, what prices are fair, and what things are actually considered valuable. I was initially excited about the game's economy, thought it would give more individual power to the players etc.-but that was all from a theoretical position. Having lived with it for just a little bit, I honestly don't think the economy supports streamlined gameplay.
Struggling to sell things - especially things that everyone wants, like crafting materials - just isn't cool. It's pretty disturbing that spamming zone chat is more efficient and reaches more people at once than the trade systems that were specifically designed to support trade. It's like @Evanis said, even in large guilds few people are active at any given time, and the fact that listings are tied to a single guild SEVERELY limits the number of people who might ever notice that you're selling something. It's not as if every member of a guild is just sitting there staring at the guild store waiting for new things to buy, so we need a system that alerts players when items they are looking for are up for sale. What's worse is that the only options that circumvent the current clumsiness involve either obnoxiously spamming chat or paying pretty serious fees for COD (If you can even find a buyer). This reduces the incentive to sell in the first place and it contributes to economic stagnation. It also makes it more likely for people to hoard their money, so the wealth can effectively stop moving.
If I were king, I'd be looking into ways to streamline the entire process, even if that doesn't include a server-wide auction house (Although to be honest, ESO is making me appreciate them more every day)
Probably the worst part about all of this is that the time spent selling is time that can't be spent crafting/questing/PVP/Doing something that's actually enjoyable.
Right now, that is entirely too much time spent.

Ugh. Sorry for the rant, guys.

Gungnr

No

My character went broke from armor repairs after the Mage Guild quest to Cheesemonger's. Never could finish it. Lvl 6 geared Nightblade.

Mansome

No

No because the guild store only sells to the guild your in. I thought this was going to let you sell to everyone. They need to change this otherwise there is no chance for tiny guilds to ever make progress. It needs to be set so that we can sell to everyone in some guild not just the 5 you are in.

Jadeviper1974

Yes

Gungnr wrote: »

My character went broke from armor repairs after the Mage Guild quest to Cheesemonger's. Never could finish it. Lvl 6 geared Nightblade.

I just gave up after I died twice, will come back to it later.

Mansome

No

Gungnr wrote: »

My character went broke from armor repairs after the Mage Guild quest to Cheesemonger's. Never could finish it. Lvl 6 geared Nightblade.

Better to just craft it again to replace the gear than to do repairs. Might as well considering you have to craft a ton to raise the crafting level anyways.

Jadeviper1974

Yes

Evanis wrote: »

michael.tyrrb14_ESO wrote: »

I find it almost impossible to find anything in the guild store. Some kind of search must be added.

I hear you. I am more than shocked that the lack of this most basic functionality made it past beta.

michael.tyrrb14_ESO wrote: »

I have joined 3 guilds just for trade and one of them has the limit of members. I think that to have a successful store you would want at lease 2000 different people in each guild. Or maybe whenever you list something it shows up for all guilds not just 1. If these guilds could be larger the way ZOS is doing the economy may work but as it is, it's killing one of the things I enjoy about MMO's. 500 people is no where near enough people for selling or buying what you want or need.

How many of us have belonged to a guild with a roster that was hundreds strong, but only a small fraction these "members" were actually active? I belong to four trade guilds with hundreds of members each, but yet I find *one* bottle of dwarven oil to purchase at 500g. Sorry, but I only look stupid... No thanks... There is something *very* wrong with that and this example only underscores the problem. I think that 2000 *active* members is a bare minimum for this economy to have any hope of success, and even then that figure may not be high enough. In its present form, the economy is not working for me. I am an avid crafter and unless ZOS rethinks this entire economic experiment, I may have to move on.

Oh, come on. It just basic capitalism, you can compare prices between 5 different stores and shop where you want. Simple, basic free market capitalism.

As far as the dwarven oil, have you stopped to think that maybe, just maybe there is a reason why its not being sold in large quantities yet? Like, maybe, just maybe and I am just spitballing here, its week one of the darned game and everyone is trying to level crafting so they aren't selling their materials?

Also, the moment there is a global AH the botters control the economy, period. As it is they can mess up one guild, but not the entire show. Also, it make the community more responsible for policing their own Guild Stores.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Yes

Yes it is. This is a troll poll that is baited because the OP wants an auction house.

Rosveen

Yes

Gungnr wrote: »

My character went broke from armor repairs after the Mage Guild quest to Cheesemonger's. Never could finish it. Lvl 6 geared Nightblade.

Why are you doing this quest on lvl 6? Why are you repairing items instead of crafting new ones?

Hakoke

Yes

While i voted yes, i did it mostly out of personal reasons.

For example, last night i spent an hour buying stuff off of the various guild stores and was able to turn around and sell them in zone chat for at least 10x what i payed for from the guild stores. Was some nice profit.

I will say that my biggest complaint about the system is that you currently can't search for any one item without combing through multiple pages of stuff your not interested in.

Can't say i mind the cod costs myself, although i was a little suprised about them at first. I could very easily see a rp reason for them, plus a gold sink, expecially sense gold seems so easy to come by.

beauthegoat

No

Repairs at low level are a bit much.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Yes

beauthegoat wrote: »

Repairs at low level are a bit much.

Then craft boom easy as that

Nox_Aeterna

No

To put it simple , i dont like having 4 "extra" guilds who serve me no purpose other than AHs, which got a funny part since some people there wonder why nobody joins voice chats or regs at their sites hehehe, most of the time they are on mute , imagine if one day i would lose the time over that :P.

Anyway , let player form groups when they want , instead of forcing them to do so to get access to the AH.

pknecron

No

What economy? There are no AH to sell goods, which fills zone chat with spams for things no one wants. The guild store idea was nice in theory but the number of people need to make it work just isn't there. Maybe if all guild store for all guilds were connected(AH) it would work.

beauthegoat

No

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

beauthegoat wrote: »

Repairs at low level are a bit much.

Then craft boom easy as that

Guess I should have stated that I'm sort of indifferent on this issue leaning a slight bit to the negative. Ask me on Friday when I get paid and I'll have a different opinion. Unless I burn my upper lip sipping my coffee that morning.

doggie

No

I think the Crafting part of the economy is pretty bad. I'm able to sell stuff I don't need like blue items or racial books and so on.

But crafting and selling a blue item is not posible, Tempers to craft a blue item cost 300g each, blue items around lvl 20-30 sell at 500g each, the minimum cost to craft a blue item with all tempers would be around 1200-1500g, but you'll probably never sell it when it's so much outside what the drop items sell for.

SuperScrubby

No

The crafting part of the economy isn't as strong as I'd hope it would be. All I see being sold is mainly set items or some blue's people get from a dungeon to other people that don't know better. But aside from that and racial motif's it's not nearly as strong as it could be.

While I like the idea of a trade guild, I would still also like to access an alliance wide auction house so you can see the prices of things as well as make money outside of your guild.

Not to mention I can't even imagine being in that many guilds, 5 just seems like overkill to me, let alone most of them being a trade guild.

Hellorush

Yes

Wait for 2-3 monthes, let the big trading guilds open an NPC-stores in the castles and fill them with goods, they cannot yet craft and it will work.

byghostlightrwb17_ESO

Yes

so glad there is no auction house in game, so very refreshing

Myxril

Yes

I generally agree with all of the Yes-but-No'ers on here. The economy, though an infant still, is good. Ish. It does not need an AH; centralizing the market on any game hands it over to the botters/powerfarmers. Besides, auction houses (to my knowledge) have never existed in any fashion in TES lore; this world is littered with guilds.
Srsly, where's the guild that tracks the public records of all of the other guilds? It'd be like a library on steroids.

Anyhow. There's a few simple easements to this trade debacle.
- Lower COD cost
- Lower listing cost / sale fee
- Add a Trade channel for each zone (this _might_ help alleviate Zone, but I'm sure people would just end up spamming _both_ PLUS the Yell channel)
---- Also, add a chat filter to restrict posting an identical msg repeatedly, or even a universal cooldown on Zone (this could also help eliminate the annoying n'wahs that blast a mountain of guild ad text multiple times within a minute or two)
- Enhance the Guild Store search options.
- Increase the cap of members a guild can have (1k/guild would be a good start)
- Allow Guild Masters to micro-manage Ranks;
---- Add additional ranks, assign each rank limitations on # of deposit/withdraw/max listing, assign each rank a specific rate for posting in the GS.
- Add a bazaar where Guild Stores can be universally accessed (sort of AH style), with each guild setting its own non-member sales fees.
---- I would assume this would work best if GM's were allowed to decide if their guild was added to such a roster (maybe at a recurring charge)
----* This might alleviate a bit of crowd spam at the banks. I personally don't mind having a crowd at the bank, but there's something that's off-putting about hearing screeching monkeys and squeaking doors constantly while trying to buy/sell and manage inv/bank.

In conclusion: Do not add a central Auction House. I would then be heavily inclined to ship back the retail Imperial pre-order I bought, chargeback the money I spent on it, and request my account be abolished to the pits of Oblivion.
Centralized market access jacks up any game that has people botting or powerfarming. Nothing's worse for an economy than people being able to flood tons of outrageously underpriced goods, or buy up entire markets and repost them at insane markups.

What ESO has going on with the 5-guild system is borderline genius, as it encourages and requires players to interact as a community. So, while the current economy does work for me (in a generalized sense), the Guild system needs to be improved to provide for a smoother experience when shopping.