Suggestion: Guild Trader Revamp.

Taleof2Cities · January 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

But i honestly dont know many people in game that think the system is good.

Well, you should honestly do a bit more reasearch on how many players think the system is good.

Let me point you to the most recent Auction House thread where the majority of voters support the current guild trader system.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/391681/do-you-want-a-global-auction-house#latest

CromulentForumID · January 2018

Thannazzar wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Yes, this is a guild trader thread. No, its not a must have Global Trader/ Auction House system.

Revamp:

1) Add a global search feature to the guild trader system. That way we can see who has an item and for how much, but we still have to go physically get it. Can give it a delayed update to limit people from using the system to corner the market. Maybe a 1 or 2 hour delay on the update.

2) Add a Consignment Trader to each of the alliances. A consignment trader is similar in function to a guild trader. But has a few differences.
- There is only one per alliance , preferably placed near a wayshrine but not in one of the busier cities.
- You dont need to be in a guild to use it.
- You may post 10 items at any one time per account per Consignment trader ( Total of 30)
- Unlike the guild trader, you have to physically go to the Consignment trader to buy and sell.
- Consignment traders have more expensive listing fees and house cuts than guild traders.
It would allow people to sell without having to join a trade guild, but to do any serious trading they will still have to use trade guilds. It would also allow a semi centralized place to buy, but likely for higher prices than what you could get at the guild traders.

3)Guild Store Changes:
A) Traders will be added and redistributed. Guild traders will be a tier based system:
* Tier 5 - Capital city( including Vivic City) traders - 12 each per city.
* Tier 4 - Large city traders - 7 to 10 each per city.
* Tier 3 - Secondary city traders - 4 to 6 per city
* Tier 2 - Wayshrine traders - 2 to 3 per wayshrine for most non city wayshrines.
* Tier 1 - Trade Camps/caravans -4 to 6 traders ( see below)
* Tier 0 - 2 Traders per refuge, mage guild, fighter guild.

B)Tier System:
* Guilds will compete for better traders( tiers) by becoming good traders. No more, " my guild is rich, so we are going to buy the best spot to sell our 250 items, while the guild that posts thousands of items is stuck with no trader"
* Your tier placement will be based on your gross outside income( guild member to guild member does not count) as follows:
- Tier 5 = Top 20% of guilds by gross income
- Tier 4 = Next 20% of guilds by gross income
- Tier 3 = Next 20% of guilds
- Tier 2 = Next 20% of guilds.
- Tier 1 = Bottom 20% of guilds.

* Each week your gross volume will be ranked in comparison to other guilds. You may then bid on traders within that tier only.

* If you lose your bid, and have no trader, you have two options:
- You can bid on Tier 0 traders. Tier 0 trader auction starts as soon as the regular auction ends and ends 24 hours after the regular auction. You get the trader until the next regular auction( they like a day off). Any guild can bid on these traders as long as they do not currently have a trader.
- You can hire any unused traders in your tier or any tier under yours on a first come, first serve basis. The prices are as follows:
*Tier 5- 500k gold
*Tier 4- 250k gold
*Tier 3- 100k gold
*Tier 2 - 50k gold
*Tier 1 - 10k gold
*Tier 0 - 100k gold(Hired after Tier 0 Auction, last until the next regular auction)

C) Trade Camps. Trade Camps are simply a group of traders( and usually a merchant) that cannot get a spot in a better location. They offer their services, cheap. The camps are usually at a crossroads, bridge, or other area that sees traffic but is not in a city or at a wayshrine. They are a place for beginners.

D) Top Guild Reward: The top guild in terms of gross sales for the week( the benchmark for the tiers) will keep their guild trader for the week for the hire fee of that trader.

FAQS:

* Why are mage/fighter guild and refuges not included in the tier of the city they are in? Answer: Because they are out of the way rather than the high traffic areas around city shrines. They also act as a saving grace for those who lost a bid in their tier that want to hold on to decent trade. And for those who want to move through tiers quickly.

* Why a tier system instead of the system we have? Answer: First it allows to add more traders without diluting competitiveness. Second, the guilds that get the top spots should do so because they earned it not because they or their members are rich but mostly inactive. Ive ran across a few traders that were in decent to good spots that didnt have very much for sale or it was really high priced. But because they are rich they can afford to nab the trader every time, even if they do a low volume of sales. This way, guilds that do a high volume of sales, keep their store stock, guild active, and have reasonable prices have the best shot at the best traders rather than the richest guy wins. Did i mention it would add some interesting gameplay to the economy?

*What if my guild is top tier and lose our spot and cant get any trader for that week?Answer: Then someone dropped the ball. You will have to bid on Tier 1 or Tier 0 traders, or hire one of these to get your foot back in the door. If you have no outside gross income, then you will be considered tier 1 in the next round of bids.

* Its not fair that you work hard to get to top tier and you can lose it! Answer: Sure it is. Your guilds failure at securing any trader that week allows other guilds to get a little better footing. Its healthy competition when a few guilds cant guarantee domination.

* Why would anyone want a trader in a "trade camp"? Answer: Well as they say a crappy trader is better than no trader. Besides with a global search feature you can price shop. You just have to do a little more leg work. I anticipate you pay the highest prices buying from high tier traders and get the best bargains from tier 1.

* Why a global search but not global trader/market? Answer: Because finding anything in guild traders without add-ons is an absolute nightmare. Its like sifting through a hoarder's basement...in the dark. Global search allows you find items without having to visit every single trader. But you still have to do the leg work to go get the item. And with a delay in updates( the trader you are at updates instantly all others are delayed), it makes it harder for trade moguls to game the system to attempt to dominate trade of an item.

*Why a consignment trader? Answer: Its a compromise. Some people dont want to be in trade guilds, especially since a majority of decent ones have some fee requirement so they can get store every week. Some players dont want to become that dedicated to trading but still want to be able to sell stuff to other players. On the other hand, the usual option, a global market, usually does more harm to a games economy than good. So a consignment trader, allows players to sell a few trinkets in game without becoming committed to trade guilds and their fees and without breaking the economy.

* How are the tiers figured? I dont understand. Answer: You have a min and max. The max will be the top grossing guild for the week. The min will always be 0. Example: The top guild did 1 million in gross outside sales. They will keep their trader for the hire fee. The rest of guilds will fall into one of the brackets in this case:
- Tier 5 = 800k to 1 mil
- Tier 4 = 600k to 799k
- Tier 3 = 400k to 599k
- Tier 2 = 200k to 399k
- Tier 1 = 0 to 199k.
- Tier 0 = Any guild that does not have a trader.

Or just use Tamriel Trade Centre and Master Merchant Addons.......

Is it at the 3 year point that people remember the game is on other platforms than PC?

Giraffon · January 2018

I have lobbied for this change over the years and the owners of the big trade guilds lashed out at me every time. I'll say it again right here just to irritate them:

The previous week's winning bid should be displayed at each guild trader when you bid on them.

Acrolas · January 2018

Giraffon wrote: »

I have lobbied for this change over the years and the owners of the big trade guilds lashed out at me every time. I'll say it again right here just to irritate them:

The previous week's winning bid should be displayed at each guild trader when you bid on them.

That's a change larger guilds would want, as they could set up shell guilds to outbid other competitive locations with a much higher chance of success. That would, in turn, lead to unnecessary trader cost inflation as people paid more and more to secure their locations.

Traders are expensive, but they're not going to get any less expensive until the last few months of the game's existence when the demand for the selling service starts to seriously decline.

Giraffon · January 2018

Bah!

Review this most hated thread from March of 2017. I've heard it before. My position is well represented here:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/329279/why-not-show-last-winning-bid-on-guild-traders/p1

Cpt_Teemo · January 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

But i honestly dont know many people in game that think the system is good.

Well, you should honestly do a bit more reasearch on how many players think the system is good.

Let me point you to the most recent Auction House thread where the majority of voters support the current guild trader system.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/391681/do-you-want-a-global-auction-house#latest

Problem is 70% of the game don't read the forums.

Wreuntzylla · January 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

But i honestly dont know many people in game that think the system is good.

Well, you should honestly do a bit more reasearch on how many players think the system is good.

Let me point you to the most recent Auction House thread where the majority of voters support the current guild trader system.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/391681/do-you-want-a-global-auction-house#latest

That's like taking a poll at the college in a blue collar town and saying most of the town agrees...

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Yes, this is a guild trader thread. No, its not a must have Global Trader/ Auction House system.

Revamp:

1) Add a global search feature to the guild trader system. That way we can see who has an item and for how much, but we still have to go physically get it. Can give it a delayed update to limit people from using the system to corner the market. Maybe a 1 or 2 hour delay on the update.

2) Add a Consignment Trader to each of the alliances. A consignment trader is similar in function to a guild trader. But has a few differences.
- There is only one per alliance , preferably placed near a wayshrine but not in one of the busier cities.
- You dont need to be in a guild to use it.
- You may post 10 items at any one time per account per Consignment trader ( Total of 30)
- Unlike the guild trader, you have to physically go to the Consignment trader to buy and sell.
- Consignment traders have more expensive listing fees and house cuts than guild traders.
It would allow people to sell without having to join a trade guild, but to do any serious trading they will still have to use trade guilds. It would also allow a semi centralized place to buy, but likely for higher prices than what you could get at the guild traders.

3)Guild Store Changes:
A) Traders will be added and redistributed. Guild traders will be a tier based system:
* Tier 5 - Capital city( including Vivic City) traders - 12 each per city.
* Tier 4 - Large city traders - 7 to 10 each per city.
* Tier 3 - Secondary city traders - 4 to 6 per city
* Tier 2 - Wayshrine traders - 2 to 3 per wayshrine for most non city wayshrines.
* Tier 1 - Trade Camps/caravans -4 to 6 traders ( see below)
* Tier 0 - 2 Traders per refuge, mage guild, fighter guild.

B)Tier System:
* Guilds will compete for better traders( tiers) by becoming good traders. No more, " my guild is rich, so we are going to buy the best spot to sell our 250 items, while the guild that posts thousands of items is stuck with no trader"
* Your tier placement will be based on your gross outside income( guild member to guild member does not count) as follows:
- Tier 5 = Top 20% of guilds by gross income
- Tier 4 = Next 20% of guilds by gross income
- Tier 3 = Next 20% of guilds
- Tier 2 = Next 20% of guilds.
- Tier 1 = Bottom 20% of guilds.

* Each week your gross volume will be ranked in comparison to other guilds. You may then bid on traders within that tier only.

* If you lose your bid, and have no trader, you have two options:
- You can bid on Tier 0 traders. Tier 0 trader auction starts as soon as the regular auction ends and ends 24 hours after the regular auction. You get the trader until the next regular auction( they like a day off). Any guild can bid on these traders as long as they do not currently have a trader.
- You can hire any unused traders in your tier or any tier under yours on a first come, first serve basis. The prices are as follows:
*Tier 5- 500k gold
*Tier 4- 250k gold
*Tier 3- 100k gold
*Tier 2 - 50k gold
*Tier 1 - 10k gold
*Tier 0 - 100k gold(Hired after Tier 0 Auction, last until the next regular auction)

C) Trade Camps. Trade Camps are simply a group of traders( and usually a merchant) that cannot get a spot in a better location. They offer their services, cheap. The camps are usually at a crossroads, bridge, or other area that sees traffic but is not in a city or at a wayshrine. They are a place for beginners.

D) Top Guild Reward: The top guild in terms of gross sales for the week( the benchmark for the tiers) will keep their guild trader for the week for the hire fee of that trader.

FAQS:

* Why are mage/fighter guild and refuges not included in the tier of the city they are in? Answer: Because they are out of the way rather than the high traffic areas around city shrines. They also act as a saving grace for those who lost a bid in their tier that want to hold on to decent trade. And for those who want to move through tiers quickly.

* Why a tier system instead of the system we have? Answer: First it allows to add more traders without diluting competitiveness. Second, the guilds that get the top spots should do so because they earned it not because they or their members are rich but mostly inactive. Ive ran across a few traders that were in decent to good spots that didnt have very much for sale or it was really high priced. But because they are rich they can afford to nab the trader every time, even if they do a low volume of sales. This way, guilds that do a high volume of sales, keep their store stock, guild active, and have reasonable prices have the best shot at the best traders rather than the richest guy wins. Did i mention it would add some interesting gameplay to the economy?

*What if my guild is top tier and lose our spot and cant get any trader for that week?Answer: Then someone dropped the ball. You will have to bid on Tier 1 or Tier 0 traders, or hire one of these to get your foot back in the door. If you have no outside gross income, then you will be considered tier 1 in the next round of bids.

* Its not fair that you work hard to get to top tier and you can lose it! Answer: Sure it is. Your guilds failure at securing any trader that week allows other guilds to get a little better footing. Its healthy competition when a few guilds cant guarantee domination.

* Why would anyone want a trader in a "trade camp"? Answer: Well as they say a crappy trader is better than no trader. Besides with a global search feature you can price shop. You just have to do a little more leg work. I anticipate you pay the highest prices buying from high tier traders and get the best bargains from tier 1.

* Why a global search but not global trader/market? Answer: Because finding anything in guild traders without add-ons is an absolute nightmare. Its like sifting through a hoarder's basement...in the dark. Global search allows you find items without having to visit every single trader. But you still have to do the leg work to go get the item. And with a delay in updates( the trader you are at updates instantly all others are delayed), it makes it harder for trade moguls to game the system to attempt to dominate trade of an item.

*Why a consignment trader? Answer: Its a compromise. Some people dont want to be in trade guilds, especially since a majority of decent ones have some fee requirement so they can get store every week. Some players dont want to become that dedicated to trading but still want to be able to sell stuff to other players. On the other hand, the usual option, a global market, usually does more harm to a games economy than good. So a consignment trader, allows players to sell a few trinkets in game without becoming committed to trade guilds and their fees and without breaking the economy.

* How are the tiers figured? I dont understand. Answer: You have a min and max. The max will be the top grossing guild for the week. The min will always be 0. Example: The top guild did 1 million in gross outside sales. They will keep their trader for the hire fee. The rest of guilds will fall into one of the brackets in this case:
- Tier 5 = 800k to 1 mil
- Tier 4 = 600k to 799k
- Tier 3 = 400k to 599k
- Tier 2 = 200k to 399k
- Tier 1 = 0 to 199k.
- Tier 0 = Any guild that does not have a trader.

OP, a couple of points.

1. Delaying the search defeats the purpose of having a central search.

The good deals will be hidden for long enough for the repricing consortiums to control the market, especially on PC. It needs to be a real time or near real time system that creates a race to the deals.

2. A global search will kill the necessity of trading at a trade hub. I don't see a purpose to the tier system at that point.

Don't get me wrong, the trading hubs are a manifestation of the disease that needs to be excised. I just don't see too many guilds caring that much where there trader is located at that point. Most guild traders aren't concerned with status symbols.

3. There should not be a difference in cost to sell goods. It's the principle underlying tariffs to eliminate competition. There should only be a non-monetary inequality between the consignment merchant and trade guilds, if at all.

My thought is just to have 'starter' trade guilds only available to accounts that are not members of a guild with a trader.

4. There needs to be a new gold sink. For immersion sake, perhaps a weekly, progressive tribute based on the value of an account's holdings over some poverty line. ZoS might like the idea as it would encourage people to have more accounts.

Acrolas · January 2018

Giraffon wrote: »

Bah!

Review this most hated thread from March of 2017. I've heard it before. My position is well represented here:

And you were incorrect there, too.

There would be no such thing as a price stabilization. What would happen is you'd reach one guild's price ceiling and replace it with another guild's higher price ceiling. Prices would only come down if they exceeded what the guild with the highest price ceiling were willing and able to pay for that location while still being a sustainable weekly price. Unless you don't care about sustaining, just winning for a week. Then it becomes a competition to beat another guild by at least one gold piece.

You'd still inflate the trader cost over time. And then people would complain, rightly, that the inflation was caused by the bid transparency. Because that number wouldn't be a number to meet. It would be a number to beat, week after week.

ClockworkCityBugs · January 2018

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

@Anotherone773
tell me what to do with guild traders in cyrodiil?

????

Linaleah · January 2018

just a thought. I was with you until suggestion you made for distributing the guild trader spots. your system will make it even more impossible for the guilds to break into better location. because guess what? the better location you have, the more trading you do, so by default (and what I mean by that is EVERYTHING sells faster, and you can get away with higher prices due to sheer convenience of the location - speaking from experience of being in trade guilds everywhere from middle of nowhere, all the way up to mournhold, even the difference between mournhold and wayrest is VERY noticeable, and they are both pledge cities. I have had the same exact items at the same exact price sell within minutes in mourhold, while sitting for days in a more remote location).

the guilds that are in best locations? will continue to keep those best locations, but there will be ZERO upward mobility here for everyone. right now, occasionally guilds switch places, guilds move around, etc your system will create a foregone conclusion. best case scenario it will change absolutely nothing from how the traders are already distributed among the guilds.

I do love consignment npc's and myself and a few other people have advocated for those as a compromise to having to be in a guild to trade other then zone chat. we really do need an option for people who are occasional sporadic traders and cannot maintain consistent sales that are pretty much required if you are in a trading guild, and as a result - are more or less left out of trading all together.

Linaleah · January 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

But i honestly dont know many people in game that think the system is good.

Well, you should honestly do a bit more reasearch on how many players think the system is good.

Let me point you to the most recent Auction House thread where the majority of voters support the current guild trader system.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/391681/do-you-want-a-global-auction-house#latest

majority of voters on the forums profit far more from current system, while dealing with far less competition than they would have with a more centralized system.

after trading in an earnest for a while, I see exactly why they are holding on to this system with practically a death grip.

but that doesn't mean that current system is better for the game and its players as a whole. all it means is that people who would benefit from a different more open system are also players that don't tend to post on the gaming forums.

Girl_Number8 · January 2018

The minute it would hit wouldn't the richest just buy everything low even more so, and run the market as they do now?

Jhalin · January 2018

The guild's that sell the most are the ones in the top spots, but I can agree with some of your points. Bids should function as they currently do, theres no need to implement a strict function for something that's already happening.

The capital cities could certainly accommodate more traders, but would require some shifting around to make room. For example, Wayrest is already cluttered, but in Elden Root the new stalls could just continue down the pathway.

Smaller towns couldn't reasonably have more than three traders, unless you're just refering to non-capital zone hubs, then yeah, perhaps eight or so could fit. Personally I'm still baffled that the Redfur Trading Post has hardly any trading going on.

As for price searching and filtering, we really should just implement Awesome Guild Store into the base game UI. It's the best addon for anyone who regularly interacts with guild stores. I'd prefer if price checking could be done on a zone-by-zone basis to avoid information overload, for the player and the game's servers trying to keep all the listings updated.

Listings from non-guild traders is a bad road to get on. Just like BiS gear requires doing trials and crafting requires motifs, trading should require a trade guild. People are more than capable of selling through zone chat, and there are many successful trade guilds with very few requirements. I've yet to see a guild with more than 15k dues, and hardly any don't let you ignore those dues entirely if you high a few hundred thousand in sales per week.

Anotherone773 · January 2018

Well, you should honestly do a bit more reasearch on how many players think the system is good.

I did, in fact that thread and about a half a dozen others concerning trade were part of that research. I also talked to people in game. There is a very strong consensus( over 90%) that the current system either needs improved or changed. The problem lies in how people want it changed. That is were a lot of division takes place and people have their own ideas about how they want it changed.

1. Delaying the search defeats the purpose of having a central search.

The good deals will be hidden for long enough for the repricing consortiums to control the market, especially on PC. It needs to be a real time or near real time system that creates a race to the deals.

Actually if everything updated instantly, it leads to penny wars and undercutting. Been there, done that. Forcing people to wait at some point keeps penny wars from happening.

2. A global search will kill the necessity of trading at a trade hub. I don't see a purpose to the tier system at that point.

Don't get me wrong, the trading hubs are a manifestation of the disease that needs to be excised. I just don't see too many guilds caring that much where there trader is located at that point. Most guild traders aren't concerned with status symbols.

Well it hasnt on PC. And i use TTC. I still have to go to get the items, and trade location is still important. If your in a large city people are more likely to pay a little extra to buy from you if they are in the city then having to port elsewhere and do screen loads and port back. Though i would include a local search option or give them priority listing. I actually like the idea of local being priority listing in a search. Sort of a forced search by distance from you.

3. There should not be a difference in cost to sell goods. It's the principle underlying tariffs to eliminate competition. There should only be a non-monetary inequality between the consignment merchant and trade guilds, if at all.

Having a shop in a major city costs more than having a shop in a small town. Hired help cost more in the city, and if your a top tier trade guild you are making enough that the hire fee is chump change to you. That is currently only 1k a person for a full guild. Most guilds charge 5k-10k a person now plus the house cut.

4. There needs to be a new gold sink. For immersion sake, perhaps a weekly, progressive tribute based on the value of an account's holdings over some poverty line. ZoS might like the idea as it would encourage people to have more accounts.

Only devs( assuming they have devs that deal with economics), would know what the financial situation is and if more sinks were needed. If its determined that more gold sink is needed, you can adjust on a variety of places such as listing fee, hiring fee, charging guilds a sales tax on items sold this would be passed on to members through higher house cuts, etc. The latter would be the best way to implement a new sink. Then the amount the sink takes out of the system depends on sale prices and volume. It would be the most effective to help control inflation.

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

@Anotherone773
tell me what to do with guild traders in cyrodiil?

????

Short answer: I would get rid of them. Long answer: I would make pvp in this game a bit lot more interesting. First when you die in open world ( only) pvp you have a lootable corpse. Everything you are not wearing can be looted, even gold. Then PVE would be upgraded. Drop rates of higher end items would be increased in cyrodiil and exclusive drops only to cyrodill would be added.

End result is the best rewards in the game are in cyrodiil, IF you can get them back out alive. Those who take the greatest risks should get the greatest rewards. Thats in an ideal world, but pvers really get upset when you make pvp any more than a crappy afterthought and unfortunately they make up a majority of most games player base. So the devs rarely do more but token gestures to pvp.

but that doesn't mean that current system is better for the game and its players as a whole. all it means is that people who would benefit from a different more open system are also players that don't tend to post on the gaming forums.

Centralized trading ruins games economies, we really should stop beating this dead horse. In my 20 years of playing dozens of MMOs, i have yet to see a centralized system that isnt a complete failure and nothing but a pain for anyone but trading gurus who ruin the whole system.

The capital cities could certainly accommodate more traders, but would require some shifting around to make room. For example, Wayrest is already cluttered, but in Elden Root the new stalls could just continue down the pathway.

I would condense down the footprint for traders its ridiculous. Sure its great for immersion but terrible for practical purposes. I believe i covered that in a earlier post.

As for price searching and filtering, we really should just implement Awesome Guild Store into the base game UI.

what i dont like about aweseomeguildstore is it only hides all but relevant searches. I still have to search through pages of sometimes empty results. And page loads, even when "empty" can take a bit. I believe this is the best AGS can do with what they have to work with though. Not having to sift through pages, regardless if the items are hidden or not, would really reduce lag at least in the trade interface. and possibly overall.

Giraffon · January 2018

Acrolas wrote: »

Giraffon wrote: »

Bah!

Review this most hated thread from March of 2017. I've heard it before. My position is well represented here:

And you were incorrect there, too.

There would be no such thing as a price stabilization. What would happen is you'd reach one guild's price ceiling and replace it with another guild's higher price ceiling. Prices would only come down if they exceeded what the guild with the highest price ceiling were willing and able to pay for that location while still being a sustainable weekly price. Unless you don't care about sustaining, just winning for a week. Then it becomes a competition to beat another guild by at least one gold piece.

You'd still inflate the trader cost over time. And then people would complain, rightly, that the inflation was caused by the bid transparency. Because that number wouldn't be a number to meet. It would be a number to beat, week after week.

I don't care about a guild holding a trader week after week through a cloud of mystery. If they hold a trader week after week it should be because they were the highest bidder for that week. If the price goes up week after week, then it hasn't realized true market value under current economic conditions. In this situation ,the economic conditions are that these trade guilds have a lot of money at their disposal. What I'm proposing will force bidding wars the way they were always meant to be. Eventually the surplus gold would be consumed and prices would come down.

If you think the prices would just go up forever, consider where the gold is coming from. The gold is coming from sales of goods and guild members. I think most of the gold is coming from guild members. If the trade guild asks too much from their member base, the members may refuse to pay the increased fees and move on to a different guild that has lower fees. This in turn reduces the amount of gold the trade guild has and thus causes their max bid to be reduced. This would happen in all of the trade guilds over time. So there you go, guild trader prices would adjust to their true market value.

Wreuntzylla · January 2018

1. Delaying the search defeats the purpose of having a central search.

The good deals will be hidden for long enough for the repricing consortiums to control the market, especially on PC. It needs to be a real time or near real time system that creates a race to the deals.

Actually if everything updated instantly, it leads to penny wars and undercutting. Been there, done that. Forcing people to wait at some point keeps penny wars from happening.

I have no idea what you are saying. If your talking about competition, that's kind of the point...

2. A global search will kill the necessity of trading at a trade hub. I don't see a purpose to the tier system at that point.

Don't get me wrong, the trading hubs are a manifestation of the disease that needs to be excised. I just don't see too many guilds caring that much where there trader is located at that point. Most guild traders aren't concerned with status symbols.

Well it hasnt on PC. And i use TTC. I still have to go to get the items, and trade location is still important. If your in a large city people are more likely to pay a little extra to buy from you if they are in the city then having to port elsewhere and do screen loads and port back. Though i would include a local search option or give them priority listing. I actually like the idea of local being priority listing in a search. Sort of a forced search by distance from you.

TTC only updates when the client is active. It's also easily manipulated. Some guilds will list 10 great deals, run the executable, and then take the deals down.... I've seen the [snip] in chat when every once in a while someone buys an item before it's taken down. Others never upload the data and simply use it for themselves...

You can chase "NOW" deals all day and never catch one.... Almost no one will recommend TTC as a tool to buy cheap items, only a tool to track who sells what, where and how regularly so that the next time you are hunting for a deal you can check them first...

3. There should not be a difference in cost to sell goods. It's the principle underlying tariffs to eliminate competition. There should only be a non-monetary inequality between the consignment merchant and trade guilds, if at all.

Having a shop in a major city costs more than having a shop in a small town. Hired help cost more in the city, and if your a top tier trade guild you are making enough that the hire fee is chump change to you. That is currently only 1k a person for a full guild. Most guilds charge 5k-10k a person now plus the house cut.

I'm guessing your a trade guild officer?

On PC alone, I am in 3 trade guilds, one a hub guild. The vast majority of players in trade guilds join because they have no other avenue. Trade guilds are not collections of people with similar ideals. They are collections of people needing access to a guild trader. They suffer the repressive rules, along with the guild cut, auctions, and other mechanisms to raise money because they don't have a choice. They have a different guild that holds their friends, usually less than 100 let alone 500, and could never get a hub spot. You make little money unless at a hub, or cut your prices dramatically below the going rate. So you suck it up and serve your hubmaster.

There is more to say here but its sufficient to say that aside from the officers, and a small collection of their friends, nobody really knows or interacts much with anyone else in a hub trade guild. Many people actively avoid avoid interacting with the people that populate the guild or hide from them by showing as offline. A housing guild I am in that has maybe 30 people online at any one time lights up the guild chat 10x what the 500 people in my hub guilds generate.

A central search function removes the choke hold the hub guild leadership has on the hubs. It's not traveling to buy that's the problem, its traveling to search without ever knowing if a reasonable price actually exists and whether you'll spend two hours searching for nothing. If the item isn't very rare, you quickly figure out you can usually find a deal, but in the time it takes you to find it, you walk away with more money buying at the hub because the 30min it took to find the deal represents gold - gold they can get doing what they actually like to do rather than trader hopping.

For that reason, a central search function renders hubs irrelevant. The guild you are in with your friends is perfect now that everyone can see your deal and just come get it. Why on earth would anyone stay and continue to make guild leadership fabulously wealthy, and stay in a guild of people they either don't know or don't like, when hubs no longer matter? The major trade guilds will implode. Without a 500 player base, they can no longer afford to pay prime spot prices, even if it still mattered.

That's the way hub trade guilds are pretty much on every platform. They are a tool, nothing more. When the tool no longer works, people will leave.

4. There needs to be a new gold sink. For immersion sake, perhaps a weekly, progressive tribute based on the value of an account's holdings over some poverty line. ZoS might like the idea as it would encourage people to have more accounts.

Only devs( assuming they have devs that deal with economics), would know what the financial situation is and if more sinks were needed. If its determined that more gold sink is needed, you can adjust on a variety of places such as listing fee, hiring fee, charging guilds a sales tax on items sold this would be passed on to members through higher house cuts, etc. The latter would be the best way to implement a new sink. Then the amount the sink takes out of the system depends on sale prices and volume. It would be the most effective to help control inflation.

I'm making a prediction not assessing the current situation. Remove the drive to spend millions on a guild trader, gold sink weakens dramatically. Not rocket science.

Disclaimer: I have the good fortune for a variety of reasons to pick my trade guilds and the ones I am in are not bad like the ones I describe. I have left some of those guilds and the guilds I am in, including the hub guilds, are essentially a few refuges for people who don't want to support the chokehold guild leadership. Some of the stories I have heard from people that have never told an untruth are amazing in their terribleness. In some cases it led to the demise of the guild it was so bad. I wanted to immediately join some of these guilds just for the entertainment value of virtual dictatorships.

[Edited to remove profanity]

code65536 · January 2018

Problem 1: There is no "shortage" of kiosks.

This is pretty evident by looking at the number of kiosks that are taken up each week by guilds that aren't trading guilds and don't really have anything to sell. Yes, there are big trading guilds that lose bids each week, and that often results in them being homeless for that week. But that's not due to a shortage of kiosks. That's just a side effect of how the bidding system works. You can bid on just one spot. If you lose that bid, your only opportunity at a second chance is hoping for a spot that is unbid and hoping to win a game of who-can-click-the-fastest to pick up a hire. A rich guild can't bid on Wayrest and then place a backup bid for Shornhelm, for example.

So while there are plenty of spots in the system overall, there's only a limited number of "prime" spots that top guilds jostle over.

Problem 2: Shopping convenience is what makes a spot valuable.

I think a good example of this would be looking at Craglorn on PC/NA vs. PC/EU. Right now, on NA, Rawl'kha is regarded as the best hub. On EU, it's Craglorn. Back in 2015, when Orsinium launched, the top Crag guild on NA at the time moved to Orsinium. A guild's ability to draw traffic to a location is just as important--if not more so--than a location's ability to drive traffic to a guild. What resulted from that was Craglorn turning into a third-tier location on NA. Craglorn didn't revive until One Tamriel, but even after that, it's still not as strong of a location as Rawl, Mournhold, or even Wayrest. But on EU, the major Crag guilds stayed put, and Crag has always remained strong.

It's not the city that makes a trader hub. It's the guilds. Most people want to minimize the amount of time spent shopping. "Shopping around" is not something that most people do. So if you have a strong guild in a city, people will go there. That traffic will then encourage other guilds to go there, which drives even more shopping traffic. It's why Craglorn went bust on NA, because it lost its anchor guild in 2015. It's why Vivec never caught on despite its fantastic location--not because of the chapter (people who have the kind of gold to spend in this game probably all have the chapter)--but because the major guilds decided against relocating to Vivec.

This is a long-winded way of saying that prime spots don't magically materialize because you make a big hub. Vivec fizzled. Orsinium is now a hangout for non-trade guilds. There are a lot of 5-trader hubs that look great on paper--Stormhold, Riften, Shadowfen--that are pretty quiet. And as such, going back to Problem 1 above, there will always be a limited number of prime spots because it's the concentration of a small number of extremely-active guilds (specifically, guilds that enforce that activity with selling quotas and harsh inactivity policies) that makes a spot a prime spot.

Again, there is no kiosk shortage. Just guilds that jostle over a small subset of the kiosks--a subset that is necessarily small.

Problem 3: High bid costs are not a problem. They are the symptoms of--and solution to--the problem of the game's gold balance.

ESO has a lot of gold faucets. Some are really big spigots of gold. And few gold sinks. Most of the biggest gold sinks are one-time sinks. Once I've maxed my bank and bought my manor, I'll never be spending those millions again, yet the income is steady and constant and doesn't stop.

The guild trader bid system is one of the game's biggest gold sinks, and it soaks up a lot. Why are bids high? It's not because of a shortage of traders. It's because a guild's would-be competitors can afford to bid that high. And why can a guild bid that high? Because its members are so flushed with gold that a weekly 20K contribution to the guild seems normal. As someone who started getting into the trade guild system back in 2015, I remember the days when some top guilds could cover their bids with just taxes. I remember the days when a 1-2K contribution each week seemed generous. I also remember that back in those days, the most expensive thing you could buy was an Imperial motif costing around 50K. Now there are motifs where individual chapters sell for 50K.

The bidding system is the only gold sink in the game that naturally and automatically scales up in size as the amount of gold sloshing around the game increases. High bid costs? Not a problem! It just means that the system is working as intended. Of course, we trade guild GMs don't like being the ones doing ZOS's dirty work of collecting gold to flush down the gold sink. And it would be great if the game had better, more effective gold sinks (particularly ones that aren't once-and-done) so that this burden doesn't fall onto the trade guild system. But that's a separate discussion.

So letting a guild get a spot for the hire cost just because they did well is absurd, since it defeats the purpose of this gold sink. And, again, this goes back to my first point: There is no trader shortage--ridiculous bids are the result of a ridiculous gold surplus.

Solutions:

So how do we encourage the use of all those under-utilized spots? How do we get guilds to spread out more instead of balling up like a bunch of Cyrodiil zerglings? Global search. I agree with that idea and support it. Global search already exists on PC via TTC, but baking it in-game would mean more people using it. Still need to visit the trader to buy, so guilds still have some incentive to seek out a convenient location.

I also want the tax rate to be adjustable. Right now, sellers lose 8% of each sale. 1% goes to the listing fee (gold sink), 7% to the "house cut", but only half of that (3.5%) goes to the guild. The other 3.5% disappears into a gold sink. The 3.5% that goes to the guild, however, is not adjustable.

So let's say you have a Wayrest guild making 30M in sales, and you bid 3M weekly. At 3.5%, you take in about 1M in taxes and have about 2M that you need to make with fundraising activities. It would be much easier if guilds can just set the rate to what it needs to be. No more raffles, no more begging. And it would relieve so much stress from the people running the guilds. This hypothetical guild could just set the tax rate to 10% and be done. More casual guilds could go with lower rates and bid on out-of-the-way places, and competitive guilds could set high rates and try to get more shopper-friendly spots.

I also like the idea of a consignment trader with a high fixed tax rate. Gives selling access to more casual players.

Really, that's about all that needs to change. You don't need a dozen traders in a location. Or ridiculous tiers and tier requirements--just solving the problem of guilds "balling up" via a global search will render most of those things moot and irrelevant.

Korah_Eaglecry · January 2018

I actually prefer that Guild Traders be consolidated in Capital Cities. Maybe even make it so the top 10 bids on the Trader are awarded the Trader. Mournhold alone could host 70 Trade Guilds with the current Guild Trader layout. This would continue to provide a gold sink, keep up the competitiveness of Guild Traders while reducing the travel time of customers as well as bulk up the offerings at said Traders.

No more going out in the middle of no where for that one Guild Trader that on rare occasion has something decent to offer. No more hopping city to city for something that might not be there. Three jumps and youll know if whatever youre looking for is on the market or not.

preevious · January 2018

Well, they are generally good ideas. Maybe a bit complicated, but actually well thought out.

I would however be against that revamp.
When I first saw the system as it is now, I was quite disappointed. I was used to have a global AH, and having a constellation of independent traders scatered around the game world seemed like a weird idea, at best.

But actually, I grew quite fond of the system, and I would be quite sad if we got a global search.
-It add to immersion
-It gives trade guilds something to strive for (a good spot !).
-It gives a steady source of income for the trader patient enough to cycle trough the traders to spot the good deals and sell them back at a better spot for a higher price.

For finding a rare item, not susceptible to be everywhere quickly, there's a famous internet site, for that ^^

In my opinion, what the current system needs in a revamp in the search window of traders. Right now, we need add-ons to make it more usable.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · January 2018

this thread is so like "Can I get a glass of water without water but full of water?"

RavenSworn · January 2018

I'd say using what you suggested for consignment traders and expand on it a little bit.

How about like a moving bazaar or the Merchant's guild trade fair and move it through each zone on a weekly basis? Limit each player (via in game ID rather than char ID) to 10 sales within the traders in the bazaar? Gives good immersion of a living, breathing world and provides those without a trader guild to sell their stuff.

DoctorESO · January 2018

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agegarton · January 2018

Great ideas - if only all forum posts were as constructive!

Anotherone773 · January 2018

I have no idea what you are saying. If your talking about competition, that's kind of the point...

The purpose of the search is to cut the hours of sifting in the hopes you might find what you are looking for at a reasonable price. The purpose of the delay is to keep people from constantly instantly adjusting their prices based on the prices they see right now. That is what leads to penny wars.

TTC only updates when the client is active. It's also easily manipulated.

I use TTC to find specific items i want. If a store does not have the item i want or at the price i like , i move on to the next store. So this sort of manipulation seems pointless. If i get in the habit of going to your store and you never have what i went there at the price i was expecting, Ill just start ignoring you as a waste of time. Im not going to just buy things because im at your store. So i dont really see this as a problem unless someone is a terrible impulse shopper.

I'm guessing your a trade guild officer?

No and if this were true , you would of seen an impact as TTC became more popular. But with my system, that person in this thread that NEEDS more guild slots so they can stay in 5 guilds wouldnt need 5 trade guilds. Could have 2 or 3 high volume guilds for the good stuff and social/raid/pvp guilds that nab traders for lower end items. Still get all the slots but now you dont need a 400 person plus guild with fees just to be able to sell stuff to non guildies.

I'm making a prediction not assessing the current situation. Remove the drive to spend millions on a guild trader, gold sink weakens dramatically. Not rocket science.

This is false truth. It is my understanding that bids that do not win are refunded. It is also my understanding that the hire fee is 10k gold for an available trader after auction. Under the current system the money sink comes mostly from high demand pushing up bids.

In my system, the sink comes from the following:
* Consignment trader with a 5% list fee and20%- 25% house cut is 25%-30% to the money sink.(NOTE: The listing fee and house cut may need adjusted to get the desired effect.) That is pretty steep, but its centralized on the alliance and everyone who can get to the trader can list 10 items. In theory it should be the Walmart of Tamriel. The volume moved would likely cover the entire current trade system money sink now.

* Then, i have more spots, something like 350-500, possibly more in my system. So now its not just a bunch of trade guilds trying to get top spots. With a central search the need to go to a place that has the most traders to increase your chance of finding what you want goes away. So now spots become viable that normally arent. With more traders available, i no longer have to wait for slots in my trade guild(s) to free up. Now my social guild can nab a cheap spot to offload some of our extra inventory. That 100 man guild now becomes a viable option to do trading in. So you have more listings which means more listing fees and more guilds hiring traders.

* Lets talk about hiring traders - my traders are more expensive to hire outright. Guilds filling these traders at hire fees will likely out pace the current bid system money sink alone.

* If they need more of a money sink. The devs can always increase their listing fee sink or their "house cut" portion.

I also want the tax rate to be adjustable.

I think it should be adjustable too up to a certain amount say 25%

It's not the city that makes a trader hub. It's the guilds.

Thats true look at Skyreach, they have 5 or 6 traders and barely any traffic. How this plays in my into my system is that all of the capitals are T5 Cities. Which means your biggest traders will be in one of these cities. There might be 10 in one city and only 3 in another. But if they are in a capital, they are there because they do a high volume of sales. Whereas guilds in T2 locations do a marginal amount sales. The end result is if your look for that elusive motif or other high end items, your best chance of finding one is going to probably be in a capital or large city( T4). But if your looking for that green recipe that the chef npc wants 800 gold for to do a writ or a stack of 100 sanded yew to work on your crafting, a T1 or T2 trader is probably going to have a far better deal for you.

In my opinion, what the current system needs in a revamp in the search window of traders. Right now, we need add-ons to make it more usable.

Your looking for Awesomeguildstore add-on. And the fact that we NEED add-ons means the system fails. We should need add-ons for things like DPS, remembering the location of resources, etc. not to make the basic game functional. There is a fine line between immersion and practicality. Immersion is great, but practicality is what keeps people logging in and the coffers full.