Request for More Much-Needed Trade Guild Vendors

mythlover20 · July 2018

As I'm sure every single trade guild officer can tell you, the current vendor market is beyond volatile. Prices to hire vendors are at least double what a guild will earn through their chosen vendor.

What's worse is that most big guilds are creating subsidiaries entitled [Guild Name] 1, [Guild Name] 2, [Guild Name] 3, [Guild Name] 4, and [Guild Name] 5, taking all the available spots, and using all the profits from all their subsidiaries to fund each other, subsequently driving up the price even more.

Trade guild officers are having to resort to unsavory means such as gold buying to fund their bids. Even then very few of them are able to offer their members a stable trader. Every week the bids go up several hundred thousand, and it is quickly becoming impossible for even established guilds who have been around since launch to stay in business.

ZOS, the current system is breaking. You need to add two or three new vendors per zone. There are too many players for the number of guilds there are currently, and there are far too few vendors to service those guilds. We need more. The players know we need more. YOU know we need more. The small handful added by Summerset were not enough, thanks to those subsidiary guilds.

PLEASE just do this already. If you want more players you have to make it easier for us to play, not harder.

This is the trade off for not having a world auction house: you need to provide enough vendors to support everyone. It would be a much more effective gold sink than driving up the bids for the few traders there are now.

Also, when we find a trader who hasn't been bid on, actually being able to hire them would be useful. The Windhelm Outlaw Den vendor bugged out this week: saying this trader had already been hired, without there being a guild store to shop in.

[Edit to remove mention of petition]

idk · July 2018

^^^ that petitions are not permitted in the forums.

Also, Zos has added vendors every 3 months. The most desirable locations will always be the most volatile. That it how supply and demand works. Guilds that cannot hang get pushed out and settle for a slightly less desirable location that works for them. If not they get headaches.

Considering I am in a couple non trade guilds that often get a guild trader it seems there is not an over abundance.

Thx Antonio for helping OP out.

generalmyrick · July 2018

Heck yes! More guild vendors!

I say put them all over the map...add one per zone in small towns or villages that dont have one.

So many possibilities here!

Im excited to hear all the great ideas!

VaranisArano · July 2018

Is this happening on a particular platform/region, or all of them?

On PC/NA, I know bids have gone up but the established trading guilds seem to be pretty consistently able to keep their trader slots (and I doubt that gold selling is the reason).

freespirit · July 2018

I'm concerned you think Guilds are buying gold to secure their trade slot....

Do you have proof??

Tbh most guilds imo opinion have access to plenty of gold without buying it illegally!

It takes time to build a top trade guild...… a long time!

It sounds like you are just starting out and that is hard...….. Good Luck though.

Armatesz · July 2018

freespirit wrote: »

I'm concerned you think Guilds are buying gold to secure their trade slot....

Do you have proof??

Tbh most guilds imo opinion have access to plenty of gold without buying it illegally!

It takes time to build a top trade guild...… a long time!

It sounds like you are just starting out and that is hard...….. Good Luck though.

Xbox na I was with some groups and someone was asking to sell crowns for gold and from the info I could piece together from them they want it to secure their guild trader spot, their defense is because of people that are using alt guilds to get the spot for cheap and keep tons of money to always have their spot.

On a side note on xbox na I have seen botters take over a top spot in deshaan's main city, which is one of the most popular cities for guild traders. Also seen them countless times take the outlaw refuge there.

Goratesque · July 2018

I've seen a lot of threads like this. But I don't think the "solution" would be adding more guild traders per zones. The "real solution" would be a completely new trading system for guilds. Star Wars: The Old Republic is also using Hero Engine as well as ESO and they have something called "Galactic Trade Network".

My idea is adapting that GTN system (a.k.a. auction house) from SWTOR, name it: The Gold Coast Trading Company and put their trading caravans in every major cities of each zone. They already have a reputation throughout Tamriel in 2nd Era and the player guilds who has more than 50 players can pay them a fixed fee per week.

Unlike the player bids, those fees can be set by ZOS on each location for reasonable prices and more than one guild can hire a trader. Those weekly fees may span from 50k to 1m per week. Let's say a new DLC or expansion zone has released: ZOS will decrease the prices of previous DLC zones to non-DLC alliance zones slightly per update and the new zone will have the most expensive fee of 1m. Guildmasters can also choose to hire more than one traders to sell their items at more than one spot and they can hire them anytime they want for a decreased price because of remaining days of the week. This will give GTN from SWTOR a much more complex and reworked system as auction house.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

kargen27 · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

Some players will be happier some will leave the game. I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place. Don't assume because you do not like a particular feature nobody else likes it either.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

Some players will be happier some will leave the game. I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place. Don't assume because you do not like a particular feature nobody else likes it either.

FYI, they can do the same thing in other games with a global auction house just as well, in fact it is easier. The flippers love global auction houses because they can see everything quicker and flip it faster for a faster profit also since they don't have to determine which trader is the best, without worry of losing that trader also.
They will love it.

Also, addons pretty much have created a global auction house now that everyone can easily find out where the cheapest item is on Tamriel Trade Centre.

zaria · July 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Is this happening on a particular platform/region, or all of them?

On PC/NA, I know bids have gone up but the established trading guilds seem to be pretty consistently able to keep their trader slots (and I doubt that gold selling is the reason).

Same on PC EU. Has been outbid twice in our Rawl slot, both by some who did not have much to sell. Laset was an trade guild I have seen before but was now an shell. Probably trying to sell slot back with profit but told to have sex with last boss in CoS or similar.
In another guild who is not really an serious trade guild, but has had trader in Orsinium for an time now and doing business.

Beamer_Miasma · July 2018

There are around 150 traders in the world (back of a napkin calculation, 21 full zones, 7 traders per zone, say plus or minus 10), times 500 is enough for 75K players. I know people like to think ESO has millions of players but based on received awards and some creative guestimating it is likely to be under 100K weekly players per server. On PC EU I'm in 2 guilds that have a stable trader but don't have a full guild roster (as well as 2 top trading guilds that do have 490+ members at all times).

I imagine it is hard to break into the market with a new guild, not only do you have to come up with the money to get your trader, you'll then have to defend it against the guild you outbid and they're probably not going to give up that easy. But to say that there aren't enough spots to accommodate everyone, the math just doesn't add up. And the system is certainly not 'breaking', that's just unnecessary hyperbole.

BTW, for those on PC servers, there is an addon that provides global auction house functionality, it's working quite well, and I seem to be the only user on it that has more than a few K to spend. I could buy up the entire stock on offer with just the change I have in my pocket, and most of that is horribly overpriced. This doesn't make a very good case for the need for a global auction house, when one actually exists and nobody can be bothered to use it.

blnchk · July 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place.

That must be why PC has a gazillion "must-have" addons to improve upon the current system. Because it's such great fun.

Salvas_Aren · July 2018

Keep the number of guild traders low, so all the bot gold will be removed from the economy. Zeni prefers band aids over cures.

I guess taking no action is cheaper and bears a lesser risk of getting sued than wrong action.

idk · July 2018

mythlover20 wrote: »

Trade guild officers are having to resort to unsavory means such as gold buying to fund their bids.

I would think making an outlandish claim such as this would require some shred of proof.

It is so easy to make outlandish claims like this or lean heavily on overly generalized statements without anything to support it.

Making false claims as justification why your guild cannot compete is sad.

StrangeForce001 · July 2018

Instead of new traders, why not expand by having more guilds listed in each trader?

When you go to buy something from a trader, a window opens up with the guild that won the bid. Maybe we can have multiple guilds in this list for those who have the second or third highest bid. Seems like ZOS already has the coding in place to do just that.

static_recharge · July 2018

It's not only "trade" guilds that get hurt from the current prices and constant inflation of guild traders. Casual / social guilds sometimes like to offer a trader to their members, especially if they are fairly large guilds. The process has gotten so out of control that trade guilds are now moving into the cheaper more remote traders to secure a spot. This pushes the little guys or non-trade guilds out because they can no longer compete with bids.

This system of blind bids with limited traders is really flawed and really punishes everyone. The little guys can't compete and the big guys have constantly inflating process to compete with. Pretty soon all of their member's gold will be going to keep the trader afloat and not into their pockets. What's the point if there's no profit?

I like the idea of having an NPC to call your own as a guild, I just think they should be more accessible to everyone.

DeadlyRecluse · July 2018

So, I actually think there are "enough" trade guild vendors--the real issue is that 90 percent of them are worthless.

Random vendors in the countryside, non-capital vendors, vendors in outlaws refuges, vendors in older DLC zones, etc. just don't really "count."

I don't know if there's a good solution to that.

Carbonised · July 2018

People who say there is no problem with the current 40-50M weekly trade bids, clearly do not know what they are talking about, just ask any guildmaster of the major trade guilds on PC EU.

More traders doesn't alleviate the main problem, besides, only 10 % or so of the actual trade spots are viable, the rest are pretty much a death sentence.

Ideally, ZOS would overhaul the trade system entirely, doesn't make sense that trade guilds should be forced to pay significantly more than their weekly trade taxes on trade spots. Where does ZOS think the gold is coming from? And when the competitors is clearly getting their gold by illicit means, the competition isn't exactly fair either.

xilfxlegion · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

please not this crap again.

we had almost two hole weeks without people whining about an auction house that is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

GET OVER IT.

runagate · July 2018

@ZOS_AntonioP wrote:

[Edit to remove mention of petition]

Except that in doing so you yourself have made a "mention of petition". I may name a character that.

I'm an officer in a tradeguild that has had a trader in Belkarth (and only this one trader) just about forever and frankly I'd be happy if the traders were simply removed altogether and we never had to think about them again. Maybe then we could actually play the game.

Lord_Archaic · July 2018

Honestly.....ESO would be better off with some sort of centralized trading post or auction house style system, Much like what Runescape or Final Fantasy XIV has, it would completely eliminate these idiotic councils of trade guilds......on X1NA, Meta, Sauce, Finest, Lunacy....and a numbers of others get together and discuss what they're bidding on traders, pass out traders to others, discuss what prices they want to set in the market, you name it......What they need is as I described earlier, a centralized market house or something along those lines to prevent some cabal that has billions of gold between them from controlling the market.....and make no mistake, control the market they do.....that's why everything costs some god damn much on xbox, it's a small group of people decide the price of everything in the game.....

kargen27 · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

Some players will be happier some will leave the game. I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place. Don't assume because you do not like a particular feature nobody else likes it either.

FYI, they can do the same thing in other games with a global auction house just as well, in fact it is easier. The flippers love global auction houses because they can see everything quicker and flip it faster for a faster profit also since they don't have to determine which trader is the best, without worry of losing that trader also.
They will love it.

Also, addons pretty much have created a global auction house now that everyone can easily find out where the cheapest item is on Tamriel Trade Centre.

No they really can't. You see if everything is in one place there is no need to go out hunting. Flipping comes down to who is online when the bargain is posted and nothing else. That lends itself to two or three people being able to monopolize the market on rare drops just by taking shifts sitting on the auction house. As you have just admitted it is easy to do.

I would like to see a watered down version of TTC in the game. Maybe a place in each zone that allows you to search the traders in that zone but doesn't provide the prices. That way you can see what a trader may have but still have to visit a few if you are bargain hunting.

Even better would be an intuitive search inside the guild trader menu that allows searching that particular vendors items when you visit. The system does need work but global is not the answer. Takes just a minute or two reading user forums for other MMOs to know that.

kwisatz · July 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

Some players will be happier some will leave the game. I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place. Don't assume because you do not like a particular feature nobody else likes it either.

Just my case. I don't want any auction house. I like the current system. I'm no top trader, no big fortune, but I really have fun selling and buying and looking for that good bargain in some remote little town...
WoW has that, SWTOR does this, FF...

Proof that there is plenty of games out there that meet your tastes.
Please stop wanting this game to be a clone of others and doing so ruining it to those wo love it as it is.

Lord_Archaic · July 2018

@kargen27 A global system would be better, it would determine prices based on supply and demand. If they implemented something like what Runescape uses, it pools all the items together and based on the supply and demand of an item, it predetermines the price of it in the exchange. That would be a true economy then, what is in place now is of no use to anyone. Back when ESO dropped on xbox(don't know about ps4), they had a gold farm exploit where you could kill a person over and it would instantly respawn dropping fence items that you could sell, things that people would log onto multiple characters just to sell and make gold off. That went on for about a year before it was fixed. That one little exploit got them hundreds of millions of gold, and when you get people with that kind of money all together running the economy, that got them the money to start their trade guild cabal empire. PC never had that issue with a gold farm because ZoS had a better eye on PC. which is why pc has better prices, a debatable better trader economy, not to mention people using the same add ons when it comes to trade and market pricing.

Going back to the trade house.....If every item in the system is pooled together, you don't know who you're gold or items comes from, it becomes completely autonomous to the point of obscurity. You can just search for an item you want, buy it, and be on your merry way.

Sure, there is and will be market bombing when new items are released, but eventually the prices of said items will level out with time.

Shaie · July 2018

CradonWar wrote: »

I've seen a lot of threads like this. But I don't think the "solution" would be adding more guild traders per zones. The "real solution" would be a completely new trading system for guilds. Star Wars: The Old Republic is also using Hero Engine as well as ESO and they have something called "Galactic Trade Network".

My idea is adapting that GTN system (a.k.a. auction house) from SWTOR, name it: The Gold Coast Trading Company and put their trading caravans in every major cities of each zone. They already have a reputation throughout Tamriel in 2nd Era and the player guilds who has more than 50 players can pay them a fixed fee per week.

Unlike the player bids, those fees can be set by ZOS on each location for reasonable prices and more than one guild can hire a trader. Those weekly fees may span from 50k to 1m per week. Let's say a new DLC or expansion zone has released: ZOS will decrease the prices of previous DLC zones to non-DLC alliance zones slightly per update and the new zone will have the most expensive fee of 1m. Guildmasters can also choose to hire more than one traders to sell their items at more than one spot and they can hire them anytime they want for a decreased price because of remaining days of the week. This will give GTN from SWTOR a much more complex and reworked system as auction house.

I think THIS is an awesome idea! Please consider it, ZOS!

kargen27 · July 2018

I disagree. A listing in one place means three people can monopolize rare items easily. It is a problem in other game that have a central market system. These three people are not going to care who they are buying from or who they are selling to so the anonymity doesn't come into play.

Predetermined price takes away a part of the game that a lot of players really enjoy. The system we have in ESO allows for players that want to flip items the ability to do that like no auction house could. It allows players to shop for bargains and allows players who do not care about price to just grab what then need and go. Admittedly an intuitive search in the guild trader menu would streamline the process without having an affect on game play.

An unintended exploit in the game isn't a reason to scrap one of the main features of the game.

madchuska83 · July 2018

Roaming guild traders. Bid by Zone. 5 per Zone. Find them walking the main roads like the merchants you see now.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

xilfxlegion wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

we had almost two hole weeks without people whining about an auction house that is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

Never say never or you will be eating those words someday.
It will be inevitable before the game ends as part of the method to try to prolong the inevitable.

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Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Just ZOS, wake up and smell the dungheaps. Give us a universal auction house already so that anybody can trade, even the guild-less newbies. You'll see the benefits in player morale very quickly.

Some players will be happier some will leave the game. I know a lot of players that think the best and most fun part of the game is buying/selling with the system that is in place. Don't assume because you do not like a particular feature nobody else likes it either.

FYI, they can do the same thing in other games with a global auction house just as well, in fact it is easier. The flippers love global auction houses because they can see everything quicker and flip it faster for a faster profit also since they don't have to determine which trader is the best, without worry of losing that trader also.
They will love it.

Also, addons pretty much have created a global auction house now that everyone can easily find out where the cheapest item is on Tamriel Trade Centre.

No they really can't. You see if everything is in one place there is no need to go out hunting. Flipping comes down to who is online when the bargain is posted and nothing else. That lends itself to two or three people being able to monopolize the market on rare drops just by taking shifts sitting on the auction house. As you have just admitted it is easy to do.

I would like to see a watered down version of TTC in the game. Maybe a place in each zone that allows you to search the traders in that zone but doesn't provide the prices. That way you can see what a trader may have but still have to visit a few if you are bargain hunting.

Even better would be an intuitive search inside the guild trader menu that allows searching that particular vendors items when you visit. The system does need work but global is not the answer. Takes just a minute or two reading user forums for other MMOs to know that.

1) All the problems everyone says a global auction house would cause are already in this game and actually worse with the current trader system.

2) There are other problems with the current system that would be solved by a global auction house.
For example, guild-less players and guilds that don't get a trader cannot sell currently, which is unfair. That makes the rich richer and the poor poorer as they can only buy. Another example is the fact that the prices are inflated on items that aren't even flipped because people are too lazy to check anywhere else for prices and just go with the most convenient traders, benefiting the richest guild that bid for that trader and won it.

Seriously, it would be nothing but good to have a global auction house.
You claim it would drive down prices but it wouldn't. The prices would still be flipped higher or lower because they're too common an item anyway. It would just eliminate the "monopolies" created by convenient trader locations.
Aren't monopolies bad for a healthy economy and yet here you are arguing for them to continue?

rumple9 · July 2018

We don't need more guild vendors, we need 60+ selling slots and the ability to join more (10?) Guilds