Happy (belated) Birthday, Guild Kiosks!

sirinsidiator · August 2018

The guild trader system was introduced shortly after launch in 2014, on August 4th for the NA Megaserver and on the 5th for EU players. The intention was to give trading guilds a way to sell their wares to players outside of the guild. While some players would have preferred a global auction house, I like the decentralized kiosk system for many reasons and feel it is a good fit for ESO, but that's a different topic.

For those not in the know, guilds can choose one out of currently 204 trader NPCs all over Tamriel and place a blind bid. Every week at a specific time, the bidding is closed and the guild that placed the highest bid will "own" the trader for the following week. In case a guild lost their bid, they can look for other traders that no guild bid on and hire it directly on a first comes basis, but usually it takes only a few minutes until all free traders are taken.

This worked okay for a long time, however over the past year it feels like the system is spinning out of control more and more. The Imperial Trading Company (which I currently have the honor of being the guild master of) was founded between the last beta weekend and early access in 2014 and has been around ever since. It's a casual trading guild and we don't ask our members for weekly fees or minimum sales like the more serious trading guilds do. For years we have been able to sustain our trader solely from taxes and donations, but the way things are looking right now, this won't be possible anymore in the foreseeable future.

We started to write down numbers almost three years ago and when you look at this graph it should become apparent that something is happening:

So what exactly is happening?

Since the introduction of Homestead in February 2017 there have been increasingly more players and trading guilds around, but we have gotten only 33 new kiosks. With it we also have seen a huge increase in sales (almost double), which means there is also more gold circulating. Coincidentally I have also been keeping track of guilds on the EU server since around that time and to date I have seen around 700 different guilds that have hired a trader.

That's 6 new guilds on average per week, but most of them also disappear again shortly after that.

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

Overall it lately feels the bidding system is becoming too random for a casual trading guild to stay in business consistently and the backup hiring system is entirely up to chance and how fast someone can mash buttons. Therefore I would like to kindly ask ZOS to look into the current state of the kiosk system and reevaluate how acquiring a trader works.

Some points that I feel are important:

The system should not be a gamble. The blind bidding is too random, which is frustrating for everyone involved and IMO doesn't suite the trading theme.
An established trading guild should be able to sustain a trader without having to go out of its way to find other sources of income aside from taxes through trading.
There should be some sort of feeling of accomplishment for the guild as a whole when they manage to own a trader.
Small and new guilds should not be able to keep large, well-known trading guilds away from the public.

Some ideas that came up when I talked to other GMs and officers about that topic:

Allow large guilds to bid in more than one spot if they have enough gold. Only the winning bid is kept and the other bids get refunded. While not ideal in any way, it would at least take some pressure out of the blind bids and allow guilds to keep a kiosk more consistently.

Let a dynamic number of guilds stay in one location. Similar to how one can access all joined guilds from the interface, customers would just be able to access all guilds in that location from any NPC there. This would allow for easy adjustment of how many kiosks are available in response to new players, without the need for new zones.

Don't let guilds bid on a trader when they have below x items on sale or are newer than x days, or at least not in a prime location (cities). Whenever a large guild with many thousand listings gets outbid, it is bad for the hundreds of players in that guild who cannot sell much in that week and also bad for customers, because these small guilds usually don't have many items for sale. Basically a loose-loose situation for the community as a whole.

Give all 7% of the taxes to the guild bank. It's a gold sink either way and would make it easier for established guilds to keep their spot.

Add some kind of guild progression system with different "skill lines"

trading -> levels through sales
adventuring -> levels through doing PvE content
war mongering -> levels through PvP content

This unlocks perks for the guilds and gives them a sense of accomplishment when all members have to work towards a shared goal. Trading guilds could for example receive the ability to hire multiple kiosks, access to hire in cities (which would be locked for new guilds), a way to freely adjust taxes, extra slots for selling items. There are lots of possibilities.

Give players an easy way to join existing trading guilds. That would hopefully curb the amount of new trading guilds that fade away almost instantly anyways.

TL;DR: There is too much gold and guilds for the current kiosk system and with crown to gold exchange it is turning pay to win

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

Tasear · August 2018

I personally would like to see more guild system updates? Maybe there's so many trade guilds because they aren't inspired for anything else?

idk · August 2018

The guild traders you speak of was the second attempt to give guilds a means to sell their wares.

The initial design was had guild traders but only at Cyrodiil keeps. There was an issue plus it proved to be to limiting. They were shut down and the system we have now was added as OP mentions.

It was a short time later Zos brought back the Cyrodiil guild traders.

Ixtyr · August 2018

I disagree with you regarding any sort of system that makes trader retention easier. The whole point of the system is to allow competition. If you make it more difficult to go from Mourn to Rawl, that actually allows rich GMs to get richer, rather than have rich GMs manage their gold to sustain their guild.

Don't make it easier for the established to stay established. As painful as it is to close a guild or fail (believe me, I've had several guilds fail since launch), sometimes there needs to be casualties. If I start a guild, know what I'm doing, surround myself with a good strong team and manage my guild significantly better than you, and I want your spot, I should be able to take it. If you let established guilds put backup bids everywhere, suddenly mid tier guilds get bumped more often due to high tier guilds getting hit. High tier guilds and mid tier guilds all get hit more because there's less risk. Bids will be driven up further and further, which just exacerbates the issue of outlier kiosks suddenly going for millions when they're worth only a few thousand in tax potential.

Everyone and their mother thinks they can run a trade guild now. That's a good sign, as it means competition is up. It's up because unlike in 2015, the game has a rapidly growing and retainable playerbase. Bids in 2015 were cheap cuz there wasnt anyone around to stir the pot.

With all due respect to you and your guild, as I know this next comment may sound harsh - if you're no longer able or willing to do the additional work to maintain your guild's kiosk location, and someone else is, the point of the entire system is to say "well, screw you then. They want it more, they're going to earn it, they should have it." I personally prefer it that way, rather than a system that makes it even easier to establish a static oligopoly to protect the first movers purely based on tenure.

---

That said, 100% agree on the Gifting ***. I'm spending a lot of cash selling crowns to fund bid wars for both of my guilds right now and it sucks. But if I don't, I know I have some GMs who don't like me. And they're doing the same thing. Previously I could count on knowing I just out-managed them, out-worked them, out-fundraised them, and had a stronger guild. That's not enough now. I need that, plus cash, to stay on top. And that, frankly, is *** *** and ZOS should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for reversing their stance with regards to the TOS and being able to buy/sell.

And, for what it's worth, I also want a guild leveling system and more guild tools and functionality just in general. So, agree there as well.

idk wrote: »

The guild traders you speak of was the second attempt to give guilds a means to sell their wares.

The initial design was had guild traders but only at Cyrodiil keeps. There was an issue plus it proved to be to limiting. They were shut down and the system we have now was added as OP mentions.

It was a short time later Zos brought back the Cyrodiil guild traders.

The trader system was planned since beta, it just wasn't ready for launch. The plan was never to only have Keeps as the sole option for sales.

Acrolas · August 2018

Three of my top five sales weeks were when the guild lost its trader.

Join or create a guild, have a solid inventory of desired items, and use responsive pricing. You don't need kiosk traffic. You don't need to spam multicolor garbage in zone like we're reliving Internet Relay Chat. If you have well-developed sales skills, 100 potential customers is more than enough. Many guilds recognize the strength of internal sales which is why they weight buying from your own guild the same as selling to anyone out there.

No need to overcomplicate the system. The real problem is that many small guilds give up after a few weeks instead of persevering and creating a population to sustain themselves without a kiosk. And then some of those members float over to other guilds and wonder why their 30 horribly overpriced items aren't selling there, either.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · August 2018

sirinsidiator wrote: »

Don't let guilds bid on a trader when they have below x items on sale or are newer than x days, or at least not in a prime location (cities). Whenever a large guild with many thousand listings gets outbid, it is bad for the hundreds of players in that guild who cannot sell much in that week and also bad for customers, because these small guilds usually don't have many items for sale. Basically a loose-loose situation for the community as a whole.

This very much! I notice this issue shopping mostly, but it's very annoying nonetheless!

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

I disagree with you regarding any sort of system that makes trader retention easier. The whole point of the system is to allow competition. If you make it more difficult to go from Mourn to Rawl, that actually allows rich GMs to get richer, rather than have rich GMs manage their gold to sustain their guild.

I dont see that - he also asked to get rid of the donation system, so the gold of the gm wouldnt matter anymore.

Ixtyr · August 2018

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

I disagree with you regarding any sort of system that makes trader retention easier. The whole point of the system is to allow competition. If you make it more difficult to go from Mourn to Rawl, that actually allows rich GMs to get richer, rather than have rich GMs manage their gold to sustain their guild.

I dont see that - he also asked to get rid of the donation system, so the gold of the gm wouldnt matter anymore.

If you remove the ability to deposit gold into the Bank, no new guild would ever be capable of bidding. Established guilds would never have any challenge, and you'd be completely shackled by the traffic patterns of the city you're in because you can't put in the work to fundraise to move from City A to City B.

DragonRacer · August 2018

I just want something that makes the ghost guilds go away from their extortion mafia gambit. Those guilds with only 10 items for sale? Some big guild’s ghost made as a backup in case the big guild lost their bid and/or to force out another guild and then try to make them pay for a spot back at the table.

JasonSilverSpring · August 2018

To help combat the ghost guild issue I think abandoned kiosks should go to next highest bidder or open a new auction.

MrGarlic · August 2018

Guilds and guild trading definitely needs some work.

I'd like to see kiosks open to all players to use.

Keep 30 listing spots for guild members and add 5-10 for non-guild players. All taxes going to the kiosk owner to maintain competition of ownership.

With more people joining the game and less kiosks being added and guild member limits being stagnant, at least this will allow casual players who cannot get into trade guilds to list items for sale.

silvereyes · August 2018

The kiosk bidding system was already really annoying long before the gold-for-crowns thing, but now it's absolutely broken. I know most folks don't consider it P2W, but it's definitely pay to win-a-kiosk. Even with the extra gold from crown sales, most Rawl and Mournhold guilds still have steep sales requirements or dues, or are constantly advertising raffles and auctions.

There have been a ton of great ideas proposed over the years for fixing the kiosk system, but ZOS has ignored almost all of them.

To their credit, they have made a few changes to try and curb bid spying (to the detriment of transparency), and they did reschedule the trader flip time.

But there are so many more good ideas out there.

A sampling of some of my favorite discussions on the topic (notice how old they are; hint hint zos):

Goratesque · August 2018

@sirinsidiator I'm one of the members of your guild, Imperial Trading Company since 2014. I had some inactive times since then but I know your guild and no it's not a small nor a casual trading guild at all. ITC always offered a good spot to sell our wares and that spot was theirs for almost 4 years! Not one of the best spots like Craglorn but even that was more than enough for an experienced player who wants to sell their good stuff.

Unfortunately you are right and those graphs are just as I feared. I'm also a guildmaster myself and my guild was also successfully bidding on some other guild traders couple of months ago. We couldn't even afford those bids with only the tax but the guild auctions were saving the day. Even though this can't change the fact that the current system is corrupted by players and simply not enough.

I must say I liked your idea about guild progression system which adds more flavour and with all due respect, but I don't believe your suggestions is the solution. You see I also want to see this system is cured. I know A LOT of experienced players who quit playing because of this absurd system and they were not just mere players but experienced officers and guildmasters. My solution is quite simple, using and even improving the trade system from Star Wars: The Old Republic, which using the same game engine (Hero Engine) with ESO. I desperately hope anyone from ZOS may read this:

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.

SantieClaws · August 2018

Most well said Sid and very much agreed upon.

The system needs reforming in line with increases in population.

It's now at or beyond crunch time for the trader system. There simply is not enough capacity as things stand now.

As housing is now such a big part of life in Tamriel why not allow the purchase of a trader npc that will sell from all the guilds of the player owner regardless of the guild having a trader or not that week? Another incentive to visit homes also yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Dymence · August 2018

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W. Gold in ESO has absolutely no value compared to other MMOs.

Oh no, someone made a few million gold selling crown gifts. I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

silvereyes · August 2018

Dymence wrote: »

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W.... I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

You don't understand because you assume the "W" in P2W equals dominating PVE content or advantage in PVP. I *could* make an argument that having the ability to gold out gear on a whim to match the latest meta every patch is certainly an advantage, but as you say, the benefit is marginal at best.

When people say it's P2W in the context of guild traders, though, they are referring to a different "win". They mean the ability to win a stable kiosk bid week after week so that they can retain strong sellers and not have them leave due to poor sales. They mean that real-world money is undermining an entire game system. Instead of competing for spots on merit, guilds are competing based on who's GM is willing to put out the most cash.

It might not match your definition of P2W, but when a game starts undermining its own systems with a cash store, it has crossed a line. It is no longer "cosmetics and convenience items only". It is "if you want to be a GM of a successful trading guild, pay up".

Beardimus · August 2018

Like your analysis, really do.

Trading is a cool part of the game that many of us enjoy. It's a shame to see it dumbed down or even redundant with the crown to gold sales now. I'm unsure what ZOS are thinking

They seem to undermine the hard work people have out into this game, in an odd bid to help the lazy. It's weird as it will impact longevity.

EllieBlue · August 2018

Dymence wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W. Gold in ESO has absolutely no value compared to other MMOs.

Oh no, someone made a few million gold selling crown gifts. I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

Your opinion is made solely based on a typical ESO player point of view and not GMs/officers of a trading guild. Previously, the option on how to acquire gold for bidding on traders of choice is limited. Some bot, some organised guild farming night etc, some have 10 accounts so they can sell in other trading guilds (and once upon a time, double duty as spies), some asked for mandatory fees, some ask for weekly donation etc. Nowadays, all you have to do really is sell crown in-game in exchange for gold. This is great for zos because now they are getting tons of cash from crown sold. However, to most honest trading guild GMs, this is a punch in the face because anyone can now acquire 25mil in-game gold within a few days and throw this gold into outbidding other guilds. So what should the other GMs do to keep their spot? Sell crowns too? Where and how will this end? There will be a breaking point sooner rather later.

Dymence · August 2018

EllieBlue wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W. Gold in ESO has absolutely no value compared to other MMOs.

Oh no, someone made a few million gold selling crown gifts. I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

Your opinion is made solely based on a typical ESO player point of view and not GMs/officers of a trading guild. Previously, the option on how to acquire gold for bidding on traders of choice is limited. Some bot, some organised guild farming night etc, some have 10 accounts so they can sell in other trading guilds (and once upon a time, double duty as spies), some asked for mandatory fees, some ask for weekly donation etc. Nowadays, all you have to do really is sell crown in-game in exchange for gold. This is great for zos because now they are getting tons of cash from crown sold. However, to most honest trading guild GMs, this is a punch in the face because anyone can now acquire 25mil in-game gold within a few days and throw this gold into outbidding other guilds. So what should the other GMs do to keep their spot? Sell crowns too? Where and how will this end? There will be a breaking point sooner rather later.

From a pure player point of view, having just a handful of trading guilds where you can get all your stuff is actually preferable. But I certainly see your point, and my original post was indeed aimed solely at the gameplay aspect (PVE/PVP) and not the whole trading guild scene. I feel like the trading guild scene is getting out of hand either way, and ZOS would need to police it somehow. With all the ghost guilds going on and whatnot.

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

Ixtyr wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

I disagree with you regarding any sort of system that makes trader retention easier. The whole point of the system is to allow competition. If you make it more difficult to go from Mourn to Rawl, that actually allows rich GMs to get richer, rather than have rich GMs manage their gold to sustain their guild.

I dont see that - he also asked to get rid of the donation system, so the gold of the gm wouldnt matter anymore.

If you remove the ability to deposit gold into the Bank, no new guild would ever be capable of bidding. Established guilds would never have any challenge, and you'd be completely shackled by the traffic patterns of the city you're in because you can't put in the work to fundraise to move from City A to City B.

Once upon a time, guilds started as trader-free guilds, trading within their own 500 people and as soon as they got some gold by internal trades they started to bid on traders, then the hard recruitment began and more active people joined that guilds, they slowly could afford higher bids and get better spots, could recruit even more active traders with that better spot and work for their place.

today: okay, lets give in some gold into the bank, get a freaky spot in the trading world and ask then people to join us with this freaky spot.

sry, that i am that idealistic...but its not intentional by the game designers. i know, this isnt working out nowadays, since there is too mcuh cash flowing in the game and there is a too big gap between rich and poor, zos forgot to face those problems early enough. but there had been an intention, how a trade guild works to get a spot in the trading world, guilds today are skipping major parts of how to become a great trade guld.

Dymence wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W. Gold in ESO has absolutely no value compared to other MMOs.

Oh no, someone made a few million gold selling crown gifts. I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

Having some millions enables you to buy a trader, even with a poor selling guild. So on the trade guild part, beeing able to buy gold definitely IS p2w.

To their credit, they have made a few changes to try and curb bid spying (to the detriment of transparency), and they did reschedule the trader flip time.

Well actually I was a supporter of spying, I also accepted, that people also spy in my guilds. I always expected a high increase in bids if ZOS removes the spying-optionas, because people are totally blind then. The spying-option always gave gm the opportunity to have at least a guess, the highest bids in this system always came from gm who were too lazy to spy (like 10m in belkarth backrow, 8m in rawl, 8m in mournhold as example) when it was an option, and today the bids are also exploding, because just to be firesure, the bids are raised even to more crazy heights. needless to say, that this is a problem cornering all guilds, people are qq-ing into the forums about increased bids, guilds are reacting on it by other cheap tricks...so well - even if u thought of it as a nasty thing, i always thought of it as a rp thing and also of a sign how much work a gm lays into his guild. after all my predictions about the bids-explosion a year ago were right. the trade guilds lost a stratetic aspect.

EllieBlue wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

But leaving the steady growth of the game aside, there is a much bigger problem. With the recent introduction of crown gifts, it has become incredibly easy to get access to large amounts of gold by selling crowns. Basically the current system is turning into a pay to win game and the one who spends the most real money gets the trader. This is honestly not a direction I like.

i absolutely support you.

also knowing who the people are, focusing the crown-selling-market and and the guild trader backup abuse on pc eu makes me even feel more sad. some of them have been my friends. a lot of time later, you gotta face, how broken this system is and how low the moral values of some people u once "loved" became.

since the early beginning zos didnt give a lot of effort into the trading system, never trying to apply some fairplay rules and fixes for exploits according the cashflow and the bidding system.

i dont think, it will ever happen.

I can't say selling crown gifts for gold is P2W. Gold in ESO has absolutely no value compared to other MMOs.

Oh no, someone made a few million gold selling crown gifts. I can only hide in fear when I think about all the power he will gain with all the motif pages he will buy.

Your opinion is made solely based on a typical ESO player point of view and not GMs/officers of a trading guild. Previously, the option on how to acquire gold for bidding on traders of choice is limited. Some bot, some organised guild farming night etc, some have 10 accounts so they can sell in other trading guilds (and once upon a time, double duty as spies), some asked for mandatory fees, some ask for weekly donation etc. Nowadays, all you have to do really is sell crown in-game in exchange for gold. This is great for zos because now they are getting tons of cash from crown sold. However, to most honest trading guild GMs, this is a punch in the face because anyone can now acquire 25mil in-game gold within a few days and throw this gold into outbidding other guilds. So what should the other GMs do to keep their spot? Sell crowns too? Where and how will this end? There will be a breaking point sooner rather later.

Glad to hear and I hope, your mates from the Aetherius guilds think same about it.

EllieBlue · August 2018

Don't Do Drugs,

I must say that I don't quite understand what you meant exactly when you quote my previous post. I am not sure if you are agreeing to it, dismissing it or just being sarcastic. I certainly don't speak for anyone else other than myself. However, if you are playing on pc-eu, you might have seen the adverts openly advertising selling crown for gold in zone pc-eu and it is not mine nor my mates.

Cheers!

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

EllieBlue wrote: »

Don't Do Drugs,

I must say that I don't quite understand what you meant exactly when you quote my previous post. I am not sure if you are agreeing to it, dismissing it or just being sarcastic. I certainly don't speak for anyone else other than myself. However, if you are playing on pc-eu, you might have seen the adverts openly advertising selling crown for gold in zone pc-eu and it is not mine nor my mates.

Cheers!

It wasnt sarcastic, it was absolutely serious and I am happy that some active gm of the major alliances openly name this problem, not only solo-gm of smaller guilds, so please dont feel offended, thats absolutely not my intention. I know, who the people are supporting that discord, I know its not you.

Lamiai · August 2018

I do miss the older days of trading back in 2015/16, the wars between guilds were actually great fun to be involved in! Bid wars were so much smaller in scale, remember placing 5-6mil bids and it being considered insane back then!

EC_Rob · August 2018

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

EllieBlue wrote: »

Don't Do Drugs,

I must say that I don't quite understand what you meant exactly when you quote my previous post. I am not sure if you are agreeing to it, dismissing it or just being sarcastic. I certainly don't speak for anyone else other than myself. However, if you are playing on pc-eu, you might have seen the adverts openly advertising selling crown for gold in zone pc-eu and it is not mine nor my mates.

Cheers!

It wasnt sarcastic, it was absolutely serious and I am happy that some active gm of the major alliances openly name this problem, not only solo-gm of smaller guilds, so please dont feel offended, thats absolutely not my intention. I know, who the people are supporting that discord, I know its not you.

I think that this gold to crowns or the other way around is going to make the people willing to put in their dolla's or euro's or whatever currency they use very powerfull. Not only that, like quoted before even the nobody guilds that started yesterday will be able to bid in Craglorn even though their tax return will be 200k if theyre lucky.

As to Sirins original post I agree that tax income from actual sales are too low, although I am frightened to think what would happen when these guilds who already use bots or crown income gold (or both) get even more money back from their tax. I feel like a storm is coming, and from this storm only the ones using a different kind of collecting will emerge as the victor, not the ones who make their gold as everyone had to back in the day.

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

EmstCntRob wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

EllieBlue wrote: »

Don't Do Drugs,

I must say that I don't quite understand what you meant exactly when you quote my previous post. I am not sure if you are agreeing to it, dismissing it or just being sarcastic. I certainly don't speak for anyone else other than myself. However, if you are playing on pc-eu, you might have seen the adverts openly advertising selling crown for gold in zone pc-eu and it is not mine nor my mates.

Cheers!

It wasnt sarcastic, it was absolutely serious and I am happy that some active gm of the major alliances openly name this problem, not only solo-gm of smaller guilds, so please dont feel offended, thats absolutely not my intention. I know, who the people are supporting that discord, I know its not you.

I think that this gold to crowns or the other way around is going to make the people willing to put in their dolla's or euro's or whatever currency they use very powerfull. Not only that, like quoted before even the nobody guilds that started yesterday will be able to bid in Craglorn even though their tax return will be 200k if theyre lucky.

As to Sirins original post I agree that tax income from actual sales are too low, although I am frightened to think what would happen when these guilds who already use bots or crown income gold (or both) get even more money back from their tax. I feel like a storm is coming, and from this storm only the ones using a different kind of collecting will emerge as the victor, not the ones who make their gold as everyone had to back in the day.

I dont know, to me it feels like that storm is already upon us all. And the smaller guilds bidding in bigger hubs without having the tax income for months arent even the biggest problem to me at all, they are one of a lot, but i am also overwhelmed by seeing, what established guilds are willing to do, to increase their power - worst of all, they arent the people and the guilds, which even are in the need to do so at all. actually i could never imagine back in my days, because some of those people had my fullest trust back then. Somehow I do understand some motivation behind it, because when guilds and people are able to bid amounts, while their guild isnt able to earn those taxes, it makes you angry about the system, while you worked your way to the top - but still there is a point, where someone has to think about, what he is willing to do and what not. My vest hasnt ben white, I wasnt perfect at all, but there were limits and things, where i just couldnt overstep the border and where I didnt want my name to go into trading history as a name of shame.

Carbonised · August 2018

Something is absolutely wrong in the current guild trader system.

I'm on PC-EU, and I'm in 5 of the largest trade guilds on my server, in the 2 largest trade guild alliances here (Traveling Merchant & co, and Tamriel Trade Guilds & co.), these are the most well-run trade guilds on our server, and the taxes they bring in is huge. However, the required gold to pay for the traders at top locations is running amok currently, no least due to them being sniped by some guilds that are not-to-be-named. These other guilds have vastly less things to sell in their store, as everyone can see, and insider information also reveals that they turn over vastly less gold per week than our guilds do. So the big question is, how do they keep funding the trade sniping week after week with little to no real income? Hmmmmm....

Currently, we manage to hold our traders most weeks, due to a lot of donations as well as guild leaders contributing with their own gold, but the price for a top trader continues to soar week after week, and the weeks where we are not sniped, other top trade guilds are sniped instead. Like the graph siri showed in the OP, it's spinning out of control, and something needs to be done before the system collapses, and the only people who can afford top traders are either cheating gold buyers or crown sellers.

This is the problem, even top tier established trade guilds are being pushed out, and replaced by "trade guilds" that sell little to nothing, and have vastly less stuff to offer in their "store". It's up to ZOS to fix this problem, and make guild trading more of an enjoyable experience than it currently is.
However, these are some of my immediate thoughts:
- Make trader bids transparent. The blind bid system is a gamble, make it more transparent who has bid on a trader and how much, so you can counter-bid them.
- More guild traders available, in more desirable locations. Vivec City was a great example, 6 traders located closely to everything. It's no use to add new traders if half of them sit out in the middle of nowhere. Add more traders to desirable locations, why can't Vivec City hold 8-10 traders, if they share vendor stalls? Craglorn could also easily hold 10 traders.
- Enable some kind of guild trading outside just the vendor stalls. Tying it to homes seems like a great idea, so people can go to other people's homes and buy through their guild trader there.

Carbonised · August 2018

(double post, ignore)

Universe · August 2018

A well written post

The crown store items for gold trading is most certainly P2W and there is high chance that it will influence the guild trading system.

Dont_do_drugs · August 2018

I'm on PC-EU, and I'm in 5 of the largest trade guilds on my server, in the 2 largest trade guild alliances here (Traveling Merchant & co, and Tamriel Trade Guilds & co.), these are the most well-run trade guilds on our server, and the taxes they bring in is huge. However, the required gold to pay for the traders at top locations is running amok currently, no least due to them being sniped by some guilds that are not-to-be-named. These other guilds have vastly less things to sell in their store, as everyone can see, and insider information also reveals that they turn over vastly less gold per week than our guilds do. So the big question is, how do they keep funding the trade sniping week after week with little to no real income? Hmmmmm....

@Carbonised But you also see, that some of those people getting sniped by those guilds are also some of those people, supporting the crown-sale discord? Isnt it hillarious....

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/430760/discord-tamriel-crown-exchange-crown-store-items-for-gold-over-1-mil-crowns-traded

Carbonised · August 2018

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

I'm on PC-EU, and I'm in 5 of the largest trade guilds on my server, in the 2 largest trade guild alliances here (Traveling Merchant & co, and Tamriel Trade Guilds & co.), these are the most well-run trade guilds on our server, and the taxes they bring in is huge. However, the required gold to pay for the traders at top locations is running amok currently, no least due to them being sniped by some guilds that are not-to-be-named. These other guilds have vastly less things to sell in their store, as everyone can see, and insider information also reveals that they turn over vastly less gold per week than our guilds do. So the big question is, how do they keep funding the trade sniping week after week with little to no real income? Hmmmmm....

@Carbonised But you also see, that some of those people getting sniped by those guilds are also some of those people, supporting the crown-sale discord? Isnt it hillarious....

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/430760/discord-tamriel-crown-exchange-crown-store-items-for-gold-over-1-mil-crowns-traded

Nothing hillarious about that. We can speculate all day long where the snipers get their gold from, but my first bet isn't Crown sales.
Sure, you might fund a small trading guild for some weeks through Crown selling, but you are not going to fund the bids the snipers use to take out our traders now and then from Crown selling, not unless you happen to throw away some hundreds or thousands of dollars on this per week.

That is beside the point, however, and is more symptom of ZOS' ignorance in dealing with botters (which they just ignore, and let them keep botting). Even if the gold was legit, which it isn't in this case, there would still be the problem of obscure blind bids and crowded traders, that OP laid out in his post.