tbh i was wondering, since i know that some gm are buying crowns to sell them for gold (for bids then), wether its ZOS' way of trying to make even more people to do so, to be competitive.

So a restrictive trading system becomes an even more restrictive one, probably even an elitist one.

Shame, but more power to the NPC merchants to whom I will continue to sell my surplus stuff while making do without anything I haven't looted, crafted, or received as a quest reward.

HAHA this is an epic gold sink. I am imagining week one it is so broken there are guilds on two kiosks and such and then they tweak it and all the pre-bids are permanently swallowed resetting the economy.

On a serious note, I think this is a bad decision.

It will give significantly more stress to some established GM's and will likely force a break up of a lot of mid-size guilds until things settle which could take 3-6 months.

Member loyalty will soften over time as every Sunday more and more location dependant Players will shop around to move to a Trade Guild that occupies the kiosks they want.

Fees will be introduced to many guilds to increase their income so they can compete with larger bids which over time will force strong deflationary pressure on the economy. My advice is unload your craft bags whilst they hold their value.

Certain players who shall remain nameless will buy even more gold either legitimately through crown gifts or other suspicious methods and use it to break the economy by bidding way higher than the quality of their Guild deserves. Which will be fun for a few weeks but then they will realise they are throwing significant monies down the toilet.

Quality trade hubs will diminish as guilds with less stock will win more often which means everyone will take longer to shop around and the absolute top tier mega rich guilds will see even more traffic as it will be a safe place for Customers who value their time.

Tandor wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

ZOS knows what they are doing, even if we don’t like it. This will at least double the amount of guild sunk every week on bids. Guilds in long-term, established spots who roll the dice most weeks with low bids in the hope that no one will be bidding against them will no longer be able to get away with that.

This has nothing to do with the ghost trader issue on console. That will continue. The people who do that freely admit they don’t do it as a backup. They do it as a source of additional revenue. This change will only make it easier for them to operate. The issue will not go away. And I don’t think it was the intent of ZOS, at least with this update, to make that issue go away. Maybe they will address it later, maybe not at all. Who knows, because their communication is atrocious.

Is that a typo or a Freudian slip?

The dangers of autocorrect...

But probably both are accurate. ZOS somehow managed to increase the level of stress for trade guild GMs higher than it already was. I would call that quite a feat, but I don’t think I would call it a quality of life update. Some GMs just won’t want to deal with it.

I don't see why big trader guilds would bid on bad locations. Its illogical to do that. The top locations are highly competitive and will always be highly competitive. I fail to see how this could be a win for larger guilds

Please don't go live with this ZOS. This is something that nobody wants except the ones that want to see chaos happen. The very rich guilds will all bid against each other for the best spots and some of the lower tier spots for "back up" and the guilds in those tiers are just making ends meet to hold on to their own spot. They can't really afford to make a bunch of bids all over the place except maybe a few bids in much worse spots. And the gold sink doesn't really matter to these super rich guilds, they can afford to put up 10 massive bids because they are just that rich and the gold from the losing bids is refunded.

The plan should be 1. Keep adding more trader locations. 2. add a game wide search feature for items in the guild store a la TTC. 3. Have one early bidding stage where if you win your bid you are locked into the location, but you can raise your bid until the final bid. But if you lose the first bid you can bid at another location but not the same one.

Guild A is a large prosperous trading guild that uses the shadow guild bidding system.

Current Scenario:
Guild A bids on their desired trader.
Guild A creates shadow Guild B to make the bid on a backup trader with money from Guild A.
Guild A gets the trader from a successful bid and gets back the money from any failed bids.

New Scenario:
Guild A bids on their desired trader.
Guild A bids on their backup trader with whatever money they previous gave to their shadow Guild B.
Guild A potentially bids a little bit on a few more backup traders now that they don't have to get 50 people to join a shadow guild.
Guild A gets the trader from a successful bid and gets back the money from any failed bids.



So in other words, ZOS kept the system working exactly the same way, just that now Guild A gets to do it all without going through the hassle of creating a shadow Guild?

Interesting.

chess1ukb16_ESO wrote: »

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

I don't see why big trader guilds would bid on bad locations. Its illogical to do that. The top locations are highly competitive and will always be highly competitive. I fail to see how this could be a win for larger guilds

with 10 bidding options, i am surely able to bid 4 mio on windhelm, 2.5mio on skywatch if needed 2mio on a single trader as 10th bid.

Was kinda hoping you would be bidding 2.5m in Belkarth

nah, i will bid full frontrow and then mournhold, the remaining 3 will be some random traders in smaller hubs.

Not sure why people are pissed about this or why they don't think the change will help small guilds.

The effects should be:

1) Smaller guilds will rarely loose their spot to a big dog since the big dogs will no longer have to buy up secondary spots on weeks they don't loose their primary and they rarely loose their primary.

2) Overall trader costs will lower as there are now fewer total guilds bidding for a spot (this is because you just removed all those shadow guilds of the big dogs.) Simple supply and demand here.

3) Week to week prices for specific traders will become more consistent and possibly also lower because the severe negative effect of loosing your bid (no trader at all) has been removed. You will now likely still get a lesser trader. (A secondary effect of this will be that spying will offer less advantages than it previously did.)

4) Guilds trader locations will move more often because, with a less disastrous worst case scenario, guilds will take more chances on bids to save money and will also take more chances on improving their location. This should be really pronounced right after the change as guilds currently have little data on how much location effects their sales and at least some of them will be adventuresome enough to want to find out if a move up or down in location is more profitable.

5) I expect the competition between guilds to become more dynamic and involve less cartel behavior (ie. getting other guilds leaders banned right before the bid to prevent them from bidding). In effect, being able to explore multiple options for trader locations based on price should bring the market closer to free market ideals and decrease the benefits of anti-competitive behavior. It certainly greatly lowers the barriers to entry to start and especially to grow a trade guild.

In short, I think the changes will make things dramatically better for almost all players in the market and that they should completely solve the problem of shadow trade guilds.

Some advice to many of you who have posted.... Just put your investments in index funds IRL. The lack of basic understanding about how markets work in here is just staggering.

SirAndy wrote: »

ZOS???

How is this going to help anyone except the large trading guilds? Seriously?

My main guild only has about 500k to bid each week which is rarely enough to get a trader. We would need 5 million gold to cover 10 spots. That is insane!

ZOS has NEVER had any interest is facilitating Trade for smaller guilds or casual players.

I am shocked that anyone is shocked at this move.


All The Best

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Not sure why people are pissed about this or why they don't think the change will help small guilds.

The effects should be:

1) Smaller guilds will rarely loose their spot to a big dog since the big dogs will no longer have to buy up secondary spots on weeks they don't loose their primary and they rarely loose their primary.

2) Overall trader costs will lower as there are now fewer total guilds bidding for a spot (this is because you just removed all those shadow guilds of the big dogs.) Simple supply and demand here.

3) Week to week prices for specific traders will become more consistent and possibly also lower because the severe negative effect of loosing your bid (no trader at all) has been removed. You will now likely still get a lesser trader. (A secondary effect of this will be that spying will offer less advantages than it previously did.)

4) Guilds trader locations will move more often because, with a less disastrous worst case scenario, guilds will take more chances on bids to save money and will also take more chances on improving their location. This should be really pronounced right after the change as guilds currently have little data on how much location effects their sales and at least some of them will be adventuresome enough to want to find out if a move up or down in location is more profitable.

5) I expect the competition between guilds to become more dynamic and involve less cartel behavior (ie. getting other guilds leaders banned right before the bid to prevent them from bidding). In effect, being able to explore multiple options for trader locations based on price should bring the market closer to free market ideals and decrease the benefits of anti-competitive behavior. It certainly greatly lowers the barriers to entry to start and especially to grow a trade guild.

In short, I think the changes will make things dramatically better for almost all players in the market and that they should completely solve the problem of shadow trade guilds.

Some advice to many of you who have posted.... Just put your investments in index funds IRL. The lack of basic understanding about how markets work in here is just staggering.

Logic is flawed. This does not address shadow guild issue. Shadow guilds are mainly created for additional revenue.

ezio45 wrote: »

Not a fan of this idea.

Ya this gives ways for guilds to have backup. Problem is the guilds with enough money to do this already have a way to get backups and its also gives them money if they dont need the backups. Thats how they are getting the money to make there bid and how they cover there backup spots and how they would have enough to use this.

The main problem is the shell guilds that are being used as backups and also profit from the larger guild. The ones that are selling stalls for 1.5-2 times what they payed for it.

Guild traders arnt actually profitable for most guilds. Only the ones selling stalls are making any profit to put back into the "business". Elden root is like 14ish mil and guilds are pulling in 2m from sales. Most guilds are going to 0 gold in bank each week, even if there not they still arnt going to have money to bid on another stall. The guilds selling stalls arnt going to use this new system either. There system guarantees them a stall and makes them profit.

If Zos really wants to help improve the trader system, they should make it so you cant sell stalls anymore. Each guild would be on even footing at that point not exploiting smaller guilds to make there bid for them. Even then I dont think this system there planning to put into place wont be helpful. Splitting your money between bids is just not something guilds are interested in. You bid where you have raised funds for and already feels safe and confident bidding on.

@ZOS_RobGarrett , i assume this is your department?

Amen to that!

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Not sure why people are pissed about this or why they don't think the change will help small guilds.

The effects should be:

1) Smaller guilds will rarely loose their spot to a big dog since the big dogs will no longer have to buy up secondary spots on weeks they don't loose their primary and they rarely loose their primary.

2) Overall trader costs will lower as there are now fewer total guilds bidding for a spot (this is because you just removed all those shadow guilds of the big dogs.) Simple supply and demand here.

3) Week to week prices for specific traders will become more consistent and possibly also lower because the severe negative effect of loosing your bid (no trader at all) has been removed. You will now likely still get a lesser trader. (A secondary effect of this will be that spying will offer less advantages than it previously did.)

4) Guilds trader locations will move more often because, with a less disastrous worst case scenario, guilds will take more chances on bids to save money and will also take more chances on improving their location. This should be really pronounced right after the change as guilds currently have little data on how much location effects their sales and at least some of them will be adventuresome enough to want to find out if a move up or down in location is more profitable.

5) I expect the competition between guilds to become more dynamic and involve less cartel behavior (ie. getting other guilds leaders banned right before the bid to prevent them from bidding). In effect, being able to explore multiple options for trader locations based on price should bring the market closer to free market ideals and decrease the benefits of anti-competitive behavior. It certainly greatly lowers the barriers to entry to start and especially to grow a trade guild.

In short, I think the changes will make things dramatically better for almost all players in the market and that they should completely solve the problem of shadow trade guilds.

Some advice to many of you who have posted.... Just put your investments in index funds IRL. The lack of basic understanding about how markets work in here is just staggering.

1) smaller guilds don't often lose to the big guilds now, because the big guilds are where they want to be. And they have no reason to stop buying other spots up with shadow guilds. It's safer and it eliminates competition. Especially when there secondary bids are probably going to be bid against by other rich guilds too. They will just move the shadow guilds down the chain.

2) It doesn't make sense to say all the guilds will have less competition when all the guilds can now place 10 bids at once. The guilds that can afford to so will do it. And the ones who can't will have to try to squeeze more gold out their members in increased dues and quotas and fundraising to try pay for a higher bid to protect their spot and to also be able to afford a decent back up spot. And as I said the shadow guilds aren't going anywhere.

3) There is no way the prices will be more consistent with so many guilds paying for multiple bids. In my experience having to accept a lower level spot that you still have to pay for and that you don't want to be in and that you guild members didn't join for is pretty much just as bad as losing the spot for a week.

4) What you are talking about is instability and uncertainty. It's not good for making profit it's only good for those trying to move up the ladder. The guilds that are in the middle that have worked hard for a long time to establish themselves in a location they are happy with without making the huge profits of other guilds will be the ones that are screwed over.

5) I am not sure what Cartel problems you think are going to change because of this change. What ever guilds are working with each other will continue to do so. But for those that are not aligned there is probably going to be more shenanigans, because while it will encourage competition many don't like to compete fairly they just want to win.

You think you know markets really well. And you are probably pretty versed, but I don't think you know the ins and outs of what it is to be in the trade guild game of ESO. A guild with 2 shadows guilds can bid on 30 trader spots. This is very very dangerous. It's not going to be a good thing.

GarnetFire17 wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Not sure why people are pissed about this or why they don't think the change will help small guilds.

The effects should be:

1) Smaller guilds will rarely loose their spot to a big dog since the big dogs will no longer have to buy up secondary spots on weeks they don't loose their primary and they rarely loose their primary.

2) Overall trader costs will lower as there are now fewer total guilds bidding for a spot (this is because you just removed all those shadow guilds of the big dogs.) Simple supply and demand here.

3) Week to week prices for specific traders will become more consistent and possibly also lower because the severe negative effect of loosing your bid (no trader at all) has been removed. You will now likely still get a lesser trader. (A secondary effect of this will be that spying will offer less advantages than it previously did.)

4) Guilds trader locations will move more often because, with a less disastrous worst case scenario, guilds will take more chances on bids to save money and will also take more chances on improving their location. This should be really pronounced right after the change as guilds currently have little data on how much location effects their sales and at least some of them will be adventuresome enough to want to find out if a move up or down in location is more profitable.

5) I expect the competition between guilds to become more dynamic and involve less cartel behavior (ie. getting other guilds leaders banned right before the bid to prevent them from bidding). In effect, being able to explore multiple options for trader locations based on price should bring the market closer to free market ideals and decrease the benefits of anti-competitive behavior. It certainly greatly lowers the barriers to entry to start and especially to grow a trade guild.

In short, I think the changes will make things dramatically better for almost all players in the market and that they should completely solve the problem of shadow trade guilds.

Some advice to many of you who have posted.... Just put your investments in index funds IRL. The lack of basic understanding about how markets work in here is just staggering.

1) smaller guilds don't often lose to the big guilds now, because the big guilds are where they want to be. And they have no reason to stop buying other spots up with shadow guilds. It's safer and it eliminates competition. Especially when there secondary bids are probably going to be bid against by other rich guilds too. They will just move the shadow guilds down the chain.

2) It doesn't make sense to say all the guilds will have less competition when all the guilds can now place 10 bids at once. The guilds that can afford to so will do it. And the ones who can't will have to try to squeeze more gold out their members in increased dues and quotas and fundraising to try pay for a higher bid to protect their spot and to also be able to afford a decent back up spot. And as I said the shadow guilds aren't going anywhere.

3) There is no way the prices will be more consistent with so many guilds paying for multiple bids. In my experience having to accept a lower level spot that you still have to pay for and that you don't want to be in and that you guild members didn't join for is pretty much just as bad as losing the spot for a week.

4) What you are talking about is instability and uncertainty. It's not good for making profit it's only good for those trying to move up the ladder. The guilds that are in the middle that have worked hard for a long time to establish themselves in a location they are happy with without making the huge profits of other guilds will be the ones that are screwed over.

5) I am not sure what Cartel problems you think are going to change because of this change. What ever guilds are working with each other will continue to do so. But for those that are not aligned there is probably going to be more shenanigans, because while it will encourage competition many don't like to compete fairly they just want to win.

You think you know markets really well. And you are probably pretty versed, but I don't think you know the ins and outs of what it is to be in the trade guild game of ESO. A guild with 2 shadows guilds can bid on 30 trader spots. This is very very dangerous. It's not going to be a good thing.

It's only a factor for the first bid though. Only one bid can win, and then it erases their 9 other bids. So, for example, Guild A could bid 10M on one trader, and 9M on a second trader. Guild B could bid 1 gold on the second trader. If Guild A wins their 10M bid on the first trader, Guild B will win their 1 gold bid on the second trader because the 9M bid is wiped away as if it was never cast. (Of course I realize a 1 gold bid is absurd, and also that there will be other competition for a trader. But the point stills stands, the 2nd-10th bid by Guild A is meaningless if they win their 1st bid.)