Multi-bidding so far - GM & Officers how is it for you?

martinhpb16_ESO · September 2019

Since multi-bidding

So how is it going for you?

On PC EU.

3 longstanding, well organised guilds have disbanded. These were in Rawl, Stormhaven and Craglorn. There is talk of at least one more going. There could be more I don't know.

I have increased sales and donation minimums in my guilds in line with most of the GMs I am friendly with. I have lost some good, long-term members because of this.

It would be interesting to hear from GMs in Mid-low tier zones as these seem to be disproportionately affected. We have seen Graht, Eastmarch, Coldharbour, Auridon, Alikr, Stonefalls zones have all been flipping a lot in the last 2 weeks, whilst the zones with the larger, wealthier guilds have had minimal changes.

One reason for this is could be because people are spreading backups into these mid-low zones and GMs of these guilds cannot afford so many bids to defend against bigger bids? What is it like in these zones if you regularly trade / traded there?

Grimm13 · September 2019

In your target tier, it's not so good. Bids going up, ended up getting bumped to a different spot than normal which made sales off. Then lost all ten bids even though had bumped bids up. Seen several guilds that I belonged to close the doors.

dvonpm · September 2019

I'm an officer in a large trading guild in a Capital City, and I had to talk myself of quitting being an officer in a very well run and stable guild after 4+ years.

This is untenable. It already takes several people doing part time jobs (and loads of donations from generous guildies) and this system has just made it worse. Why am I working for a game I pay for? Why am I paying for this exactly? Why do I need this kind of stress for a hobby?

I don't, and I hate it. I can't even use the words to describe how frustrated I am. We are getting it from those trying to move up and those getting pushed out of their usual spots.

I don't know. I'm normally a person with a good attitude and bidding wars have never bothered me like this, but we had some control over it in the past. This is just - I don't even know what it is but I have never had to walk away from the game from anger before.

I don't have high blood pressure, but this is going to give it to me, and life is already too short for this kind of stress in what should be fun. That's where I am at. I can deal with this for another week or two but after that, I'm probably out.

Ratzkifal · September 2019

Only thing I noticed is that my guild now asks for more money in weekly sales. I'm not a gm or officer though.

Mr_Walker · September 2019

Zos are starting to show form with their decision making. Announce stupid decision, have it explained why it's a stupid decision, proceed apace!

Dear zos, someone there will have heard of the term "don't marry a bad idea". Ask them what it means.

StabbityDoom · September 2019

dvonpm wrote: »

I'm an officer in a large trading guild in a Capital City, and I had to talk myself of quitting being an officer in a very well run and stable guild after 4+ years.

This is untenable. It already takes several people doing part time jobs (and loads of donations from generous guildies) and this system has just made it worse. Why am I working for a game I pay for? Why am I paying for this exactly? Why do I need this kind of stress for a hobby?

I don't, and I hate it. I can't even use the words to describe how frustrated I am. We are getting it from those trying to move up and those getting pushed out of their usual spots.

I don't know. I'm normally a person with a good attitude and bidding wars have never bothered me like this, but we had some control over it in the past. This is just - I don't even know what it is but I have never had to walk away from the game from anger before.

I don't have high blood pressure, but this is going to give it to me, and life is already too short for this kind of stress in what should be fun. That's where I am at. I can deal with this for another week or two but after that, I'm probably out.

I honestly think that this will settle down in a couple of weeks. In time, there will be less "fake" or "weak" guilds able to sustain bigger bids and get up the food chain with their meagre offerings. They will run out of funds.

In the end your best bet would be to borrow some funds from your whales (such as they are) to cover making ten bids, then return the funds when you get those 9 bids back. It'll sustain you to do that.

dvonpm · September 2019

StabbityDoom wrote: »

dvonpm wrote: »

I'm an officer in a large trading guild in a Capital City, and I had to talk myself of quitting being an officer in a very well run and stable guild after 4+ years.

This is untenable. It already takes several people doing part time jobs (and loads of donations from generous guildies) and this system has just made it worse. Why am I working for a game I pay for? Why am I paying for this exactly? Why do I need this kind of stress for a hobby?

I don't, and I hate it. I can't even use the words to describe how frustrated I am. We are getting it from those trying to move up and those getting pushed out of their usual spots.

I don't know. I'm normally a person with a good attitude and bidding wars have never bothered me like this, but we had some control over it in the past. This is just - I don't even know what it is but I have never had to walk away from the game from anger before.

I don't have high blood pressure, but this is going to give it to me, and life is already too short for this kind of stress in what should be fun. That's where I am at. I can deal with this for another week or two but after that, I'm probably out.

I honestly think that this will settle down in a couple of weeks. In time, there will be less "fake" or "weak" guilds able to sustain bigger bids and get up the food chain with their meagre offerings. They will run out of funds.

In the end your best bet would be to borrow some funds from your whales (such as they are) to cover making ten bids, then return the funds when you get those 9 bids back. It'll sustain you to do that.

I hope things settle, and they normally do, which is why I don't usually sweat changes that much. In 4+ years we've weathered a lot of changes and a lot of bidding wars - this is definitely not our first rodeo. It's not that I don't think we can survive, it's that it increasingly just feels like being jerked around. It's not about a specific guild, it's about an unmanageable system that is wearing on my considerable good will.

I'm just very close to my breaking point with the lack of tools to manage guilds and the expectation that paying customers also must work part time jobs spending hours doing things computers can do in seconds. Now with even more free stress and opportunities for interpersonal conflict, yay

That's always irked me about this game, but I have never actually been to the point where I just want to quit because of it. And I am almost there.

And I am not even remotely on board with asking for loans. Or with calling people whales like a used car salesman

The people in my guild are people I mostly like and respect. I'm not interested in thinking of them as payday lenders. This is a game and a hobby, why on earth would I want to add "getting loans from people" to the list of things to worry about and make spreadsheets for? Hard pass.

ZeroXFF · September 2019

Can we have a global AH now? If for nothing else, then for the mental health of GMs?

GrimTheReaper45 · September 2019

Still hate it.

Fiktius · September 2019

I still hate this multi-bidding system with my full heart.

And why is that so?

1) I've been aware how bids have already been at these playgrounds we call guild trader hubs.
Bids have been already nuts on PC EU platform for very long time before multi-bidding was even heard about first time.
Some tier B and tier C zones already had guilds fighting about locations, which bids can't be sustained with taxes only and guilds which had best donators/wealthiest GMs funding the bids weekly basis were able to secure their spots every time.
It's not unheard thing that several guild GMs were opening wallet over and over again in order to sustain bids and use crown store gifting system in order to win a week at their desired trader location, when they had no other option to fight against massive bids which were already unreasonably high compared to the zone value.
And now when multi-bidding even increased bid values, situation went only towards worse direction.

2) And since multi-bidding increased bid prices, guilds of course had to adapt or die.
A friend of mine chose that she will not sacrifice any smaller guilds with back up system and two major guilds were disbanded because of this system. Thousand people lost a guild and had to search new one.
Another friend of mine decided that he got enough for this madness and he's done fighting against multi-bidding.
Guilds were handed over to another owner and this is sad, because another great person gave up and saw 0 sense to continue fighting against unfair system.
Personally I chose adapting option instead and we had to change requirements in all of my guilds in order to try to sustain massive bids. For two weeks we were successful, but with what kind of cost?
I lost several members for this change, but at the end I couldn't blame them. Guild finder provides excellent tool for them to find a new guild, jumping is easy like that. Guild loyalty doesn't mean much for several people in the game these days.
At the end they always knew at which direction is the door.

3)

Domino chain in full action. This has been very visible on our platform. Several guilds did get hit during last two weeks from the very same zone where I'm bidding too and they got knocked over to alternative back up spots they happened to have.
(If they were able to fund several bids at first place.)
Familiar guilds got entirely knocked out of the map from lowest tier locations, because of this very simple thing:
Having a spot is still better than having none. Guilds truly make sure that they try to estimate a value of the spot, which they can outbid in case they really have to fall down at lower tier locations. And this has been crystal clear in locations like Murkmire and Clock Work City. And this is disgusting to see, but it is what it is.
Apparently devs thought this is healthy thing for the game. Several smaller guilds gets knocked out every week because of the system which benefits wealthy guilds most.
Bigger guilds are more or less fine with their own spots at top tier locations, but smaller tier guilds have to take the bullet.

4) Guild managing is more stressful than ever. Since making sure that guild really can reach expected results, I'm using several hours with my co-lead at Friday - Saturday afternoon, when we just go through all our guilds member rosters and check how members performed during the week, who failed to do so and which of them deserves a reminder mail weekly basis.
This is ultimately frustrating, because we lack proper admin tools. We have to rely on manual noting and manually digging guild store sales from history in order to make sure we have updated sale numbers due ATT/MM scanning is not as smooth as it used to be before all these guild history changes. All of this takes us several hours, but it's a must thing to do if we want to have a chance to sustain our bids. And if this is painful for PC GMs, I truly feel sorry for console guilds which do not have addons at first place. You guys are true MVPs.

5)

generalmyrick · September 2019

Its working for me and is awesome, lost my first bid (1 million for carillda in vuckel guard) won my second bid (500k in skywatch).

just as predicted, love it so far.

DragonRacer · September 2019

I am cautiously optimistic on PS4 NA.

We had our first flip since the update last night and everything went smooth as butter. Flip happened as it should, and I was refunded the proper amount. I won my primary, and four guilds I am friendly with lost their primary but won back-up bids, so it was nice seeing them have traders rather than sit out in the cold for a week.

I did see a handful of ghost guilds who are in for a bad time when they go to re-sell those spots. Guess they missed the memo. My heart, sadly, does not break for them and their loss of money in that endeavor.

It was refreshing seeing new guilds I have never seen before with wares to sell in places where ghosts always used to squat.

I say all this realizing our situation is different. On our server, only the capital trading guilds have their rotational "spots" - everyone else tends to bounce around. So, domino effect of back-up bids was not really seen/felt from my perspective - the capital boys and girls had their capital spots, for the most part, all the other usual suspects had traders, the ones who regularly bought ghosts did not (again, sadly, my heart does not weep for them as they fed some of the problem on our server by being regular ghost guild "customers"), and new guilds who were choked out by the ghosts now have a day in the sun.

Also, not sure how much of those new 20k weekly dues the capital guilds had to sling around to keep their capitals, but trader bid prices seem to be on the norm everywhere else so far, which is a relief...

jazsper77 · September 2019

PS4 NA - love the new system, Flip happened without a hitch . All my Guilds won with top 3 bids and refund amounts were perfect.

Doing my weekly shopping trip around Tamriel and with 3/4 of the Traders visited only 1 ghost in Orsinium( well known flipper whom I think didn’t get the memo on new system). Lots of newer guilds with at least some inventory.

So far so good

OsManiaC · September 2019

thanks to @Fiktius he saved me from wall of text,

I'd really would like to hear ZOS thoughts on guilds that disband, in addition to the OP there are also new and casual guilds disband/gone only because of this "quality of life". ( @Dont_do_drugs I envy you, I left one week later and I still feel the stress) 500 members x 5 guilds, let say 1000 of them common, 1500 people look for new place

looking for new place? forgot to tell

also would like to hear comments from ZOS , more than 10 guilds pc eu, implemented flat fees from 0 fees. this is a must for which implemented

tell me zos, how this is quality of life?

note: I used "must" for fees, I was leading "3" no fee/no req guild with kiosks. now it is total nonsense due to bids gone 200% .

quick edit: I will never forget how ZOS said publicly " you can bid as long as YOU HAVE GOLD"

I will never treated so bad as a customer. Sorry zos I did not have enough gold to bid 10 places

so disgraceful

generalmyrick · September 2019

You don't need fees, the EU guys sound like they want their piece of the pie finally!

Tigerseye · September 2019

ZeroXFF wrote: »

Can we have a global AH now? If for nothing else, then for the mental health of GMs?

Problem>Reaction>Solution?! xD

OsManiaC · September 2019

generalmyrick wrote: »

You don't need fees, the EU guys sound like they want their piece of the pie finally!

Gratz mate, you successed then. but I dont think you represent majority. Not think, sure of it.

I was bidding 5m+ before u23 taxes was max 1m+

after u23, I bid 9m+ with same spots and same sales, second week I bid same and lost one

I know majority increased bids. tell me mate how can it go if you cannot increase taxes???

please don't tell me to change spots.

Dont_do_drugs · September 2019

I'm already having my plan b. I just wait till most guilds went rip and bankrupt due to brain dead bids, wait till a lot of cash left the game and make a comeback in 2 years with my backups from pre-u23. If that doesnt happen then an inflation still went on I will continue to stay away from the game. Win-win

LMar · September 2019

dvonpm wrote: »

I'm an officer in a large trading guild in a Capital City, and I had to talk myself of quitting being an officer in a very well run and stable guild after 4+ years.

This is untenable. It already takes several people doing part time jobs (and loads of donations from generous guildies) and this system has just made it worse. Why am I working for a game I pay for? Why am I paying for this exactly? Why do I need this kind of stress for a hobby?

I don't, and I hate it. I can't even use the words to describe how frustrated I am. We are getting it from those trying to move up and those getting pushed out of their usual spots.

I don't know. I'm normally a person with a good attitude and bidding wars have never bothered me like this, but we had some control over it in the past. This is just - I don't even know what it is but I have never had to walk away from the game from anger before.

I don't have high blood pressure, but this is going to give it to me, and life is already too short for this kind of stress in what should be fun. That's where I am at. I can deal with this for another week or two but after that, I'm probably out.

This.

jazsper77 · September 2019

Founding GM on 2 platforms and 2 servers, never charged a FEE for any of my Guilds EVER. Since the system went live way back when the combined total of weeks with no Trader 16. That includes both servers. I spend less then 2hrs a week on GM duties and my officers 1hr a week. All guilds at 480-500 members. The problem is on bad GM’s on EGO trips .

GM’s who complain about the new system are just wanting their cake and eat it too. But let’s see why these GM’s ave so-called no lives.

1. Bidding where you can’t afford to bid. ( that’s not ZOS fault) That’s a GM’s EGO wanting to hang with the big boys.

2. Time- If your spending so much time with Raffles,50/50,Auctions,etc. Again it goes back to trying to raise funds for bids you can’t sustain. Again not ZOS Fault.

3. Type of Guild- Don’t promote your Guild as a Social,Trails,Vampire,WW,etc and try to Bleed your members dry for a Trader. They didn’t join for the Trader. If your promoted your Guild as a Top 10 trading Guild then anyone joining knows the cost of business up front.

4. Keeping up with the Joneses- you see this is really a big issue for a lot of GM’s and Officers of large Guilds. They think they have this special status that all these people rely on them for everything ESO. Get over yourselves! It’s a fake world with fake money.

In conclusion it’s the GM’s and officers who put a lot of the crap on themselves. As a Gm/officer you should be focusing on the Guild itself. Do lorebook runs,Skyshard runs, Guild member house contests, Naked Cyrodiil Zergs, Drunk Dungeon/Trial runs, Guild Fashion contests, World Boss Zone runs. Hence if you make your guild fun and not a job the funds will come.

If you keep pounding your members with Doom and Gloom then it’s shame on you.

Tigerseye · September 2019

OsManiaC wrote: »

.

quick edit: I will never forget how ZOS said publicly " you can bid as long as YOU HAVE GOLD"

I will never treated so bad as a customer. Sorry zos I did not have enough gold to bid 10 places

so disgraceful

So, basically, you would, currently, need to have about 100 milion gold to bid on 10 top places and about 10 million gold to bid on 10 OK places?

Which might be OK, if you were guaranteed to get most of your gold back, but you don't get any of your winning bids back, do you?

Even if you win multiple bids.

So, in theory, you could (although, it would be unlikely) end up paying 10x the normal amount, if you won them all?

Seems to me the answer is to get people to prioritise their first, second, third etc. choices, when bidding.

Then, if they win more than one trader, award their lower priority wins to the second highest bidder (or third, if the second already has their higher priority win, too and so on) and return all gold but the winning bid, on their preferred trader?

jazsper77 · September 2019

Oh and completed my Tamriel shopping trip and 1 total ghost down from 25-35 weekly on PS4 NA. I’d say the system is working just fine. Oh wait the Guilds who can’t buy backups are all bent now. Lol

DragonRacer · September 2019

Tigerseye wrote: »

OsManiaC wrote: »

.

quick edit: I will never forget how ZOS said publicly " you can bid as long as YOU HAVE GOLD"

I will never treated so bad as a customer. Sorry zos I did not have enough gold to bid 10 places

so disgraceful

So, basically, you would, currently, need to have about 100 milion gold to bid on 10 top places and about 10 million gold to bid on 10 OK places?

Which might be OK, if you were guaranteed to get most of your gold back, but you don't get any of your winning bids back, do you?

Even if you win multiple bids.

So, in theory, you could (although, it would be unlikely) end up paying 10x the normal amount, if you won them all?

Seems to me the answer is to get people to prioritise their first, second, third etc. choices, when bidding.

Then, if they win more than one trader, award their lower priority wins to the second highest bidder (or third, if the second already has their higher priority win, too and so on) and return all gold but the winning bid, on their preferred trader?

That's already how it works.

A guild can only have ONE winning bid. It is in priority of amount you bid, then oldest bid for any bids that are the same amounts. The game goes through your list from #1 through # 10. If Bid # 1 won, that's it. You get that trader, and the other 9 bids are refunded to you. Period. If Bid # 1 loses, you get refunded that amount and it goes to Bid # 2. If Bid # 2 wins, you get that trader and remaining bids # 3-10 are refunded.

DragonRacer · September 2019

jazsper77 wrote: »

Oh and completed my Tamriel shopping trip and 1 total ghost down from 25-35 weekly on PS4 NA. I’d say the system is working just fine. Oh wait the Guilds who can’t buy backups are all bent now. Lol

4 ghosts so far, by my count. Two in Craglorn and one in Orsinium owned by the same "usual suspect" since he puts his same tabard on all his ghosts. And one in Lillandril that looks like a spite ghost rather than one put there for re-selling purposes... I say this judging by recent drama involving that guild and the suspicious name of the ghost.

I haven't made it to all the solos and outlaw refuges yet, but that's all from the other cities and sub-cities. Definitely a huge improvement from 25-35 weekly ghosts.

dvonpm · September 2019

jazsper77 wrote: »

Founding GM on 2 platforms and 2 servers, never charged a FEE for any of my Guilds EVER. Since the system went live way back when the combined total of weeks with no Trader 16. That includes both servers. I spend less then 2hrs a week on GM duties and my officers 1hr a week. All guilds at 480-500 members. The problem is on bad GM’s on EGO trips .

No guild is selling enough to pay for Rawl or Mournhold without other means of generating gold.

If it were just based on gold earned from sales alone, bids would cap at about 5 or 6 million in the main cities. Which is, I don't know. I just laughed out loud so I guess it's funny.

Reverb · September 2019

On PC NA we saw a bit of shakeup the first week of multibidding but we were spared the chaos that zeni inflicted on our EU brethren. Week 2 saw things pretty much return to normal at he highest end of the spectrum and the majority of well known guilds are in their typical spots. One high end trader usually in an Undaunted town is without a trader for the second consecutive week and is rumored to be hemorrhaging members, and understandably so with their leadership having failed to bid appropriately for their normal spot or for backups in the initial weeks of the new system.

I’m seeing a lot of interesting movement at the less popular traders, and it seems smaller or new guilds might be more impacted by multibidding than top or mid tier ones. Lots of new names in the dlc zones and refuges and the less traveled towns.

DemonDruaga · September 2019

It sucks. Big guilds bid millions on useless merchants in the wild, so they have atleast a back up. Smaller guilds can't compete with this amount, for some end of the world merchants and go merchantless over and over again

agelonestar · September 2019

Personally, I'm convinced that things will settle down and probably sooner than you think.

Current bids are higher than normal, but that isn't really sustainable for even the biggest and most wealthy guilds, so gradually we will see bid levels return to normal.
"Chancer" guilds will also drop off. It doesn't take long to run out of money and inspiration to keep an active trade guild going. It's hard work.
Smaller guilds will continue to find it easier than before to take a risk and go for a new, better kiosk. That's OK by me - surely that's the kind of guild growth and diversity we should be striving for?

Now, if I'm wrong it will put one of my guilds out of business (I bid on a trader for a mostly PVP guild because we like to have a kiosk) because it doesn't make sufficient gold (or anywhere near) to carry on as we are. we tend to bid in lower-mid tier spots from around 550k to 750k, pc/eu.

Luthid · September 2019

I’m an Officer in what’s probably considered a mid-tier trading guild. Well established and around for years but committed to being low pressure and not competing with the big guilds or spots. We talked a lot about strategy for the multi bidding system.

*We settled on 5 weekly backup bids

*Our priority is remaining in our usual spot. It’s not a top spot but it’s a good one and we’ve been there a long time

*We acknowledge that our spot is probably a backup spot for at least one guild with deep pockets and if they get bumped from their normal place we’ll get bumped in turn

*We chose good towns but specific stalls with a fair amount of turnover when picking our backup spots. Our backup bids for those places are probably much higher than their usual bids and we don’t want to displace an established guild if we get bumped one week

*We picked an alternate permanent spot in the event another guild comes gunning for our trader

These first two weeks things have been stable for most NA guilds. I guess we’ll see if that holds up. Our members appreciate knowing that we have a plan if it doesn’t.

Adding: we are WAY more affected by the instability of guild history UI, API and related addons than we are multi bidding at this point. Not one of the addons we use to track deposits and sales seems accurate and the GM and Officers all have different numbers to compare. It has added several hours each week for us to sync up spreadsheets to hopefully not miss member data.

essi2 · September 2019

I actually have a chance at getting a trader for my Social Guild, not a guarantee, but better than having to overbid on 1 trader and then hope for the best.

martinhpb16_ESO · September 2019

Dont_do_drugs wrote: »

I'm already having my plan b. I just wait till most guilds went rip and bankrupt due to brain dead bids, wait till a lot of cash left the game and make a comeback in 2 years with my backups from pre-u23. If that doesnt happen then an inflation still went on I will continue to stay away from the game. Win-win

Miss your stuff on disc xxx