StabbityDoom wrote: »

Most "coalitions" are mid-level. Look at the Upstate & Dark Alliance guilds, each that have multiple 3+ guilds. I'm not sure it helps them, in the long run.Some of the big guilds are friendly among themselves, some aren't, and there might be tacit agreement not to attack someone's main spot, but for backup bids, in my experience they do not coordinate. They *did* help one another look for open slots if one of them didn't get their spot.

So sick of the accusation of accusation of cartels. They don't exist - at least on NA.

reoskit wrote: »

So many points.

To the concept of controlling a hub:
I suppose anyone could spin up 5-ish legitimate guilds and (with considerable work) own a city. But why would you?

We have a lot of guildies who are in both BBC guilds. We offer them two different cities in which to sell; this diversifies and increases the number of shoppers looking at their wares. Why would we stack both of our guilds in one city?

To the "coalition of two":
Is that a bad thing? We started with one guild and became successful enough that a sister guild was warranted; both are run by the same officer team.

To the "partnership of benefits":
Are there other GMs or guilds that I know/like/respect and therefore I do not bid on their spots? Absolutely. There are also guilds that I acknowledge as strong enough to be threatening if they become vengeful. I don't bid on their spots either. Does that count as a "partnership of benefits"? I don't think so. Bidding has always been political and strategic; it just comes with the job.

Grimm13 wrote: »

This is an inherent downfall of a limited buy in system in that it becomes possible for a small group to control the system locking out all others.

This is more misinformation. There are 218 kiosks currently available in ESO. I challenge anyone, small or large, to "control the system" and "lock out all others." One guy managed it with one town for one week to troll people; it was the biggest shakeup I've ever seen in the trade world.

At least on PCNA, the whole cartel theory is a boogieman, used to incite uninformed people to mistrust trade guilds. It's ridiculous and overplayed.

You both have proved my point. Call them Coalition, Alliance, Cartel, Sister guild, truth is there are grouping of Guilds. You can deflect and say they are boogeymen or accusations.

They are there and that is beyond the intent of what ZOS created the Trader System. ZOS expected that each guild would be a single group of it's own without political alignments, further it was done when there was a faction divider as well so they did not expect guilds to grow beyond 500.

I concede that I misspoke when stating they could lock out all, I was thinking that they could lock out from such as the top several trade hubs.

In my example I was saying that those five separate coalitions could control say the top three trading hubs between them.

In all my point is made that the system is flawed from it's foundation. That Multi-bidding did nothing to fix it, in fact is making and will make it even worse. To fix the system requires entirely different changes and ZOS needs to have a discussion with us that use the system daily. I don't care if it's a survey they have us do, as long as they actually look at it and comeback with some ideas for more feedback and try to get it right.

Get rid of multi-bidding and instead, start showing the previous week's winning bid at each trader. Also show the previous week's raw sales volume. Let supply and demand do what it does best.

Giraffon wrote: »

Get rid of multi-bidding and instead, start showing the previous week's winning bid at each trader. Also show the previous week's raw sales volume. Let supply and demand do what it does best.

Actually quite a nice idea. But do that 1/ on top of multibidding 2/ viewable by anyone.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Giraffon wrote: »

Get rid of multi-bidding and instead, start showing the previous week's winning bid at each trader. Also show the previous week's raw sales volume. Let supply and demand do what it does best.

Actually quite a nice idea. But do that 1/ on top of multibidding 2/ viewable by anyone.

sry its a bs idea for a simple reason -> u might think of the situation, once the gold inflation problem got solved, guilds will stop bidding over their income and every guild will bid what its able to. but as long as u can buy gold with crowns and guildmasters actively doing so, that idea is broken.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Can we stick to what is actually happening please based on experience as per the title of the thread rather than fiction . Thank you

It's not fiction, it's anticipation.
Don't you think everyone concerned will evaluate their current situation at the light of their anticipations for the future ? Like, for instance, "but we/they won't stand that level of bidding for long" ? (Just an example).

This thread isn't about predictions.

reoskit wrote: »

How many folks feel the bids they're making (defensive/offensive, winning/losing) are sustainable?

I have been placing sustainable bids at an increase from prior and still not winning. In many cases to guilds with little stock. My guild is not the best stocked but it is far from having little stock, I call it mid-level.

reposting my comment from another thread:

I'm the GM of a trade guild who has not won a bid in two weeks due to these issues. I put in a bid about 3 times as much as the highest bid I've ever had to put in for our regular spot, and lost that bid to a guild with a bit over 100 items listed. I also lost every bid around our regular spot with a bid 2 times as much as our previous highest bid. Who took these spots? More tiny guilds with almost nothing listed. A lot of these traders which used to have small guilds who may have had about a thousand items listed are now taken by guilds with almost nothing.

This is basically making it impossible for many guilds to secure a trader. There are proxy guilds which are putting in 7 figure bids on many, many traders, screwing over every single guild who used to get those traders for much much less.

In a major city in one of the DLC zones with 6 spots, there are now only 2 legitimate guilds who hold traders, the other 4 being guilds with almost nothing listed. Before the patch, it was almost always the same small (but still active) trade guilds who held these spots, and now they're basically wasted.

Thanks for making it even easier for larger guilds to push out smaller guilds, I guess.

tl;dr smaller guilds are getting screwed and there are a lot of empty traders. there seems to be a concerted effort to bid on and win traders with proxy guilds and leave them mostly empty to reduce the amount of trade guilds in the game who actually have a tarder. yes, people are that greedy.

reoskit wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

Look at trade hub such as Rawl-k (sp?) the Five Guilds holding the spots are pretty much in separate coalitions, of about 5 guilds each. Each one can coordinate their group to bid on 50 spots with no overlap within the group out of the 135 trader spots in the game. Each five coalition is doing the same thing but are gonna try to spread out, so collectively they have 250 bids.

Before they would concentrate on two maybe three zones but not all win. Now They can control 5 hubs if they bid correctly and because of the bankroll the 25 will win instead of having to sit out without a trader.

Wait - can you clarify this? You're on PCNA, so:

So... tell me about these "coalitions of about 5 guilds" please? I can at least speak for BBC - we have no such thing.

This is the impression that there is. My apologizes, I was trying to show how a hub can now be controlled and the trickle down. There are a number of 3 - 5 coalition guilds in PCNA. Some advertise themselves that way, other have official sister guilds but some officers may also have their own guild which does not share funds but enjoys a partnership of benefits. If you have a sister guild, you are a coalition of two but still a coalition.

This is an inherent downfall of a limited buy in system in that it becomes possible for a small group to control the system locking out all others. The 10 bids only increased that instead of reducing as ZOS implied.

Every guilds is going to be looked at as placing 10 bids. No guild is going to throw open their books to prove otherwise, understandable so, just as they will not disclose actual bids. This makes it even harder to predict and requires speculation.

So many points.

To the concept of controlling a hub:
I suppose anyone could spin up 5-ish legitimate guilds and (with considerable work) own a city. But why would you?

We have a lot of guildies who are in both BBC guilds. We offer them two different cities in which to sell; this diversifies and increases the number of shoppers looking at their wares. Why would we stack both of our guilds in one city?

To the "coalition of two":
Is that a bad thing? We started with one guild and became successful enough that a sister guild was warranted; both are run by the same officer team.

To the "partnership of benefits":
Are there other GMs or guilds that I know/like/respect and therefore I do not bid on their spots? Absolutely. There are also guilds that I acknowledge as strong enough to be threatening if they become vengeful. I don't bid on their spots either. Does that count as a "partnership of benefits"? I don't think so. Bidding has always been political and strategic; it just comes with the job.

Grimm13 wrote: »

This is an inherent downfall of a limited buy in system in that it becomes possible for a small group to control the system locking out all others.

This is more misinformation. There are 218 kiosks currently available in ESO. I challenge anyone, small or large, to "control the system" and "lock out all others." One guy managed it with one town for one week to troll people; it was the biggest shakeup I've ever seen in the trade world.

At least on PCNA, the whole cartel theory is a boogieman, used to incite uninformed people to mistrust trade guilds. It's ridiculous and overplayed.

There are guilds placing 7 figure bids on traders that, before the patch, used to go for about 15% of that amount of gold. These guilds have less than one page of items listed. If I had to speculate on why this is happening, my first thought wouldn't be to suggest that the GMs of all of these tiny guilds with nothing to sell suddenly decided to throw millions of gold into the trash.

I'm not suggesting anyone distrust trade guilds, but I am suggesting that there is some effort by a person or persons to place large bids on traders for the sole purpose of making them unavailable to any other guild.

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

I'm so glad they did this only because it hurts big trading guilds. The same very guilds that don't want us to have a global AH.


So watching them cry makes me feel better.

Its hurting the big trading guilds the least. The new system is hurting smaller guilds more.

Big trading guilds have nothing to do with there not being an AH.

Maybe it’s time ZOS rework the requirements to bid on a trader.

Let’s say at 50 you can have the internal Guild store. That benefits the guild and hurts no one

But to bid on a trader you need 300 active players.

This would solve a lot of the low end issues of the guilds spending massive amounts of gold and having very little listed. It is not hard to get 300 people to join if you’re dedicated to recruiting and it would help the economy as goods would be more available than some guild that list 100 green recipes

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

I'm so glad they did this only because it hurts big trading guilds. The same very guilds that don't want us to have a global AH.


So watching them cry makes me feel better.

Thing is it is not hurting them, it's hurting the Mid to Low level guilds.

Those of us that do not believe in asking members to pay a fee, buy in an auction, buy raffle tickets and or maintain a certain level of sales. This is who it is hurting.. It is also raising the bar to even attempt to get a new guild up and running.

I understand, but I HATE the system. I hated it in since beta, and got people saying it is so good! It adds so much to the game.

So watching this crash and burn some makes me happy.

Not a fan of the system either. I started offering a hassle free guild with no fees several years ago. Was told it would never work, it did until multi bidding, might still if I get the balance dialed in.

ecru wrote: »

reposting my comment from another thread:

I'm the GM of a trade guild who has not won a bid in two weeks due to these issues. I put in a bid about 3 times as much as the highest bid I've ever had to put in for our regular spot, and lost that bid to a guild with a bit over 100 items listed. I also lost every bid around our regular spot with a bid 2 times as much as our previous highest bid. Who took these spots? More tiny guilds with almost nothing listed. A lot of these traders which used to have small guilds who may have had about a thousand items listed are now taken by guilds with almost nothing.

This is basically making it impossible for many guilds to secure a trader. There are proxy guilds which are putting in 7 figure bids on many, many traders, screwing over every single guild who used to get those traders for much much less.

In a major city in one of the DLC zones with 6 spots, there are now only 2 legitimate guilds who hold traders, the other 4 being guilds with almost nothing listed. Before the patch, it was almost always the same small (but still active) trade guilds who held these spots, and now they're basically wasted.

Thanks for making it even easier for larger guilds to push out smaller guilds, I guess.

tl;dr smaller guilds are getting screwed and there are a lot of empty traders. there seems to be a concerted effort to bid on and win traders with proxy guilds and leave them mostly empty to reduce the amount of trade guilds in the game who actually have a tarder. yes, people are that greedy.

reoskit wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

Look at trade hub such as Rawl-k (sp?) the Five Guilds holding the spots are pretty much in separate coalitions, of about 5 guilds each. Each one can coordinate their group to bid on 50 spots with no overlap within the group out of the 135 trader spots in the game. Each five coalition is doing the same thing but are gonna try to spread out, so collectively they have 250 bids.

Before they would concentrate on two maybe three zones but not all win. Now They can control 5 hubs if they bid correctly and because of the bankroll the 25 will win instead of having to sit out without a trader.

Wait - can you clarify this? You're on PCNA, so:

So... tell me about these "coalitions of about 5 guilds" please? I can at least speak for BBC - we have no such thing.

This is the impression that there is. My apologizes, I was trying to show how a hub can now be controlled and the trickle down. There are a number of 3 - 5 coalition guilds in PCNA. Some advertise themselves that way, other have official sister guilds but some officers may also have their own guild which does not share funds but enjoys a partnership of benefits. If you have a sister guild, you are a coalition of two but still a coalition.

This is an inherent downfall of a limited buy in system in that it becomes possible for a small group to control the system locking out all others. The 10 bids only increased that instead of reducing as ZOS implied.

Every guilds is going to be looked at as placing 10 bids. No guild is going to throw open their books to prove otherwise, understandable so, just as they will not disclose actual bids. This makes it even harder to predict and requires speculation.

So many points.

To the concept of controlling a hub:
I suppose anyone could spin up 5-ish legitimate guilds and (with considerable work) own a city. But why would you?

We have a lot of guildies who are in both BBC guilds. We offer them two different cities in which to sell; this diversifies and increases the number of shoppers looking at their wares. Why would we stack both of our guilds in one city?

To the "coalition of two":
Is that a bad thing? We started with one guild and became successful enough that a sister guild was warranted; both are run by the same officer team.

To the "partnership of benefits":
Are there other GMs or guilds that I know/like/respect and therefore I do not bid on their spots? Absolutely. There are also guilds that I acknowledge as strong enough to be threatening if they become vengeful. I don't bid on their spots either. Does that count as a "partnership of benefits"? I don't think so. Bidding has always been political and strategic; it just comes with the job.

Grimm13 wrote: »

This is an inherent downfall of a limited buy in system in that it becomes possible for a small group to control the system locking out all others.

This is more misinformation. There are 218 kiosks currently available in ESO. I challenge anyone, small or large, to "control the system" and "lock out all others." One guy managed it with one town for one week to troll people; it was the biggest shakeup I've ever seen in the trade world.

At least on PCNA, the whole cartel theory is a boogieman, used to incite uninformed people to mistrust trade guilds. It's ridiculous and overplayed.

There are guilds placing 7 figure bids on traders that, before the patch, used to go for about 15% of that amount of gold. These guilds have less than one page of items listed. If I had to speculate on why this is happening, my first thought wouldn't be to suggest that the GMs of all of these tiny guilds with nothing to sell suddenly decided to throw millions of gold into the trash.

I'm not suggesting anyone distrust trade guilds, but I am suggesting that there is some effort by a person or persons to place large bids on traders for the sole purpose of making them unavailable to any other guild.

Another possible reason we might be seeing so much of this now more then ever might be due to crown selling. If you have a crap ton of rl money to burn it isn't hard to become wealthy in a short period of time. Some of these crown sellers might be just buying up traders for the fun of it. 🤷‍♀️

Grimm13 wrote: »

They are there and that is beyond the intent of what ZOS created the Trader System. ZOS expected that each guild would be a single group of it's own without political alignments, further it was done when there was a faction divider as well so they did not expect guilds to grow beyond 500.

Please point me to someplace, any place, that ZOS said anything of the sort.

hiyde wrote: »

Grimm13 wrote: »

They are there and that is beyond the intent of what ZOS created the Trader System. ZOS expected that each guild would be a single group of it's own without political alignments, further it was done when there was a faction divider as well so they did not expect guilds to grow beyond 500.

Please point me to someplace, any place, that ZOS said anything of the sort.

*cuts ties with Hiyde*

So, how do we go about this divorce? Like, you can keep the guild house, but I’m getting full custody of the Officer Team.

hmm there might be other aspects also an option, as example the amount of listings to the guild store. this also would make it necessary, in case there are ghost guilds, that account names in that ghost guild would need to show flagg. make the amount of listings as example 10x30 or 20x30....

ZeroXFF wrote: »

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

^This. TY.