An Exposé on Trade Guild Politics, Market Monopolies & Other Economy Topics

Bucky_13 · January 2020

Paralyse wrote: »

I have 230K in the bank and can't buy nearly anything with that, especially the things I need most (motif pages and yellow mats) and as a non-guilded player i have zero access to sell the things I harvest and rare drops I come across that I don't need. With my game time limited to 5-15 hours per week off and on there is simply no viable way to accumulate wealth without access to the trading system.

I'm very curious as to why you haven't joined one of the guilds with less harsh sales requirements. I'm in 2 trading guilds, 1 of those is the first trading guild I joined which has a 2k sales req or 555g donation. That guild is in a decent spot where things sell well enough. Almost 400 or the members in the guild have made that goal in the last 2 full weeks, and judging by what you wrote I'd say it very likely you could meet that req fairly easy each week as well.

So I wonder what's stopping you form joining one? With the guild finder system, it's become a lot easier to join these guilds which are low/mid tier who are in spots where selling things is very reasonable.

SidraWillowsky · January 2020

@Urigall I assume that the reason some of that info is withheld is because it could potentially identify GMs who provided the authors with the info under the agreement that their answers would remain confidential. Listing zones and how many guilds collapsed (I don't think it was an incredibly high number) could allow people to discern which guilds are being referenced. I don't think they're doing it to be purposefully vague but rather to protect the identity of the GMs.

Anyway, I've stuck with one trade guild since I started ESO and it's amazing. Just... I dunno. Voicing support for the GMs and officers who work so hard and create a fun environment. I know that your post doesn't state that a significant portion of GMs are sketchy, but I want to express appreciation for the great ones out there.

Zulera301 · January 2020

the fact that the multibid system allows for new blood to move up or around is beneficial overall, although I can see the drawbacks from a guild owner's perspective.

honestly though, whether my guilds are in Mournhold or an outlaws refuge, I always try to buy local first, right at the banker (4 guilds all in one place). I have only 1 or 2 guilds that I've blacklisted and won't buy from unless there's a really kickass deal that I manage to snag but overall I have no real guild loyalty when it comes to where I shop. I support the guilds Im in via different means, but honestly, if Random Trader Joe sets up shop in Rawl'kha and has deals as good as the stuff I usually get there, I'll buy from him with no hesitation.

And as someone whose trade guilds are in various tiered locations from Windhelm and Sentinel all the way up to Belkarth or Vivec, I've had little trouble selling most of my items in any of them. I mean sure some stuff moves faster than others, which might be detrimental to the "me, here, now!" mindset that many impatient entitled Americans may have... but overall the fluctuation of guilds isn't as detrimental as some people might act like.

still, all in all, a very interesting read. I play the markets and flip stuff fairly regularly and I've amassed about 48 million on my own.

one thing I can assert though is the power of craft writs. sure it's like 89-90k for an 18-character account, but that number goes up if you count ornate items, and if you start selling any of the reward mats you get from them. (you can get gold mats even from lv.1 writs, and surveys can keep your tier-10 mat stocks fairly full). BUT, my rant about the awesomeness of craft writs is for another time.

Blacknight841 · January 2020

@Alskar7

I enjoyed this article because it does explain a lot that people do not understand about the trading world. Most of the things described are also present on the consoles. However you have wasted a considerable amount of time and valuable essay formatting, in one of the best typed forum posts I have seen so far.

FrancisCrawford · January 2020

VaranisArano wrote: »

There's some additional information about the Rawl'kha incident that might be wise to include when you describe it as "With virtually no competition, guilds were able to bid laughably low on their current positions (or even bid the minimum) to continuously claim the same position week after week."

One of the GMs released the info on their losing bid: 22.5 million

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6072752/#Comment_6072752
https://amp.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bs4wmy/ever_wonder_how_much_a_rawlkha_bid_costs_on_pcna/

Edit: Ack. I was using the gold figure for 4 writs/day, which is what I usually do, not 7. Sorry! Add 2K/day to what I previously wrote.

Another dubious number in the essay that is even easier to check is the claim that one can make 15-20 million/month doing crafting writs. Now, with enough accounts anything is possible, but on a single account that would be in the range of 1 million/character/month, or 30K/character/day. Even with two sets of Tier 3 hireling emails/day, I think that would require mat prices a LOT higher than those on the server I play on (PC/NA). And yes, it's all about mat value, since cash from writs is strictly limited to a little over 2K/character/day, and vendoring ornates and guild-store-selling other stuff will only push you to the range of 5K.

Jannisaries · January 2020

Thanks for the post. While I don't necessarily agree with everything in the OP, I appreciate the effort in putting it together.

My Observations:

Trader Profitability
Without knowing your sources for this data, I must say I thought it would be more. I am a very active trader in 4 trade guilds and I generate around 4-5M per week across my two accounts without really trying. Although I spend some time at it I don't flip mats or really follow trends. If I am able to earn this much then I would feel bad for GM's and officers who put so much effort into running my guilds yet only generate the posted level of profits.

Guild Trader Bids
I am not a GM so I cant speak to the merits of the bid system, past or present. What I do know is human nature and no matter what system is put in place, people will try to game it. I would expect that collusion on bids started with the very first bid system and continues to this day. I do know that this new system has put a lot of stress on GM's who take pride in being able to have a trading spot for the guild members each and every week. I know that some officers and co-gm's in my guilds have taken sabbaticals or given it up entirely as a result.

Crown:Gold Exchanges
I think an entire article could be written about the economic impact the introduction of legitimate crown selling has had and will have on the game. People with IRL deep pockets can get access to very large amounts of gold very quickly. Some of these players will purchase things like houses, thereby taking cash out of the economy while others may buy the entire inventory of a certain resource in an effort to play "robber-baron" and corner the market. Others may use this gold to buy a prestigious trader spot even though their guild has very little to sell. This is a more complex topic than the OP has presented.

Gold Sinks and Wealth Accumulation
I have been playing since early 2017 and in that time I have managed to earn a fair bit of gold as a trader. I estimate that I have earned 550M during this time. For me, I don't see the point in accumulating huge piles of money as there is no prize for high score so I maintain a minimum cash on hand and spend the rest. However, I have bought everything the game has to offer except golding a bit more jewelry so looking forward the only gold sink I can see is increasing my donations/raffle ticket purchase for my guilds. Perhaps the next time ZoS wants to donate money to some worthwhile charity they can tie it back to donations of in-game gold somehow.

I think that to maintain a healthy economy there needs to be some way to bleed gold out of the game as inflationary pressures are starting to build (just like IRL the first indications of this are in the higher value rare/luxury items)

In conclusion let me add that all of my guild masters and officers do a terrific amount of work to run the guilds and I cant thank them enough for it. Although I spend a large amount on raffle tickets and donations I don't begrudge this at all. Being a GM is hard work and certainly not something i would be able to pull off.

Cheers

Arrodisia · January 2020

AnonomissX wrote: »

As a co-GM (by agreement of the actual GM who also wants to just play the game and not have this as a second job) of a mainly social guild on the NA Xbox server, I have to laugh at a few of these suppositions. The struggle is REAL. The instant a GM or other member who has bidding rights / responsibilities doesn't put a good / winning bid in, you will LOSE THAT SPOT. END OF STORY.

If this is true for a third rate to out of the way trader like the ones we go for, then imagine what it takes to not get "sniped" out of a regular spot like Mournhold in Deshaan. The weekly dues have gone up in order to sustain the spot. I have been a member of an established multi guild in their Mournhold spot, and the dues went from 5k a week, up to 10k a week, and now currently 20k a week. Is is worth it? You BETCHA. I make so much more money than the dues that it is worth

And yes all MY gold, except for some items from the luxury vendor if I like it, or some pretty dress or occasional gotta have it item, goes to the guild bank, and that gold is only used for trader bids. I am also the one who runs the raffles and usually come up with the gold or items out of my own (virtual) pocket, or others donate for the raffle. We do this in my guild w/out dues, and the guild was only ever set up as a social guild, so only a mid-low tier trader is what we can go for.

Do I make money out of my own trader? Heck no! I also am a member of a stable Mournhold trader, and I make the majority of my gold each week from that trader.

But why even do it you say? don't you just want to play the game?

What do you mean by "Just play the game"?

* Adventuring? Some people like that, some don't. I do some
* Undaunted Dailies? I will do them with my friends if they ask.
* Doing all the main quests? I already did on my main character.
* Creating different toons? Can't be bothered, I like my main.
* Doing Dungeons? Yes, I enjoy that but not the end all be all.
* Trials? Once in a while.
* BG's? I like them but I suck.
* MMORPG - Cyrodiil - now you are talking! EP represent! I travel with my EP guild as a healer.
* Housing - yep, I finished off my Earthtear Cavern, and I like to see other people's creativity.
* Farming for mats: I will cut you, touch my cornflower and DIE. And bots getting my ore? Die twice you fetcher
* Selling and trading? Oh yeah, I love the social meta, the mental aspect of figuring out how to market your goods in a major trader vs a very minor trader vs zone chat.
* Bidding for a trader and running regular raffles? A labor of love.

What? YOU don't llike farming and Selling in a trader? Well my friend, just like all those OTHER activities...it's an aspect of the game a great deal of people actually enjoy. An auction house would destroy guilds, destroy a great swath of social aspects of this game.

I can see both sides on the multiple trader bids...but for now, since I am tasked with actually doing the bids after checking with the other officers, off I go each Sunday... and spend all our guild money on multiple locations to hedge our bets. And it's surprisingly...FUN.

Yes. The struggle is real. GM's and officers are farming day and night to put competitive bids up. We have very little, and most times no gold reserves at all, because for years we've been putting everything we have into the guilds we run to keep our sellers happy. They gave us no real tools or information to work with either. Addons only help with a percentage of the admin duties, if they are working. ZOS is to blame for the hard times we have as GM's and officers. The percentage the guild, actually, gets from sales is way too low. They could've added more information to the rosters. Worst of all, ZOS Introducing crown gifting lets player buy traders to win, or rather buy traders to troll real trade guilds, which actually would be functioning well, if those things weren't a factor. The worst part of crown gifting is that the players doing this to excess are contributing not just to the problems within the trade community, but also contributing to the problems of the entire game. ZOS, continually, delays major fixes necessary, because they see no reason to implement them as long as they have crown revenue. It's a vicious circle destroying a fundamentally good game that could be saved.

Imho, GM's and officers are the minority in this game. It hard to get ZOS to react to the minority. I do think. They should make an exception in this case, because this system impacts a large portion of players.

Also, most players, who are part of the trade community, want good stable vendors to sell their wares on, but very little of the players want to contribute enough sales, purchases, or donations to ensure their guild stays on those vendors. This ridiculous fluff piece of an article makes players paranoid for nothing, and increases already existing problems for GM's. Your GM's are doing everything for you in most cases. What are you doing to help them? There are some things you can do to help. 1.)Be active in the forums about the struggles of gm's in the trade community, 2.) reach your sales requirements or donate 3.) help with some of the duties and favors we do for the guilds occasionally, even if it's just to toss out a few nice recruitment messages, answer someone's price check in the guild, welcome someone new into the guild, help keep the guild chat free of drama, craft an item, and stop reading slanderous articles, like this one, which are only meant to shock and awe uninformed players....... There are some more ways, but I think many get the point now.

Ixtyr · January 2020

Spage wrote: »

This post seems well-written and enlightening to anyone who doesn't run a trade guild, or is in the top leadership positions.

I have been a senior officer in several or the 'major' trading guilds, and currently GM my own casual trading guild. The GMs I have known are in no way flush with gold. I lose millions of my personal gold each week maintaining my guild, and this is a common for many GMs.

The estimated revenue/costs presented are mostly laughable, and certainly disingenuous in their suggestions. For example, it is in no way common for top trading guilds to near the 200M mark weekly.

Prize acquisition numbers are also hilariously low: getting donations from members is like pulling teeth because they believe nonsense posts like this one. I put over 1M a week into prizes alone for my tiny casual trading guild, usually more. And yes, I need to bid far more than those outlined projections.

I'm sure this all seems factual to someone who is a corrupt and terrible GM, or wholly believes what they're told by a few. I certainly have known some, but they are not the majority, and are easy to spot if you have a lot of trade guild experience.

Crown gifting has affected the market by increasing the amount of gold some players have to spend - but to paint a vast swath of players as people who can simply burn real cash on Crowns for gold is insulting. I have never once sold Crowns because I do not have any extra disposable income - and that's were most of us sit, just modestly trying to save enough to buy a crate every now and then.

These grand sweeping statements, wrapped in faulty "data", written by either corrupt and/or incredibly uninformed posters cause so much harm to the trading community.

Guildies wonder why I can't afford to buy all the Mundus Stones and win all the trader bids because some guy on the forums, who appears to not run a trading guild themselves, said I steal from them and am rich.

Causing all this pain and difficulty for guilds that you have no part of, so that you can promote your Aura7 cabal, is something that actually does hurt the trading game.

I was thinking about responding, but @Spage summed it up pretty nicely.

Post seemed fairly well-intentioned, not everything is inaccurate, but there's a lot of bad assumptions and incomplete data as well.

There's been some bad GMs in the past, there probably still are across the various platforms, but by-and-large the GMs I've known over the years tend to be all-around decent people doing their best to build and sustain a solid community - even if I don't necessarily like all of them.

Guilds will continue to rise and fall, as they always have. Find one that you like, and if you have concerns, just be smart about how you handle your donations and whatnot. It's one thing to spend 100K on raffle tickets to support a guild you love and that has been with you, with a proven track record, for a long time, when you're making 500K+ per week in sales like clockwork. It's another thing entirely to be donating 100K when you literally only have 200K to your name, and can't afford it.

Join a guild that is both 1) a guild that supports you and provides what you're looking for, and 2) that you can justify supporting. If a guild requires you to sell 100K/week to stay a member, and you can't do that consistently, find another guild somewhere else. Plenty are recruiting. It may take you a few tries to find the right one for you, and I understand that that can be frustrating, but it's no different than trying to find the right PvE or PvP or Social guild for you - it's bound to be out there, you just have to find it.

Rani79 · January 2020

I'm an officer in a tier I trading guild on PC/EU

This "essay" starts with "the duty we feel to the community to provide informative, relevant information to the public view on under-reported (and often classified) topics" throughout the piece, it assumes quite a lot, while assumptions might be true, or false, no real factual data or proof is given, so who's to know?

GM's in general are not rich, they scrape together each piece of gold they make selling items, which they farm for hours on end each day, to sell, in order to keep the guild afloat, to give their members the kiosk at the location for which they joined the guild for. It's a thankless and tedious job. Donations don't cut it, it's in most cases 5% of the bid, if you're lucky, and don't use it for raffles. And 3,5% tax on sales, won't make you rich either. The rest comes out of the GM's personal pocket.

As others have stated, this "essay" isn't based on the majority of GM's, or on reality, for that matter, baseless assumptions, made up data, all to slander and discredit hard working GM's, to what end? Sure, there are money hoarding GM's, but they are most definitely not the majority. It requires a lot of work for GM's and officers (like me), who do this without personal gain, actually with personal loss. It's time and gold consuming and with the tools ZOS provides (none), relying on backdated addons, makes management tedious and frustrating at times. And forget about playing the game, priority one is the guild, everything else is a rare bonus, and all gold income goes to bids.

The post ends with "About the authors", which, in my humble opinion, should be the opening, it's no more than a common courtesy to introduce yourself first, and not as a collective anonymous closed collective, to me, you're just one guy on the Internet, who wants to make himself seen as an authority on the matter he speaks of, which he obviously is not.

VaranisArano · January 2020

Acrolas, you'll have better luck discussing moderator action with an actual moderator in a PM than talking about it on the forums. Doing so here is breaking the forum rules.

If you think the video constitutes naming and shaming, that's something else to bring up with a moderator.

In the main, aside from their math (which they explicitly acknowledged as not being specific) and their claim to have gathered data and observations from testimonials from anonymous Guildmasters (none of which was shared in the post with any attribution that might lead to verification), this thread shares very little new info and parrots attitudes that one can find on pretty much any thread complaining about the guild trader system or advocating for a global auction house. That's nothing new on the forums and very rarely results in discipline.

nightstrike · January 2020

Alskar7 wrote: »

It is the duty of the public to analyze, verify [emphasis mine], discuss, and debate topics which naturally promote skepticism; debate and discussion is encouraged by the authors.

You didn't provide any way for the data presented to be verified.

Alskar7 wrote: »

we have published example revenue comparison data for undisclosed zones below:

You don't cite your source, and your "data" is inherently biased. As someone whose career is based in data science, this is the kind of thing that wouldn't stand a peer review. Let's assume that your data is not intentionally biased. How are you overcoming the unintentional bias? You are pulling data that is by its nature a secret. So this data only represents guilds for which you've been able to gain some level of access. A portion of that access will be third-hand and thus less reliable. A portion of it may be first hand, and thus increasingly biased. This means that you data and your results are swayed by the inclination of the sources to give you such data, and are likely heavily weighted towards "bad" guilds with "unhappy" people.

As a case in point, if I personally knew this data about a guild I was in (and I don't), why would I share it with you if I was happy with the guild? Or, why would I even give you the actual numbers? If I was regularly bidding 100 gold on a spot, I'd perhaps want to tell you that I was really bidding 1 gold, thus causing others to reduce what they thought was the average bid. Or maybe I just want to screw with you. Or maybe I got the information from someone else who lied.

Let's assume that you got screenshots or other proofs that were magically 100% accurate. You still are biased in that you are only looking at the subset of people that are willing to work with you. In order for a sample to be representative of the whole, it has to be fully randomized, accounting for all the many sources of bias. It appears like you are not doing that. What this shows (again, assuming that your data sources are 100% legitimate), is that the guilds that you got data on have the numbers below. This does not show that the guilds that anyone else is in has any numbers at all relative to these. And since nobody knows if they are in the guilds represented by these numbers, the data is basically worthless.

Perhaps you could at least say how many guilds you got data from, and what percentage that is of all of the trade guilds in the system. The more you got (again, assuming the data acquired was 100% correct), the less impactful the bias can be. It would be good to show this percentage per tier, since I'm guessing that smaller guilds were more willing to work with you.

Alskar7 wrote: »

SECTION IV - THE FORESHADOWED CONCLUSION OF MULTI-BIDDING ON THE TRADEWORLD STATUS QUO
Despite significant protest from the leadership of trade guilds in various forum posts, mail, and other correspondence about the long-term consequences of the new system, ZOS has responded with their assertion that the current system will be here to stay — bad news for the rich and powerful.

But the damage to the economy and satisfaction of trader and customer as a result of the new system is also worthy of attention. Many buyers enjoyed the previous system where they could travel to a zone and practically guarantee their favorite Trade Guild maintained their position, which was good for sellers too: familiarity and reputation build up over time. It is why some trade guilds make 20m, 30m, 50m more than their neighbors adjacent to their own position. Presently, there are no guarantees, and more often than not, buyers are being redirected weekly to find the guilds that they most often buy from. A seemingly minor inconvenience but overtime adds up to major annoyances. Further analysis on the effects of this nomadic atrophy is yet to be released — a subject that interests many “ESOconomists” alike.

And further, what will be the long-term effect — if any — that the continuous closure of well-established guilds continues? What is the solution to giving Guildmasters the necessary tools to fight against a system that is unrewarding? How on earth do we expect anyone to carry the mantle of leadership especially in times where server stability and essential guild maintenance addons are disabled? What, ultimately, was the intention behind allowing up to ten bids to be made weekly? How will ZOS deal with the persistent dilemma of effective gold sinks when trader bids have proven to be not enough? These are all questions that should be given much more serious thought to the development team at ZOS.

One slight improvement may be to make each backup bid come with it a hefty and exponentially increasing tax.

haelene · January 2020

Fascinating read, thank you!

Sylvermynx · January 2020

You know what's REALLY interesting?

The OP hasn't bothered to show up again.

Wolfkeks · January 2020

Source OP?

Vahrokh · January 2020

I applaud the effort at creating one of the few economy based posts on the ESO forums.
On EvE Online we had so many of them, I still dearly miss that game. Too bad I "won" at it and it was over for me.

Anyway, I see some weird trading psychology in here.

Trading guilds should be managed by traders, not role players. Or, maybe, role players acting as traders.

That is, if you create a money making operation, then you should make money.
Perhaps this opinion of mine comes from my personal life experience as a trader and enterpreneur but it worked very well for me.

I see people made mad money before the guild traders bidding changes. Now the golden goose has dried up and they complain. A trader just moves on and finds another venue.

After all what's even the reason to make mad money in ESO? I bought most golden 1M+ recipes and I still sit on about 113 millions in cash plus many more in materials. I never had to lead any guild nor sell 1 crown.

It's *that* simple to make money in ESO, it's actually harder to find ways to spend it!

I already could not understand why pouring in 20h a week just to lead a trading guild. Now that it's fruitless, just sell it to someone else and move on.

I really, really appreciate the very kind guild leaders and officers in my trading guilds but if at any day they'll find themselves stressed, disheartened etc. etc., I hope they'll just drop everything and keep having fun in ESO in some other way.

dvonpm · January 2020

Insightful and interesting, but I also take issue with those numbers. Long time officer in a Tier 2 (non dlc) spot on PC/NA and those numbers not my experience.

After multi-bidding, GM and other officers are sinking millions of our own gold into keeping up with bids. I have personally never even had more than 3.5 mil. I currently have 1.5 million and I am saving that for... you guessed it... padding next week's bid. Our GM has never had more than 10 mil and most of that is now gone due to increased bids.

This is hardly rich. Probably because I spend most of my time doing non-value added crap like spreadsheets to manage information I *should* be able to get in game.

And none of that gold was earned through the guild, other than our persona sales. Basically everything we take in goes back to the bid. Over the years, being a bit over each week has allowed us to build a war chest, but we are now using that to also cover the stupid high bids.But it has never just gone into anyone's pockets.

If you are interested in more data I will be happy to share some numbers with you in DMs. I do not think we are an outlier, so I think you may seriously need it.

dvonpm · January 2020

nightstrike wrote: »

Alskar7 wrote: »

It is the duty of the public to analyze, verify [emphasis mine], discuss, and debate topics which naturally promote skepticism; debate and discussion is encouraged by the authors.

You didn't provide any way for the data presented to be verified.

Alskar7 wrote: »

we have published example revenue comparison data for undisclosed zones below:

You don't cite your source, and your "data" is inherently biased. As someone whose career is based in data science, this is the kind of thing that wouldn't stand a peer review. Let's assume that your data is not intentionally biased. How are you overcoming the unintentional bias? You are pulling data that is by its nature a secret. So this data only represents guilds for which you've been able to gain some level of access. A portion of that access will be third-hand and thus less reliable. A portion of it may be first hand, and thus increasingly biased. This means that you data and your results are swayed by the inclination of the sources to give you such data, and are likely heavily weighted towards "bad" guilds with "unhappy" people.

As a case in point, if I personally knew this data about a guild I was in (and I don't), why would I share it with you if I was happy with the guild? Or, why would I even give you the actual numbers? If I was regularly bidding 100 gold on a spot, I'd perhaps want to tell you that I was really bidding 1 gold, thus causing others to reduce what they thought was the average bid. Or maybe I just want to screw with you. Or maybe I got the information from someone else who lied.

Let's assume that you got screenshots or other proofs that were magically 100% accurate. You still are biased in that you are only looking at the subset of people that are willing to work with you. In order for a sample to be representative of the whole, it has to be fully randomized, accounting for all the many sources of bias. It appears like you are not doing that. What this shows (again, assuming that your data sources are 100% legitimate), is that the guilds that you got data on have the numbers below. This does not show that the guilds that anyone else is in has any numbers at all relative to these. And since nobody knows if they are in the guilds represented by these numbers, the data is basically worthless.

Perhaps you could at least say how many guilds you got data from, and what percentage that is of all of the trade guilds in the system. The more you got (again, assuming the data acquired was 100% correct), the less impactful the bias can be. It would be good to show this percentage per tier, since I'm guessing that smaller guilds were more willing to work with you.

Alskar7 wrote: »

SECTION IV - THE FORESHADOWED CONCLUSION OF MULTI-BIDDING ON THE TRADEWORLD STATUS QUO
Despite significant protest from the leadership of trade guilds in various forum posts, mail, and other correspondence about the long-term consequences of the new system, ZOS has responded with their assertion that the current system will be here to stay — bad news for the rich and powerful.

But the damage to the economy and satisfaction of trader and customer as a result of the new system is also worthy of attention. Many buyers enjoyed the previous system where they could travel to a zone and practically guarantee their favorite Trade Guild maintained their position, which was good for sellers too: familiarity and reputation build up over time. It is why some trade guilds make 20m, 30m, 50m more than their neighbors adjacent to their own position. Presently, there are no guarantees, and more often than not, buyers are being redirected weekly to find the guilds that they most often buy from. A seemingly minor inconvenience but overtime adds up to major annoyances. Further analysis on the effects of this nomadic atrophy is yet to be released — a subject that interests many “ESOconomists” alike.

And further, what will be the long-term effect — if any — that the continuous closure of well-established guilds continues? What is the solution to giving Guildmasters the necessary tools to fight against a system that is unrewarding? How on earth do we expect anyone to carry the mantle of leadership especially in times where server stability and essential guild maintenance addons are disabled? What, ultimately, was the intention behind allowing up to ten bids to be made weekly? How will ZOS deal with the persistent dilemma of effective gold sinks when trader bids have proven to be not enough? These are all questions that should be given much more serious thought to the development team at ZOS.

One slight improvement may be to make each backup bid come with it a hefty and exponentially increasing tax.

So many good points!

For example, I offered to share some numbers, which I would do honestly, but they wouldn't be getting anything exact. They'd be getting a ballpark range over an unspecified time frame in unspecified spots. If they ask me 10 minutes after we lose a trader bid they are likely to get my rage bias.

NupidStoob · January 2020

As someone already pointed out you certainly do not make 15-20 million gold from writs a month. This is so grossly exaggerated that I don't know how serious I can take all the other points you are raising OP...

SeaGtGruff · January 2020

NupidStoob wrote: »

As someone already pointed out you certainly do not make 15-20 million gold from writs a month. This is so grossly exaggerated that I don't know how serious I can take all the other points you are raising OP...

Apparently that's supposed to be a potential amount based on having all 18(?) of your characters at maximum crafting level, and selling everything "valuable" they get in the rewards-- ornate items, intricate items (which are no longer needed for raising the characters' crafting levels because they're all at maximum level), tempering mats, uncommon style mats, mats for levels you no longer need to craft at for the daily writs, surveys, master writs, etc. In other words, it definitely is not based on the flat amount of gold you're paid on each character. And the amount of money you can potentially earn through sales is probably based on prices which are at the higher end of the price range for each item that's being posted for sale.

NupidStoob · January 2020

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

NupidStoob wrote: »

As someone already pointed out you certainly do not make 15-20 million gold from writs a month. This is so grossly exaggerated that I don't know how serious I can take all the other points you are raising OP...

Apparently that's supposed to be a potential amount based on having all 18(?) of your characters at maximum crafting level, and selling everything "valuable" they get in the rewards-- ornate items, intricate items (which are no longer needed for raising the characters' crafting levels because they're all at maximum level), tempering mats, uncommon style mats, mats for levels you no longer need to craft at for the daily writs, surveys, master writs, etc. In other words, it definitely is not based on the flat amount of gold you're paid on each character. And the amount of money you can potentially earn through sales is probably based on prices which are at the higher end of the price range for each item that's being posted for sale.

I do writs on 18 characters which is why I can say that this is grossly exaggerated. You get 83664 Gold a day from the pure gold reward. Time that by 30 for a full month and you get 2.509.920G. Now lets be ridiculously generous and say you get 1.5 million from selling absolutely everything per weak. That's another 6 million so you are on 8.509.920. This is still nowhere close to OPs mentioned 15 million. Not to mention that the 1.5 mil a week from selling absolutely everything is incredibly unrealistic as it's actually only a few 100k. Even if you add in the Hirelings it's at max around 500k weekly in things you can sell which would mean you get 2 million a month from that plus the 2.509.920G you're on 4.509.920G. So you need to do that on at least 4 accounts to get in the 15-20 mil range OP mentioned.

Also the mention of "just for logging in a few minutes a day for several characters" is silly. If loading screens are nice and I stay very focused on it the writs on 18 chars with max level horses and rapid maneuver takes around 45 minutes without any inventory management. With the notion of selling everything which would require inventory management we can safely say that this is 1 hour per 18 characters for writs. On top of that will be surveys which equate to around 0.5 - 1 hour weekly on a fully optimized farming character. So around 30 hours per month plus around 2 - 4 for surveys to earn less than 5 million gold. A lot less honestly since we haven't even factored in the cost for materials to do the surveys.

Let's again be generous and say it's actually 5 million then this would mean we get around 165K gold for one hour a day of work. We already know that this number will be less and while this isn't a terrible amount of gold to earn for an hour of work it requires lots of setup as in making 18 characters, leveling them to 50, buying all the extra char slots with either gold or crowns yourself, eso+, powergrinding all their professions to max and farming enough skillpoints to have hirelings and all crafting maxed. So for people who have the patience and enjoy grinding this is not a bad thing to do to earn some extra gold, but it still lags far behind reselling, crown selling and carry runs in terms of gold you can earn.

SeaGtGruff · January 2020

Oh, I agree that it's probably "grossly exaggerated." I think most guild store prices are too high, and that if you see anything at a reasonable price then you should buy it quick before some flipper does and then reposts it for 2 or more times what they just paid for it. I know traders will defend the prices with something like, "Well, someone is going to buy it at that price, so it's okay to ask that much." But I digress. The point is, I think that any estimates of how much someone can "potentially" make by doing crafting writs and selling every scrap of sellable rewards that they get are probably going to be grossly exaggerated if they're based on prices at the high end of the price range for each sellable item. You might be able to actually get that much, but you might have to wait a long time before your items sell for the wildly inflated prices you're asking for them. And I guess the guild's cut possibly isn't being taken into account.

VaranisArano · January 2020

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Oh, I agree that it's probably "grossly exaggerated." I think most guild store prices are too high, and that if you see anything at a reasonable price then you should buy it quick before some flipper does and then reposts it for 2 or more times what they just paid for it. I know traders will defend the prices with something like, "Well, someone is going to buy it at that price, so it's okay to ask that much." But I digress. The point is, I think that any estimates of how much someone can "potentially" make by doing crafting writs and selling every scrap of sellable rewards that they get are probably going to be grossly exaggerated if they're based on prices at the high end of the price range for each sellable item. You might be able to actually get that much, but you might have to wait a long time before your items sell for the wildly inflated prices you're asking for them. And I guess the guild's cut possibly isn't being taken into account.

The guild's cut is a whopping...3.5% for sales tax.
That's equal to the cut ZOS takes straight off for a gold sink, also 3.5%.

There were a few weeks when I was selling tons of crafting mats I farmed for close to 500k a week in one of my guilds. The guild's cut of that? Around 17,500 gold. About the cost of 2 of the potent nirncrux I sold from my farming.

JKorr · January 2020

Paralyse wrote: »

Not looking for handouts, never have and never will -- just looking for the ability to reliably sell the things I farm and drops I receive to build my own wealth. I have no problem with spending the time I get to play this game grinding or with farming bosses for style pages or set pieces; I do have a problem with ZOS telling me that unless I decide to pay the piper and join one of the mega trading guilds I am not worthy of wealth accumulation without a disproportionately large game time investment.

Hard work is its own reward, but only if you have access to a free and open global marketplace as both a buyer and seller.

I'm in 5 guilds currently. One of them is a trading guild. This guild has NO dues. NO minimum sale requirement. Voluntary raffle participation. Only requirement is logging in once a week, which isn't exactly demanding if you're playing the game. Our trader is on Auridon. I decided to sell some stuff, but not a full 30 items. I had 6 chromium grains, 100 mundane runes, less than a full stack of clean pelts, 4 gilding wax, and a few other items. Not everything has sold yet, but so far I've gotten about 167k. And neither ZOS or any piper has demanded any part of the gold beyond the normal taxes. Why don't you look around for a good guild that doesn't charge extortion level dues?

SeaGtGruff · January 2020

VaranisArano wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Oh, I agree that it's probably "grossly exaggerated." I think most guild store prices are too high, and that if you see anything at a reasonable price then you should buy it quick before some flipper does and then reposts it for 2 or more times what they just paid for it. I know traders will defend the prices with something like, "Well, someone is going to buy it at that price, so it's okay to ask that much." But I digress. The point is, I think that any estimates of how much someone can "potentially" make by doing crafting writs and selling every scrap of sellable rewards that they get are probably going to be grossly exaggerated if they're based on prices at the high end of the price range for each sellable item. You might be able to actually get that much, but you might have to wait a long time before your items sell for the wildly inflated prices you're asking for them. And I guess the guild's cut possibly isn't being taken into account.

The guild's cut is a whopping...3.5% for sales tax.
That's equal to the cut ZOS takes straight off for a gold sink, also 3.5%.

There were a few weeks when I was selling tons of crafting mats I farmed for close to 500k a week in one of my guilds. The guild's cut of that? Around 17,500 gold. About the cost of 2 of the potent nirncrux I sold from my farming.

Well, my point was that the estimate was probably based on some assumptions-- max crafting skills for max payment, selling every reward that's sellable, and selling them at maximum price-- so the guild's cut might not have been factored in. Also, if you post something for sale and it doesn't sell within 30 days, presumably you put it up for sale again, which means the guild gets another listing fee for it. But my comment isn't about whether the guild's cut is too big, simply that the claimed estimate about how much gold you can earn in a month by doing crafting writs is probably unattainable by the average player because of the unspecified assumptions which seem to be based on fringe (that is, highly uncommon) cases.

ZOS_GregoryV · January 2020

Greetings all,

After removing a few posts, we must remind everyone that all post should be kept within the guidelines of the rules that we have in place. Having different opinions and debating is completely acceptable. However when doing so, keep it civil and constructive. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

reoskit · January 2020

I’m disheartened to see that, though there has been a review by ZOS, the original post which patently slanders the Rawl GMs, claiming them to be propagandists (see the original section title), deceitful, and "corrupted by the insatiable desire of rapid gold acquisition” has been left up in its entirety.

I was under the impression that name and shame was against the rules on this forum. Though the @names were not mentioned, it takes just a moment of searching to find out who they were. Unlike the “authors,” they have the integrity to have their names out in the open.

Though the OP states their intention is to “promote skepticism” (which I wholeheartedly support) it would be better if only verifiable facts were used, instead of suppositions, hearsay, misinformation, and flat out lies. Otherwise, OP, that is the very definition of propaganda.

kargen27 · January 2020

This is one of those posts that will change no minds because most of the content is peculation and opinion. If you do not like the current system you see the OP as insightful. If you are okay with the current system you are wondering where the data supporting the claims is.
I've been in two of the top trading guilds in the game. Leaders in both have said the multi bid system have made their jobs easier. I'm in a social guild that gets a trader most of the time. I really haven't noticed a big difference in what we get since the change. I don't know if costs have gone up for securing a trader outside of prime location but I do know we don't have dues, trading is not high on our to do list and we get a trader almost every week.

Basically a lot of words were used to not provide anything new.

VaranisArano · January 2020

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Oh, I agree that it's probably "grossly exaggerated." I think most guild store prices are too high, and that if you see anything at a reasonable price then you should buy it quick before some flipper does and then reposts it for 2 or more times what they just paid for it. I know traders will defend the prices with something like, "Well, someone is going to buy it at that price, so it's okay to ask that much." But I digress. The point is, I think that any estimates of how much someone can "potentially" make by doing crafting writs and selling every scrap of sellable rewards that they get are probably going to be grossly exaggerated if they're based on prices at the high end of the price range for each sellable item. You might be able to actually get that much, but you might have to wait a long time before your items sell for the wildly inflated prices you're asking for them. And I guess the guild's cut possibly isn't being taken into account.

The guild's cut is a whopping...3.5% for sales tax.
That's equal to the cut ZOS takes straight off for a gold sink, also 3.5%.

There were a few weeks when I was selling tons of crafting mats I farmed for close to 500k a week in one of my guilds. The guild's cut of that? Around 17,500 gold. About the cost of 2 of the potent nirncrux I sold from my farming.

Well, my point was that the estimate was probably based on some assumptions-- max crafting skills for max payment, selling every reward that's sellable, and selling them at maximum price-- so the guild's cut might not have been factored in. Also, if you post something for sale and it doesn't sell within 30 days, presumably you put it up for sale again, which means the guild gets another listing fee for it. But my comment isn't about whether the guild's cut is too big, simply that the claimed estimate about how much gold you can earn in a month by doing crafting writs is probably unattainable by the average player because of the unspecified assumptions which seem to be based on fringe (that is, highly uncommon) cases.

Yeah, I agree with you on the crafting math. I was just chiming in with the guild tax percentage, because I suspect its small enough to not make a big difference given the numbers involved.

I mean, 500k tax out of selling 15,000,000 worth of stuff seems like a large sum to players who don't sell a lot, but its pretty much pocket change to the player who's supposedly pulling in that much in sales. Just like I didn't begrudge my guild less than 20k in guild tax when I was selling 500k a week.

Incidentally, 500k in guild tax was about the maximum amount that one of my guilds got on a weekly basis from 500 players with a 25k sales requirement...

(Also, if the OP is interested in correcting a math error on their part, they should review part of the Tier 3 guild data.
OP says:
Guilds Operating at Tier III Locations, Pre-Multibidding, with Total Weekly Sales 0 < x < 39,999,999g:
Revenues from Tax: ~1,000,000g - 1,400,000g

Should read:
Revenues from Tax: 0 - 1,400,000g
In order to preserve the accuracy of their weekly sales range data. As it is, suggesting that every Tier 3 guild makes a minimum of 1 million in guild tax is a blatant math error and doesn't match up with any of the Tier 3 guilds I've been in, both of whom made a lot less in guild tax.)

vuedange · January 2020

Very enlightening for those of us who are in the dark on such things, thank you.

Biggest gold sink in the game....housing.

I farm, I do dailies, I sell, I go through gold as fast as I make it, buying furnishings, buying mats to craft furnishings, buying a new house when I can save up enough gold for it. I love housing, it's definitely my favourite aspect of the game, but it is a definite gold sink.

MLGProPlayer · January 2020

I applaud anyone who runs a trade guild. It's a thankless, full-time job.