Monopoly of public traders!

Xebov · June 2020

DTStormfox wrote: »

Can the problem be solved?

There is one thing you are missing. Tradeslots. Every player has 30 slots per guild. For big trading guilds this means that some of the top players are member in several trading guilds that are part of the same conglomerate. So one way to shake this up a bit could be to turn trade slots into a global thing. Every player could get more trade slots (like 40 or 50) but they are shared accross all traders. This would not tear up trade guilds but free up slots as multi memberships to trade guilds would no longer be benefitial.

What you could also do is rais the minimum requirements for a guild trader. As of now you just need 50 members. You could shake this up by increasing this to 100. What you could also do is change the 50 member rule into this: at least 50 members of your guild have to be active within the last 30 days. The first way would reduce the preasure, as very small guilds realy dont needa trader, the second way would prevent half dead guilds to occupy guild traders just becaus ethey have so many inactive players.

After all guild traders have to be distributed somewhat efficient. There is no point for every small guild to own one. So far we have ~200 traders which means up to 100.000 member slots (do we even have that many players?) and still it isnt enought and i realy have to question why.

DTStormfox · June 2020

Varana wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Is it really a problem?
For new guilds to enter the trading market through public vendors (the storefront NPCs) is made excessively difficult because these conglomerates can easily overbid new entrants.

So you're suggesting every single one of the 200+ traders in the game is owned by some shady "conglomerate"?

No, I didn't suggest that.

Xebov wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Can the problem be solved?

There is one thing you are missing. Tradeslots. Every player has 30 slots per guild. For big trading guilds this means that some of the top players are member in several trading guilds that are part of the same conglomerate. So one way to shake this up a bit could be to turn trade slots into a global thing. Every player could get more trade slots (like 40 or 50) but they are shared accross all traders. This would not tear up trade guilds but free up slots as multi memberships to trade guilds would no longer be benefitial.

What you could also do is rais the minimum requirements for a guild trader. As of now you just need 50 members. You could shake this up by increasing this to 100. What you could also do is change the 50 member rule into this: at least 50 members of your guild have to be active within the last 30 days. The first way would reduce the preasure, as very small guilds realy dont needa trader, the second way would prevent half dead guilds to occupy guild traders just becaus ethey have so many inactive players.

After all guild traders have to be distributed somewhat efficient. There is no point for every small guild to own one. So far we have ~200 traders which means up to 100.000 member slots (do we even have that many players?) and still it isnt enought and i realy have to question why.

I agree that small guilds don't have to own a trader but it still needs to be a possibility. I mean, even the largest trade guilds of today started small. So, raising the minimum members you need for a trader would not solve the issue but increase the barrier of entry for small guilds to obtain a trader. They could also bind ranges of guild sizes to traders. For example, make 50% of the traders in Deshaan such that on one-half of the traders your guild size needs to range between 50-249 members and on the other half of the traders your guild size needs to range between 250-500 members. If your guild has 300 members, you are not allowed to bid on the 50-249 member traders, but you are allowed to bid on the 250-500 member traders. These ranges are just to illustrate the idea. In other words: do not put a member requirement on the guild system to be allowed to trade, but put member limit ranges on the traders instead. Allow all guilds to bid on traders that are within their range of guild size.

LuxLunae · June 2020

Read this, and tell me if it doesn't sound familiar. This was one year ago. Not only that I am looking for the post about the

Rawl'kha heroes. Some rich ESO players who used their gold to outbid the popular places and sell nothing but trash there. So that these huge monopoly guildtraders had to look else where for business.

All zos has to do is not allow a guild to rebid the same location. I said this a year ago...Deaf Ears....Deaf Ears..

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/474938/the-makings-of-an-ah-exists-the-rawlkha-heroes-know-and-zos-does-too-ah-bad/p1

You may disagree with some stuff I said a year ago but that's ok.

Inaya · June 2020

Everyone has 5 open guild spots so use one of them to join a trading guild. It's really that simple.

soulferin · June 2020

It’s terrible but current guild traders bug shows exactly what’s gonna look like without so called “monopoly”. I mean lots of traders from random guilds without any reasonable equipment to sell I’d rather want to see professionals in Craglorn

JKorr · June 2020

DTStormfox wrote: »

The fact that only a few trade guild conglomerates dominate the trade can be explained by the Matthew Principle and the Pareto distribution. Just like in real life, those who accumulate the most capital can use that capital to invest and gain more capital than those with little capital. Making it so that eventually most of the capital is owned by a few people (or guilds) at the top.

These trade guild conglomerates are only focused on trading. Very often, there are no other activities in those guilds, and not people who are not trading (enough) are often punished. They only attract people who are willing to trade, thus they can have >400 people actively trading through their guild. And when you have >400 people actively trading through your shopping window, it accumulates a lot of money very fast through trading fees.

Of course, those trade guild conglomerates have a competitive edge over (smaller) independent trade guilds. They can make use of their internal financial market and cover losses of one guild in their conglomerate with the proceedings of another guild in their conglomerate.

How can we disrupt these conglomerates?
Well, for starters, you could simply refuse to buy items from those guilds and refuse to sell items through those guilds. However, those large guilds will eventually simply be replaced by other guilds. We often see that when one guild is pushed off the throne, another guild simply replaces it. It will be a prayer without end.
Another way is that the (smaller) independent trade guilds also start working together via a conglomerate structure to compete with the already existing conglomerates. However, that would also mean that one conglomerate will simply replace another at some point, and the independent trade guilds will become the new tyrant.

Is it really a problem?
For new guilds to enter the trading market through public vendors (the storefront NPCs) is made excessively difficult because these conglomerates can easily overbid new entrants.

Can the problem be solved?
Since a trading guild is not considered any different from other guilds from a technical point of view, the problem cannot be solved. Nothing will disallow you to have ownership over multiple trade guilds at the same time, or prevent you from managing multiple guilds at the same time. Nothing will prevent people from working together via systems outside ESO. Two guilds can easily work together using systems that are invisible to ZOS. ZOS cannot see if one guild owner is working together with another guild owner over Discord or any other external system.

On pc, or on console?

You do realize that in order to do what you're suggesting, the gms would have to enforce what would amount to draconian laws on their guilds; setting selling prices, dues, and selling requirements. Want to break the conglomerates? Let the guild members say "no". To the best of my knowledge joining a guild, staying in a guild, is still voluntary. If the gm decrees you can't sell your tempering alloy for 5k, you can quit. If the guild dues is a hundred billion gold a day, you can quit. You might not make a gazillion gold a day in a "lesser/smaller/independent" guild, but you'd still make gold. The players can control what the players do. If people won't put up with extortionate dues and unreasonable sales requirements and leave the guild, the conglomerate gms could do....what? Even if they started a blacklist, the independent guilds wouldn't care. If the conglomerates started using harassing mails/whispers they can be reported to ZOS and Microsoft/Sony.

It is possible to have a guild that gets a decent trading kiosk, that charges no dues, has no sale requirements, and only voluntary raffles and auction.