Out of control crown exchange gouging destroying economy for new players.

Rossmann · August 2021

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year.

starkerealm · August 2021

Flamebait wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Bankers, Merchants and inventory pets all give you give you advantages.
Some crown store only houses give you good teleport points.

I am usually willing to be on the critical side of ZoS, however you are completely in the wrong here. [snip] there is no pay to win involved here and everything you have listed is merely a convenience. Bankers and merchants are in every town so the crown store ones are nice but not a requirement, especially since you can use any party members also. The inventory pets are a total of 10 slots of inventory, again a nice bonus but far from a mandatory thing or even really game changing. As for the houses being a good teleport point this is by far the weakest argument I have heard that you can teleport there instead of a wayshrine that's 15 seconds farther from some place you might go once in a while.

Not going to disagree about the houses. It is a pretty weak example, and the finances just don't make sense on those. They can be useful for new characters to get to specific points on the map, but houses are a poor P2W argument.

However, the other examples are advantageous. Bankers and Merchants are useful for inventory clearing while you're in an instance or farming. So, it's the difference between taking time to pack up what you're doing, head to town, clean your inventory, then come back, or just summon a merchant or banker on the fly and getting right back into it.

The same is true with the two inventory pets. They're not enormously powerful. They're not, "how could anyone compete with me, I have unlimited inventory space." But, a player with both will have a maximum inventory capacity of 210, while one without will cap out at 200. That is an advantage when you're doing anything that involves moving items in and out of your inventory.

[edited to remove quote]

EF321 · August 2021

Flamebait wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Bankers, Merchants and inventory pets all give you give you advantages.
Some crown store only houses give you good teleport points.

I am usually willing to be on the critical side of ZoS, however you are completely in the wrong here. [snip] however there is no pay to win involved here and everything you have listed is merely a convenience. Bankers and merchants are in every town so the crown store ones are nice but not a requirement, especially since you can use any party members also. The inventory pets are a total of 10 slots of inventory, again a nice bonus but far from a mandatory thing or even really game changing. As for the houses being a good teleport point this is by far the weakest argument I have heard that you can teleport there instead of a wayshrine that's 15 seconds farther from some place you might go once in a while.

Saving any amount of time on moving between places and/or minimizing need to change places = more xp, more loot, more gold
More inventory space means you can carry more situational gear = advantage. This additional space is still present in PvP. More sieges on hand, more potion/poison types etc.

If you don' t feel that any of these are advantages, just take everything to extreme levels - if all the ordinary town bankers and merchants were at least 1 hour ride away from nearest wayshrine, would summoning paid ones on the spot be an advantage? If your max character inventory space was 30 slots, would 1000 extra space from pet be an advantage?

Just because advantage seems to be small, does not mean that it is not there. I own banker, merchant and inventory pets, and I would not want to go back to life without these. Every second you save can go towards something more useful than inventory management.

[edited to remove quote]

Jayman1000 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

ZOS: Is it time we follow through on the "gifting" system and make the exchange rate for crowns official, instead of relying on 3rd party sites and countless scammers to set the price, which is increasingly out of control?

I think it is time too, there's a demand for it from the playerbase and it is already happening, so why not make it official so anyone can easily make use of it? But are you suggestion also at the same time the shutdown of the crown item gifting feature? Because that would be the only way to shut off scammers. I dont see Zos shutting down the crown gifting system, there are after all still people who like to actually GIFT (not sell) items to their friends or family members; they'd be shutting that down too to get rid of the crown scammers, and Im not sure that would be worth it. So the crown gifting system would still be there and thus you'd still have players selling crowns through gifting, which much like it is now would be much cheaper than the zos official market, and of course scammers would still be there offering low price deals to lure in victims to scam. Which means, it wouldnt really change much, it would still be the same dynamic. But an official crown market would be welcomed by me nonetheless, would make it far easier and safer to sell and buy crowns through the official market. But dont fall for the illusion that there'd be less scammers or that prices would change (they wouldnt. Crown price would still be high in the safe but then zos-sanctioned official crown market, and would still be lower in the non-safe gifting market.).

I also dont agree on the whole price fixing conspiracy. There is no one price fixing anything, players sell for the highest price they think they can get crowns sold for and buyers pay the lowest price they think they can get crowns for. And yes this is supply and demand, it is always supply and demand, always has been and always will be. Maybe you would think that to eliminate this most human supply and demand dynamic would be for a party to obtain total 100% monopoly on the selling of a commodity that is in demand and which cannot be replaced by other goods; that way that one party can just set the price as they see fit. This would literally mean going back to when only zos sold crowns and they could not be gifted. But even then there would still be a limit to how much people would pay, supply and demand would still be in effect. Zos would just be the only party to "be greedy".

No matter what you do or what system you implement you wont get rid of this perceived "greediness" of humans. If someone wants to sell their goods as a good samaritan without profit they can do that if they choose to, but no system you propose or change can make them do that, only they themselves can decide to do that. But the VAST majority of people are NOT going to do that and instead continue as always to try and sell their items for the highest price possible, so this will as it has always been, what will define the markets. Finally I dont think this is greed, it's their own items, why should they not be allowed to sell it for what they want? If I want to sell my old car am I greedy for wanting to sell it for a high price? I probably wont sell it for the high price, but does a high price make me greedy? This is not what greed is. To be greedy you have to be intensely selfish for a desire for something (gold, power, money etc). If people wanting to get the highest price possible for their goods is greedy, then so is the people wanting to buy the goods for lowest price possible.

corrosivechains · August 2021

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

Jayman1000 · August 2021

corrosivechains wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

I would not really call that pay to win; it is at the most a very benign type of pay to win then. Literally any mmo that has an expansion system (or whatever they want to call it, DLC, Chapter, Expansion etc) will provide access to meta content from buying the newly released content.

VaranisArano · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

Supply and demand for Crowns is effected by considerably more than just ZOS increasing the real money price. That's extremely reductive.

Technically, Crowns are infinite, as they are electronic goods created when players pay for them. Thus, when we talk about the supply of Crowns, we are really talking about how many Crowns the playerbase owns at any given time.

This is largely determined by the number of subscriptions, how long its been since the last Crown sale, and how many crowns players are spending in the Store. As those factors change, the supply of Crowns fluctuates up and down. ZOS also pays attention to the supply of Crowns, as we see them use big ticket items like huge houses to pull in lots of Crowns from players who will pay. Obviously, stuff like the disposable income of players to spend on video game items is going to have an impact too - less disposable Real Life Money means less Crowns are bought, and conversely, there's more desire to buy Crown Store items with gold, i.e. Real Life Time. Normally, we'd guess that disposable income stays more or less the same for Crown buyers over the years, but well, pandemic.

As with most markets, we do see some fluctuation in prices when players bought lots of crowns or haven't bought crowns in a while. After a Crown Sale, it's the gold trader's market, since lots of people have crowns and they can shop around for someone to give their desired exchange ratio. Months later, when people are getting antsy asking ZOS when the next sale is, the opposite is true and it's the gift trader's market, and they can wait until they find someone willing to give them their desired gold price.

It would be nice if ZOS would design a safe trading mechanism so that players could offer low exchange rate trades without looking like a complete scam, but I'm not sure how much the middlemen Discords really play into the supply/demand aspects. I see a lot of speculation...but only speculation, no proof.

Lumsdenml · August 2021

EF321 wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Bankers, Merchants and inventory pets all give you give you advantages.
Some crown store only houses give you good teleport points.

Those are convenient, not advantageous.

VaranisArano · August 2021

corrosivechains wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

You can wait until you get an free ESO+ event, then farm your heart out. Wait a year, and you can farm the latest Chapter too.

Sorry, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the argument that paying for new content is granting players an "advantage." ESO is a buy to play game. Of course you have to buy the content to play it. If anything ESO remains remarkably forgiving in that the base game + free Imperial City is sufficient to have good gear, participate in nearly every event, and almost always complete 3/5 endeavors each day. If you own the base game + Imperial City, then you have access to anything you need to complete or compete in the content you own.

Inventory pets, on the other hand, those annoy me because there's no way to get the extra slots without paying crowns.

starkerealm · August 2021

Jayman1000 wrote: »

corrosivechains wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

I would not really call that pay to win; it is at the most a very benign type of pay to win then. Literally any mmo that has an expansion system (or whatever they want to call it, DLC, Chapter, Expansion etc) will provide access to meta content from buying the newly released content.

It's not pay to win, but it is an advantage.

Using one of @corrosivechains's examples, the Ring of the Pale Order is an exceptionally powerful item. It's limited, and has its own drawbacks, but it is still quite potent.

It isn't pay to win, you're not directly purchasing the ring. However, a player who has it is at an advantage compared to a player who does not (in content where the group penalties don't apply.)

For example, this ring will improve your vMA scores.

Every mythic, both the good and the bad, are gated by crown store purchases (or an ESO+ subscription) on top of owning Blackwood.

Now, will that catapult you to the top of the vMA leaderboard? Probably not, but it will provide an advantage.

A messier example would be the full skill line unlocks in the Crown Store (when combined with the Skyshards.) An experienced player running a maxed out Werewolf with no MMR data in sub-50 BGs and reconstructed dungeon and trial sets (which is another potential DLC gate), will tear apart any opposition. In that case, they really will win... at least for awhile. This gets worse when you're looking at things like rank 10 vampires. New players don't have the tools to handle that, and there is no legitimate way to have rank 10 vampirism at level 10 (which is possible with the wolf.)

So, there are issues with things in the crown store.

Is it overtly P2W? I don't think so. In nearly every case, the player will be the deciding factor, but you can buy advantages. You absolutely can buy things that will provide advantages, or access to advantages.

Prof_Bawbag · August 2021

Lmao. Telling people what their rl cash is worth. Think it's too high? Don't buy them. I'm glad the more money than sense crowd has dwindled because quite frankly, there was too many people in game shaming and dictating what crowns were worth when they had no dog in the race. See it the game over. Too many people very generous with other people's money.

You think sellers are ripping people off? There's absolutely nothing stopping you from buying a ton of crowns and selling them for a pittance. But wait, you won't do that. Why? Because you're only interested in telling others what their cash is worth.

I never use crowns and after subbing on Xbox, I have a ton of crowns as i don't use the CS. But would rather let them rot than sell them for the 100:1 people sell them for on Xbox EU. That's taking the ***.

starkerealm · August 2021

Lumsdenml wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Bankers, Merchants and inventory pets all give you give you advantages.
Some crown store only houses give you good teleport points.

Those are convenient, not advantageous.

That's the same thing.

For an artificial example: If three players have an hour to grind, and we assume that their bags fill in 20 minutes. For the purpose of the exercise we can assume that they can effectively clear their inventories in one click (this is mostly possible with addons on PC, so it's not as artificial as it may sound.) We can also assume that between loading screens and travel time it takes 5 minutes round trip to town. (Or their homes, or wherever they want to dump items.) In the interests of equity, we can assume that XP and gold gains are equally distributed over time (even though this almost certainly is not the case.)

One player has a +150% XP scroll running and owns a banker/merchant. The other two players have neither of these things.

So, the player with the scroll and banker/merchant has time to fill their bags 3 times. They earn XP equal to 7.5 runs of the content.

The first player with no boost and no merchant, has time to fill their bags 2.5 times. They earn XP equally to 2.5 runs of the content.

The third player with no boost and no merchant elects to continue farming after their bags have filled, because they're only interested in XP. They earn XP equal to 3 runs of the content, but only have gold/loot equal to a single run.

Now is an artificial example, but the basic data pattern is sound, if you're farming. If you have a personal banker, you can potentially farm for much longer without interruption. If you have a personal merchant, that farming time increases dramatically. In the context of farming, that is a direct example. You end up richer afterwards in comparison to players who spent as much (or, even more time) than you did.

If you have XP scrolls, your XP earned will be dramatically better over that period of time.

These are conveniences, but they also increase your efficiency, and a more efficient player will come out ahead of less efficient ones. It's less meaningful in this specific example, but these kinds of advantages stack up over time, and the results can be dramatic.

Rossmann · August 2021

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

Supply and demand for Crowns is effected by considerably more than just ZOS increasing the real money price. That's extremely reductive.

Technically, Crowns are infinite, as they are electronic goods created when players pay for them. Thus, when we talk about the supply of Crowns, we are really talking about how many Crowns the playerbase owns at any given time.

This is largely determined by the number of subscriptions, how long its been since the last Crown sale, and how many crowns players are spending in the Store. As those factors change, the supply of Crowns fluctuates up and down. ZOS also pays attention to the supply of Crowns, as we see them use big ticket items like huge houses to pull in lots of Crowns from players who will pay. Obviously, stuff like the disposable income of players to spend on video game items is going to have an impact too - less disposable Real Life Money means less Crowns are bought, and conversely, there's more desire to buy Crown Store items with gold, i.e. Real Life Time. Normally, we'd guess that disposable income stays more or less the same for Crown buyers over the years, but well, pandemic.

As with most markets, we do see some fluctuation in prices when players bought lots of crowns or haven't bought crowns in a while. After a Crown Sale, it's the gold trader's market, since lots of people have crowns and they can shop around for someone to give their desired exchange ratio. Months later, when people are getting antsy asking ZOS when the next sale is, the opposite is true and it's the gift trader's market, and they can wait until they find someone willing to give them their desired gold price.

It would be nice if ZOS would design a safe trading mechanism so that players could offer low exchange rate trades without looking like a complete scam, but I'm not sure how much the middlemen Discords really play into the supply/demand aspects. I see a lot of speculation...but only speculation, no proof.

Ok, let me explain this more throughly,

Crown sales came up and i bought 20k crowns. Now i can sell 20k crowns for the price i want.
I concluded that i want to sell it for 1:500 and there are players want to buy crowns total 50k.

I sold my 20k easily. But there are still 30k demand and probably increasing. Now i want to buy crowns and sell again. I bought 20k more but now for regular price because sale ended. Because i paid more real life money i think i should get more in-game gold for it. Lets say i will sell them for 1:650. And after a while i sold them all again.
Now i know a crown sale won't come soon and i can sell them for 1:650 i should keep selling them for 1:650 ratio cause in the end i know i will never supply whole demand by increasing prices or buying more crowns because people always gonna buy more things. So in the end if i buy 20k crowns, i have 20k crowns to sell. And i know regular real life crown prices will be same there is no point in increasing prices. I am happy to make easy in game gold.

I decided to make this crown selling a regular thing. I sell it for 1:650.

***** 2 weeks later*****

Hmm, i see people selling crowns in discord groups for 1:800. Afterall people always wanna buy things from store, afterall why shouldn't i too sell it for 1:800, people gonna buy it anyway and i will up my profits.

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

Disturbed_One · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year.

1. Crown prices HAVE increased (in real money) in many countries.
2. Now it's a 3-4x increase? OP said it was from 300:1 to 700:1, that was shown to be false and it's only 400:1 to 700:1. They haven't even doubled.

starkerealm · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

I might be misunderstanding your intention, but that sounds pretty normal for ESO's market fluctuations. (And really, market fluctuations in general.)

There was a sale, which tanked the price of crowns, and now that the sale is over, the prices are climbing back up.

I mean, frankly, if I had any interest in selling Crowns, that would be my MO. Buy 20k or 40k during a sale, then hold onto them for two or three months, so the supply of cheap crowns from the sale dried up, then turn around and sell them when the gold value is high. Keeping an eye out for neat things getting added to the store which will drive the demand for Crowns even higher.

I mean, if ZOS gave us the option to trade crowns directly through some kind of exchange, I'd take the same approach there. Buy them (with gold) during sales, when the price for crowns is depressed, then unload them when we're in between sales, and the price has gotten high.

That's how you play the market.

It's not inherently nefarious.

corrosivechains · August 2021

Jayman1000 wrote: »

corrosivechains wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

I would not really call that pay to win; it is at the most a very benign type of pay to win then. Literally any mmo that has an expansion system (or whatever they want to call it, DLC, Chapter, Expansion etc) will provide access to meta content from buying the newly released content.

Not once did I say it was pay2win. The claim was that there was nothing in the crown store which gives you an advantage. That doesn't mean p2w. You're making an argument against a claim no one else has made.

VaranisArano wrote: »

corrosivechains wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

Uh, again, DLC and old chapters are sold in the Crown Store which grant access to Best in Slot Bind on Pickup equipment, such as Tzogvin's or Ring of the Pale Order. Those definitely give you an advantage in the game and cannot be had by players who do not have those respective DLC's/Chapters.

You can wait until you get an free ESO+ event, then farm your heart out. Wait a year, and you can farm the latest Chapter too.

Sorry, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the argument that paying for new content is granting players an "advantage." ESO is a buy to play game. Of course you have to buy the content to play it. If anything ESO remains remarkably forgiving in that the base game + free Imperial City is sufficient to have good gear, participate in nearly every event, and almost always complete 3/5 endeavors each day. If you own the base game + Imperial City, then you have access to anything you need to complete or compete in the content you own.

Inventory pets, on the other hand, those annoy me because there's no way to get the extra slots without paying crowns.

Again, that's not the claim which was made. There are definitely advantages in the crown store which you can't get in the base game. You all are debating arguments no one is making, and shifting the goalposts when proven wrong on those arguments you're having in your heads.

Rossmann · August 2021

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year.

1. Crown prices HAVE increased (in real money) in many countries.
2. Now it's a 3-4x increase? OP said it was from 300:1 to 700:1, that was shown to be false and it's only 400:1 to 700:1. They haven't even doubled.

1. Crown prices increased in some 3rd world countries that was selling for way lower prices than it's dollar equivalent so people can buy crowns in those countries, this one used as an exploit by dollar-euro buyers and so ZOS increased their prices in those countries and it has been like at least 6 months this was happened.

2. Start of the year prices weere 1:400,450 in EU server and now people wants 1:1200

*Edited for spell correction

Disturbed_One · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year.

1. Crown prices HAVE increased (in real money) in many countries.
2. Now it's a 3-4x increase? OP said it was from 300:1 to 700:1, that was shown to be false and it's only 400:1 to 700:1. They haven't even doubled.

1. Crown prices increased in some 3rd world countries that was selling for way lower prices than it's dollar equivalent so people can buy crowns in those countries, this one used as an exploit by dollar-euro buyers and so ZOS increased their prices in those countries and it has been like at least 6 months this was happened.

2. Start of the year prices weere 1:400,450 in EU server and now people wants 1:1200

*Edited for spell correction

1. Steam loophole wasn't fully fixed until June. (yes, they were cracking down on it before, but it wasn't fixed until then)
2. Canada is a 3rd world country now?
3. OP made it VERY clear that he was talking about PC/NA, which is what I was talking about.

(also helps when you pick the LOW-END price for the "start" and the HIGH-END price for the "end"

)

Crown Network, looking at their announcements was at 550:1 at the start the year and was at 650:1 by March. So a little more than doubled.

Rossmann · August 2021

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year.

1. Crown prices HAVE increased (in real money) in many countries.
2. Now it's a 3-4x increase? OP said it was from 300:1 to 700:1, that was shown to be false and it's only 400:1 to 700:1. They haven't even doubled.

1. Crown prices increased in some 3rd world countries that was selling for way lower prices than it's dollar equivalent so people can buy crowns in those countries, this one used as an exploit by dollar-euro buyers and so ZOS increased their prices in those countries and it has been like at least 6 months this was happened.

2. Start of the year prices weere 1:400,450 in EU server and now people wants 1:1200

*Edited for spell correction

1. Steam loophole wasn't fully fixed until June. (yes, they were cracking down on it before, but it wasn't fixed until then)
2. Canada is a 3rd world country now?
3. OP made it VERY clear that he was talking about PC/NA, which is what I was talking about.

(also helps when you pick the LOW-END price for the "start" and the HIGH-END price for the "end" )

Crown Network, looking at their announcements was at 550:1 at the start the year and was at 650:1 by March. So a little more than doubled.

I am talking generally about this discord channel scamming-price fixing that applies on both server and gave an example from EU server.

I am basing prices on zone chat sellers which usually sells for lower than DC sellers. And prices i give you not low or high end but average prices that people ask for. ( Prices based on EU server)

I bought at least 20k crowns from this year's beginning and I'm very keen on prices and continuously following it both zone chat and sometimes DC channels so i know my [snip] in EU server.

[edited for profanity bypass]

VaranisArano · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

Supply and demand for Crowns is effected by considerably more than just ZOS increasing the real money price. That's extremely reductive.

Technically, Crowns are infinite, as they are electronic goods created when players pay for them. Thus, when we talk about the supply of Crowns, we are really talking about how many Crowns the playerbase owns at any given time.

This is largely determined by the number of subscriptions, how long its been since the last Crown sale, and how many crowns players are spending in the Store. As those factors change, the supply of Crowns fluctuates up and down. ZOS also pays attention to the supply of Crowns, as we see them use big ticket items like huge houses to pull in lots of Crowns from players who will pay. Obviously, stuff like the disposable income of players to spend on video game items is going to have an impact too - less disposable Real Life Money means less Crowns are bought, and conversely, there's more desire to buy Crown Store items with gold, i.e. Real Life Time. Normally, we'd guess that disposable income stays more or less the same for Crown buyers over the years, but well, pandemic.

As with most markets, we do see some fluctuation in prices when players bought lots of crowns or haven't bought crowns in a while. After a Crown Sale, it's the gold trader's market, since lots of people have crowns and they can shop around for someone to give their desired exchange ratio. Months later, when people are getting antsy asking ZOS when the next sale is, the opposite is true and it's the gift trader's market, and they can wait until they find someone willing to give them their desired gold price.

It would be nice if ZOS would design a safe trading mechanism so that players could offer low exchange rate trades without looking like a complete scam, but I'm not sure how much the middlemen Discords really play into the supply/demand aspects. I see a lot of speculation...but only speculation, no proof.

Ok, let me explain this more throughly,

Crown sales came up and i bought 20k crowns. Now i can sell 20k crowns for the price i want.
I concluded that i want to sell it for 1:500 and there are players want to buy crowns total 50k.

I sold my 20k easily. But there are still 30k demand and probably increasing. Now i want to buy crowns and sell again. I bought 20k more but now for regular price because sale ended. Because i paid more real life money i think i should get more in-game gold for it. Lets say i will sell them for 1:650. And after a while i sold them all again.
Now i know a crown sale won't come soon and i can sell them for 1:650 i should keep selling them for 1:650 ratio cause in the end i know i will never supply whole demand by increasing prices or buying more crowns because people always gonna buy more things. So in the end if i buy 20k crowns, i have 20k crowns to sell. And i know regular real life crown prices will be same there is no point in increasing prices. I am happy to make easy in game gold.

I decided to make this crown selling a regular thing. I sell it for 1:650.

***** 2 weeks later*****

Hmm, i see people selling crowns in discord groups for 1:800. Afterall people always wanna buy things from store, afterall why shouldn't i too sell it for 1:800, people gonna buy it anyway and i will up my profits.

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

You are tying the Crown to gold ratio solely to the price of Crowns, which does not fully take supply and demand into account. Again, that's reductive and does not give us an accurate picture of how the Gift for Gold trade works.

"After l, why shouldn't I get more gold for what I pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway."

Right there, you are describing a case of high demand, in which players are willing to pay more gold/Real Life Time in order to avoid paying Real Life Money.

Raising the Crown to Gold ratio to account for higher demand is not a scam or even scalping - players can always get the Crowns for the same Real Life Money price if they want. Scalping requires that the item being resold is otherwise rare or out-of-reach without another option to purchase it except from the scalper, whereas Crowns are infinitely available at set prices.

Now, you are free to be the sort of person who does not "buy low, sell high," but let's not pretend that isn't solid economic advice for people who want to make a profit.

And increasing the crown to gold ratio to match what the market will bear is not a scam. To the contrary, the trial and error of finding the optimal price point (the price that gives the seller the greatest profit) as demand and supply vary is a pretty major part of microeconomics. When you describe the ratios rising in the Discords, you are seeing the optimal price point change as a function of supply and demand.

So, uh, to be blunt, you can sell your crowns at whatever price people will buy it from you. I don't really care if you join the Discords and hike your price to match demand or if you continue your idea of selling at the same price you bought it at. That's up to you and how much profit you want to make.

Rossmann · August 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

I might be misunderstanding your intention, but that sounds pretty normal for ESO's market fluctuations. (And really, market fluctuations in general.)

There was a sale, which tanked the price of crowns, and now that the sale is over, the prices are climbing back up.

I mean, frankly, if I had any interest in selling Crowns, that would be my MO. Buy 20k or 40k during a sale, then hold onto them for two or three months, so the supply of cheap crowns from the sale dried up, then turn around and sell them when the gold value is high. Keeping an eye out for neat things getting added to the store which will drive the demand for Crowns even higher.

I mean, if ZOS gave us the option to trade crowns directly through some kind of exchange, I'd take the same approach there. Buy them (with gold) during sales, when the price for crowns is depressed, then unload them when we're in between sales, and the price has gotten high.

That's how you play the market.

It's not inherently nefarious.

The point is greed my friend, greed....

Disturbed_One · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

I might be misunderstanding your intention, but that sounds pretty normal for ESO's market fluctuations. (And really, market fluctuations in general.)

There was a sale, which tanked the price of crowns, and now that the sale is over, the prices are climbing back up.

I mean, frankly, if I had any interest in selling Crowns, that would be my MO. Buy 20k or 40k during a sale, then hold onto them for two or three months, so the supply of cheap crowns from the sale dried up, then turn around and sell them when the gold value is high. Keeping an eye out for neat things getting added to the store which will drive the demand for Crowns even higher.

I mean, if ZOS gave us the option to trade crowns directly through some kind of exchange, I'd take the same approach there. Buy them (with gold) during sales, when the price for crowns is depressed, then unload them when we're in between sales, and the price has gotten high.

That's how you play the market.

It's not inherently nefarious.

The point is greed my friend, greed....

As somebody else said... calling the people spending the real money greedy for not trading you at the lower rate you feel like you should be getting is selfish.

Selfish. Plain and simple.

You are trading a worthless item (imaginary gold in a game) for something that cost real world dollars (crowns)... and you have the gall to call them greedy?

smh

If the time-to-earning-gold ratio doesn't work for you with the crown-to-gold ratio... then you can buy the crowns yourself, it's not like you're locked out of purchasing them yourself. I know lots of people with plenty of disposable income do. I don't have that disposable income. I'm happy to be able to buy that at (almost) any cost. And the 500-600:1 I can get on PC/NA is not even close to that threshold yet.

zvavi · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

I might be misunderstanding your intention, but that sounds pretty normal for ESO's market fluctuations. (And really, market fluctuations in general.)

There was a sale, which tanked the price of crowns, and now that the sale is over, the prices are climbing back up.

I mean, frankly, if I had any interest in selling Crowns, that would be my MO. Buy 20k or 40k during a sale, then hold onto them for two or three months, so the supply of cheap crowns from the sale dried up, then turn around and sell them when the gold value is high. Keeping an eye out for neat things getting added to the store which will drive the demand for Crowns even higher.

I mean, if ZOS gave us the option to trade crowns directly through some kind of exchange, I'd take the same approach there. Buy them (with gold) during sales, when the price for crowns is depressed, then unload them when we're in between sales, and the price has gotten high.

That's how you play the market.

It's not inherently nefarious.

The point is greed my friend, greed....

What greed? Crowns are worth what people are willing to pay. Greed is insisting on prices higher than market value, selling at market value is not greed, but expecting people to sell lower than market value, is.

Rossmann · August 2021

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

Supply and demand for Crowns is effected by considerably more than just ZOS increasing the real money price. That's extremely reductive.

Technically, Crowns are infinite, as they are electronic goods created when players pay for them. Thus, when we talk about the supply of Crowns, we are really talking about how many Crowns the playerbase owns at any given time.

This is largely determined by the number of subscriptions, how long its been since the last Crown sale, and how many crowns players are spending in the Store. As those factors change, the supply of Crowns fluctuates up and down. ZOS also pays attention to the supply of Crowns, as we see them use big ticket items like huge houses to pull in lots of Crowns from players who will pay. Obviously, stuff like the disposable income of players to spend on video game items is going to have an impact too - less disposable Real Life Money means less Crowns are bought, and conversely, there's more desire to buy Crown Store items with gold, i.e. Real Life Time. Normally, we'd guess that disposable income stays more or less the same for Crown buyers over the years, but well, pandemic.

As with most markets, we do see some fluctuation in prices when players bought lots of crowns or haven't bought crowns in a while. After a Crown Sale, it's the gold trader's market, since lots of people have crowns and they can shop around for someone to give their desired exchange ratio. Months later, when people are getting antsy asking ZOS when the next sale is, the opposite is true and it's the gift trader's market, and they can wait until they find someone willing to give them their desired gold price.

It would be nice if ZOS would design a safe trading mechanism so that players could offer low exchange rate trades without looking like a complete scam, but I'm not sure how much the middlemen Discords really play into the supply/demand aspects. I see a lot of speculation...but only speculation, no proof.

Ok, let me explain this more throughly,

Crown sales came up and i bought 20k crowns. Now i can sell 20k crowns for the price i want.
I concluded that i want to sell it for 1:500 and there are players want to buy crowns total 50k.

I sold my 20k easily. But there are still 30k demand and probably increasing. Now i want to buy crowns and sell again. I bought 20k more but now for regular price because sale ended. Because i paid more real life money i think i should get more in-game gold for it. Lets say i will sell them for 1:650. And after a while i sold them all again.
Now i know a crown sale won't come soon and i can sell them for 1:650 i should keep selling them for 1:650 ratio cause in the end i know i will never supply whole demand by increasing prices or buying more crowns because people always gonna buy more things. So in the end if i buy 20k crowns, i have 20k crowns to sell. And i know regular real life crown prices will be same there is no point in increasing prices. I am happy to make easy in game gold.

I decided to make this crown selling a regular thing. I sell it for 1:650.

***** 2 weeks later*****

Hmm, i see people selling crowns in discord groups for 1:800. Afterall people always wanna buy things from store, afterall why shouldn't i too sell it for 1:800, people gonna buy it anyway and i will up my profits.

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

You are tying the Crown to gold ratio solely to the price of Crowns, which does not fully take supply and demand into account. Again, that's reductive and does not give us an accurate picture of how the Gift for Gold trade works.

"After l, why shouldn't I get more gold for what I pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway."

Right there, you are describing a case of high demand, in which players are willing to pay more gold/Real Life Time in order to avoid paying Real Life Money.

Raising the Crown to Gold ratio to account for higher demand is not a scam or even scalping - players can always get the Crowns for the same Real Life Money price if they want. Scalping requires that the item being resold is otherwise rare or out-of-reach without another option to purchase it except from the scalper, whereas Crowns are infinitely available at set prices.

Now, you are free to be the sort of person who does not "buy low, sell high," but let's not pretend that isn't solid economic advice for people who want to make a profit.

And increasing the crown to gold ratio to match what the market will bear is not a scam. To the contrary, the trial and error of finding the optimal price point (the price that gives the seller the greatest profit) as demand and supply vary is a pretty major part of microeconomics. When you describe the ratios rising in the Discords, you are seeing the optimal price point change as a function of supply and demand.

So, uh, to be blunt, you can sell your crowns at whatever price people will buy it from you. I don't really care if you join the Discords and hike your price to match demand or if you continue your idea of selling at the same price you bought it at. That's up to you and how much profit you want to make.

"Right there, you are describing a case of high demand, in which players are willing to pay more gold/Real Life Time in order to avoid paying Real Life Money."

So if you have 20k crowns and 50k demand, when u sell them in absurdly increased prices you supply whole 50k or you just supply 20k and get a much higher profit?

If an item's cost to you doesn't change and your resell price only keep increasing that is scalping-scamming my friend.

Value of a Crown is static, it doesn't change unless ZOS decides to increase or decrease it.

Crown price = Real life money

If neither side of the equation changes and you increase your gold demand, only you are favoring from this and buyers simply getting [snip] on.

[edited to remove profanity]

Disturbed_One · August 2021

Let me see if I have this straight...

People got used to cheap crowns when people were committing a crime (fraud) to buy cheap crowns using a VPN and saying they were from another country to take advantage of exchange rates in a collapsing economy.

They were then selling those crowns for in-game gold.

They then sold the gold in an RMT transaction to people making a profit (not a crime, but definitely against ToS)

Those sources got shut off. Either through closing the loophole, banning those players, etc...

ZoS increases the price of crowns in many countries.

The fewer sellers of crowns, using their disposable income, in the middle of a global pandemic (when I hope many people are saving money due to uncertainty) are asking for a higher rate.

... and those still selling are greedy?

*edit for spelling

edit 2: forgot to add. Due to people's changing work habits (WFH, laid off) there were probably significantly more "hours played" in ESO per account in the last year (only ZoS would know for sure, but I think it's a very safe bet). Every quest, every mob killed drops gold. That adds more currency to the game. Without adequate gold sinks (something that's been a problem for years now) this leads to inflation. So the gold is worth less now than it was a year ago.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2021

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I dont think they should have ever allowed crown "gifting" in the first place, but that horse is dead.

So you disagree with people being able to give gifts to their friends?

Once they did, they should have simply started selling gold for cash and taken the middle man out of it, and they should have set it at a price that makes selling crowns an upside down transaction for the seller, thus removing it as a thing we need to worry about.

You do realize that the point isn't "selling gold", right? Being able to trade gold for cash shop items is a great boon to free players, and one of the best "anti-p2w" (not that there's p2w in this game) feature that an online game can have. It's about people being able to get cash shop items without having to pay cash for them. That's the primary goal here, not "buying gold with cash". So your idea of them just selling gold directly for crowns? Would be totally useless.

@Kiralyn2000

If we lived in a perfect world, sure. No issues with that. In fact, I love giving and getting small gifts around the holidays. But the second they allowed crown gifting, they gave players the means to convert cash to gold, which is a questionable policy at best. Crown sales may not have been the point, but the writing was on the wall, and everyone could read what was going to happen. I have no hard data to support this, but I would wager a fair amount that the vast majority of crown "gifting" is really a sale in disguise .

I don't want to turn this into a debate about P2W, everyone has their own definition, but in my opinion (shared by many) this put ESO on the P2W spectrum. Gold absolutely gives a competitive advantage. If they simply allowed players to buy gold with cash (or crowns, really the same thing), it would establish a fixed and safe market. If they wanted really do it right, they could also go the other way by establishing an in-game transaction where I could buy crowns with gold. Would be a wonderful and much needed gold sink, but of course, ZOS wont do that because they think it would hurt their bottom line.

The net result of the system we have now is people with real life money to burn have massive sums of gold which is bad for the in game economy, and there is a percent of players that get scammed. I don't see it as healthy, and ultimately, I think the system does more harm than good.

Alternatively, they should at least set up a safe way to trade them. Allow players to use the trade window to exchange crowns for gold or other items. At least that way you eliminate the scams.

VaranisArano · August 2021

Rossmann wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Rossmann wrote: »

People generally overlook the fact that you actually exchange Real Life Money for Real Life Time because in-game gold = Real Life Time.

In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam.

I saw some people still using dumbest of the excuses that is "supply and demand". I believe it has been some time that "crown buying with a different currency exploit" patched now because people were giving me this as an excuse for like last 5-6 months. Supply and demand only matters if ZOS increase Real Money prices of crowns.

Supply and demand for Crowns is effected by considerably more than just ZOS increasing the real money price. That's extremely reductive.

Technically, Crowns are infinite, as they are electronic goods created when players pay for them. Thus, when we talk about the supply of Crowns, we are really talking about how many Crowns the playerbase owns at any given time.

This is largely determined by the number of subscriptions, how long its been since the last Crown sale, and how many crowns players are spending in the Store. As those factors change, the supply of Crowns fluctuates up and down. ZOS also pays attention to the supply of Crowns, as we see them use big ticket items like huge houses to pull in lots of Crowns from players who will pay. Obviously, stuff like the disposable income of players to spend on video game items is going to have an impact too - less disposable Real Life Money means less Crowns are bought, and conversely, there's more desire to buy Crown Store items with gold, i.e. Real Life Time. Normally, we'd guess that disposable income stays more or less the same for Crown buyers over the years, but well, pandemic.

As with most markets, we do see some fluctuation in prices when players bought lots of crowns or haven't bought crowns in a while. After a Crown Sale, it's the gold trader's market, since lots of people have crowns and they can shop around for someone to give their desired exchange ratio. Months later, when people are getting antsy asking ZOS when the next sale is, the opposite is true and it's the gift trader's market, and they can wait until they find someone willing to give them their desired gold price.

It would be nice if ZOS would design a safe trading mechanism so that players could offer low exchange rate trades without looking like a complete scam, but I'm not sure how much the middlemen Discords really play into the supply/demand aspects. I see a lot of speculation...but only speculation, no proof.

Ok, let me explain this more throughly,

Crown sales came up and i bought 20k crowns. Now i can sell 20k crowns for the price i want.
I concluded that i want to sell it for 1:500 and there are players want to buy crowns total 50k.

I sold my 20k easily. But there are still 30k demand and probably increasing. Now i want to buy crowns and sell again. I bought 20k more but now for regular price because sale ended. Because i paid more real life money i think i should get more in-game gold for it. Lets say i will sell them for 1:650. And after a while i sold them all again.
Now i know a crown sale won't come soon and i can sell them for 1:650 i should keep selling them for 1:650 ratio cause in the end i know i will never supply whole demand by increasing prices or buying more crowns because people always gonna buy more things. So in the end if i buy 20k crowns, i have 20k crowns to sell. And i know regular real life crown prices will be same there is no point in increasing prices. I am happy to make easy in game gold.

I decided to make this crown selling a regular thing. I sell it for 1:650.

***** 2 weeks later*****

Hmm, i see people selling crowns in discord groups for 1:800. Afterall people always wanna buy things from store, afterall why shouldn't i too sell it for 1:800, people gonna buy it anyway and i will up my profits.

***** 1 month later******

Wow, now people wanna sell for 1:1200, those guy must be crazy, why would you double prices in such short time period, i mean i didn't see an increase in dollar-euro prices ZOS asks for. So they are paying same prices for crowns and selling it for doubled price.

That means i can double my profit too. After all why shouldn't i get more gold for what i pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway.

Ok i will join those discord groups and follow their prices and gonna up my profits, afterall why i shouldn't?

You are tying the Crown to gold ratio solely to the price of Crowns, which does not fully take supply and demand into account. Again, that's reductive and does not give us an accurate picture of how the Gift for Gold trade works.

"After l, why shouldn't I get more gold for what I pay, afterall people will gonna buy it anyway."

Right there, you are describing a case of high demand, in which players are willing to pay more gold/Real Life Time in order to avoid paying Real Life Money.

Raising the Crown to Gold ratio to account for higher demand is not a scam or even scalping - players can always get the Crowns for the same Real Life Money price if they want. Scalping requires that the item being resold is otherwise rare or out-of-reach without another option to purchase it except from the scalper, whereas Crowns are infinitely available at set prices.

Now, you are free to be the sort of person who does not "buy low, sell high," but let's not pretend that isn't solid economic advice for people who want to make a profit.

And increasing the crown to gold ratio to match what the market will bear is not a scam. To the contrary, the trial and error of finding the optimal price point (the price that gives the seller the greatest profit) as demand and supply vary is a pretty major part of microeconomics. When you describe the ratios rising in the Discords, you are seeing the optimal price point change as a function of supply and demand.

So, uh, to be blunt, you can sell your crowns at whatever price people will buy it from you. I don't really care if you join the Discords and hike your price to match demand or if you continue your idea of selling at the same price you bought it at. That's up to you and how much profit you want to make.

"Right there, you are describing a case of high demand, in which players are willing to pay more gold/Real Life Time in order to avoid paying Real Life Money."

So if you have 20k crowns and 50k demand, when u sell them in absurdly increased prices you supply whole 50k or you just supply 20k and get a much higher profit?

If an item's cost to you doesn't change and your resell price only keep increasing that is scalping-scamming my friend.

Value of a Crown is static, it doesn't change unless ZOS decides to increase or decrease it.

Crown price = Real life money

If neither side of the equation changes and you increase your gold demand, only you are favoring from this and buyers simply getting [snip] on.

[edited to remove profanity]

If I buy 20k worth of crowns on sale, and players are willing to pay 100:1 ratios for Crown gifts, then that's the optimal price point at which I'll get the most profit.

If I sell for lower, I lose profit, though lots of people will want to buy.

If I sell for higher, players won't buy from me. They'll buy from players who will give them their 100:1.

Now, fast forward three months with no Crown Sale. I bought 20k worth of Crowns on sale, but now players are willing to pay...let's make it 250:1. Well, now 250:1 is now the optimal price point for me to make the most profit.

Again, if I sell for lower, then I lose profit compared to what I could get now. If I sell for 100:1, which was the demand at the time I bought it, then I lose profit compared to the 250:1 demand at the time I sold it.

I can't sell for higher than 250:1, because then players won't buy from me. I cannot increase the price beyond what demand will allow - if the Crown to gold ratio rises too high, players who want crowns will literally just buy straight from ZOS with Real Life Money instead of trading gold to me.

This is a pretty basic principle of business, to he honest. "Buy low, sell high" works for commodities as well as stocks, and its not a scam. It might be greedy...in the same sense that all profit driven capitalism is greedy. It's certainly not a scam.

The main difference here is that Crowns can never run out of stock. Crown traders literally cannot "scalp" Crowns because they can't deprive other people of the ability to buy Crowns in the way that ticket scalpers can literally buy all the seats at a venue.

Nobody wants to buy high, then sell low. Nobody wants to buy low, and sell low either. And it just doesn't make sense for most people to buy low, then sell for only a little profit when people would buy it for a lot of profit - now, you can do that if you want and pat yourself on the back for not being greedy, but that's not how most businesses work. See also: capitalism.

Finally, I do not regard Gold traders as helpless victims. They can set a value on their Real Life Time and their Real Life Money, and they do: that's Demand, which you keep trying to say doesn't matter.

If Gold traders are willing to pay 1200:1, then that's the optimal price point for people to trade Gifts to them. Again, that's not a scam or scalping, because Gold Traders are presumably sensible individuals who can do the math and decide for themselves if it's better for them to pay ZOS directly or to trade gold. (If you compare the Real Life Time required to grind gold vs the Real Life Time it takes to make Real Life Money to buy Crowns, it's usually better to just pay ZOS for Crowns...but unlike Real Life Money, gold isn't useful for putting Real Life Food on the table. So some players would rather trade gold rather than spend money.)

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2021

Lumsdenml wrote: »

There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.

@Lumsdenml
First, I disagree with that, if for no other reason that time is a limited resource, and sometimes, it matters. The situations are pretty rare I will admit, but I will give 2 examples:

-1. Back in the day, we were pushing HRC world records. We had a guy that had a slow horse because it was a new toon for him (you need to ride the first part of HRC). The raid lead said, buy mount speed or you are out. Harsh perhaps, but it was keeping our group away from the top of the leaderboard. Not sure there is a better example of winning in ESO.
-2. New trial comes out with a new class. The new class is of course meta. Two evenly matched Raid groups are going for world first trifecta. Group one buys the skill lines on patch day, group 2 spends patch day grinding said skill lines. Group one wins the race. They by definition paid to give themselves a competitive advantage, and they "won".

Second, I think you are missing the other side of the equations. Even if you accept the premise that nothing in the CS gives a competitive advantage (I dont, but beside the point), it is much harder to say that with a straight face about gold itself. The system allows me to convert RL money to in game currency. I think that is a questionable policy choice at best.

Edit: Almost forgot the most important part. Crown gifting allows for extreme wealth by a few, and the crown price drives this. Extreme wealth gaps artificially drives up pricing on a lot of top tier items like Wax, Alloy, etc. We see it in real life all the time with luxury items of fixed quantity (look at what has happened to sporting event/ concert tickets in the last decade). That certainly doesn't help new players.

Rossmann · August 2021

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Let me see if I have this straight...

People got used to cheap crowns when people were committing a crime (fraud) to buy cheap crowns using a VPN and saying they were from another country to take advantage of exchange rates in a collapsing economy.

They were then selling those crowns for in-game gold.

They then sold the gold in an RMT transaction to people making a profit (not a crime, but definitely against ToS)

Those sources got shut off. Either through closing the loophole, banning those players, etc...

ZoS increases the price of crowns in many countries.

The fewer sellers of crowns, using their disposable income, in the middle of a global pandemic (when I hope many people are saving money due to uncertainty) are asking for a higher rate.

... and those still selling are greedy?

*edit for spelling

edit 2: forgot to add. Due to people's changing work habits (WFH, laid off) there were probably significantly more "hours played" in ESO per account in the last year (only ZoS would know for sure, but I think it's a very safe bet). Every quest, every mob killed drops gold. That adds more currency to the game. Without adequate gold sinks (something that's been a problem for years now) this leads to inflation. So the gold is worth less now than it was a year ago.

Firstly, quoting myself from my first comment in this post;

"In the first place this system became a thing because people doesn't wanna exchange their time for gold and achieve more gold easier and faster.

Why people behaving like selling crowns is an act of charity for rest is still not understandable for me.

You spend your time earning real life money and don't wanna spend more of your time earning in-game gold, so you sell crowns for in game gold, deciding your time is more precious than your real life money.

So in the end we meet at the middle i guess. You giving your real money doesn't outlevel me giving my real time. And it doesn't grant you a permission to increase prices whenever you want. That's why people calling it a scam."

"It can be debatable that in-game gold inflation can maybe affect prices but it shouldn't be such dramatic that it will multiply by 3-4 in a year."

Many sure like to dramatize this whole pandemic period that people don't get enough money to buy crowns so they increase prices.

Like you said, it is disposable money that someone throws at an online game with their choice that nobody forces them. If someone has a money problem and still throws money at an online game idk mate that really doesn't sound smart. And if you got more time to play the game maybe you should spend your time instead of money to earn some in game gold instead of increasing prices and maximizing profits to access easy gold.

Really, this whole pandemic stuff doesn't justify anything.

I believe in most of countries in EU, 1 Euro still equals 1 Euro and crown prices haven't changed. You can say the same for USA.

The point is you can give 100 more excuse why prices going up but in the end you can't deny that it won't stop increasing, it will go higher and higher because people will stock crowns during on sale or with regular prices and you will see a drought on market that nobody gonna sell them like a month and then suddenly prices will go up like 200 gold and then suddenly people will gonna sell at new high price. That is ,my friend, is greed.

adriant1978 · August 2021

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Crown gifting allows for extreme wealth by a few

The gold that people bought with Crowns didn't appear out of nowhere, so that wealth was already in the game regardless of whether or not it can be exchanged for Crowns. Crown gifting only allows it to move from people with time to farm and people with the skills to play the guild trader market to people with IRL money to buy Crowns. There are people sitting on millions they made from farming and selling just as there are people sitting on millions they bought (from the former) with Crowns.