Restoring price competition -- ban resale of goods for 30 days?

Northwold · February 2022

Lots of comments lately about inflation and how the vast majority of traders end up posting goods for sale at the same price.

But a subset of that is people complaining that when people DON'T sell at the same price their items get snatched up at speed and resold at a profit at the same price as everyone else.

So what do people think of banning resale of an item bought in a guild store for, say, 30 days, to try to discourage this and improve price competition?

etchedpixels · February 2022

There are a whole load of people who play ESO as an economics and trading game so that would go down about as well as fixing the oversupply by say disabling crafting writs for a month, or removing quest rewards.

Northwold · February 2022

etchedpixels wrote: »

There are a whole load of people who play ESO as an economics and trading game so that would go down about as well as fixing the oversupply by say disabling crafting writs for a month, or removing quest rewards.

Well they could treat it as a new gameplay mechanic. :-] I mean, oligopoly, the game can't be all that exciting.

Araneae6537 · February 2022

That is absurd, would needlessly create new problems in inventory tracking and more, and anyway, would have a net effect of raising prices.

Northwold · February 2022

Araneae6537 wrote: »

That is absurd, would needlessly create new problems in inventory tracking and more, and anyway, would have a net effect of raising prices.

Why would it raise prices? The whole point is to foul up people's inventories so they stop doing this.

wolfie1.0. · February 2022

Northwold wrote: »

Lots of comments lately about inflation and how the vast majority of traders end up posting goods for sale at the same price.

But a subset of that is people complaining that when people DON'T sell at the same price their items get snatched up at speed and resold at a profit at the same price as everyone else.

So what do people think of banning resale of an item bought in a guild store for, say, 30 days, to try to discourage this and improve price competition?

Wouldn't work and would actually make market prices worse, because your limiting supply.in addition to that zos would have to track each and every one of these items and to do that they would have to create different stacks of them. This is essentially why pvp siege items don't stack in inventory because zos has to track each items health since they wear out when placed.

It would be an inventory nightmare for non eso plus users.

The only way to lower prices is to reduce how much a consumer is willing to pay for an item. This can happen one of many ways, first reduce how much gold people have so they have less to spend and thus not willing to pay as much. Second decrease demand for all goods so that fewer people want said items, third increase the supply of the goods.

As for why price inflation occurs in eso you have to look at how people play. The primary reason that Dr Wax is so high right now is that almost all builds except the tanky ones use light or medium armor. Which means that you usually only need rosin or alloy for weapons. That's 8 to 24 alloy and/or 8 to 16 rosin depending on build vs 56 druegh wax. And this is just an example.

Lady_Galadhiel · February 2022

People would not sell through guilds anymore but in zone chat so when they trade and pay gold it would not count as ''official'' purchase and therfor not count towards the 30 day restriction like when someone buys from guilds and flips.

Northwold · February 2022

"Wouldn't work and would actually make market prices worse, because your limiting supply.in addition to that zos would have to track each and every one of these items and to do that they would have to create different stacks of them. This is essentially why pvp siege items don't stack in inventory because zos has to track each items health since they wear out when placed."

It's only an inventory nightmare for the people who don't want to use the goods. Ie resellers.

SilverBride · February 2022

Don't buy overpriced items and the prices will go down.

thorwyn · February 2022

It's only an inventory nightmare for the people who don't want to use the goods.

No, it would also be a nighmare for consumers.
Let's say I'm buying 20 potions today, 20 potions tomorrow and 20 potions the day after tomorrow. That would be three different stacks in my inventory, each one with a different sell-up timer, even if I'm not planning to sell them. And that means if I'm running out of potions during a raid, I'd have to re-slot my potion bar... possibly during the fight, because the game doesn't know potion queues. All that because some people think that items are too expensive.

Sheezabeast · February 2022

No. If I buy something for a build, decide I don't need it, I deserve to be able to relist it.

Also, the big loophole to your idea is person to person trading.

cyberjanet · February 2022

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

third increase the supply of the goods.

This. What are those motifs and style pages we have clogging up our inventories because we cannot sell them because every festival box drops like three? If dreugh wax, gold plating, clam gall, furnishing materials etc were all as easy to get as that, prices would plummet.

Kwoung · February 2022

I have suggested it before and still feel a bind on trade mechanic would be a good thing for the game. You can sell everything you loot or craft once, but once you buy or are traded an item from someone else, it it yours forever. Basically it kills reselling, while leaving the market open for crafters and those that earn their loot and want to sell it. The only people affected would be flippers.

And yes, you could buy components and use them to craft items for resale and honestly, craft bag items wouldn't really need the limitation at all.

VaranisArano · February 2022

You know, I can't think of any problems that would be caused by the servers having to track every single item bought from a guild trader with a timer counting down the seconds until you can sell it.

Buy a stack of rubedite ingots? That's two hundred timers right there.

Yeah, this'll be great!

Amottica · February 2022

etchedpixels wrote: »

There are a whole load of people who play ESO as an economics and trading game so that would go down about as well as fixing the oversupply by say disabling crafting writs for a month, or removing quest rewards.

And they perform a great service to players using out of the way traders. There is nothing wrong with flipping items in itself.

Besides putting a chill factor on those traders such a ban could increase the competitiveness for traders in prime locations.

It’s just not needed and doesn’t cause inflation. Heck, one would have to actually prove there is inflation outside of a very small sampling of items that have a small supply and large demand. Without that there isn’t any reason to consider this.

VaranisArano · February 2022

thorwyn wrote: »

It's only an inventory nightmare for the people who don't want to use the goods.

No, it would also be a nighmare for consumers.
Let's say I'm buying 20 potions today, 20 potions tomorrow and 20 potions the day after tomorrow. That would be three different stacks in my inventory, each one with a different sell-up timer, even if I'm not planning to sell them. And that means if I'm running out of potions during a raid, I'd have to re-slot my potion bar... possibly during the fight, because the game doesn't know potion queues. All that because some people think that items are too expensive.

Yep. You know how Cyrodiil players complain about siege weapons don't stack because of their individual health bars?

Like that, but with everything.

Man, I didn't think it was possible for inventory management to get worse, but this would be a whole 'nowhere level of mess.

lolo_01b16_ESO · February 2022

Kwoung wrote: »

I have suggested it before and still feel a bind on trade mechanic would be a good thing for the game. You can sell everything you loot or craft once, but once you buy or are traded an item from someone else, it it yours forever. Basically it kills reselling, while leaving the market open for crafters and those that earn their loot and want to sell it. The only people affected would be flippers.

And yes, you could buy components and use them to craft items for resale and honestly, craft bag items wouldn't really need the limitation at all.

You seem to be forgetting that some players might want to buy a present for someone else. I mean sure, I could sent that person a letter with 1m gold inside, but in my experience people are often much happier if you gift them an item which they want but can't afford instead of just giving them money.

DragonRacer · February 2022

What a wonderful way to punish players who understand market prices, but may not have a ton of gaming time available to farm stuff nor real life money available to turn Crown sales into in-game gold, therefore their primary source of income is finding good deals to either use themselves or flip at market price to earn an in-game income.

Nullhawk3D · February 2022

Multiple potential issues might arise from these suggested inventory based mechanics.

1) Implementing another dB to monitor, compare and track distinct inventory, as many others have noted, would have a negative impact on game lag and impact inventory functionality for all players not just a few.

2) Disruption to economic structure should not be handled by game developers. In game economics are already impacted in this way by the adjustment of RNG of node, motifs, furnishing, style pages and other high end item drops.

3) Adjusting these for the few will impact seasoned sources of external data in an extremely negative manner. Trade flow development is already captured from external facing dB from groups like Tamriel Savings, Eso-Database, ESOUI. These sources can provide player base with more transparency of how item interaction evolves and monetary tracking occur. Many bots within discord channels also provide direct information to assist players review these trends in simple charts.

4) Many trade based players will track player data of negligent, potentially trade hostile or purely incompetent trade opponents manually.

What you are asking for and have discussed is a developer based trade control factor. Whereas a government IRL might have an impact more suitable in an economy for your spoken and requested desires the in-game mechanics do not require such a level of intrusive monetary trade disruption. Keep in mind the amount of resources available in game are endless and have an abundance of availability for you and others to obtain the same quality inventory you are looking for. This cannot be an oligarchy as the inventory you see for sale can always be found in other traders, from other players and within the in-game world in abundance.

Limiting trade economy and or functionality of inventory is a limiter, an imposition upon personal inventory management and ultimately would be utterly devastating to the player base for personalized inventory control. I strongly urge you to think of the pros and cons to your suggestion here.

Alternatively, adding an economy-based communications tab to the friends/mail section from which you can add or select recently discussed or traded with persons for favorites, bans or blacklists might be a more intriguing element - but still not necessary as many of us establish or manually create these for tracking externally.

Good luck in your future economy-trades within ESO!

Nord_Raseri · February 2022

Join us on console! While we do not have cookies, we do have a fairly steady market and very little inflation compared to PC servers.

silvereyes · February 2022

Resale is a normal part of a healthy economy. Bargain hunters are doing real work by visiting every small kiosk in the game and reposting at high traffic kiosks. Why shouldn’t they be compensated?

Also, they provide foot traffic to those kiosks that otherwise would get almost none. I would much rather be able to list things at a discount there and know that they will sell, rather than have no sales at all.

wolfie1.0. · February 2022

Kwoung wrote: »

I have suggested it before and still feel a bind on trade mechanic would be a good thing for the game. You can sell everything you loot or craft once, but once you buy or are traded an item from someone else, it it yours forever. Basically it kills reselling, while leaving the market open for crafters and those that earn their loot and want to sell it. The only people affected would be flippers.

And yes, you could buy components and use them to craft items for resale and honestly, craft bag items wouldn't really need the limitation at all.

you would run into the same issues i highlighted above. If you really want to reduce prices then ZOS you remove restrictions on trade, not restrict it further. there are a number of things that zos could do to allow this.

silvereyes · February 2022

Kwoung wrote: »

And yes, you could buy components and use them to craft items for resale and honestly, craft bag items wouldn't really need the limitation at all.

I'm glad you realize this. Having separate craft bags for bound and unbound mats would be super unpopular, as well as would having bound mats not allowed to enter the craft bag.

That said, materials, especially gold boosters, are the things I hear complained about the most when it comes to prices and inflation, so exactly what problem are we trying to solve here?

silvereyes · February 2022

Northwold wrote: »

So what do people think of banning resale of an item bought in a guild store for, say, 30 days, to try to discourage this and improve price competition?

I don't see how it would do anything to help prices.

Prices go high in this game on things that people want and which are hard or time-consuming to obtain. Even if you take all flippers out of the equation, you will still be competing with hundreds of other shoppers for in-demand items. The chance of you just happening to find a good deal would only be slightly better, and not by much.

Also, eliminating flippers would be a problem for seasonal NPC items like luxury furniture and golden vendor items. Miss the sale last weekend? Sorry, but everyone who just bought them to flip now has to wait 30 days, so the only people able to sell you gold Mother's Sorrow jewelry are those who still have surplus inventory from last year. With that sort of temporary monopoly, you can be darned sure they are going to price-gouge.

Araneae6537 · February 2022

Northwold wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

That is absurd, would needlessly create new problems in inventory tracking and more, and anyway, would have a net effect of raising prices.

Why would it raise prices? The whole point is to foul up people's inventories so they stop doing this.

As others have explained, because it would limit supply. Such is always the effect of any restrictions on trade.

Kwoung · February 2022

silvereyes wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

And yes, you could buy components and use them to craft items for resale and honestly, craft bag items wouldn't really need the limitation at all.

I'm glad you realize this. Having separate craft bags for bound and unbound mats would be super unpopular, as well as would having bound mats not allowed to enter the craft bag.

That said, materials, especially gold boosters, are the things I hear complained about the most when it comes to prices and inflation, so exactly what problem are we trying to solve here?

Not IMHO, I think the problem is more around stuff like recipes, motifs and rarish gear getting flipped. Gold craft mats are going to be what they are and until ZOS somewhat levels out the usage with the drop rates of them, they will remain high. As for furniture mats, ZOS just needs to stop using them for event writs and that market should stabilize on it's own. Which BTW will probably never happen, because they burn them up on purpose to limit availability and drive people to buy those housing items from the crown store instead.

haelgaan · February 2022

yup, if you want to drop price, increase supply of the item being bought - higher supply, lower price. You want to lower price on platings, for example? Increase the drop rate.

jle30303 · February 2022

What about, no time restriction, once you buy an item it becomes account-bound so you cannot buy it to flip the price upwards. Only problem is that in the case of stacking items, bound would not be able to stack with non-bound.

So, only buy if you need. Reduces demand, increases amount available for actual sale. People farming stuff to sell, still get a profit - they just don't get AS MUCH profit.

And don't buy more than you can use or you'll be stuck with it. (Or, in the case of upgrade materials, you can use it to upgrade a non-bound item before selling it, e.g. a mothers sorrow staff from blue to gold if you got it to drop.)

Arthtur · February 2022

Sigh...

As others already said - it would be a nightmare managing inventory.

In addition it would raise prices. Why? Because it wont stop me from buying stuff. If i see something that is put 20% too low from actual price im gonna buy it. Materials are worth more than gold anyway so im not losing anything. Its just month later this thing that i got will cost even more. So because of this "ban" u will lower supply which will make prices even higher.

Let me tell u what im doing. Im not using TTC to check where stuff is too cheap. Im running around the world visiting every trader. This takes few good hours to do. And im not doing this because im flipping. Im just searching for stuff that i want. But who would leave, lets say, 10k gold lying on the ground? Dont blame me because somebody else is putting stuff too low. If They put price at 8-9% lower than current price nobody will flip this as its not worth it. If somebody will puts his stuff 20% percent lower then oh well...
So why my few hours running around is bad? Because someone is too lazy to check prices? Or too lazy to run around searching cheaper prices? Why should i be punished for that?
So yeah if i see something that will give me 10k gold just for listing it in Mourhold im gonna buy it. If i see something that wont give me any profit but is cheaper than actual prices then i will buy those if i need them. I spend few hours searching those deals and everyone can do it too.

So in the end its the fault of ppl who dont know the prices. Sorry but this is my opinion. There is a lot of ppl asking for good prices in guild chat when They dont know for how much list it. Somehow They are happy when their stuff is sold next day after getting some advices....

At the end flippers make gold sink more effective as the same item is sold 2 times.

Brrrofski · February 2022

As I've said in like 4 threads...

This is a PC issue only.

We don't really have this issue on console.

So if you're going to prohibit something, start looking at add ons.

silvereyes · February 2022

Brrrofski wrote: »

As I've said in like 4 threads...

This is a PC issue only.

We don't really have this issue on console.

So if you're going to prohibit something, start looking at add ons.

It's tempting to blame it all on addons, and while I'm sure that they contribute, there are lots of other things to look at.

After years of bots, an extra year of history, and a more streamlined crown/gold market, there's just a lot more gold sloshing around, and a lot more players with extreme wealth willing to tolerate higher prices. I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but those are a few off of the top of my head.