Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

flipping and cornering the market would be 1000x worse in a global auction house, its going to be present in any system in which there are multiple people selling the same items

the guild trader system doesnt block it, but it does make it harder to successfully flip a larger quantity of things

Northwold wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

flipping and cornering the market would be 1000x worse in a global auction house, its going to be present in any system in which there are multiple people selling the same items

the guild trader system doesnt block it, but it does make it harder to successfully flip a larger quantity of things

I didn't argue for an auction house, though. All I'm saying is that some thought does need to be given to how to delay or reduce flipping in the existing system to allow the trader economy to function in a way that doesn't get close to the disadvantages of an auction house. Because if you want a decentralised economy with price differentiation, the behaviour of flippers actively works against that. One way to do that is to introduce a time delay before resale, because in practice that limits how many items flippers can flip at any one time.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

flipping and cornering the market would be 1000x worse in a global auction house, its going to be present in any system in which there are multiple people selling the same items

the guild trader system doesnt block it, but it does make it harder to successfully flip a larger quantity of things

I didn't argue for an auction house, though. All I'm saying is that some thought does need to be given to how to delay or reduce flipping in the existing system to allow the trader economy to function in a way that doesn't get close to the disadvantages of an auction house. Because if you want a decentralised economy with price differentiation, the behaviour of flippers actively works against that. One way to do that is to introduce a time delay before resale, because in practice that limits how many items flippers can flip at any one time.

and i was saying that your not going to stop flipping, unless you do what you suggest and put time delays on things

but thats going to make more people angry and would kill the economy worse than flipping

say you bought an item by accident, and was just going to relist it immediately to make your money back, but now your saddled with this item for say 3 days before you can relist it

thats 1 item now taking up storage space for 3 days, that you have 3 days of playtime to accidentally delete the item and then lose your money entirely

if there was a lockout on selling something after buying, i likely wouldnt even try to buy anything on the off chance i accidentally bought something that i didnt want

i dont want to derail off the topic of the global auction house that the OP was talking about, but the flipping in the current system is difficult enough that it doesnt overly affect the economy (that effect would come from price addons that would track the sales of the items, which may show and upward trend on something that is being flipped even in smaller amounts)

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

flipping and cornering the market would be 1000x worse in a global auction house, its going to be present in any system in which there are multiple people selling the same items

the guild trader system doesnt block it, but it does make it harder to successfully flip a larger quantity of things

I didn't argue for an auction house, though. All I'm saying is that some thought does need to be given to how to delay or reduce flipping in the existing system to allow the trader economy to function in a way that doesn't get close to the disadvantages of an auction house. Because if you want a decentralised economy with price differentiation, the behaviour of flippers actively works against that.

One way to do that is to introduce a time delay before resale, because in practice that limits how many items flippers can flip at any one time by taking up inventory or bank space for however long the clock has to run, rather than the current possibility that flippers can shuttle back and forth between buying and selling continuously.

It would be a short time limit. Let's say you set a one week waiting period. That means first week they have nothing to sell. 2nd week they start selling items they purchased week one while buying items they will sell week three. Week three they sell items they bought week two and start buying items for week four. And on it goes.
I don't see anything wrong with instant flipping.

The point isn't the length of the time delay from buying delaying things getting on sale, it's that it forces items to sit in inventory, which is a capped amount of items (and yes this will vary depending on alts etc). Without a time limit your inventory doesn't cap how much you can flip. Only your sales do. So a time delay creates a throttle on the volume of sales.

TaSheen wrote: »

I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

flipping and cornering the market would be 1000x worse in a global auction house, its going to be present in any system in which there are multiple people selling the same items

the guild trader system doesnt block it, but it does make it harder to successfully flip a larger quantity of things

I didn't argue for an auction house, though. All I'm saying is that some thought does need to be given to how to delay or reduce flipping in the existing system to allow the trader economy to function in a way that doesn't get close to the disadvantages of an auction house. Because if you want a decentralised economy with price differentiation, the behaviour of flippers actively works against that.

One way to do that is to introduce a time delay before resale, because in practice that limits how many items flippers can flip at any one time by taking up inventory or bank space for however long the clock has to run, rather than the current possibility that flippers can shuttle back and forth between buying and selling continuously.

It would be a short time limit. Let's say you set a one week waiting period. That means first week they have nothing to sell. 2nd week they start selling items they purchased week one while buying items they will sell week three. Week three they sell items they bought week two and start buying items for week four. And on it goes.
I don't see anything wrong with instant flipping.

The point isn't the length of the time delay from buying delaying things getting on sale, it's that it forces items to sit in inventory, which is a capped amount of items (and yes this will vary depending on alts etc). Without a time limit your inventory doesn't cap how much you can flip. Only your sales do. So a time delay creates a throttle on the volume of sales.

Crafting bag
2nd account
characters that are mules
private guild bank
mailing items that get returned to sender

There would only be an issue for the first week. Your idea would irritate flippers but it wouldn't slow them down one bit. Maybe they miss out on a quick turn around on a new item before the new wears off. Even that would be a rare occurrence.

Plus server strain in tracking purchased on dates/times so the items could be frozen and eventually released for sale.

It's amazing how servers are always an issue except when they aren't. Exclude them from the crafting bag. Or find some other solution to moderate flipping. It does get exasperating for individual points from posts -- here expressed as a possibility and acknowledging some of the very points you make -- to be picked up and then met with the standard forum tropes (although mercifully no ones said "it's not good for the health of the game" yet) instead of trying to find ways around an issue.

It's fine to have no problem with the status quo. But it helps discussion to acknowledge that other people do and find reasonable ways to engage with that.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

I've never heard that from the devs, just from players saying they don't like the idea for some bizarre reason. I'm actually interested about when they said this can you point me in the right direction since early in the game after launch I didn't pay attention to patch notes and dev interviews?

Kendaric wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

That may be, but flipping is also bad for the game as new(er) players don't have much gold to spent. It doesn't need to be banned entirely, but it should certainly be made somewhat more difficult.

Flipping only happens on bargains or super rare items.

“Market value” common type items are not flipped because there is no potential profit in that.

I am a bit hard pressed to think of what newish players actually need from the guild vendors beyond the odd researchable armor/weapon piece. And As long as those are not “nirn related” those are usually not too bad.

Motifs and style pages for example.

Granted, they technically aren't needed by anyone to play the game, but for some people getting their look just right is important.
Researchable weapos/armors/jewellery may be another thing that is needed by new(er) players.

TaSheen wrote: »

I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

Braffin wrote: »

I have no problem with introducing an auction house IF as tradeoff all item purchased within the same are bind on account without any exception. Otherwise the flipping will get worse than it already is.

Ph1p wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

I have no problem with introducing an auction house IF as tradeoff all item purchased within the same are bind on account without any exception. Otherwise the flipping will get worse than it already is.

This would mean that everything you buy from a trader would have to be stored separately in your inventory from the "sellable" ones you already have. That includes every crafting material, potion, food, etc.

Please, no!

I honestly don't see the issue with flipping unless it's done by cornering the market of a rare item and then charging higher-than-usual prices, and that is definitely easier to do in a centralized marketplace. But most flipping involves buying under-priced items and reselling them at their market value. As @kargen27 said, in this situation everybody entered a consensual trade and got what they wanted: The original seller got the price they listed at, the final buyer got an item at the price they were willing to pay, and the reseller got a profit for their effort of realizing the arbitrage.