Can we please get a Auction House?

shadyjane62 · May 2023

Thormar wrote: »

OP, do not listen to the nay sayers.
An Auction house is coming; after spellcrafting, flying mounts, under water pvp and the full-on Tamriel wide justice system.

We will get an Auction House, right after they fix the "stuck in combat" bug. Today I had to run from Bloodmayne to Fare.

Cost me a keep score.

kargen27 · May 2023

"Well, jokes aside: You are describing the actual system with guildtraders. And I don't want to argue against that, even if we could discuss how flipping is already manipulating the so-called "market value" (for example look at the different pricing on PC compared to XBOX/PS. Does this nothing have to do with tools like MM? Do you want to tell me that?)."

Most of the disparity is the ease gold can be made on the PC servers. Doing crafting writs on all 18 characters isn't all that time consuming on PC especially compared to the consoles. Add-ons in a variety of ways allow for gold accumulation much faster on PC. Prices will reflect that.
The higher prices couldn't exist if there wasn't more gold. Flipping doesn't really affect market value of an item. Flippers find the bargains then sell them at or near market value. I've been unloading motifs below market value this past week to clear up inventory space. I had kind of forgot about the motifs but wanted to run all 18 characters through the thirty day campaign for the crystals. Two of those characters inventories were almost full of nothing but motifs. I'm sure most of what I listed was flipped as often it was one player buying several at a time.
The player that bought my motifs could make a decent profit by listing at market value. Players wanting quick sales to clear up inventory make up a good chunk of items other players flip.

VaranisArano · May 2023

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.

I've never understood the practicality of a time limit.

So let's say I buy a stack of 200 Platinum Dust for cheap, intending to resell. Is the server literally going to put a 2 day, 23 hour, 59 minute, 58 second timer counting down on every single platinum dust in that stack so I can't resell any of it?

Braffin · May 2023

kargen27 wrote: »

"Well, jokes aside: You are describing the actual system with guildtraders. And I don't want to argue against that, even if we could discuss how flipping is already manipulating the so-called "market value" (for example look at the different pricing on PC compared to XBOX/PS. Does this nothing have to do with tools like MM? Do you want to tell me that?)."

Most of the disparity is the ease gold can be made on the PC servers. Doing crafting writs on all 18 characters isn't all that time consuming on PC especially compared to the consoles. Add-ons in a variety of ways allow for gold accumulation much faster on PC. Prices will reflect that.
The higher prices couldn't exist if there wasn't more gold. Flipping doesn't really affect market value of an item. Flippers find the bargains then sell them at or near market value. I've been unloading motifs below market value this past week to clear up inventory space. I had kind of forgot about the motifs but wanted to run all 18 characters through the thirty day campaign for the crystals. Two of those characters inventories were almost full of nothing but motifs. I'm sure most of what I listed was flipped as often it was one player buying several at a time.
The player that bought my motifs could make a decent profit by listing at market value. Players wanting quick sales to clear up inventory make up a good chunk of items other players flip.

No, most the disparity is not caused by the ease of gold that can be made, cause you forget (or want to) that with the same ease hardeners like wax or alchemy ingredients are made, even by using the exact same method, crafting writs.

The disparity is caused by the ease of gold that can be made by flipping using addons like MM and sites like TTC (to a lesser extent), as you can see for which products these disparity is usually highest: alchemy ingredients and hardenes.

Why is that? Cause (some, to be fair) flippers concentrate on goods, which are needed by people for doing content they want, especially in endgame.

Years age (I think around 2016/17) the situation went out of control that far for alchemy ingredients, so zos was forced to implement an alternative way to gather enough materials and opened the way to buy them for tel-var. the regulary share of crown-tri-pots is also a countermeasure against the flipping practices.

You want to tell us, that your "fun" does no harm? Show proof then and don't hide behind assumptions.

kargen27 · May 2023

"The disparity is caused by the ease of gold that can be made by flipping using addons like MM and sites like TTC (to a lesser extent), as you can see for which products these disparity is usually highest: alchemy ingredients and hardenes."

Flipping does not create gold. Flipping can redistribute gold. The higher prices couldn't exist if the gold didn't exist. The disparity is the ease at which gold can be made. Add-ons also help with efficient material gathering. Having the time to do more writs in a shorter time allows all 18 characters to contribute to survey drops. Knowing exactly where those surveys are make it much more efficient to gather surveys. On PC it is easier to set up a gathering route as you can see only resources that have spawned. No wasted time running to something that isn't there.

"Years age (I think around 2016/17) the situation went out of control that far for alchemy ingredients, so zos was forced to implement an alternative way to gather enough materials and opened the way to buy them for tel-var."

2016 is when housing happened. A lot of ingredients increased in price because of the new demand. I believe crafting materials have been available at the Tel Var vendor since Tel Var were introduced. It was just another part of a new currency.

Crown tri-pots are a way for the company to generate revenue just like experience scrolls, pledge to Mara, repair kits, soul gems and all kinds of other stuff. They are there for people that would rather use crowns than their in game gold. Nothing in the crown store is there to offset flipping.

Flipping hurt not one player. Every player has the same opportunity to purchase any item. Flippers rely on right place right time. They don't always get there first, especially if they are depending on an add-on for locations. No flipper has ever cornered the market on any one item ever in the game. Some tried but they failed. Flippers are not forcing players to pay higher prices. Players decide on their own the price is something they are willing to pay. Most flippers list items within the market value average because their goal is to flip the item. They don't want to set the price so high that the item sits in the trader for several days. They want it sold and gone so they can stick the next item in that slot.

You are trying to fix a problem that simply does not exist.

Heelie · May 2023

Currently the guild trader system is the biggest gold sink in the game, that alone justifies it, that being said I think an NPC that could tell you where to go for an item could fix a lot of the issues, essentially working like TTC, this NPC ofc would'nt tell prices just where an item was listed.

Braffin · May 2023

kargen27 wrote: »

"The disparity is caused by the ease of gold that can be made by flipping using addons like MM and sites like TTC (to a lesser extent), as you can see for which products these disparity is usually highest: alchemy ingredients and hardenes."

Flipping does not create gold. Flipping can redistribute gold. The higher prices couldn't exist if the gold didn't exist. The disparity is the ease at which gold can be made. Add-ons also help with efficient material gathering. Having the time to do more writs in a shorter time allows all 18 characters to contribute to survey drops. Knowing exactly where those surveys are make it much more efficient to gather surveys. On PC it is easier to set up a gathering route as you can see only resources that have spawned. No wasted time running to something that isn't there.

"Years age (I think around 2016/17) the situation went out of control that far for alchemy ingredients, so zos was forced to implement an alternative way to gather enough materials and opened the way to buy them for tel-var."

2016 is when housing happened. A lot of ingredients increased in price because of the new demand. I believe crafting materials have been available at the Tel Var vendor since Tel Var were introduced. It was just another part of a new currency.

Crown tri-pots are a way for the company to generate revenue just like experience scrolls, pledge to Mara, repair kits, soul gems and all kinds of other stuff. They are there for people that would rather use crowns than their in game gold. Nothing in the crown store is there to offset flipping.

Flipping hurt not one player. Every player has the same opportunity to purchase any item. Flippers rely on right place right time. They don't always get there first, especially if they are depending on an add-on for locations. No flipper has ever cornered the market on any one item ever in the game. Some tried but they failed. Flippers are not forcing players to pay higher prices. Players decide on their own the price is something they are willing to pay. Most flippers list items within the market value average because their goal is to flip the item. They don't want to set the price so high that the item sits in the trader for several days. They want it sold and gone so they can stick the next item in that slot.

You are trying to fix a problem that simply does not exist.

So let's see in that:

1) Flipping doesn't create gold. That's true. That it redistrubutes gold is also true. The question is, do we want an economy where the redistribution is only in the way, that the rich getting richer on the shoulders of the poor. addons help with everything on PC, you are even able to farm for materials faster and more efficient. That's why there are much more materials around on PC. Does this reflect in economy? No. Because of flippers. They maintain the price, they want the materials to have.

2) I personally do my crafting writs on 9 toons and sit on millions of gold. In addition to that my crafting bag would explode if it wasn't infinite. So I never buy something on guild traders, cause I have no need to do so. It's the same with every other player I know, who does his crafting writs. So you can save your strawman here too.

3) Crafting materials weren't available at tel-var vendor since introduction, show for yourself:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/302917/apothecary-s-parcels

So your assumptions are simply not true again, can't say if you don't know better or just outright telling a lie. The reasons for their introduction were a) to give pvpers a possibility to sell some stuff and b) to fix economy for endgame trial community.

4) Regarding tri-pots: Nobody was talking about crown-store purchases but abaout the free to all gift 3-4 times a month as login reward. What exactly is the reason for zos to gift them. Getting people to buy more in crown-store? Well, nobody would, if anyone could just buy them at their personal most trustworthy flipper at most reasonable prices, wouldn't they?

5) "Flipping hurt no one player" - You can repeat this mantra as often as you want, it doesn't become true by that. But you are right: No flipper has ever cornered the market on any one item, at least in this game. An auction house would change that. I know that and you know that too. It would maximise your profit and destroy economy for the others. In my humble opinion thats a selfish and greedy attitude, although not forbidden. But at least don't lie about your intentions and call your doing what it is.

Ph1p · May 2023

Braffin wrote: »

The question is, do we want an economy where the redistribution is only in the way, that the rich getting richer on the shoulders of the poor. addons help with everything on PC, you are even able to farm for materials faster and more efficient. That's why there are much more materials around on PC. Does this reflect in economy? No. Because of flippers. They maintain the price, they want the materials to have.

This class warfare argument makes absolutely no sense in ESO. Someone with 10 million gold in their bank did not inherit it from their rich parents or lobby ZOS to have lower listing fees than everybody else. Everybody starts at zero gold and nothing in the game prevents any player from earning gold. Anyone can farm stuff, join an entry-level trading guild, start selling, and gradually work their way up to better traders and more gold. No one stops you from starting to flip items yourself, nobody rejects your guild application because you're an Argonian and not a High Elf...

There are also numerous guides online to give you financial advice and - unlike most get-rich schemes in the real world - they actually work. The only limiting factors are a player's personal time and patience - at least per platform, but that's one reason there isn't any cross-play between PC and consoles.

How are "the rich getting richer on the shoulders of the poor"? Most of my gold comes from selling crafting materials, motifs, and recipes that I have farmed or sometimes flipped. The buyers are willing to pay my asking price, which they can easily check and compare using MM/ATT/TTC because I'm on PC. Which poor player's shoulder am I standing on here?

And when it comes to flipping and "maintaining the price", you forget that this is only the supply side. Since no one can corner the market, especially not on commodity materials, flippers can't just set prices on their own without the demand to match. For example, when a double-XP event is near, prices for Alchemy Writs go up in line with demand, because people want to level their characters. Good luck trying to sell at those prices outside of such an event...

I'd also be curious to understand why you think flipping hurts people. Again, we're talking about buying at a low price and reselling at around market value, not about cornering the market (which you agree isn't practicable today anyway).

Braffin · May 2023

Ph1p wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

The question is, do we want an economy where the redistribution is only in the way, that the rich getting richer on the shoulders of the poor. addons help with everything on PC, you are even able to farm for materials faster and more efficient. That's why there are much more materials around on PC. Does this reflect in economy? No. Because of flippers. They maintain the price, they want the materials to have.

This class warfare argument makes absolutely no sense in ESO. Someone with 10 million gold in their bank did not inherit it from their rich parents or lobby ZOS to have lower listing fees than everybody else. Everybody starts at zero gold and nothing in the game prevents any player from earning gold. Anyone can farm stuff, join an entry-level trading guild, start selling, and gradually work their way up to better traders and more gold. No one stops you from starting to flip items yourself, nobody rejects your guild application because you're an Argonian and not a High Elf...

There are also numerous guides online to give you financial advice and - unlike most get-rich schemes in the real world - they actually work. The only limiting factors are a player's personal time and patience - at least per platform, but that's one reason there isn't any cross-play between PC and consoles.

How are "the rich getting richer on the shoulders of the poor"? Most of my gold comes from selling crafting materials, motifs, and recipes that I have farmed or sometimes flipped. The buyers are willing to pay my asking price, which they can easily check and compare using MM/ATT/TTC because I'm on PC. Which poor player's shoulder am I standing on here?

And when it comes to flipping and "maintaining the price", you forget that this is only the supply side. Since no one can corner the market, especially not on commodity materials, flippers can't just set prices on their own without the demand to match. For example, when a double-XP event is near, prices for Alchemy Writs go up in line with demand, because people want to level their characters. Good luck trying to sell at those prices outside of such an event...

I'd also be curious to understand why you think flipping hurts people. Again, we're talking about buying at a low price and reselling at around market value, not about cornering the market (which you agree isn't practicable today anyway).

You are always talking about the "market value", so tell me:
How is this value built in the first place? Divine Intervention?
How should it be possible to lower the "market value" of goods, if everything which is sold at a cheaper price than set value is flipped almost instantly?

I on the other side can tell you how you are hurting people with your doing: You feed inflation, it's as simple as that, as only one direction for the prices set is possible: getting more expensive. Try to set in the situation of a newer player: When you started the game it was much easier to become wealthy than nowadays, trading was not the only way to do so (I must know, as I'm filthy richand never sold a single item.). Today it's much harder to catch up. That's not what I call healthy, and it's not what I want newer players to experience here.

I call you, go and take a look at swtor and it's broken economy: Inflation went through the roof, developers don't know how to react to it anymore. Zos was wise to limit flipping at least with forcing the flipper to move a little bit, that at least decreases the impact of your greed.

Deathgiggle · May 2023

Just put all guild traders in one large Trade City! Problem solved!

TaSheen · May 2023

Hmm. "Market value" is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services....

Braffin · May 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Hmm. "Market value" is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services....

So, you're saying the customer is setting the price. Nice one

Edit: The "insightful" you got from me btw

Northwold · May 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Hmm. "Market value" is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services....

And *free* market value is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services in a market that functions properly as a *competitive* market. They are not the same thing [snip]

[Edited for minor baiting]

TaSheen · May 2023

Northwold wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Hmm. "Market value" is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services....

And *free* market value is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services in a market that functions properly as a *competitive* market. They are not the same thing [snip]

[Edited for minor baiting]

This isn't a "free" market. This is a game market economy - run by the developers in a manner they instituted from its get-go - and continue to approve and implement.

Kindly don't take that to mean I personally approve. I don't. Which is why I don't mess with the market here. I'm simply stating how I perceive the status quo after many years of playing.

Northwold · May 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Hmm. "Market value" is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services....

And *free* market value is defined as the amount people will pay for goods and/or services in a market that functions properly as a *competitive* market. They are not the same thing [snip]

[Edited for minor baiting]

This isn't a "free" market. This is a game market economy - run by the developers in a manner they instituted from its get-go - and continue to approve and implement.

Kindly don't take that to mean I personally approve. I don't. Which is why I don't mess with the market here. I'm simply stating how I perceive the status quo after many years of playing.

No doubt. But when people talk about market value, it's pretty important to clarify that that term has nothing to do with free (ie freely competitive) markets. Items have a "market value" in industries that never, ever deliver the competitive price because they are dominated by one supplier, for example. It's very much not persuasive when it's rolled out as some kind of slam dunk point (I'm not suggesting you did that); a dysfunctional market will deliver market values that are themselves dysfunctional.

kargen27 · May 2023

"So your assumptions are simply not true again, can't say if you don't know better or just outright telling a lie. The reasons for their introduction were a) to give pvpers a possibility to sell some stuff and b) to fix economy for endgame trial community."

So not because of flippers.

And again: Flippers find bargains then sell the items at market value.

"How should it be possible to lower the "market value" of goods, if everything which is sold at a cheaper price than set value is flipped almost instantly?"

Simple supply and demand. Flippers will not get every bargain. Might not even get most bargains. Either way eventually they are going to have to drop their prices to continue selling those items. Motifs are an accelerated example of how prices adjust.

""Flipping hurt no one player" - You can repeat this mantra as often as you want, it doesn't become true by that."

Can you provide one example of a player being hurt by items being flipped? Your claim that flippers artificially inflate prices isn't true so you can't use that. Flippers might slow down a price drop on common and semi rare items. They are not going to be able to keep it steadily at the high. A decline in demand will cause the prices flippers can charge to drop.

" An auction house would change that. I know that and you know that too. It would maximise your profit and destroy economy for the others. In my humble opinion thats a selfish and greedy attitude, although not forbidden."

How did you come to think I am for an auction house because I oppose a time constraint on flipping items? I've said a few times in this thread switching to an auction house would be devastating for the economy. I've also pointed out in this thread and many many others that any type of central location type of economy would be much easier to manipulate.

I am saying flipping items in the system we have now is causing no harm. Further I am saying the suggested fix if it were a problem would do nothing but irritate flippers a bit. You also seem to assume I flip items. Also not the case. Scroll up and you will see where I state I price items under market value to clear out inventory space. I don't have the time or patience to try and flip items nor do I think it would be fun. I do know many players that treat playing the market as their end game and as they are causing no harm I see no reason to stop them form enjoying the game.

The market is healthy. Even new players can get everything they need and a lot of what they want. As they continue to play they will be able to afford more of the things they want and still be able to get everything they need.

"I on the other side can tell you how you are hurting people with your doing: You feed inflation,"

Inflation is created by new gold being introduced into the game. Inflation is not created by gold being redistributed. Each sale takes some gold out of the game through taxes so if flipping has any impact on inflation at all it would be to help alleviate inflation.
Inflation can also be created by a sudden drop in supply or an anticipation of an increase in money injected into the economy. Neither of these apply to the game as income has been steady over a long period of time and supplies don't have a drastic enough drop to cause a market move.

TaSheen · May 2023

@kargen27 - it would be a help (to me at least) if you used the quote option in the interface as opposed to "quoting" parts of posts using quotes done by copy/pasting bits from someone's post (which doesn't allow for attribution) using plain text and the quotation marks.

Braffin · May 2023

"So not because of flippers"

Just an assumption, nothing more. What exactly should be the reason for the exploding prices in the given example?

"And again: Flippers find bargains then sell the items at market value. "

And again: repeating a single sentence like a parrot doesn't make it true.

"Simple supply and demand. Flippers will not get every bargain. Might not even get most bargains. Either way eventually they are going to have to drop their prices to continue selling those items. Motifs are an accelerated example of how prices adjust."

Are you denying, that flipping has an impact on the supply side of the market?

"Can you provide one example of a player being hurt by items being flipped? Your claim that flippers artificially inflate prices isn't true so you can't use that. Flippers might slow down a price drop on common and semi rare items. They are not going to be able to keep it steadily at the high. A decline in demand will cause the prices flippers can charge to drop."

Of course I can't, as much as you can't prove the opposite considering the available data. But, as you state for yourself, when you admit, that flipping slows down a decline in pricing, there is definitely an impact, and not a healthy one, as the proportions between supply and demand are manipulated for the profit of a single trader. That's my statement.

"How did you come to think I am for an auction house because I oppose a time constraint on flipping items? I've said a few times in this thread switching to an auction house would be devastating for the economy. I've also pointed out in this thread and many many others that any type of central location type of economy would be much easier to manipulate."

I misinterpreted your answer regarding my first statement, as you were cited by a flipper before that. I send my honest apologies for that.

On the topic I see no difference between us here, as I also only shared my concerns regarding the manipulation of market, if an auction house would be introduced. One very impactful way to do so would be flipping. I never commented the current situation with guild traders in they way, that I want to see it changed.

Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with occassional flipping a few goods, but if it is done large scale (some guys are already talking about bots at guildstores nowadays) the economy is in danger, especially when you have the possibility to change your gold for crowns (I don't have a problem with that either btw).

kargen27 · May 2023

Yes I am denying flipping has an impact on supply side. They purchase the item then list the item. Supply remains the same. The idea of forcing a period of time before reselling would actually affect supply for the length of time the forced wait period is in place. Then everything would be back to same with flippers posting items as allowed while purchasing for future postings.

A slight delay in prices being reduced is not much of an impact if any at all. A player might have to wait a bit on some luxury type item. Common items prices would flow as demand dictates.

A different topic but I feel the same about crowns for gold as I do flipping. It doesn't hurt the economy as it only redistributes gold and doesn't increase the amount in game.

THe economy is in no threat of collapse. It has always reacted well to supply and demand and short a mass exodus of players will continue to do so.

Braffin · May 2023

kargen27 wrote: »

Yes I am denying flipping has an impact on supply side. They purchase the item then list the item. Supply remains the same. The idea of forcing a period of time before reselling would actually affect supply for the length of time the forced wait period is in place. Then everything would be back to same with flippers posting items as allowed while purchasing for future postings.

A slight delay in prices being reduced is not much of an impact if any at all. A player might have to wait a bit on some luxury type item. Common items prices would flow as demand dictates.

A different topic but I feel the same about crowns for gold as I do flipping. It doesn't hurt the economy as it only redistributes gold and doesn't increase the amount in game.

THe economy is in no threat of collapse. It has always reacted well to supply and demand and short a mass exodus of players will continue to do so.

[snip] my statement was, that if an auction house would be implemented, the tradeoff would have to be the complete removal of flipping by binding the goods on purchase.

In addition to that [snip], there is a difference between the actions of a single player and the actions of whole communities. You negate, that playing the market is THE way to go for making money (at least if you are too lazy to do your writs), you can find lots of guides on the internet how to do so.

Of course all of that has completely no impact to the economy, [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Ph1p · May 2023

Braffin wrote: »

You are always talking about the "market value", so tell me:
How is this value built in the first place? Divine Intervention?

As I said before, value or price is generally determined by supply and demand. It's a compromise between what buyers are willing to pay for 200 Platinum Dust and what sellers deem acceptable as compensation for parting with a whole stack of it. You literally help set the price every time you buy something from a trader or refuse to purchase an overpriced item.

Braffin wrote: »

How should it be possible to lower the "market value" of goods, if everything which is sold at a cheaper price than set value is flipped almost instantly?

There is a fundamental misunderstanding here: At any given time, an item has a market price (range), which is determined as described above and influenced by some other factors, like guild trader location. You can't just demand it be lower because you don't like it. It's that high because there are other people valuing it that highly. Simply "lowering the market value of goods" is like a government using price controls to artificially lower the price of oil without figuring out why the state-run oil production has halved over the last decade... Beyond that, prices can and do move in both directions, for example:

During the current PVP event, Hakeijo prices have gone down 15%, because more people farm Tel Var and its supply has gone up.
Every free ESO+ event, crafting materials go up in price, because demand goes up as people fill their temporary craft bags. Right after that, prices go down again.
When a new motif is released, it will be very expensive as there is no supply yet, and every Undaunted Celebration, all motif prices go down because they drop from the event coffers.

Braffin wrote: »

I on the other side can tell you how you are hurting people with your doing: You feed inflation, it's as simple as that, as only one direction for the prices set is possible: getting more expensive. Try to set in the situation of a newer player: When you started the game it was much easier to become wealthy than nowadays, trading was not the only way to do so (I must know, as I'm filthy rich and never sold a single item.). Today it's much harder to catch up [...]

I've just given you multiple examples of prices going down and there are loads more. In fact, for new motifs, which are flipped all the time, there is indeed only one direction for prices to go: Down. Flipping itself doesn't cause higher prices, it "corrects" an under-priced sale. Someone might have a good reason to sell Columbine at 800 gold/unit - they need gold quickly or they only have a low-traffic trader (a.k.a. low demand). But if loads of people are willing to pay double that amount, then that's the market price. You might find the profit from flipping distasteful, but it's comprised of two entirely ordinary actions: Buy at a bargain - or do you insist on paying full price at the supermarket even when something's on sale - and sell at market price.

As for newer players, it takes just as much effort to farm that Columbine as it did a few years ago. But they can also sell it at the higher price it commands today. Of course, if you actively choose to not participate in trading at all, then it might indeed be more difficult, because the gold you make from writs, monsters, etc. hasn't kept up with inflation. But if it did, it would actually contribute to inflation because it would add even more gold to the system.

If you want to combat inflation, you need to introduce more gold sinks and/or take away some of the more recently added gold sources. For example, ZOS could increase the sales tax (although some of that might get passed on to buyers), add more attractive items to the Golden Vendor and other NPC traders, promote housing, etc.

Finally, I do agree with you on this: If we went to a centralized system, flipping or rather cornering the market would become an issue. For me, restrictions on reselling are not feasible (or desirable), which is one reason why I don't want a fully centralized marketplace in ESO.

Northwold · May 2023

On supply and demand people are trivialising a very complex economic subject to favour whatever argument they happen to be making.

It is not the case, in most markets in the real world, and certainly not in ESO, that buyers simply pick a price that they are happy to pay and therefore that all markets are absolutely fine because you stuck the word "market" in the description.

Markets arrive on prices set, usually, by sellers, not buyers, based on a whole litany of concepts, including price elasticity of demand. That is, how much a buyer can or will pay before they won't buy a thing at all or will substitute it for another.

In theory, for most goods, people will move away to substitutes or never buying something at all as the price increases. So sellers may push the price up to see what they can get away with and -- in theory -- buyers will progressively walk away forming a neat line on a graph along which sellers realise where the right price to make the most money (and not to lose it) lies. Again, in theory, sellers have to be alive to the behaviour of buyers or they will not be able to sell.

Now, MMO economies have something of a problem here that stems from the nature of what people are trying to buy and sell. For MMO commodities, in particular -- things like crafting materials -- demand is inelastic (it is relatively insensitive to movements in price) because there are no substitute products that people can switch to if the price of the product they want is too high.

You cannot swap one type of tomato for another when cherry tomatoes, say, reach an outrageous price, because the only type of tomato available in the game is cherry tomatoes. There is only one rosin, there is only one dreugh wax, and so on.

Put to one side that no one ever "needs" anything in an MMO. It's a video game. But a great deal of what is sold in ESO has no substitutes. There is only one of that type of product, and you buy that product or you buy nothing.

That type of market gives the power of setting prices to sellers. It does not lead to efficient pricing. There is not an ultra competitive selling environment where everyone can see what everyone else is charging and buyers can take it or leave it, forcing sellers to compete with each other on price.

Instead, it is the type of market that allows sellers to push for whatever prices make the most money. In the real world, it is the kind of market that encourages people to form illegal price fixing cartels, because it is much easier to just set a gouging price and put your feet up than be constantly at competitors' throats.

It is what it is. That is how most MMO economies function. And because many players who buy are also players who sell, it can normally proceed without too many problems because those players are insulated from what, in the real world, would be called hyperinflation.

But people need to stop saying "it's supply and demand" as if this was some sort of clever and definitive resolution to any argument. It isn't. Supply and demand in an economy set up the way ESO's is doesn't work in the way being claimed. It creates a seller led market. Denying that simply is not persuasive. It looks self-serving and plain untrue.

And in ESO's economy, particularly, there are real problems with the way supply and demand function. The guild trader set up means there is a lack of price transparency; people cannot see, especially on console, what competing prices are so it is hard to tell if they are being ripped off.

But also, as I've mentioned previously, because selling is gated behind a trading structure that many players will not engage with, you do have a whole section of the playerbase who are exposed to all the problems that arise from seller-led markets and are not in a position to keep track with the way prices behave.

So, yes, you can say "this is supply and demand". It is. But that does not mean that it is a properly functioning, competitive market. It is how supply and demand behave in a market afflicted by serious problems. As an argument that all is well and no problems exist to be addressed, saying "it's supply and demand" is completely meaningless and suggests a deliberate failure to think about how the economy actually works.

kringled_1 · May 2023

Northwold wrote: »

On supply and demand people are trivialising a very complex economic subject to favour whatever argument they happen to be making.

It is not the case, in most markets in the real world, and certainly not in ESO, that buyers simply pick a price that they are happy to pay and therefore that all markets are absolutely fine because you stuck the word "market" in the description.

Markets arrive on prices set, usually, by sellers, not buyers, based on a whole litany of concepts, including price elasticity of demand. That is, how much a buyer can or will pay before they won't buy a thing at all or will substitute it for another.

In theory, for most goods, people will move away to substitutes or never buying something at all as the price increases. So sellers may push the price up to see what they can get away with and -- in theory -- buyers will progressively walk away forming a neat line on a graph along which sellers realise where the right price to make the most money (and not to lose it) lies. Again, in theory, sellers have to be alive to the behaviour of buyers or they will not be able to sell.

Now, MMO economies have something of a problem here that stems from the nature of what people are trying to buy and sell. For MMO commodities, in particular -- things like crafting materials -- demand is inelastic (it is relatively insensitive to movements in price) because there are no substitute products that people can switch to if the price of the product they want is too high.

You cannot swap one type of tomato for another when cherry tomatoes, say, reach an outrageous price, because the only type of tomato available in the game is cherry tomatoes. There is only one rosin, there is only one dreugh wax, and so on.

Put to one side that no one ever "needs" anything in an MMO. It's a video game. But a great deal of what is sold in ESO has no substitutes. There is only one of that type of product, and you buy that product or you buy nothing.

That type of market gives the power of setting prices to sellers. It does not lead to efficient pricing but the pricing that allows sellers to make the most money.

It is what it is. That is how most MMO economies function. And because many players who buy are also players who sell, it can normally proceed without too many problems because those players are insulated from what, in the real world, would be called hyperinflation.

But people need to stop saying "it's supply and demand" as if this was some sort of clever and definitive resolution to any argument. It isn't. Supply and demand in an economy set up the way ESO's is doesn't work in the way being claimed. It creates a seller led market. Denying that simply is not persuasive. It looks self-serving and plain untrue.

And in ESO's economy, particularly, there are real problems with the way supply and demand function. The guild trader set up means there is a lack of price transparency; people cannot see, especially on console, what competing prices are so it is hard to tell if they are being ripped off.

But also, as I've mentioned previously, because selling is gated behind a trading structure that many players will not engage with, you do have a whole section of the playerbase who are exposed to all the problems that arise from seller-led markets and are not in a position to keep track with the way prices behave.

So, yes, you can say "this is supply and demand". It is. But that does not mean that it is a properly functioning, competitive market. It is how supply and demand behave in a market afflicted by serious problems. As an argument that all is well and no problems exist to be addressed, saying "it's supply and demand" is completely meaningless and suggests a deliberate failure to think about how the economy actually works.

While there aren't substitutes for a lot of rare goods in ESO, there is absolutely an alternative players can go to: farm goods themselves. Wax/rosin/temper are all things that every player in this game can obtain, if they choose to spend their time doing so. Unlike the real world, there's not an enormous overhead cost to doing so.

Northwold · May 2023

kringled_1 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

On supply and demand people are trivialising a very complex economic subject to favour whatever argument they happen to be making.

It is not the case, in most markets in the real world, and certainly not in ESO, that buyers simply pick a price that they are happy to pay and therefore that all markets are absolutely fine because you stuck the word "market" in the description.

Markets arrive on prices set, usually, by sellers, not buyers, based on a whole litany of concepts, including price elasticity of demand. That is, how much a buyer can or will pay before they won't buy a thing at all or will substitute it for another.

In theory, for most goods, people will move away to substitutes or never buying something at all as the price increases. So sellers may push the price up to see what they can get away with and -- in theory -- buyers will progressively walk away forming a neat line on a graph along which sellers realise where the right price to make the most money (and not to lose it) lies. Again, in theory, sellers have to be alive to the behaviour of buyers or they will not be able to sell.

Now, MMO economies have something of a problem here that stems from the nature of what people are trying to buy and sell. For MMO commodities, in particular -- things like crafting materials -- demand is inelastic (it is relatively insensitive to movements in price) because there are no substitute products that people can switch to if the price of the product they want is too high.

You cannot swap one type of tomato for another when cherry tomatoes, say, reach an outrageous price, because the only type of tomato available in the game is cherry tomatoes. There is only one rosin, there is only one dreugh wax, and so on.

Put to one side that no one ever "needs" anything in an MMO. It's a video game. But a great deal of what is sold in ESO has no substitutes. There is only one of that type of product, and you buy that product or you buy nothing.

That type of market gives the power of setting prices to sellers. It does not lead to efficient pricing but the pricing that allows sellers to make the most money.

It is what it is. That is how most MMO economies function. And because many players who buy are also players who sell, it can normally proceed without too many problems because those players are insulated from what, in the real world, would be called hyperinflation.

But people need to stop saying "it's supply and demand" as if this was some sort of clever and definitive resolution to any argument. It isn't. Supply and demand in an economy set up the way ESO's is doesn't work in the way being claimed. It creates a seller led market. Denying that simply is not persuasive. It looks self-serving and plain untrue.

And in ESO's economy, particularly, there are real problems with the way supply and demand function. The guild trader set up means there is a lack of price transparency; people cannot see, especially on console, what competing prices are so it is hard to tell if they are being ripped off.

But also, as I've mentioned previously, because selling is gated behind a trading structure that many players will not engage with, you do have a whole section of the playerbase who are exposed to all the problems that arise from seller-led markets and are not in a position to keep track with the way prices behave.

So, yes, you can say "this is supply and demand". It is. But that does not mean that it is a properly functioning, competitive market. It is how supply and demand behave in a market afflicted by serious problems. As an argument that all is well and no problems exist to be addressed, saying "it's supply and demand" is completely meaningless and suggests a deliberate failure to think about how the economy actually works.

While there aren't substitutes for a lot of rare goods in ESO, there is absolutely an alternative players can go to: farm goods themselves. Wax/rosin/temper are all things that every player in this game can obtain, if they choose to spend their time doing so. Unlike the real world, there's not an enormous overhead cost to doing so.

But so what? Honestly, people keep saying this, but it seems to amount to an argument that "yes, the economy is broken, so don't use it".

I mean, OK, but essentially every other MMO out there does seem to grasp that the player economy is a quite important facet of the game that needs to work properly. For all players. Not just players who treat selling as the entire gameplay offering of ESO.

kringled_1 · May 2023

Effectively that's how supply increases. The barriers on generating a lot of the expensive commodities are not high, so people can generate their own and sell surplus. Writs and actually picking up your surveys (not just letting them accumulate and then complaining about them) allow players to generate a surplus of mats quite easily.

Northwold · May 2023

kringled_1 wrote: »

Effectively that's how supply increases. The barriers on generating a lot of the expensive commodities are not high, so people can generate their own and sell surplus. Writs and actually picking up your surveys (not just letting them accumulate and then complaining about them) allow players to generate a surplus of mats quite easily.

Well yes, except that supply does not necessarily increase *for the market*. Which is one of the reasons why the guild gate for selling is far more problematic than many commenters here are willing to admit.

Whether people "understand" it or not is irrelevant: some players do not want to join a guild and so do not sell. What actually happens is that those players then hoard or destroy what they come across when they don't need it. That supply never reaches the market. It is never efficiently allocated to people who want to buy it.

But because those same players who do not sell can buy, there is an imbalance between the scale of demand and the scale of supply which results in further distortions in how prices behave.

And we can say "just farm your own", just as in Greece at the height of the financial crisis many people resorted to growing vegetables in their back gardens. But it is a very odd way to approach a player economy in an MMO to suggest that whole categories of player should just ignore it entirely. Indeed, if players end up doing that en masse the player economy will be unable to function correctly.

kringled_1 · May 2023

Northwold wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

Effectively that's how supply increases. The barriers on generating a lot of the expensive commodities are not high, so people can generate their own and sell surplus. Writs and actually picking up your surveys (not just letting them accumulate and then complaining about them) allow players to generate a surplus of mats quite easily.

Well yes, except that supply does not increase *for the market*. Which is one of the reasons why the guild gate for selling is problematic. What actually happens is that players who refuse to join a player administered guild either hoard or destroy what they come across when they don't need it. That supply never reaches the market. But because those same players can buy, there is an imbalance between the scale of demand and the scale of supply.

Your unwillingness to join a trade guild massively skews your perspective here.
You can't seriously avoid taking the minimal steps required to participate more fully in the economy, then continuously complain that it's broken. Well, I mean I guess you can because you do, but really: Not everyone who is in a trade guild is someone who "treat(s) selling as the entire gameplay offering of ESO".

Lumenn · May 2023

kringled_1 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

On supply and demand people are trivialising a very complex economic subject to favour whatever argument they happen to be making.

It is not the case, in most markets in the real world, and certainly not in ESO, that buyers simply pick a price that they are happy to pay and therefore that all markets are absolutely fine because you stuck the word "market" in the description.

Markets arrive on prices set, usually, by sellers, not buyers, based on a whole litany of concepts, including price elasticity of demand. That is, how much a buyer can or will pay before they won't buy a thing at all or will substitute it for another.

In theory, for most goods, people will move away to substitutes or never buying something at all as the price increases. So sellers may push the price up to see what they can get away with and -- in theory -- buyers will progressively walk away forming a neat line on a graph along which sellers realise where the right price to make the most money (and not to lose it) lies. Again, in theory, sellers have to be alive to the behaviour of buyers or they will not be able to sell.

Now, MMO economies have something of a problem here that stems from the nature of what people are trying to buy and sell. For MMO commodities, in particular -- things like crafting materials -- demand is inelastic (it is relatively insensitive to movements in price) because there are no substitute products that people can switch to if the price of the product they want is too high.

You cannot swap one type of tomato for another when cherry tomatoes, say, reach an outrageous price, because the only type of tomato available in the game is cherry tomatoes. There is only one rosin, there is only one dreugh wax, and so on.

Put to one side that no one ever "needs" anything in an MMO. It's a video game. But a great deal of what is sold in ESO has no substitutes. There is only one of that type of product, and you buy that product or you buy nothing.

That type of market gives the power of setting prices to sellers. It does not lead to efficient pricing but the pricing that allows sellers to make the most money.

It is what it is. That is how most MMO economies function. And because many players who buy are also players who sell, it can normally proceed without too many problems because those players are insulated from what, in the real world, would be called hyperinflation.

But people need to stop saying "it's supply and demand" as if this was some sort of clever and definitive resolution to any argument. It isn't. Supply and demand in an economy set up the way ESO's is doesn't work in the way being claimed. It creates a seller led market. Denying that simply is not persuasive. It looks self-serving and plain untrue.

And in ESO's economy, particularly, there are real problems with the way supply and demand function. The guild trader set up means there is a lack of price transparency; people cannot see, especially on console, what competing prices are so it is hard to tell if they are being ripped off.

But also, as I've mentioned previously, because selling is gated behind a trading structure that many players will not engage with, you do have a whole section of the playerbase who are exposed to all the problems that arise from seller-led markets and are not in a position to keep track with the way prices behave.

So, yes, you can say "this is supply and demand". It is. But that does not mean that it is a properly functioning, competitive market. It is how supply and demand behave in a market afflicted by serious problems. As an argument that all is well and no problems exist to be addressed, saying "it's supply and demand" is completely meaningless and suggests a deliberate failure to think about how the economy actually works.

While there aren't substitutes for a lot of rare goods in ESO, there is absolutely an alternative players can go to: farm goods themselves. Wax/rosin/temper are all things that every player in this game can obtain, if they choose to spend their time doing so. Unlike the real world, there's not an enormous overhead cost to doing so.

I personally dislike this argument. Normally it's a completely valid, logical, and CORRECT point and case would be closed. Perhaps because I mostly play on Xbox and see bots everywhere, but we can't just ignore that fact, combined with HORRIBLE drop rates on things like furniture mats, give botters a huge advantage. It's even cheaper than slave labor in the real world, and gives them a leg up that no one can compete with. Even if all bots were destroyed forever, never to be seen again(as many claim, incorrectly I might add, that PC has) these bot runners already have a vast amount of wealth/supplies. No farming player will EVER compete with 24/7 bots never sleeping, never breaking for food, bio, resting hands etc.

Now, I know perfectly well that the majority of players are not running bots. I also know that quite a few of the big time players do/did. And there is absolutely nothing Zos can do about it besides turning everything into no trade(bound). While it's funny to imagine the botters sitting on a ton of supplies that are now worthless unless they craft, and would solve the "auction house/guild trader argument for good, it would also destroy the market and drive away customers.

I don't know any other surefire solution. Farming for oneself can work, but as long as there are bots to inflate supply, zos will never adjust the horrible drop rates on furniture mats.

Northwold · May 2023

kringled_1 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

Effectively that's how supply increases. The barriers on generating a lot of the expensive commodities are not high, so people can generate their own and sell surplus. Writs and actually picking up your surveys (not just letting them accumulate and then complaining about them) allow players to generate a surplus of mats quite easily.

Well yes, except that supply does not increase *for the market*. Which is one of the reasons why the guild gate for selling is problematic. What actually happens is that players who refuse to join a player administered guild either hoard or destroy what they come across when they don't need it. That supply never reaches the market. But because those same players can buy, there is an imbalance between the scale of demand and the scale of supply.

Your unwillingness to join a trade guild massively skews your perspective here.
You can't seriously avoid taking the minimal steps required to participate more fully in the economy, then continuously complain that it's broken. Well, I mean I guess you can because you do, but really: Not everyone who is in a trade guild is someone who "treat(s) selling as the entire gameplay offering of ESO".

It doesn't actually bother me too much. I farm my own stuff. It's annoying, but that is how ESO is set up.

But denying that people -- a large number of people -- either will not join guilds or join them on sufferance because there is no alternative and would far prefer anything else does not progress debate. Telling people "be more like me and less like you" is not a compelling argument for anything. Most especially when some of the more assertive contributions on here are coming from big flippers and players who really have made the trading game their entire in-game life. An MMO market that accommodates only such players' concerns would not be doing its job.

We are talking about a large number of people who play the game who are not going to change their behaviour just to make you happy. We can't just ignore that players who don't or really had rather not join guilds exist.

Braffin · May 2023

If you wanna play that game, so be it:

Ph1p wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

You are always talking about the "market value", so tell me:
How is this value built in the first place? Divine Intervention?

As I said before, value or price is generally determined by supply and demand. It's a compromise between what buyers are willing to pay for 200 Platinum Dust and what sellers deem acceptable as compensation for parting with a whole stack of it. You literally help set the price every time you buy something from a trader or refuse to purchase an overpriced item.

You tell me, that every sale and every buy is part of setting the price for a given product. So far so good. Now let's take a closer look in how "flipping" exactly works. First of all you go to an trader and buy goods, especially those listed cheaper than some tools like MM or TTC recommend, after that you go to another trader and sell this goods at a price you think more appropiate, also based on said tools. Already see the circle you're explaining in?

Let's get a little bit further: The tools you are using aren't used by every player in every single trading situation, but mainly by people which are "playing the market". Therefore their data doesn't reflect the "market value" (using your definition of supply and demand) but they are delivering the prices a good is sold at a specific moment. While doing so, they can't of course not differentiate between goods sold by a real trader and ones offered by a flipper.

By now it should be clear, that, every act of flipping has an impact on the pricing (don't call it value, that's something completely different) twice, as the flipper first buys the goods and therefore removes said product from the market, and later on (or immediately after the purchase) sell said goods at a higher price and therefore fills the market (and the tools scanning the same) with the higher priced product. This higher prices caused by your flipping shall now set the so-called "market value" of any given product and the circle you're explaining in is finally closed.

Ph1p wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

How should it be possible to lower the "market value" of goods, if everything which is sold at a cheaper price than set value is flipped almost instantly?

There is a fundamental misunderstanding here: At any given time, an item has a market price (range), which is determined as described above and influenced by some other factors, like guild trader location. You can't just demand it be lower because you don't like it. It's that high because there are other people valuing it that highly. Simply "lowering the market value of goods" is like a government using price controls to artificially lower the price of oil without figuring out why the state-run oil production has halved over the last decade... Beyond that, prices can and do move in both directions, for example:
During the current PVP event, Hakeijo prices have gone down 15%, because more people farm Tel Var and its supply has gone up.

Every free ESO+ event, crafting materials go up in price, because demand goes up as people fill their temporary craft bags. Right after that, prices go down again.

When a new motif is released, it will be very expensive as there is no supply yet, and every Undaunted Celebration, all motif prices go down because they drop from the event coffers.

You can't just demand the price of a product be lower because you don't like it, you say. Well, it's not true to say so (Think about the example I gave you with the apothecary satchels buyable with telvar since 2016 to bring down pricing. Everybody back then was happy with that btw, [snip], but I'll give you that, cause that's not the point.
But you can as the situation is at the moment demand the price of a product to be higher because you don't like it. You simply buy the product and resell it at a price you like more to get your profits. Exactly that shouldn't be possible, as it is nothing more than a private tax.

Let's look at your examples now:
1) Regarding the prices of Hakeijo we see decreasing prices during the event, that's true. But why? Why are that many traders willing to sell their goods below "market value". Why convert TelVar into Hakeijo in the first place during the event if it would be so much more profitable to wait for a better opportunity. You can hold an infinite amout of TelVar in your bags without eating up any space, you know? What we indeed do see here is what the people selling the goods, which they worked for playing in IC, want to have paid for them, without your 15% flipping tax. The reason for that is quite simple: The market gets flooded with specific goods and you resellers aren't able to buy them up anymore.
2) Every free ESO+ event is a time limited offer. Prices don't go up cause of the much higher demand (especially if you note, that most of these events are paired with double-node-drop events or at least follow them immediately after), prices go up because (re)sellers know, that there will be lots of customers which only have a limited time to fill their bags and so they try to use this time limit to maximise their personal profits. It's really the same as zos is doing with time limited crown store purchases, and as far as I can see at least here on forums most of their customers aren't too happy with this "predatory system" (not my personal wording, but you will find it in various threads rather quick).
3)Your example regarding motifs brings nothing new to the topic, as in the case of a newly released motifs you admit the shortage of supply for yourself, so it's simply no big deal for a veteran player to buy them (and even hold them back for while, if he wishes to do so). Why the prices are dropping during any give event I explained to you in my answer regarding your first example.

Ph1p wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

I on the other side can tell you how you are hurting people with your doing: You feed inflation, it's as simple as that, as only one direction for the prices set is possible: getting more expensive. Try to set in the situation of a newer player: When you started the game it was much easier to become wealthy than nowadays, trading was not the only way to do so (I must know, as I'm filthy rich and never sold a single item.). Today it's much harder to catch up [...]

I've just given you multiple examples of prices going down and there are loads more. In fact, for new motifs, which are flipped all the time, there is indeed only one direction for prices to go: Down. Flipping itself doesn't cause higher prices, it "corrects" an under-priced sale. Someone might have a good reason to sell Columbine at 800 gold/unit - they need gold quickly or they only have a low-traffic trader (a.k.a. low demand). But if loads of people are willing to pay double that amount, then that's the market price. You might find the profit from flipping distasteful, but it's comprised of two entirely ordinary actions: Buy at a bargain - or do you insist on paying full price at the supermarket even when something's on sale - and sell at market price.

[snip] Let's talk a little bit about the "correction" of "under-priced sales" here instead. So you are assuming, that there is in fact a inherent value to any given good and any any price beneath that "value" [snip] is an underpriced sale. So the the flipper comes by and "corrects" this failed state. But how is he doing that? Well, he is buying said product and reselling it at, I think you get it by now, at a higher price. Of course this will be immediately reflected by tools like MM and TTC, further solidifying the higher price, the flippers want for the product (Yes exactly, that's what you call "market value"). I find this practice most distasteful indeed, I would even call despicable.

[snip]

Ph1p wrote: »

As for newer players, it takes just as much effort to farm that Columbine as it did a few years ago. But they can also sell it at the higher price it commands today. Of course, if you actively choose to not participate in trading at all, then it might indeed be more difficult, because the gold you make from writs, monsters, etc. hasn't kept up with inflation. But if it did, it would actually contribute to inflation because it would add even more gold to the system.

Please explain to me:
1) How you know how much gold is in the game at any given moment? Where can we get this data? I assume you are making a wrong conclusion again by comparing ingame mechanics with real world. In our world there is a finite amount of goods as well as a set amount of money. We, as humanity know quite well this set amount of money (of course not every single one of us, but your central bank can help you with that, if you are interested). Eso on the contrary lacks both. Nobody of us can know how many gold is around and nobody of us can know how many goods are around (although you can restrict the latter to listed goods and take only them as "supply" as a workaround. you can manipulate that by targeted hoarding as it is done in the case of newly released motifs).
2) Even if the amount of gold is increasing, why is this forcing anyone to sell his goods at a higher price than he did before? Is there any ingame mechanic forcing us to do so? I for myself didn't witness anything like that in almost 10 years of playing this game.

Ph1p wrote: »

If you want to combat inflation, you need to introduce more gold sinks and/or take away some of the more recently added gold sources. For example, ZOS could increase the sales tax (although some of that might get passed on to buyers), add more attractive items to the Golden Vendor and other NPC traders, promote housing, etc.

If more gold sinks would be introduced all of us would need more money, which we have to earn through our favourite source of income. So what will the flipper do? Will he start to do his crafting regularily on more toons than before? Will he go farming for goods to sell? Or will he try to maximise his profits through flipping even more? I think, both of us know the answer. The best way to combat inflation is to limit the practice of reselling goods at a completely fictional price, or better end it completely.

Ph1p wrote: »

Finally, I do agree with you on this: If we went to a centralized system, flipping or rather cornering the market would become an issue. For me, restrictions on reselling are not feasible (or desirable), which is one reason why I don't want a fully centralized marketplace in ESO.

Well, thats interesting given my initial statement and your respone to it. See for yourself:

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.

[edited for conspiracy theory and baiting]