Console trader vs PC market post-Crosplay, and solo Gold farming - any insight, please?

SkaiFaith · February 7

I've been trading for 3 years circa on console and I made 50+ mils. Before trading I barely made 3 mils.
I am tired of trading and I want to drop it BUT...

- How can a console non-trading player achieve purchases in a PC market economy?

Things that cost 800K on console (which IS A LOT) on PC can cost 3-5 millions (so I heard about purple Vigorous/quickened heavy gear, for example).

I obviously never used bots for my trading, and in fact I never even traded materials. I never farmed crafting writs. I just flipped something.

If you are a PC player that never traded - how much gold do you have? Are you able to purchase anything you want off traders?
Am I doomed to be broke when servers will be merged if I stop trading?

Market experts' opinion welcome! Especially on what the prices could end up looking like when crossplay will come.

Orbital78 · February 7

I'd hope that the markets remain separate or I would just like there to be no cross play at all. Trade guilds are interwoven in the games economy, you are going to struggle bus without it. People try to use zone chat, but that isn't a good option imo. On PC-NA I have multiple trade guilds which are casual, almost always have a trader, and basically have no dues or requirements other than remain active and at least try to sell some items. The prices on PC-NA are probably actually much lower than what you have to be honest though I haven't used a console since SNES. With addons for so many years, the market has become oversaturated with many items. Some base mats aren't worth selling and I just vendor them.

Hugie · February 7

When they introduce crossplay and merge the economies, I imagine they will convert console players' gold to match PC economy numbers. I have utmost faith that that will make nobody upset and will be perfectly fair, since the calculations they did for population between servers for Writhing Wall event progress were flawless first try.

Jokes aside, I imagine there will be a gold conversion and I imagine that crossplay will make guild trader locations more competitive. I don't anticipate economies/traders will remain separate per server. Guess we'll see!

freespirit · February 7

I'm not sure how they would/will deal with the differences in prices between console and PC.

I'm thinking they may do console crossplay first as it does seem the consoles are already at much lower population than PC.

It seems that recently PC-NA has had a drop in prices, whereas PC-EU still maintains a higher price threshold.

I have been trading since day dot on PC-EU and yes I can afford the sometimes eyewatering prices but choose not to, preferring to farm the expensive stuff myself, if I really want it!

I'm not sure they would do any kind of gold conversion, that would not be easy to implement.

If you have 50mill+ you will be fine, unless you want to do any crown buying, in that case, at least on PC-EU atm your 50mill will disappear very fast!

Lekjih · February 7

Honestly I'm so against any form of server merge for so many reasons but the economy is the one that will make console unplayable. You can ignore pvp and leaderboards, you can't ignore that you can no longer afford motifs and wax to improve gear.
I have secondary prblems like how will ping work and how will character names transfer but those are more easily solved.

katanagirl1 · February 8

It was claimed that the addons on PC made the economy what it was, but we now have addons on console and I don’t think much has changed.

scrappy1342 · February 8

prices on pc definitely aren't what they used to be. even if they are higher than console, the good thing is, you'll be bringing your goods with you and then can sell them for those higher prices. i imagine prices would drop at first with new supply, but things will even out eventually

freespirit · February 8

katanagirl1 wrote: »

It was claimed that the addons on PC made the economy what it was, but we now have addons on console and I don’t think much has changed.

I've always thought PC prices versus Console was more to do with a much larger population on PC.

I definitely think addons do play a part though and maybe consoles got them just too late!

spartaxoxo · February 8

katanagirl1 wrote: »

It was claimed that the addons on PC made the economy what it was, but we now have addons on console and I don’t think much has changed.

Console trade is a shell of what it used to be by the time it was introduced. We also haven't had them very long and those type of changes happen pretty slowly. Also we don't have a website that functions as a semi-auction house well. And the trade add-ons prices still aren't fully trusted because it's not as accurate. The website and trust will probably change as they get more data.

katanagirl1 · February 8

spartaxoxo wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

It was claimed that the addons on PC made the economy what it was, but we now have addons on console and I don’t think much has changed.

Console trade is a shell of what it used to be by the time it was introduced. We also haven't had them very long and those type of changes happen pretty slowly. Also we don't have a website that functions as a semi-auction house well. And the trade add-ons prices still aren't fully trusted because it's not as accurate. The website and trust will probably change as they get more data.

Yeah the short listing times pretty much wiped out a lot of the bigger guilds that frequented the capital cities. They are full of no name guilds with little inventory now. Unfortunately the upcoming change is probably too late to bring them back.

tomofhyrule · February 8

It'll be a bit bumpy when they merge, but that's going to get solved very quickly.

If we all of a sudden get a merged server, that means that all of the stuff that console players have in their inventories/craft bags will suddenly be worth a lot more, allowing them to join PC trade guilds and sell all of that stuff for the PC prices. Sure, the prices will also shift a bit with a glut of new supply, but eventually it will all even out.

After all, why is there the assumption that no console players will join PC trade guilds, and that no current guilds will fold/merge/etc.?

spartaxoxo · February 8

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It'll be a bit bumpy when they merge, but that's going to get solved very quickly.

If we all of a sudden get a merged server, that means that all of the stuff that console players have in their inventories/craft bags will suddenly be worth a lot more, allowing them to join PC trade guilds and sell all of that stuff for the PC prices. Sure, the prices will also shift a bit with a glut of new supply, but eventually it will all even out.

After all, why is there the assumption that no console players will join PC trade guilds, and that no current guilds will fold/merge/etc.?

I have no intention of leaving my guilds because of crossplay. I think most will not but idk. Guilds are also groups of people and I like the people in my guilds. I'm not super into the social aspects but people are always nice and they're low drama.

If those guilds end up dying because they can't possibly compete with PC funding, that's going to be a real shame.

Orbital78 · February 8

We don't even know how cross-play will work, people seem to be assuming cross-play is a server merge. Unless I have missed updates, which is possible. I think ideally it would be just sharing intermediate server instances like matchmaking via group finder for dungeons and trial groups. I don't know how Cyrodiil would work, they are already a cluster. They would somehow need to disable trading or only allow flagged dropped items in that instance.

heimdall14_9 · February 8

imo they well have to open more shops , IF and WHEN cross play happens it cuts 2/3 of the market out of business automatically by lack of shops to sale out of if they dont 1st add in 2xs the shop locations you'll see 2/3 the population leave the game

freespirit · February 8

spartaxoxo wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It'll be a bit bumpy when they merge, but that's going to get solved very quickly.

If we all of a sudden get a merged server, that means that all of the stuff that console players have in their inventories/craft bags will suddenly be worth a lot more, allowing them to join PC trade guilds and sell all of that stuff for the PC prices. Sure, the prices will also shift a bit with a glut of new supply, but eventually it will all even out.

After all, why is there the assumption that no console players will join PC trade guilds, and that no current guilds will fold/merge/etc.?

I have no intention of leaving my guilds because of crossplay. I think most will not but idk. Guilds are also groups of people and I like the people in my guilds. I'm not super into the social aspects but people are always nice and they're low drama.

If those guilds end up dying because they can't possibly compete with PC funding, that's going to be a real shame.

This is imo going to be the most difficult aspect of cross play, presuming if it goes full on straight away but EU and NA are still kept separate then the console guilds are really going to struggle to get a decent spot.

Even with the drop to 14 day listings, on PC-EU the bids haven't dropped by much, if at all, the amounts are still pretty eyewatering.

There have been a few big alliances fold and quite a few smaller ones. I had a GM friend who literally spent all their time farming and selling to help fund the weekly bids. In that situation something inevitably is going to break!

It did and it wasn't one guild that closed it was three, very sad to see tbh, there's something very wrong when your game time becomes more stressful than your actual job!! :'(

SkaiFaith · February 8

Being a console player, seeing some items being almost completely absent from traders, and reading here people saying they'd want to maintain items flagged and separate... Man, we really need PC players and their items contribution IMO!
I really don't want to keep losing months just running from trader to trader hoping to find something.

I am getting from comments that it will be a tough situation for console players, both traders and especially non-traders...

katanagirl1 · February 9

I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of being able to join a PC guild. I guess I was just envisioning things would stay the same but we’d be able to see PC players in overland and queue up with them for dungeons and Cyrodiil.

If they keep the trading economies separate but had something like I described above then there wouldn’t be much impact. I don’t know, maybe that isn’t possible. I guess they would have to have one single megaserver that runs on top of the current PC and console megaservers or something like that.

JHartEllis · February 9

If it ends up being a merged economy (not sure if this is the direction, but it might be), then console players would be wise to hold good items and then sell them after the merger. You'd expect prices to settle somewhere between console and PC pricing, so console players would get a relative windfall even if PC prices were to fall.

Console players would come out way ahead on this since they'd be much better able to afford set priced items like vendor furnishings, houses, mounts, and account upgrades.

Where console loses is if it ends up being 3 servers worth of guilds competing for 1 server worth of guild trader locations. I'd hope there'd be a BIG systemic change to accompany this (e.g. 1500-player guilds, allowing multiple guilds on the same location, or adding new ways to trade). They could somehow triple the amount of guild traders, but that would be a death knell for trading unless they also centralized search.

If this is the direction things go, it would also be equitable to give each player like 1,000,000g to inflate away some of the difference.

ksbrugh · February 9

I say just open up the window throw the baby and the bathwater out just get it over with we're all adults we can handle it.
Cross play without merging economies doesn't sound very appealing.
What if you make friends with a PC player and you want to farm gear together that wouldn't be possible because if you could trade items then you could trade gold or furniture or other things that could be expensive per platform.
Which would give either the console player or the PC player and advantage that other players wouldn't have money-wise.

ESO Community should feel like a family a close knit family and if you can't trade with your family or share the spoils of a dungeon run for Overland run then they're not family (all be it) they may be distant cousins.

Less interaction would be less immersive less Community growing less productive which equals less fun.

I have an account on PC and I have an account on Xbox millions of dollars in both accounts so a merger would mean I would lose one of my accounts. Which is fine with me as long as we can all be together like one big happy well okay maybe not happy but one big family LOL

AllenaNightWood · February 9

the best way to do crossplay is leave pc out of it and do xbox and PlayStation only

SkaiFaith · February 9

AllenaNightWood wrote: »

the best way to do crossplay is leave pc out of it and do xbox and PlayStation only

But both PSEU and XBEU are quite a desert, it seems, so desert + desert wouldn't solve much... (Talking for what I read on the forums for PSEU and seen with my eyes on XBEU)

Zodiarkslayer · February 9

Crossplay without an economy merger? Seems impossible, to be honest.

Anyway, what will happen is this:
1) Console players will have to make a lot more effort to acquire valuable items and get them sold. That is basically because of UI and add-on limitations.
2) Most console trading guilds will collapse under the pressure of the respective server's PC guilds. They have a significant advantage in gold reserves.
3) Console players will struggle to find top tier guilds, because they have a comparatively harder time to meet minimum sales and fees.

This has the potential to effectively exclude a lot of console players from trading.

SkaiFaith · February 9

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Crossplay without an economy merger? Seems impossible, to be honest.

Anyway, what will happen is this:
1) Console players will have to make a lot more effort to acquire valuable items and get them sold. That is basically because of UI and add-on limitations.
2) Most console trading guilds will collapse under the pressure of the respective server's PC guilds. They have a significant advantage in gold reserves.
3) Console players will struggle to find top tier guilds, because they have a comparatively harder time to meet minimum sales and fees.

This has the potential to effectively exclude a lot of console players from trading.

This feels spot on. An insight I was really looking for. Thanks!

redlink1979 · February 9

SkaiFaith wrote: »

(...) both PSEU and XBEU are quite a desert (...) (Talking for what I read on the forums for PSEU (...)

PS EU n NA aren't dead at all. You just can't rely on this forum to have an accurate idea of how many active ppl is there in a server. - the majority of ESO players, on all platforms, don't really care about this forum. Never did and never will.

DragonRacer · February 9

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Crossplay without an economy merger? Seems impossible, to be honest.

Anyway, what will happen is this:
1) Console players will have to make a lot more effort to acquire valuable items and get them sold. That is basically because of UI and add-on limitations.
2) Most console trading guilds will collapse under the pressure of the respective server's PC guilds. They have a significant advantage in gold reserves.
3) Console players will struggle to find top tier guilds, because they have a comparatively harder time to meet minimum sales and fees.

This has the potential to effectively exclude a lot of console players from trading.

Yup, this is my concern with the impending crossplay idea.

And especially so given if ZOS doesn’t consider this/incorporate ways to mitigate it from the start (such as maybe giving traders three store “instances” buyers can choose via drop-down to load and view - those being the winning PC bid, the winning XBox bid, and the winning PS bid per trader), then we’ll die off. And by the time they realize mistakes were made and try to fix it, the damage will have already been done (looking at you, 14 day trader listings and the console mishap of sorting trader listings by time left being removed the week before Zeal of Zenithar and finally fixed like 2 weeks after the event ended and only after we pointed out how much it crippled console to not have it, which they apparently had no idea was such a big deal for us before…)