Selling Stolen Goods: Limits

Gabriel_H · June 23

So, there's a new Thieves Guild quest line coming up. There's a new antiquity whose leads drop from from Thieves Troves. There are new furnishings to be found in the pockets of Glenumbra citizens. All told, it seems ZOS would like us to get our thief on and do some mischief. Farming thieves troves just for the antiquity will give you hundreds, if not thousands (with a bad rng) of stolen goods to sell.

One problem: The archaic daily stolen goods selling & laundering limits. Why are these still a thing? What purpose do they serve or did they ever serve?

Edit: Formatting

Buffy121 · June 23

I agree. I think there should be no limit for selling stolen goods or laundering.

I can't tell you what purpose the caps serve except maybe to limit how much gold a player can make from stealing.

SkaiFaith · June 23

My guess would be to "extend engagement" so you participate in the activity over more days.

Still, I think the limit could be pushed higher, if it "can't" be removed.

frogthroat · June 23

Quick fix would be to change Trafficker rank 4 to something like "removes the limit of fence interactions you can use each day."

LunaFlora · June 23

yes the limit is not nice

tomofhyrule · June 23

It probably has to do with how much gold can be gotten from thieving versus any other activity.

Consider that even for someone who lowrolls and only manages white treasures, that’s a profit of 140 x 55 gold each with all CP and passives = 7700 gold per day. And again, that’s all white quality, so people are likely to get much higher values with greens and blues.

Even daily craft writs (7 x 725 = 5,075) don’t give that much hard cash. And those are also only doable once a day per character, just like thieving.

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

Alastrine · June 23

The limits were always there to encourage levelling up the Legerdemain skill line to be able to sell/launder more.
Not to limit how much gold you can earn.

I would say raise the final limits or make it when you get to the highest level there is no limit.

I think the lower limits should still be in place to make people have to level it up. People just starting out shouldn't have access to top level perks. Have to earn them.

Gabriel_H · June 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

That logic has a gaping flaw in its premise.

313 gold in 1 minute. And I wasn't even at a farming spot, just running through overland.

Edit: Forgot to include the gold the mobs dropped, so over 450 gold total

tomofhyrule · June 23

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

That logic has a gaping flaw in its premise.

313 gold in 1 minute. And I wasn't even at a farming spot, just running through overland.

Edit: Forgot to include the gold the mobs dropped, so over 450 gold total

So… running through overland (and potentially helping other players out with things like WBs since you’re in the area) is more lucrative than sneaking into a solo house by yourself and doing things to only benefit yourself?

If I were making an MMO, I’d say that that was intended.

frogthroat · June 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

The time required for a full inventory is something else. Daily crafting writs take a minute to do. (Using addons.) If that could be repeated multiple times, that would be printing money.

But just cleaning up one NPC by steal -> wait -> steal -> stab -> loot takes easily a minute. At least it feels like it. And to do that for multiple NPCs takes aaaaaaaaages. Which is why I typically just steal -> stab -> loot because the wait between steal and when you can steal again is long. But even then it takes a long time, so there are probably much faster ways to make gold.

If someone makes millions with that, I'd say go for it. I'll spend my time doing something else.

Gabriel_H · June 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

That logic has a gaping flaw in its premise.

313 gold in 1 minute. And I wasn't even at a farming spot, just running through overland.

Edit: Forgot to include the gold the mobs dropped, so over 450 gold total

So… running through overland (and potentially helping other players out with things like WBs since you’re in the area) is more lucrative than sneaking into a solo house by yourself and doing things to only benefit yourself?

If I were making an MMO, I’d say that that was intended.

Nope. Running through overland from the wayshrine I was at, for one minute, after reading your comment, and then posting the results.

As I said, I wasn't even at a farming spot with a high concentration of mobs. If I wanted to make gold, if anyone wanted to, there are better ways to do it than stealing.

Edit: Typos
Clarification: I was solo and helped no one.

xencthlu · June 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If I were making an MMO, I’d say that that was intended.

I'm going out on a tangent that doesn't benefit the thread, sorry Gabriel. (But I am in favour of significantly increasing the limit, one way or another.)

Imagine a crime system designed as a full segment of gameplay equal to the combat system. Let me introduce you to the Heist Dungeon.

The party size? Four players. The time commitment? A 15 minute timer, counting down starting *now.* The roles?

The Muscle. This player is something like a criminal tank. In a Heist Dungeon, the guards with lanterns have the HP of world bosses and do comparable damage, and anyone who's caught by them who's not the Muscle will be sent to an on-map jail they will need to escape from. Muscle players get tagged with a special passive when they queue for their role that protects them from the teleport. The Muscle is intended to distract and occupy guards, preventing them from following their intended patrol routes -- ideally taking them somewhere away from where the rest of the party needs to work.

The Fixer. This player quietly handles the little problems that get in the way of a good haul. That desk clerk is looking the wrong way? Gone, be it by blade of woe or a simple stun. The treasure vault is filled with traps that can only be disabled by a hidden switch in a study across the castle? Done. Need a map to figure out who needs to go where and, hey, are there any secret rooms? They've pickpocketed it from the captain of the guard, thanks for waiting. Your Thief picked up a cursed item? Hand it here. The Fixer is a free-roaming agent, constantly prowling for advantages -- or to quickly and quietly neutralise disadvantages.

The Thieves. Your safe-crackers. Here to grab what they can and go. They know where the money is -- literally. They can look at any person and any container and estimate how much their belongings will be worth. They're picking the locked doors, the locked chests, the richest targets. With the timer ticking down, you want to get to the "vault" -- not necessarily a treasure vault, perhaps an armoury, or a mage's workshop -- as fast as possible and grab as much as you can. Loot collected in this game mode doesn't go straight to your inventory, neutralising the advantages of ESO+ and a fully upgraded inventory with inventory pets; the worth of your loot is added to a group point total that determines your payout at the end of the heist.

Every time someone is caught and arrested, point deduction. Every time someone not the Muscle is spotted, smaller point deduction. Every murder, point deduction. At the end of the heist, the entire party will need to reach the escape point, be it a getaway carriage, boat, or portal. Every player to not escape within the allotted time? Point deduction, down to 0 points if no one makes it.

No new maps. No new assets. No new animations. No new minigames. Just more content using what we have already!

If I were making an MMO, I'd make sure every system had a way to meaningfully play with friends. I wouldn't add a system and intentionally undercut the amount of time a player could engage with it for fear they might not play with others. ESO has so many systems with the potential for depth and team play that were never meaningfully developed past their introduction, and I think that's a shame. So much expensive work has already been done! Why not make the most of it, instead of putting a hard limit on how much a player can enjoy that work?

AScarlato · June 23

Maybe they could have fences in the different crime dens that each have their own limit. RP wise that would mean a thief isn't flooding the market with too much goods per day but a theif player could enjoy that gameplay for far longer, possibly all day between the towns.

zaria · June 23

Alastrine wrote: »

The limits were always there to encourage levelling up the Legerdemain skill line to be able to sell/launder more.
Not to limit how much gold you can earn.

I would say raise the final limits or make it when you get to the highest level there is no limit.

I think the lower limits should still be in place to make people have to level it up. People just starting out shouldn't have access to top level perks. Have to earn them.

Most veterans farm the Belkarth apple orchard to level Legerdemain on new characters. Low risk and the stolen apples stack
Running the castle and the abandoned house house in Orcinium give more gold but is slower to get to 220 item stolen

rothan117 · June 23

To farm legerdemain I farm that corridor of containers off the Outlaw's Refuge in Necrom.

On a tangent, why can't we steal furniture when robbing houses? Great way to furnish houses.

Arunei · June 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It probably has to do with how much gold can be gotten from thieving versus any other activity.

Consider that even for someone who lowrolls and only manages white treasures, that’s a profit of 140 x 55 gold each with all CP and passives = 7700 gold per day. And again, that’s all white quality, so people are likely to get much higher values with greens and blues.

Even daily craft writs (7 x 725 = 5,075) don’t give that much hard cash. And those are also only doable once a day per character, just like thieving.

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

People can earn millions of Gold with their credit card. Buy a bunch of Crowns and then sell them for Gold.

People can earn millions of Gold by selling things like Trifecta runs.

People can earn millions of Gold by farming certain things like Motifs, Gear, or Mats and selling it.

People can earn millions of gold by selling rare mats they get doing X or Y activity.

People can earn millions of gold by selling things like Heroism Pots.

Let's assume you only get Blue items the whole time you're stealing. 275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold. It takes a while to get a full 140 items, regardless of whether you're Pickpocketing (which even with maxed Passives for that you can still have NPCs that have an iffy success rate against), stealing from Lockboxes somewhere, killing people and looting bodies, or all of the above. It takes even more time if you don't have 140 open slots in your inventory and need to make a couple of trips to fence what you have. Even if you get only Superior stuff, it would take basically filling up your inventory with 140 items 26 times to hit 1m in a day (275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold, 1m divided by that is 25.9).

That is a LOT of time spent killing and/or stealing. If someone is putting THAT much time into making money, why not let them? Especially because someone farming mats to sell would likely be able to get enough stuff to make close to or over 1m and there's no limit to how much you can sell in a Guild Trader. Granted that requires one to BE in a Trader Guild and to wait for things to sell, but my point is more that there are a lot of other ways people can get a lot of money. I do also get there's a difference between money traded between players and money generated from nothing by in-game actions, but where is all that gold people can afford to trade among each other coming from to begin with?

I also doubt there are many people who'd spend every day doing ALL that killing/stealing. Sure, a lot of people will do Crafting Writs on a full 20 characters every day, but that's largely because of Lazy Writ making it possible to do those things quickly (and even doing them once a day can add up to a lot of money if you're regularly getting Master Writs and things like Chromium Plating to sell). Afaik there's no addon that can make Pickpocketing, looting corpses, and cracking Lockboxes faster.

frogthroat · June 24

zaria wrote: »

Alastrine wrote: »

The limits were always there to encourage levelling up the Legerdemain skill line to be able to sell/launder more.
Not to limit how much gold you can earn.

I would say raise the final limits or make it when you get to the highest level there is no limit.

I think the lower limits should still be in place to make people have to level it up. People just starting out shouldn't have access to top level perks. Have to earn them.

Most veterans farm the Belkarth apple orchard to level Legerdemain on new characters. Low risk and the stolen apples stack
Running the castle and the abandoned house house in Orcinium give more gold but is slower to get to 220 item stolen

That was the old, pre-Necrom method. Nowadays the corridor in Necrom outside of thieves guild is better. No guards, more valuable items and resets just by entering the thieves guild and exiting. Still not a good method of obtaining gold since stealing is not really a way to become rich quick, unless you hit a jackpot with some noble NPC.

msgeek · June 24

The biggest issue atm is the sack of laundered goods in thieves troves.

It can't be laundered or sold itself, can only be opened. Once opened you get 10 items per sack that need to be laundered or sold.

So with 14 thieves troves you hit the daily limit.

Make either the sack sellable, replace with a single item at 10x the value, make it launderable so that the items within can be sold clean etc. One of these solutions will make a huge difference.

wolfie1.0. · June 24

Arunei wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It probably has to do with how much gold can be gotten from thieving versus any other activity.

Consider that even for someone who lowrolls and only manages white treasures, that’s a profit of 140 x 55 gold each with all CP and passives = 7700 gold per day. And again, that’s all white quality, so people are likely to get much higher values with greens and blues.

Even daily craft writs (7 x 725 = 5,075) don’t give that much hard cash. And those are also only doable once a day per character, just like thieving.

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

People can earn millions of Gold with their credit card. Buy a bunch of Crowns and then sell them for Gold.

People can earn millions of Gold by selling things like Trifecta runs.

People can earn millions of Gold by farming certain things like Motifs, Gear, or Mats and selling it.

People can earn millions of gold by selling rare mats they get doing X or Y activity.

People can earn millions of gold by selling things like Heroism Pots.

Let's assume you only get Blue items the whole time you're stealing. 275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold. It takes a while to get a full 140 items, regardless of whether you're Pickpocketing (which even with maxed Passives for that you can still have NPCs that have an iffy success rate against), stealing from Lockboxes somewhere, killing people and looting bodies, or all of the above. It takes even more time if you don't have 140 open slots in your inventory and need to make a couple of trips to fence what you have. Even if you get only Superior stuff, it would take basically filling up your inventory with 140 items 26 times to hit 1m in a day (275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold, 1m divided by that is 25.9).

That is a LOT of time spent killing and/or stealing. If someone is putting THAT much time into making money, why not let them? Especially because someone farming mats to sell would likely be able to get enough stuff to make close to or over 1m and there's no limit to how much you can sell in a Guild Trader. Granted that requires one to BE in a Trader Guild and to wait for things to sell, but my point is more that there are a lot of other ways people can get a lot of money. I do also get there's a difference between money traded between players and money generated from nothing by in-game actions, but where is all that gold people can afford to trade among each other coming from to begin with?

I also doubt there are many people who'd spend every day doing ALL that killing/stealing. Sure, a lot of people will do Crafting Writs on a full 20 characters every day, but that's largely because of Lazy Writ making it possible to do those things quickly (and even doing them once a day can add up to a lot of money if you're regularly getting Master Writs and things like Chromium Plating to sell). Afaik there's no addon that can make Pickpocketing, looting corpses, and cracking Lockboxes faster.

There is a difference between gold generation and gold transfers.

Gold transfer: an activity that moves gold from one player to another.

Gold generation: an activity that creates new gold. Such as stealing, mob drops and quests.

Arunei · June 24

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It probably has to do with how much gold can be gotten from thieving versus any other activity.

Consider that even for someone who lowrolls and only manages white treasures, that’s a profit of 140 x 55 gold each with all CP and passives = 7700 gold per day. And again, that’s all white quality, so people are likely to get much higher values with greens and blues.

Even daily craft writs (7 x 725 = 5,075) don’t give that much hard cash. And those are also only doable once a day per character, just like thieving.

The idea is that people shouldn’t be able to just grind gold on repeat. And we all know that - for all of the complaints about how annoying grinding is - the ESO playerbase loves grinding things out in two days when it’s designed to take several months. If they removed that limit, we would see people straight up printing money by the millions.

People can earn millions of Gold with their credit card. Buy a bunch of Crowns and then sell them for Gold.

People can earn millions of Gold by selling things like Trifecta runs.

People can earn millions of Gold by farming certain things like Motifs, Gear, or Mats and selling it.

People can earn millions of gold by selling rare mats they get doing X or Y activity.

People can earn millions of gold by selling things like Heroism Pots.

Let's assume you only get Blue items the whole time you're stealing. 275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold. It takes a while to get a full 140 items, regardless of whether you're Pickpocketing (which even with maxed Passives for that you can still have NPCs that have an iffy success rate against), stealing from Lockboxes somewhere, killing people and looting bodies, or all of the above. It takes even more time if you don't have 140 open slots in your inventory and need to make a couple of trips to fence what you have. Even if you get only Superior stuff, it would take basically filling up your inventory with 140 items 26 times to hit 1m in a day (275 x 140 = 38,500 Gold, 1m divided by that is 25.9).

That is a LOT of time spent killing and/or stealing. If someone is putting THAT much time into making money, why not let them? Especially because someone farming mats to sell would likely be able to get enough stuff to make close to or over 1m and there's no limit to how much you can sell in a Guild Trader. Granted that requires one to BE in a Trader Guild and to wait for things to sell, but my point is more that there are a lot of other ways people can get a lot of money. I do also get there's a difference between money traded between players and money generated from nothing by in-game actions, but where is all that gold people can afford to trade among each other coming from to begin with?

I also doubt there are many people who'd spend every day doing ALL that killing/stealing. Sure, a lot of people will do Crafting Writs on a full 20 characters every day, but that's largely because of Lazy Writ making it possible to do those things quickly (and even doing them once a day can add up to a lot of money if you're regularly getting Master Writs and things like Chromium Plating to sell). Afaik there's no addon that can make Pickpocketing, looting corpses, and cracking Lockboxes faster.

There is a difference between gold generation and gold transfers.

Gold transfer: an activity that moves gold from one player to another.

Gold generation: an activity that creates new gold. Such as stealing, mob drops and quests.

Yes, I literally said "I understand there's a difference between money traded between players and money generated from nothing by in-game actions". I also brought up the point that all that Gold that gets traded for people to buy things from each other has to come from somewhere. And if that somewhere is someone spending how many hours in a day to farm 3,600 items to launder, it's not like they're just pooping money into existence with a cough. That's actual work and effort being put in. And that 3.6k is assuming that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those items is a Blue one. More often you'll get a lot of Whites and Greens with a decent number of Blues and next to no Purples, so you're likely going to be farming a lot more items to get 1m in a day.

allochthons · June 25

It would be nice to have higher limits to laundering, with leads coming from Troves, furnishings from pickpocketing, and a new Thieves quest line.
I leveled up a 2nd NB thief to help. I don't really want to level a third.

But I don't using legerdemain activities to earn money. I have leveled Legerdemain on all my characters, mostly to be able to force locks, but I only actively thieve when there's a goal like the new leads/furnishings.