Stormbluff Isle – Baka Royale [Baka]
Instant One-Up Bids
Maybe the person is saying the same thing about you. Why is this person keep 1 up me….
All joke aside, it is possible that some bot is in the work. But so is possible another person is doing the same thing you are doing.
Instead of 1 up by 1 copper, try 1 up more.
I noticed that GW2TP.com now displays the same lists of orders and buyers that we have on the TP when looking at an item and even though the chart isn’t updated frequently (once every 5-8 minutes) the lists are updated every 30 seconds and note if supply and demand is up or down since the last list update.
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Instead of 1 up by 1 copper, try 1 up more.
Yeah, I guess I cannot be too selfish on my end. I will try aiming closer to the middle-ground. The seller has to make a profit, and I have to deter the competition. I just tried a one-up of 25 silver, and about 20-ish orders below me disappeared within the minute. That was fast. Odd behavior, if you ask me.
I am leaning more towards the assumption that these are bots, because they operate lightning fast, and at various times during the day. Who needs 20 copies of the same weapon anyways?
Stormbluff Isle – Baka Royale [Baka]
People who might be salvaging it for Dark Matter or for the inscriptions/upgrades for resale, probably.
But the fact that the orders vanished as soon as you went up by a considerable margin is telling. Most bots placing these orders are also scripted to stop as soon as a price ceiling is hit (because the player would be losing money otherwise if bids forced them to spend more money buying the items than they’d make back flipping or doing whatever).
The best way I’ve found to counteract the bots that up their bids on dozens/hundreds of items en masse like clockwork is to force them into their cooldown.
First thing to do is to determine the bot’s maximum price point by steadily increasing your bid until they hit their limit and remove their bid from the item.
Once this max range is determined, you can then choose one of two courses of action:
1) You can accept the higher price point that is above the bot’s max bid range, which is still less than buying it outright. You’re basically paying much more than you should have to just so you do not have to deal with them. It’s not ideal, but at least you do not have to babysit your order and deal with these bots.
2) Force the bot into a cooldown period (or a “time out”) where they’ll pull their bids from an item for a period of time due to the buy price going over their max limit:
- Place your bid 1 copper above the bots current (low) bid, which will quickly be outbid
- Leave that bid there and make an additional bid much higher, but still slightly lower than their max price point
- This will cause their low bid to get removed and placed instead above your really high bid
- Remove that high bid and make a bid above their max price limit
- Their next update will cause them to remove their high bid due to being unable to outbid you as your bid is over the limit and will then go on cooldown for some time before it will become active on the item again
- Remove your really high bid and leave your actual low bid up to get filled.
In my testing, this can buy anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour (depending on the bot) of not having to deal with their constantly outbidding you.
As an example:
I recently outfitted my new necro with level 39 rare berserker armor and immediately found that most of the items were being targeted by a bot ordering the same quantity of 5. I chose to use this method to get the armor pieces with minimal babysitting due to successfully causing them to time out.
Let’s use just the chest for this example:
- Lowest sell price was about 80 silver
- Highest buy price was about 25 silver
- I constantly increased my bid by 1-5 silver until I determined the bot’s maximum price to be about 55 silver
- I set my desired buy order for one at 26s
- Was quickly outbid by the bot at 26s1c
- Left my 26s buy order up and set a buy order for 50s
- Was quickly outbid with 50s1c
The bot’s lower 26s1c order was also removed simultaneously.
(I’ve found this step to be crucial due to it forcing their 50s1c bid to be the only one they have on the item)
- Was quickly outbid with 50s1c
- I then set a buy order for 55s and canceled my 50s bid
- The next bot update cycle removed their 50s1c bid and caused it to go on cooldown due to the highest buy order being over their max price
- I then removed the 55s buy order and waited for my 26s buy order to get filled, free of the bot annoyance
I did this for all of the armor pieces at the same time. Some of the items were filled before the bot was reactivated on them, some others I was not so lucky with getting filled quickly. On these particular items on the bot’s list, it returned after exactly 30 minutes from forcing them to go on cooldown. I then had to repeat this method of forcing them away from the items I wanted once again. Like clockwork, exactly every 30 minutes they would return.
You can speed up the process as well by completely skipping the 50s step and going straight for the out of range bid of 55s. I just found the 50s step helped with verifying that the bot was still active before I made my 55s bid.
The cooldown isn’t the same for each bot out there. Some are only on cooldown for exactly 15 minutes, others for exactly an hour. Just as the cooldowns vary from bot to bot, the bid update frequencies are not all identical. Some bots update their bids and simultaneously remove their old ones on hundreds of items every 30 seconds, others are set to do it every 1 minute or every 5 minutes on the dot.
They get pretty predictable though. Once you learn their telltale signs you can easily tell the difference between another actual player placing a bid because they want the item and a bot placing a bid.
Anytime I go shopping for a rare or exotic item I expect to encounter at least one bot. When the rare or exotic items I’m shopping for are above level 67 (the level at which ectos start dropping from them), I can expect to battle against at least half a dozen. Unfortunately, those items are also having real players bid on them. Due to this, the cooldown method doesn’t really work that well as you still need to babysit your orders and constantly update them due to being outbid by real people who are also babysitting their orders.
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(edited by StinVec.3621)
I noticed this too, and recently posted some info with my observations.
It is definitely botting. Moreover, it’s coordinated botting by multiple accounts running the same script. You may have noticed with your exotic bids, that you are getting simultaneously overbid by 2 accounts buying one item each. This is a massive operation by gold-sellers to increase their bankroll.
They’ve got entire markets covered, and their scripts automatically discovers new items to bid on. The sad thing is, this is the new reality. Gold sellers have access to a nearly unlimited number of stolen accounts, so I am very pessimistic that anything can be done to stop this. You ban 100 accounts, they fire up 100 more and turn on the bots again. They seem to have a nearly inexhaustible supply of gold (which makes you wonder why they need to bot the TP 24×7 in the first place.) I’d really like some confirmation from Anet that reporting specific items can help though.
Otherwise, StinVec’s advice is solid. You should always be able to pick up an exotic at (Sell Price minus 20%) or thereabouts.
(edited by The Red Squirrel.7039)
I dont’ know if it is the work of bots, but I do find it hard to buy things that have a profit margin.
And as a joke, I would say the bots are making the price more close to equilibrium faster.
My take is even if bots are illegal, there are probably API who notify you if you get outbids, those are probably legal.
Worse yet, there are more than 1 bot which keep bidding on each other.
quite honestly, I notice the same thing. But if I outbid by a higher profit margin, the other party wont’ follow. For example I’m trying to get some dark matter, and bought a bunch of exotic with certain rune, what I notice only a few will get outfit, and the person placed 10 orders right after my bids.
(edited by laokoko.7403)
Whether bots are involved or not, you’ve still got thousands of actual people, many of whom are trying to do the exact same thing you are doing.
If you are looking for weapons quickly, just buy a listing.
If you are willing to wait, place a buy order and it will most likely fill.
Unless you are trying to flip things, there is no benefit to constantly cancelling and rebidding.
Server: Devona’s Rest
If you are willing to wait, place a buy order and it will most likely fill.
It will never be filled because people 1 copper up you and place 10 orders in 1 minutes. That’s what the OP is complaining. How someone is manage to do that, I have no idea.
The only way I see to combat it is place a much higher bid. If you eat away the person’s profit margin, they can’t 1 copper up you. Just like someone posted already (place order at sell price minus 20%).
(edited by laokoko.7403)
If you are willing to wait, place a buy order and it will most likely fill.
It will never be filled because people 1 copper up you and place 10 orders in 1 minutes. That’s what the OP is complaining. How someone is manage to do that, I have no idea.
The only way I see to combat it is place a much higher bid. If you eat away the person’s profit margin, they can’t 1 copper up you. Just like someone posted already (place order at sell price minus 20%).
If the price spread is wide enough for flipping, then the item isn’t at equilibrium yet and your offer may not ever be filled.
If the price spread is narrow, then your offer WILL be filled when the price fluctuates to include your offer.
When buying gear to use, I always check the spread and fire off a buy order and it always fills.
The demand for regular gear is pretty flat, so your buy offer will eventually be #1 again, given about a week or so.
If you are going for stuff with valuable runes/sigils, can be used for hot precursor forging, or is collectible, then you are going to be competing with everyone else playing the game and will probably never get an order filled unless you spend every waking minute camping it.
Server: Devona’s Rest
Whether bots are involved or not, you’ve still got thousands of actual people, many of whom are trying to do the exact same thing you are doing.
If you are looking for weapons quickly, just buy a listing.
If you are willing to wait, place a buy order and it will most likely fill.Unless you are trying to flip things, there is no benefit to constantly cancelling and rebidding.
If people/bots keep outbidding me by a copper, I just stop ‘nickle-and-diming’ and start increasing my bid more significantly. Works every time. Imitating bots/flippers by constantly increasing by a copper is a huge waste of time and I won’t be dragged into that game.
If you are willing to wait, place a buy order and it will most likely fill.
It will never be filled because people 1 copper up you and place 10 orders in 1 minutes. That’s what the OP is complaining. How someone is manage to do that, I have no idea.
The only way I see to combat it is place a much higher bid. If you eat away the person’s profit margin, they can’t 1 copper up you. Just like someone posted already (place order at sell price minus 20%).
If the price spread is wide enough for flipping, then the item isn’t at equilibrium yet and your offer may not ever be filled.
If the price spread is narrow, then your offer WILL be filled when the price fluctuates to include your offer.
When buying gear to use, I always check the spread and fire off a buy order and it always fills.
The demand for regular gear is pretty flat, so your buy offer will eventually be #1 again, given about a week or so.
If you are going for stuff with valuable runes/sigils, can be used for hot precursor forging, or is collectible, then you are going to be competing with everyone else playing the game and will probably never get an order filled unless you spend every waking minute camping it.
Right, but you are in denial someone could be using a script of sort. The thing the OP and me point out is it seemed to always be the same person because the person always place 10 orders and 1 copper up.
What you are assuming is there should be no profit for flipping. Well, at this rate, there probably will be no profit for flipping. Unlike previously, some items actually have some profit margin.
What stand out is the person is always placing 10 bid. The OP says exotic weapon market. I’m targeting exotic armor market, and it is affected too. I’m not sure if the other market happened too.
(edited by laokoko.7403)
I think this still works:
Don’t try to outbid the bots. Yeah, their buy orders will get filled before yours do, but when it’s your turn, they woln’t outbid you either. The bot seems to need to see an action in order for it to react, but in this case, that doesn’t happen.
#24 leaderboard rank North America.
^ right, but if the bots placed a mass order say 10, it is most likely other people’s buy order will never be filled.
unless the profit margin is small enough, that the person no longer want to outbid.
Funny thing is having those bidders bidding every 1 minutes brought the buy and sale price closer. And thus make the price closer to equilibrium! Great for the economy! That’s what people say about flippers.
I don’t think there is a solution to this. I find others games with similar system suffer from the same problem. Unless they change the system where people can place a min and max bid, the problem will never be solved.
(edited by laokoko.7403)
I don’t think there is a solution to this. I find others games with similar system suffer from the same problem. Unless they change the system where people can place a min and max bid, the problem will never be solved.
How would this help exactly if the bot is just going to +1c your max bid?
I don’t think there is a solution to this. I find others games with similar system suffer from the same problem. Unless they change the system where people can place a min and max bid, the problem will never be solved.
How would this help exactly if the bot is just going to +1c your max bid?
it don’t. but it is slightly less frustrating to keep 1 up the bots, at least I can go to sleep now =).
Say an item have a buy order of 1 gold. I can set a buy order of 1.01-1.30 gold. If no one bid against me I’ll buy it for 1.01, if someone keep upping me, it’ll automatically set it to higher price.
Essentially, it is kind of like what the bot is doing. But the bot still have advantage to do better decision.
(edited by laokoko.7403)
Stin & Squirrel: have you guys sent your data to exploits@arena.net? Seems to me botters are moving to the TP, since megaservers makes it harder for the armies of bearbows to go unnoticed. ANet should figure out how to nerf them out of existence (and I hope they can do this without throttling legit power trading).
Most players won’t know to work around the botting algorithms and those of us who do shouldn’t have to waste our time (or risk gold) to do so.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Stin & Squirrel: have you guys sent your data to exploits@arena.net? Seems to me botters are moving to the TP, since megaservers makes it harder for the armies of bearbows to go unnoticed. ANet should figure out how to nerf them out of existence (and I hope they can do this without throttling legit power trading).
I’ve sent all the info that I posted to that address, including the newer revelation that bid for 2 is two accounts running the same script, each bidding for 1. I’m willing to scour the TP and report each item that has a bot on it, but I need to know that this is going to be used to do something, otherwise it’s a lot of effort for nothing.
Thanks for sending the data to ANet. I, too, wish that someone on their side would let us know what sort of data is helpful for them.
With open world bots, Gaile Grey has said (on a number of occasions) that their anti-bot team reads all the reports and that place/time+date/names/behavior data is helpful. So, I assume that would also be true for TP bots. Still, in your shoes, I would probably also wait to hear something more specific.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Also, you must remember that the trading post is world wide. It is not split up by server. All players who are not on the china client are playing the very same trading post and there are hundreds of thousands of concurrently playing users. It is not that unlikely that there could be several real players looking at the same item you are trying to get buy orders filled. After all YOU are there making repeated buy orders, why is it so hard to imagine another person watching that item constantly refreshing. In fact, it could be the case that there’s some other player making those bids you see thinking the same thing about you. Every time you out bid them, they refresh and cry “kitten bots!!”.
Shufflepants: The issues people are witnessing are not indicative of typical human behavior. Bots are pretty easy to toy with and reveal. I’ve done so MANY times, primarily in the buy-to-salvage armor markets. They are, literally, everywhere there. Just try and bid on any white/blue light armor and see how long your bid stays on top. Rebid for the next 10 hours, checking every 10 minutes for an overbid; rinse/repeat, and you’ll soon see the telltale signs of botting. As I’ve said, I’ve done this test many times and it results in the same profile every time since all of these bots are fundamentally identical, if variable in details.
Bear in mind that despite the player base being huge and the TP being merged, there are a great number of items that get no more than one or two bids a day (if that), other than from bots and whoever thinks they can outdo them. With these items it’s child’s play to detect a bot (24/7 routine overbids is an easy tell since last I checked most humans can’t manage this sort of thing).
Other players droning an item does, of course, happen. However, players that will do that are a trivial number vs the number of cases where items exhibit this situation. Humans can’t do this sort of thing hour after hour, and there aren’t enough players that will do this sort of thing for even a few minutes to explain it away.
Besides, botting the TP is functionally trivial. Don’t think every gold selling outfit, Chinese or otherwise, isn’t able to do so. We may hate them for it, but they aren’t incompetent and are capable of creating code to do this in a matter of hours, if that.
The TP bots are certainly one of the things detracting from my desire to play the game. I just don’t have the time or patience to get in a bidding war with someone who’s not even playing the game. It’s a Casey Jones like scenario.
You know what the irritating thing about those bidders is? They don’t check the previous bids afterward.
I accidentally put a bid for a piece of exotic at 1g more instead of 1c, immediately went to cancel my order to put up the correct bid… but someone already ordered ten more at 1c above my accidental bid; waited for an hour and they never readjusted their bid down, so the next day the bidding war continued on top of the new inflated base price.