Guild Wars 2

So, one of the things I’ve most enjoyed about this update is that the API changes effectively shut down all the bots on the TP. For the past 2 days, the trading post has been a lot of fun because I’ve been able to get buy orders filled in markets that the bots drove me out of ages ago.

But as of this morning, they are back, and are nastier than ever. Because of the new faster API, they can rebid in 10-15 seconds. You used to be able to accidentally get a few buy orders filed on some of these items because the refresh time on the API was on the order of several minutes instead of seconds.

Here’s a short sampling of items that are current exhibit this problem:

http://www.gw2tp.com/item/20499-steel-dye
http://www.gw2tp.com/item/27023-rampagers-soft-wood-focus-of-water
http://www.gw2tp.com/item/64212-mini-grawl-berserker
http://www.gw2tp.com/item/26240-rampagers-iron-sword-of-earth

When it is active, the botting is widespread. The following categories are covered up to a certain spread. I sampled randomly from the first page of each of these searches, and placed a buy order and found the bot was active on each one I tried.

Cheapest Common Minis
Cheapest Forge-able Rares
Cheapest Forge-able Exotic Weapons
Cheapest 76-80 Exotic Armors
Cheapest Masterwork Dyes

Strangely, the bot was on this morning, then it seemed to go dormant for about 90 minutes. In that time, hardly anyone else outbid me until the bot was turned back on. I’m the only other person messing with this stuff much today. These items are low-volume. Also, this is apparently the activity of 1 person or coordinated group, since the bidding on all of them ended/started again at the same time.

Frankly, if I see a set of buy orders that looks like this:
2 Ordered 96s 18c
5 Ordered 96s 17c
10 Ordered 96s 15c
1 Ordered 96s 13c
then I know not to bother bidding. It’s botted. This particular bot always orders 2, and keeps the buy order topped off. I still suspect this is RMT gold-generation, but I’m less sure about that now that I seen it turn off and then back on simultaneously across several markets. If it’s just one player doing this, then I’m more optimistic that it can be stopped. The amount of illicit gold being made here by someone is vast though.

So in the past, I was able to tolerate TP botting because it was possible to keep ahead of it if you refreshed your bids every 5 minutes or so. The new API with a higher refresh speed presents a game changer. This curtails my enjoyment of the marketplace, as I can’t compete with the guy who can write a script to find and camp every undervalued buy order on the TP. So my main question here is, how can we help to give you the information you need to squash these accounts?

The Red Squirrel.7039:

I still suspect this is RMT gold-generation, but I’m less sure about that now that I seen it turn off and then back on simultaneously across several markets.

RMT?

Eggman.1405:

RMT?

Real money transaction. Goldsellers.

Squirrel: could you also send your data to exploits@arena.net ? Given the volume of posting in the forums right now, I have a feeling that this thread might not get immediate attention.

It really shouldn’t matter if this is RMT, profiteering bots, or individual players using identical scripts/routines — this smells like exploitative behavior and ANet has said they want to be on top of things like this. (Plus, I hope that they can do something about it quickly, if only identify the accounts used to start watching them.)

Thanks for the post.

I agree, despite the additional clicks, the first 2 days on the new trading post were great.

But now they are back

I noticed I was getting outbid every 5 seconds. Thought it was another overzealous person really wanting to get that item (an exotic armor) to use for themself, but I returned hours later to find them outbidding me in mere seconds again, so I’m starting to think they’re actually bots. Even with the new API, you must re-type the price you ordered in GW2 again into a tracker app you made, so this can be cumbersome, and shouldn’t take seconds to do and repetitively without being a very OCD person. Since I see others are having problems with bots, I guess I shouldn’t try to compete with them anymore and just buy the item instantly and get it over with :/

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Squirrel: could you also send your data to exploits@arena.net ? Given the volume of posting in the forums right now, I have a feeling that this thread might not get immediate attention..

Thanks for the suggestion; I just sent a copy to that address. I never knew about that email, so I always reported TP-bots in game, which probably wasn’t productive.

The Red Squirrel.7039:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Squirrel: could you also send your data to exploits@arena.net ? Given the volume of posting in the forums right now, I have a feeling that this thread might not get immediate attention..

Thanks for the suggestion; I just sent a copy to that address. I never knew about that email, so I always reported TP-bots in game, which probably wasn’t productive.

Thank you for taking the extra time

Reporting bots is in-game is helpful, but the email is more efficient when the scope is global, i.e. a lot of bots or stuff affecting the TP.

The Red Squirrel.7039:

So, one of the things I’ve most enjoyed about this update is that the API changes effectively shut down all the bots on the TP. For the past 2 days, the trading post has been a lot of fun because I’ve been able to get buy orders filled in markets that the bots drove me out of ages ago.

I think this is more that it’s harder to use the new TP a lot. it’s easy for a few items, but more cumbersome for hundreds of items. Basically, it made TP use harder for power traders, so there is less power trading, which dramatically decreases overall TP use. So there is literally less competition. I know that’s how I feel – there are things I’d like to do but won’t because it’s more trouble. I know eventually I’ll do it, but for now it’s procrastination.
It’s like if the world ran out of gasoline. For the first couple days, no one would want to go anywhere because it was so much harder. Then eventually people need food or realize they miss the beach, or work called and said they found a way they could still function, etc.