Was buying a 2 gold item of the market and made a fair 30 silver raise. After an hour I checked once more only to find 4 new bids that were 1, 2, 3 and 4 copper higher.
In a real auction you can’t just offer one million dollars and one cent as an outbid and seeing this in guild wars frustrating. It ends up as a test of endurance instead of gold and that is in heavy favour of market bots.
Please restrict it somehow. A 1% minimum raise would be a gift from heaven
Was buying a 2 gold item of the market and made a fair 30 silver raise. After an hour I checked once more only to find 4 new bids that were 1, 2, 3 and 4 copper higher.
In a real auction you can’t just offer one million dollars and one cent as an outbid and seeing this in guild wars frustrating. It ends up as a test of endurance instead of gold and that is in heavy favour of market bots.
Please restrict it somehow. A 1% minimum raise would be a gift from heaven
A small increase doesn’t bother me when buying. A small increase with a large order does bother me when I’m buying only a few of an item. And the reason for that is velocity. There is a relative volume of items sold to high bidders on the TP. Only a few items in front of me is no concern if I know, through experience, that within an hour or two my buy order will be filled. The trick is putting in the order well before you need those items.
As for your “can’t be the only one”, there has been numerous threads discussing minimum changes in over and under cutting but while being coppered is a problem for an individual for the market at large it encourages competition and fairer prices to buyers and sellers.
Was buying a 2 gold item of the market and made a fair 30 silver raise. After an hour I checked once more only to find 4 new bids that were 1, 2, 3 and 4 copper higher.
In a real auction you can’t just offer one million dollars and one cent as an outbid and seeing this in guild wars frustrating. It ends up as a test of endurance instead of gold and that is in heavy favour of market bots.
Please restrict it somehow. A 1% minimum raise would be a gift from heaven
You can just buy the item from lowest sell offer. No time wasted, and for that you pay a small premium. One copper bids are not a problem. At most, they are an annoyance, like Behellagh.1468 pointed out.
I have done my fair share of one copper bidding, and I’ve had a fair share done to me. Anticipicate what items you might need (especially in masses), wait for a while and prepare to be outbid, or pay premium and buy instantly.
So whenever someone gets outbid after an hour, it’s because it was that someone else was botting?
Exactly what item were you trying to buy?
Didn’t tell the whole story to keep it short but ok the item in question was a PTV pistol for testing a build on a new character. Thinking an aggressive raise would make me more likely to get the item in an hour I put 30 silver instead of a copper but ended up that when I got back I had to do the 1 copper dance with someone for a good hour and a half to the point where got irritated and bought the item upfront. The person outbidding me checked the item like clockwork every 5 minute ignoring that I outbid him every time. An active player would have noticed the outbid which is why I suspect a bot.
There is no 1 copper problem. There is a problem of people being stingy. If others are were willing to pay more than you, you don’t deserve the item. Simple as that.
You want the item right now, you gotta offer more.
Bidding 1 copper higher isn’t really offering more gold. You have to hammer 1 copper bids for days if you want gold to be factor. A 1% minimum would stop people from doing 1 copper raise on precursors. If you want the item you should be
There is no 1 copper problem. There is a problem of people being stingy. If others are were willing to pay more than you, you don’t deserve the item. Simple as that.
You want the item right now, you gotta offer more.
While I don’t agree with the OP necessarily, this is a terrible argument. Someone willing to pay more? 1 copper more? Most of the time people putting in orders for weapons/armor aren’t even people who want to use the item. If they were truly willing to pay more, they would buy at the lowest sell offer. What you mean to say is they want their item faster without really having to pay more.
Someone should sticky JS’s previous responses to these ridiculous threads.
People are unwilling/unable to read a 3 word LFG description, what are the odds that people who post repeat topics like these are actually going to read a sticky before posting?
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
It seems they actually DO have issues with TP bots and work on resolving them:
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
It seems they actually DO have issues with TP bots and work on resolving them:
In dubio pro reo.
We do not know if he has or has not used a bot.
Maybe Anet’s bot detection has flaws, maybe the poster is trying to save his kitten .
We do not know.
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
It seems they actually DO have issues with TP bots and work on resolving them:
In dubio pro reo.
We do not know if he has or has not used a bot.
Maybe Anet’s bot detection has flaws, maybe the poster is trying to save his kitten .
We do not know.
I never said the OP was using a bot, i was referring to the fact that Gus, the head security lead, seems to be sending emails out to players that he thinks are using tp bots, so they seem to be working on reducing the usage of tp bots.
Tin Foil [HATS]-Hardcore BLTC-PvP Guild
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
It seems they actually DO have issues with TP bots and work on resolving them:
In dubio pro reo.
We do not know if he has or has not used a bot.
Maybe Anet’s bot detection has flaws, maybe the poster is trying to save his kitten .
We do not know.
I never said the OP was using a bot, i was referring to the fact that Gus, the head security lead, seems to be sending emails out to players that he thinks are using tp bots, so they seem to be working on reducing the usage of tp bots.
That phrasing is fine for me. Nonetheless, your first post mentioned bot issues and as proof, you linked the thread, therefore implying trading bot usage by the OP of the thread. Hence my first post.
I can understand why they’d want to eliminate TP bots as part of a larger pattern of restraining bots from the game in general, but purely in the context of markets and the trading post bots are largely beneficial and I see little reason to discourage their use.
(the little reason to discourage TP bots has to do with gold sellers having the highest incentive to invest in writing a TP bot and the effect empowering gold sellers has on the game).
The 1 copper bid increment is a pretty big inefficiency.
Realistically, if you want to collect the surplus from that inefficiency you need to be using a bot; the inefficiency stems from real transaction costs, and you profit from driving your costs as close to 0 as possible.
Otherwise, you have to really outbid the bots on any particular item. You can still do so and it’ll save you money, but you don’t get to collect the full surplus.
It is a pretty severe inefficiency for a game that ostensibly does not want people botting the TP, but I would not expect to see a fix any time soon.
It seems they actually DO have issues with TP bots and work on resolving them:
In dubio pro reo.
We do not know if he has or has not used a bot.
Maybe Anet’s bot detection has flaws, maybe the poster is trying to save his kitten .
We do not know.
I never said the OP was using a bot, i was referring to the fact that Gus, the head security lead, seems to be sending emails out to players that he thinks are using tp bots, so they seem to be working on reducing the usage of tp bots.
That phrasing is fine for me. Nonetheless, your first post mentioned bot issues and as proof, you linked the thread, therefore implying trading bot usage by the OP of the thread. Hence my first post.
I’d read the posts a little more closely. He was not saying that the OP may or may not have been using a bot. The implication of trading bot usage by the OP came from you either from misreading the thread or mistakenly posting in this thread rather than the linked one..
I see no problem with the 1c incrementing. I actually get annoyed when people making sell listings undercut by far more than 1c. For example lets say I made a sell listing for 10s and then somone comes in and tosses up one for 5s and then right after than a bunch more add to that not caring to pay attention that the person way undercut (possibly not even people but bots adding to the huge undercut listing). Heck even way over bidding buy offers when they might as well just buy a sell listing if they don’t care how much they spend. For example lets say I put in a buy offer for 10s and the lowest sell listing is 25s and someone comes in and makes a buy offer for 20s and gets a bunch more people (or bots) adding to that now highest buy offer. These two cases drive me nuts. As those people can achieve the same end result simply by going 1c over or under or a slightly larger amount but not going by huge 30-50% up or down.
Stop watching over for an hour and immediately you start walking in poo.
Raising 1 copper is fair game. Trying to shoehorn a minimum “raising” amount won’t solve your problem, people will continue to outbid you when you aren’t looking.
Known as Reegar Else, Linda Else, Xiana Else and Thorgall Breakstone
I see no problem with the 1c incrementing. I actually get annoyed when people making sell listings undercut by far more than 1c. For example lets say I made a sell listing for 10s and then somone comes in and tosses up one for 5s and then right after than a bunch more add to that not caring to pay attention that the person way undercut (possibly not even people but bots adding to the huge undercut listing). Heck even way over bidding buy offers when they might as well just buy a sell listing if they don’t care how much they spend. For example lets say I put in a buy offer for 10s and the lowest sell listing is 25s and someone comes in and makes a buy offer for 20s and gets a bunch more people (or bots) adding to that now highest buy offer. These two cases drive me nuts. As those people can achieve the same end result simply by going 1c over or under or a slightly larger amount but not going by huge 30-50% up or down.
Maybe not quite that extreme, but if i’m trying to buy something I do it in chunks. In fact I have spent hours sometimes screwing with bids after I continually got outbid by one copper for a few minutes- so then I started doing bids in super random quantities, sometimes leaving my old bid up, sometimes not. It was fun and I’d like to think I kittened off the 1 copper person assuming it wasn’t a bot. My philosophy is if you are going to continually outbid me by 1 copper, then you will pay (a lot) more in the end. Of course I never go above what I’m willing to pay…
I see no problem with the 1c incrementing. I actually get annoyed when people making sell listings undercut by far more than 1c. For example lets say I made a sell listing for 10s and then somone comes in and tosses up one for 5s and then right after than a bunch more add to that not caring to pay attention that the person way undercut (possibly not even people but bots adding to the huge undercut listing). Heck even way over bidding buy offers when they might as well just buy a sell listing if they don’t care how much they spend. For example lets say I put in a buy offer for 10s and the lowest sell listing is 25s and someone comes in and makes a buy offer for 20s and gets a bunch more people (or bots) adding to that now highest buy offer. These two cases drive me nuts. As those people can achieve the same end result simply by going 1c over or under or a slightly larger amount but not going by huge 30-50% up or down.
Maybe not quite that extreme, but if i’m trying to buy something I do it in chunks. In fact I have spent hours sometimes screwing with bids after I continually got outbid by one copper for a few minutes- so then I started doing bids in super random quantities, sometimes leaving my old bid up, sometimes not. It was fun and I’d like to think I kittened off the 1 copper person assuming it wasn’t a bot. My philosophy is if you are going to continually outbid me by 1 copper, then you will pay (a lot) more in the end. Of course I never go above what I’m willing to pay… it can be fun
#trolloyoloswag…
Jk, but yep same here
“A conquered people will always resist you,
Edair. But allies-allies will fight by your side”~Cobiah Mariner
It’s normally best to purchase in small quantities if you need something now rather than later. If impatient people see a large amount order in front of theirs, they’re more likely to re-list to put theirs ahead. You’ll still get people who will do it regardless but you’ll at least be minimizing that probability.
It’s just like when you bid on something from EBay. If you get outbid, you don’t get the item. Simple as that. Try complaining at a real auction, you’ll be laughed out of the building. Either buy the item outright or live with the “technically” real world style of bidding on items in GW2.
Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi
Try complaining at a real auction, you’ll be laughed out of the building.
You’d never have to, as every real auction uses substantial bid increments. Try outbidding a $100 bid with a $100.01 bid at a real auction and you’ll be laughed out of the room.
You can set your account to auto-raise to your specified limit. Much like botting in GW2. You still peck at the bid to outbid someone and pay as little as possible. And remember, I said TECHNICALLY. It uses the SAME CONCEPT of OUTBIDDING someone. So deal with it. Don’t try to nit-pick an example. The example is very accurate. Notice I said “try complaining”, I didn’t say try bidding one penny above. Try to reading what I wrote.
Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi
You keep mistaking the TP as an auction site. It’s not. On an auction site a seller isn’t setting a price, other than possibly a reserve, and is looking for buyers to outbid each other.
The TP is either buyers outbidding each other so when a seller does come along, they are the highest bidder and the reverse is true with sellers fighting to be the lowest price when a buyer comes alone. In either case the “reward” of being first is ephemeral, since the other participant of the transaction isn’t there yet.
Quibbling over semantics. Please stop. It is still an auction site in the same sense as E-Bay. Players set their price they wish to buy or sell an item. It is like a silent auction. Players can raise their bid and no one really knows who they are. Also, just like an auction, you set your “reserve” the minimum you will sell an item for. A player can either buy outright or bid below that and hope another seller prices theirs below yours.
It is still an auction site, no matter how you look at it.
Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi
And it’s just “semantics” that’s the difference between ice hockey and football/soccer or American football from rugby.
As I said in an auction the seller simply offers the item and it’s the buyers who fight over who gets to buy it. That’s not how the TP is set up or who drives it. For buying something from a seller it’s the sellers who are fighting over potential buyers by making their item the cheapest available. That turns the auction model on it’s head.
Also the auction model doesn’t have anything equivalent to buyers requesting an item for a particular price to attract sellers. Nothing, zip, zero, nada.
I conducted an experiment today to see if bots really do exist. I actually was not intending to do this, but I was trying to purchase something for an alt with no luck against what was most likely an actual person buying to sell for profit vs me who just wanted one to use. Anyways, I found an alternative item…and things got interesting.
This (low volume) item had a buy price of ~90s and a sell price of ~ 4.25g – quite the spread I would say. So I placed a bid for a few silver over the current high bid. Instantly outbid by one copper. So I did another bid a few silver higher – instantly outbid by one copper. At his point I began to be suspicious as the likelyhood of a single person watching this item like a hawk was possible, but very unlikely. So I bid about 40s higher – instantly outbid by one copper. I bid 50 additional silver higher – instantly outbid. Another 50s higher – instantly outbid. The bid now currently sat at ~ 2.5g, so I decided to stop. So at this point, we have the lowest sell price still at 4.25g, the highest bid at 2.5g and the next highest bid at 90s. I figured ok, I’ll wait 15-30 minutes. If this was an actual person, the chances of them lowering the bid back to one copper over the next highest 90s bid was fairly likely. Except after 30 min, the bid had not changed – still ~ 2.5g. Here it is now ~ 4 hours later, and it is still 2.5g. So the ultimate test – I put a bid in for a silver over the 2.5g bid…and it is instantly outbid by one copper. Is this 100% proof of a bot? No. Is it highly likely a bot? Yes.
Probably a bot. To be sure, you should have raised to within 15% of the sell offer. If the bids stop, it’s a bot set to not buy at a price that will lose money.
the only problem I see with the 1c undercut is that people see it as a problem. It’s not a problem; it solves far more problems than it creates. If you don’t want to bother with it, then offer fair prices for things, or better yet: buy them instantly.
Honestly, that’s the best solution. Everyone who complains about being undercut should really be working with the instant buy/sell options instead of orders; it suits their philosophy better (of just buy it and not have to worry about it again).
One copper undercutting isn’t an issue, although botting may well be.
Did anyone else experience the extremely strange behaviour at the trading post when the new version of the trading post came in? For some reason for the first week or two, it was as if a huge chunk of bidders and sellers disappeared from the market. They soon returned, but the only explanation I can personally think of is that they were bots that took a while to catch up with the new TP.
If the above is true, TP botting should be fairly simple for them to detect (all the people who were sending old-style TP requests after the update!). Botting is what people should focus on, humans undercutting by 1 copper is not a problem and it’s better that they do that than cause the price to crash by undercutting by 10s every single time.
One copper undercutting isn’t an issue, although botting may well be.
Did anyone else experience the extremely strange behaviour at the trading post when the new version of the trading post came in? For some reason for the first week or two, it was as if a huge chunk of bidders and sellers disappeared from the market. They soon returned, but the only explanation I can personally think of is that they were bots that took a while to catch up with the new TP.
If the above is true, TP botting should be fairly simple for them to detect (all the people who were sending old-style TP requests after the update!). Botting is what people should focus on, humans undercutting by 1 copper is not a problem and it’s better that they do that than cause the price to crash by undercutting by 10s every single time.
Botting may be an issue, but what you observed could easily be explained by the all the bad changes implemented in TP v2. Personally, I didn’t even use the TP for like 4 days after it because I couldn’t work with it – it’s not as usable. It would be like walking through air all your life, then you wake up and air is as thick as water – you’re not going to be as inclined to go run chores or go out for a morning jog, etc. same thing: TP wasn’t as easy to use, so people didn’t use it.
And it’s just “semantics” that’s the difference between ice hockey and football/soccer or American football from rugby.
As I said in an auction the seller simply offers the item and it’s the buyers who fight over who gets to buy it. That’s not how the TP is set up or who drives it. For buying something from a seller it’s the sellers who are fighting over potential buyers by making their item the cheapest available. That turns the auction model on it’s head.
Also the auction model doesn’t have anything equivalent to buyers requesting an item for a particular price to attract sellers. Nothing, zip, zero, nada.
It is still an auction. Just not the kind you’re used to. You just want to argue.
Whenever you place an item in TP for sale you are auctioning it off to the buyer who will pay the price you are requesting. The highest buyer, as it says. And buyers play the auction game by offering the highest they will pay for an item. It’s up to the sellers to either meet that offer or keep their item at a higher value awaiting a buyer who will pay the price they want. It’s almost a seller vs seller auction in many cases. Sellers under “bid” at times other sellers. I.E. “Lowest Seller”.
But it is still an auction no matter how you cut it. People bid and sell at auctions, the same is done on the TP.
Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi
And it’s just “semantics” that’s the difference between ice hockey and football/soccer or American football from rugby.
As I said in an auction the seller simply offers the item and it’s the buyers who fight over who gets to buy it. That’s not how the TP is set up or who drives it. For buying something from a seller it’s the sellers who are fighting over potential buyers by making their item the cheapest available. That turns the auction model on it’s head.
Also the auction model doesn’t have anything equivalent to buyers requesting an item for a particular price to attract sellers. Nothing, zip, zero, nada.
It is still an auction. Just not the kind you’re used to. You just want to argue.
Whenever you place an item in TP for sale you are auctioning it off to the buyer who will pay the price you are requesting. The highest buyer, as it says. And buyers play the auction game by offering the highest they will pay for an item. It’s up to the sellers to either meet that offer or keep their item at a higher value awaiting a buyer who will pay the price they want. It’s almost a seller vs seller auction in many cases. Sellers under “bid” at times other sellers. I.E. “Lowest Seller”.
But it is still an auction no matter how you cut it. People bid and sell at auctions, the same is done on the TP.
The TP is not an auction house. At an auction, the sales price is not predetermined and an auction is limited by time.
On the TP you simply offer to buy or sell an item at a fixed price until someone agrees to your offer or you cancel your offer.
Tin Foil [HATS]-Hardcore BLTC-PvP Guild
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
A small increase doesn’t bother me when buying. A small increase with a large order does bother me when I’m buying only a few of an item. And the reason for that is velocity. There is a relative volume of items sold to high bidders on the TP. Only a few items in front of me is no concern if I know, through experience, that within an hour or two my buy order will be filled. The trick is putting in the order well before you need those items.
As for your “can’t be the only one”, there has been numerous threads discussing minimum changes in over and under cutting but while being coppered is a problem for an individual for the market at large it encourages competition and fairer prices to buyers and sellers.
I am unconvinced that 1c under/overbids are really beneficial to the market, compared with minimum increments that are somehow fractional — and at least once, John Smith indicated a willingness to consider changing this (asking what it would look like).
But I can’t see a simple way to change this which would not have substantial downsides — enough to leave me unconvinced that there’s a good way to change it as things stand. The system works, there are no major problems. I thought I could find better examples of markets failing to reach equilibrium, but — despite the money that can be made by flipping — I’m no longer convinced that bid increments would help, since you can also find similar inefficiency for items in the 1-4s range (where 1c is 0.25-1%), and there are enough participants who are willing to move substantially when they think the current price is not the equilibrium price.
…
If the above is true, TP botting should be fairly simple for them to detect (all the people who were sending old-style TP requests after the update!). Botting is what people should focus on, humans undercutting by 1 copper is not a problem and it’s better that they do that than cause the price to crash by undercutting by 10s every single time.
I disagree that undercutting by larger increments (e.g. 10s on items which are >= 10g) would cause the market to crash — if you believe (as I do) that the equilibrium is largely set by supply and demand, then a larger bid increment would mean faster convergence to equilibrium … and would more often result in sellers batching together (i.e. sellers being willing to wait in line of the price has reached equilibrium — with 1c increments, there’s no incentive to wait in line for moderate ticket items even if you think the price is at equilibrium).
But as I said, I’m unconvinced that it’s possible to make a substantial improvement which doesn’t also suck in terms of UI or complexity.
the only problem I see with the 1c undercut is that people see it as a problem. It’s not a problem; it solves far more problems than it creates. If you don’t want to bother with it, then offer fair prices for things, or better yet: buy them instantly.
Mystic, I agree with you to a point that it’s not a problem. However, people need to stop using this argument about offering a “fair” price for something. If I offer 100 gold and someone overcuts by 1 copper, the offer is still the same for all purposes. It doesn’t suddenly become a fair price. Not only that, but the vast majority of offers on the TP are people trying to flip for profit by constantly overcutting someone’s offer that may be trying to buy the item to actually use, so I can see the frustration from a buyer’s perspective.
The ability to overcut does bring and keep the market into equilibrium. However, the only thing 1 copper increments do is move you to the front of the line to get a buy order filled without actually spending any more money. Having bid increments would at least change things from that perspective.
It’s just like when you bid on something from EBay. If you get outbid, you don’t get the item. Simple as that. Try complaining at a real auction, you’ll be laughed out of the building. Either buy the item outright or live with the “technically” real world style of bidding on items in GW2.
As I was reading the thread, that’s what I was thinking, too, that although not perfect, you could draw an analogy from eBay. On eBay, there might be a set “minimum raise” of $1.00, but the actual raise can end up being just one penny, based on the other person’s top bid. Like others in this thread, I don’t think that the 1 copper raise is an issue, but I will ask the team — who clearly is more expert on this subject — if they have anything to add on the subject.
And it’s just “semantics” that’s the difference between ice hockey and football/soccer or American football from rugby.
As I said in an auction the seller simply offers the item and it’s the buyers who fight over who gets to buy it. That’s not how the TP is set up or who drives it. For buying something from a seller it’s the sellers who are fighting over potential buyers by making their item the cheapest available. That turns the auction model on it’s head.
Also the auction model doesn’t have anything equivalent to buyers requesting an item for a particular price to attract sellers. Nothing, zip, zero, nada.
It is still an auction. Just not the kind you’re used to. You just want to argue.
Whenever you place an item in TP for sale you are auctioning it off to the buyer who will pay the price you are requesting. The highest buyer, as it says. And buyers play the auction game by offering the highest they will pay for an item. It’s up to the sellers to either meet that offer or keep their item at a higher value awaiting a buyer who will pay the price they want. It’s almost a seller vs seller auction in many cases. Sellers under “bid” at times other sellers. I.E. “Lowest Seller”.
But it is still an auction no matter how you cut it. People bid and sell at auctions, the same is done on the TP.
The TP is not an auction house. At an auction, the sales price is not predetermined and an auction is limited by time.
On the TP you simply offer to buy or sell an item at a fixed price until someone agrees to your offer or you cancel your offer.
It’s still an auction, just not the normal kind you are used to. And what’s the point of arguing? I simply pointed out that it was dumb to complain when someone outbids you(happens in AUCTIONS all the time). If you’re bidding for something – it is an auction.
Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi
Was buying a 2 gold item of the market and made a fair 30 silver raise. After an hour I checked once more only to find 4 new bids that were 1, 2, 3 and 4 copper higher.
In a real auction you can’t just offer one million dollars and one cent as an outbid and seeing this in guild wars frustrating. It ends up as a test of endurance instead of gold and that is in heavy favour of market bots.
Please restrict it somehow. A 1% minimum raise would be a gift from heaven
I’m not saying I don’t agree with your frustration.
But you’ve superimposed your definition of “fair” onto a system with predefined rules driven by anonymous users with no accountability and have become upset that others don’t follow your arbitrary principles.
The way I see it, you could have outbid by 1c, let those other users outbid by 1c, and then upped your bid again. You would then have left a substantial portion of your “fair” raise as wiggle room.
As it stands the item you want is over the price you have deemed fair. So you can either not buy it if you think it’s overvalued, or buy it instantly if it’s that important to you. If you buy it instantly you’ll obviously pay a premium, but one that’s fair by the current market conditions and thus by definition.
Unfortunately all a 1% price increment or decrement minimum would achieve is non-linear bid and ask queues, respectively. And take my word for it, that’s anything but a gift from heaven. 1c differences are fine.
I am unconvinced that 1c under/overbids are really beneficial to the market, compared with minimum increments that are somehow fractional — and at least once, John Smith indicated a willingness to consider changing this (asking what it would look like).
They certainly aren’t beneficial to the market (unless everyone is running bots that compete with each other).
One way to think of the problem is something like this. Making a bid manually has real costs – you have to pull up the item, punch in the bid, etc, which takes time and attention. When you’re involved in a 1c outbid war, this time and attention cost is not at all trivial – and you’re not really bidding on the price of the item, but on how you value your time and attention, with the person who values his time the least winning.
The spoils you get for ‘winning’ the 1c war are excess returns on your buys – buy order prices are lower than they should be, in theory, because people adjust their prices downward for the hassle of having to defend them from 1c overbids.
This is inefficient and feeds even more money to people who camp their offers the most.
There’s been a lot of work done on bidding games; a lot of what we think we know falls apart when you throw transaction costs into the model. It ends up being a minmax trade-off between transaction costs and market efficiency; I don’t know that there’s a great answer but I could point anyone interested to the relevant literature.
eBay is a bad example to use, because eBay allows you to use bots. in fact, it is expected and they will actually run the bot for you. this is why eBay has you give it a “maximum” bid, but your “apparent” bid will only be just enough to outbid the other bidders. each bid is the minimum needed to outbid the others, and the eBay bot will make new bids as needed until it hits your maximum.
the GW2 trading post does not allow you to use bots, which I think is the real problem here. If I place a buy order that’s 30s higher than any other offer, and somebody places a buy order 1c higher, I shouldn’t be bothered by this more than if somebody placed a buy order 20s higher. the 1c outbid is actually preferable, because I can beat it by raising my buy order 1s. the latter case would require me to raise my buy order by 21s, costing me more.
no, the 1c is good because it costs me less to outbid it. the problem is when I have to manually do this in-game, while others are using automated bots. that places me at a disadvantage (I will get tired before the bot does) and that’s what needs to stop first and foremost.
1copper raise (or undercut on the flip side) isn’t an issue. It’s good if anything. Imagine how quickly prices would inflate/deflate if you had to make a several silver difference every time.
The only issue is bots, which aren’t allowed in the first place.
the only problem I see with the 1c undercut is that people see it as a problem. It’s not a problem; it solves far more problems than it creates. If you don’t want to bother with it, then offer fair prices for things, or better yet: buy them instantly.
Mystic, I agree with you to a point that it’s not a problem. However, people need to stop using this argument about offering a “fair” price for something. If I offer 100 gold and someone overcuts by 1 copper, the offer is still the same for all purposes. It doesn’t suddenly become a fair price. Not only that, but the vast majority of offers on the TP are people trying to flip for profit by constantly overcutting someone’s offer that may be trying to buy the item to actually use, so I can see the frustration from a buyer’s perspective.
The ability to overcut does bring and keep the market into equilibrium. However, the only thing 1 copper increments do is move you to the front of the line to get a buy order filled without actually spending any more money. Having bid increments would at least change things from that perspective.
by ‘fair’, I mean if buy orders are 50g and sell listings are 150g, then of course buy orders of 50g1c will be overcut by 1c. but buy orders of 100g will likely not be overcut. I do not mean going from 50g to 51g – that’s basically just the typical cheapo overcutting that the OP is complaining about.
eBay is a bad example to use, because eBay allows you to use bots. in fact, it is expected and they will actually run the bot for you. this is why eBay has you give it a “maximum” bid, but your “apparent” bid will only be just enough to outbid the other bidders. each bid is the minimum needed to outbid the others, and the eBay bot will make new bids as needed until it hits your maximum.
the GW2 trading post does not allow you to use bots, which I think is the real problem here. If I place a buy order that’s 30s higher than any other offer, and somebody places a buy order 1c higher, I shouldn’t be bothered by this more than if somebody placed a buy order 20s higher. the 1c outbid is actually preferable, because I can beat it by raising my buy order 1s. the latter case would require me to raise my buy order by 21s, costing me more.
no, the 1c is good because it costs me less to outbid it. the problem is when I have to manually do this in-game, while others are using automated bots. that places me at a disadvantage (I will get tired before the bot does) and that’s what needs to stop first and foremost.
-ken
when I started eBaying, I bid the minimum increment because I didn’t understand the ‘maximum bid’ thing – I thought if I bid $30, it would raise the price to $30; I wanted to get it cheap: So the current bid is $23? I bid $24! I’m already outbid!? sheesh! $26! already outbid!?!? wow, there are a lot of people that want this. fin, $30! again!?!? That was the most I would of paid, so I let that one go, but I have to admit, it took me embarrassingly long to realize about the maximum bid thing.
the other problem with minimum increases is that it jumps. could you imagine if you could only buy ectos by offering 2s higher than the current price? (5% increase).
A) that’s 2s above the lowest sell listing (what an excellent time to make this point! there’s currently a 2c spread between them). so you would have to get through 10,000 sell listings first.
B) no one would ever pay that much more, so they would only match the current buy order price and it would forever stay at 41s. you remove competition and everything becomes stagnant.
As you can see, he asked for people to support their argument that 1c bids were in need of a change and the conversation pretty much died.
Feel free to update that thread with your thought-out argument that meets John’s requirement that the determination of X (the point where 1c bids are no longer “relevant”) does 1. not Injure the market 2. Discourage use of the TP
