Sorrow’s Furnace Commander
“You’re the mount, karka’s ride you instead, and thus they die happy!”-Colin Johanson
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.
There are no auctions on the trading post.
Having similarities does not make them the same thing. I can buy a cheeseburger from the trading post for 3 copper or I can buy a cheeseburger from McDonald’s for $1, but that doesn’t make the trading post a fast food restaurant.
If you’re bidding for something – it is an auction.
A buy offer is not a bid. A bit is an offer for an individual item that expires as soon as a higher bid is made, and that bid will become the buy price if no higher bid is made before the auction expires. A buy offer is an indefinite offer to pay a certain amount of money for a certain item, that can be fulfilled at any time, by any seller.
Broken Forum paging is broken.
Got the bug where it sends you to the second page but there’s nothing there and you can’t go back to the first?
So I guess people would consider the stock market an auction house…
I understand the frustration that may arise in some of these situations. I haven’t yet read a suggestion that I think is a great solution. That being said, I do read the suggestions and am always interested in finding outcomes that make everyone better, so keep them coming!
I understand the frustration that may arise in some of these situations. I haven’t yet read a suggestion that I think is a great solution. That being said, I do read the suggestions and am always interested in finding outcomes that make everyone better, so keep them coming!
There isn’t a great solution (and if you find one do let me know, I’d love to have a JFE on my CV).
Trivially small increments get eaten up by transaction costs when they are greater than 0, and get really destabilizing as they approach 0.
Bid increments clean up some of that behavior, but as this isn’t an auction structure it’s not particularly intuitive, and has a built in inefficiency due to the granularity.
Second price systems cease to be efficient when there are substitute goods available and that’s a big mess of a system that I wouldn’t want to touch.
You have to choose between a whole bunch of ugly babies. I’d personally think about ways to include an increment in a way that feels natural and not forced, but nothing comes immediately to mind.
The only way I can think of to “fix” it would be to change it so that people posting buy orders also pay a non-refundable listing fee (this is on top of the listing fee that sellers pay). But that would potentially discourage use of the TP and affect velocity.
Frustrating? Sure. Actual problem? No, not enough that I want ANet to invest any dev time into addressing.
Unless the item is at 0 supply, you can always buy it outright. Once you choose to put in a custom offer (as I almost always do), you’re risking your time against other buyers’ willingness to spend more (even a penny more) and against sellers holding out for more.
I have never failed to gain all the units I want because of 1 copper, 1%, or even 10% overbids unless there is a huge gap between my original offer and the lowest sale offer and the supply/demand aren’t close to equilibrium.
Ectos, for example, get overbid by pennies (and more) constantly, and yet I’m consistently able to purchase a stack at 1-2s below the current unit price (if I do the proper research/bidding).
for Kormir’s sake, I’ve been using TP since launch, and havn’t had issues with 1c outbidding enough to even think about bots. The TP is something that you simply need to actively pay attention to in order for this not to be a problem. Checking in once an hour is WAYYYYYYYYYY slow. You don’t need bots to be outbid in an hour. You have THOUSANDS of people using the TP, and it takes 1 second for someone to see your bid and raise it. 1c 1s or 1g doesn’t matter, just keep tabs on your bids and you’ll stay on top. The person who keeps tabs on their ebay bid is the one who wants it more, and 99% of the time is the one who gets it.
When I want to corner a market for flipping and someone else is actively bidding, I start raising by 1g each bid, eventually people back off because it isn’t worth it… they will just wait until I leave, or instabuy. It costs you NOTHING to just repost your offer other than your attention. Don’t just assume it is a bot!
coppering is a legitimate tactic
I understand the frustration that may arise in some of these situations. I haven’t yet read a suggestion that I think is a great solution. That being said, I do read the suggestions and am always interested in finding outcomes that make everyone better, so keep them coming!
I’ll mention the same alternative control variable as I did with the undercutting thread:
Time
What if after a bid goes up there is a minimum threshold required to bid over it, which decays over time.
Example only (values purely for discussion)~
After I place a valid bid, for the next 120 seconds you have to over bid by 10%.
After that for the next 6 hours you have to bid at least 5% over.
After that and up to 12 hours after my bid you can bid 1% over.
Beyond 12 hours you can bid 1 copper over.
Essentially it punishes haste — the bot’s principle weapon. If a bot or another person really wants to step on you instantly, they can but they pay a premium for doing so. If that particular market is even slightly stagnant the enforced gap rapidly declines to our current condition.
What if after a bid goes up there is a minimum threshold required to bid over it, which decays over time.
Example only (values purely for discussion)~
After I place a valid bid, for the next 120 seconds you have to over bid by 10%.
After that for the next 6 hours you have to bid at least 5% over.
After that and up to 12 hours after my bid you can bid 1% over.
Beyond 12 hours you can bid 1 copper over.Essentially it punishes haste — the bot’s principle weapon. If a bot or another person really wants to step on you instantly, they can but they pay a premium for doing so. If that particular market is even slightly stagnant the enforced gap rapidly declines to our current condition.
This doesn’t punish haste, it rewards haste. The person too slow to put in a bid will now be locked into making an inefficient bid or refreshing urgently for the time threshold to end.
I understand the frustration that may arise in some of these situations. I haven’t yet read a suggestion that I think is a great solution. That being said, I do read the suggestions and am always interested in finding outcomes that make everyone better, so keep them coming!
I’ll mention the same alternative control variable as I did with the undercutting thread:
Time
What if after a bid goes up there is a minimum threshold required to bid over it, which decays over time.
Example only (values purely for discussion)~
After I place a valid bid, for the next 120 seconds you have to over bid by 10%.
After that for the next 6 hours you have to bid at least 5% over.
After that and up to 12 hours after my bid you can bid 1% over.
Beyond 12 hours you can bid 1 copper over.Essentially it punishes haste — the bot’s principle weapon. If a bot or another person really wants to step on you instantly, they can but they pay a premium for doing so. If that particular market is even slightly stagnant the enforced gap rapidly declines to our current condition.
I dont think that helps much, it just accelerates the process of the bot to hit his price ceiling. It doesnt enable the player, who bids against a bot to get more buy orders filled than before either. Example:
Item A has highest bid of 1g and lowest listing of 2g.
The 1g bid was just placed by a player and the highest bid the bot would go is 1.7g.
Bot raises by 10%, 1.1g
Player raises by 10% 1.21g
Bot 1.331g
PLayer 1.4641g
Bot 1.6105g
Next bid would be at 1.7717g and the bot would not outbid anymore.
But you can do the same under the status quo and that even more accurate.
If i bid against a bot, I usually check out its price ceiling.
I would bid 1.1g, then 1.2g, 1.3g and so on, until i dont get outbid anymore at 1.7g.
Then i cancel my bid and place a new one at 1.69g to see if the bot outbids me again and let him place new bids and eat sales at the highest possible value.
If I have 1 of Item A in my inventory, i sometimes list it at 1.9g to see if the bot keeps his bid at 1.69g up or not. If he keeps it up, it means his bid ceiling is fixed at 1.7g, if he cancels it, it means his ceiling is at 85% of the lowest listing. You can take advantage of that, especially if only you and the bot are bidding on that item atm, by cancelling all your buy offers and immediately list that item at 1.14g and put up new bids at 1g.
I’ll mention the same alternative control variable as I did with the undercutting thread:
Time
What if after a bid goes up there is a minimum threshold required to bid over it, which decays over time.
You’re thinking along the right track, trouble is that this would cause a huge problem in the high velocity markets. What is the proper increment in the ectoplasm market? Almost certainly 1c.
Research would suggest that higher velocity markets would need smaller bid increments, while lower velocity markets would benefit from higher bid increments – basically, from a price discovery standpoint, there’s a trade-off between time (the number of bids) and the precision of the ultimate price. Ectoplasm is so liquid and the market moves so fast that two players couldn’t copper each other for long before both of you were bought out; on the flip side, two players bidding for Dusk (or even worse, a very illiquid item like old gem store skins) could copper each other for hours without accomplishing anything.
Again, when you’re in a long coppering war, you’re no longer competing on the price of the item, but on the price of your time.
So what’s an intuitive, consistent system that puts a minuscule increment on Ectoplasm but a higher increment on, say, rare weapons (which have a much lower velocity but a comparable price)?
I think this does need a big fix, right now it’s simply too easy and frustrating for others to outbid you by 1c and leave your buy order in the dust. It’s simply down to who has the most time to set and refresh.
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.
You might be right, but what ever happened just happened again today. I have real trouble explaining this any way besides bot bans.
Since Anet are reading the thread – if it is bot banning, I applaud your efforts.
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.
Crash is perhaps too dramatic a word, but do you really think people will wait in a line of 20 other sellers to sell their item rather than undercutting if they can’t undercut by 1c? It could be months before your item sells or if anyone undercuts everyone will line up behind that new price and your item may never sell. How is a smooth 1c undercutting curve worse than a stepped 10s series of undercuts?
I understand the frustration of people who get undercut – it’s annoying to not get your money, I get that. It happens to me hundreds of times a week. It would, however, be far more frustrating to have the choice of devaluing the item or standing in a potentially infinite line of sellers. It works both ways, you can get 1c undercut, and you can undercut others by 1c. You win some, you lose some, and in that way it balances out. It’s a market, that’s how markets work.
People should be careful not to let a few frustrating undercuts cause them to lose sight of that. You want your thing to sell first, they want their thing to sell first – you can’t make everyone happy in that scenario. Tunnel vision on the precise amount it’s costing them to get one over on you achieves very little.
(edited by Chalky.8540)
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.
There are no auctions on the trading post.
Having similarities does not make them the same thing. I can buy a cheeseburger from the trading post for 3 copper or I can buy a cheeseburger from McDonald’s for $1, but that doesn’t make the trading post a fast food restaurant.
If you’re bidding for something – it is an auction.
A buy offer is not a bid. A bit is an offer for an individual item that expires as soon as a higher bid is made, and that bid will become the buy price if no higher bid is made before the auction expires. A buy offer is an indefinite offer to pay a certain amount of money for a certain item, that can be fulfilled at any time, by any seller.
A buy offer is a bid. Just like in an auction you offer to buy the object on the block for a certain amount of money. Therefore the Black Lion Trading Post is an ongoing auction house. The auction never ends until an object is sold. If you keep offering(bidding) such a low amount for an item you won;t get it – just like in an auction.
bid·ding?bidiNG/
noun
noun: bidding
1. the offering of particular prices for something, especially at an auction.
Another Definition: Bidding is an offer (often competitive) of setting a price one is willing to pay for something or a demand that something be done.1 A price offer is called a bid.
Anyway, on the actual subject at hand – there probably needs to be an automatic function players can set that will set their offering to buy price(bidding) to go up automatically(to a limit they set) when someone out bid them. The 1 copper bump is fine as is. Many people don’t have a knack for making gold on a daily basis and they may only be able to afford small increments.
I’ll mention the same alternative control variable as I did with the undercutting thread:
Time
What if after a bid goes up there is a minimum threshold required to bid over it, which decays over time.
You’re thinking along the right track, trouble is that this would cause a huge problem in the high velocity markets. What is the proper increment in the ectoplasm market? Almost certainly 1c.
This is a very good point. Most people who want limitations/regulations on bids and increments just have a problem with it on relatively low velocity markets.
Before making a suggestion, they should think about how it would influence trading on ectos or iron ore.
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.
There are no auctions on the trading post.
Having similarities does not make them the same thing. I can buy a cheeseburger from the trading post for 3 copper or I can buy a cheeseburger from McDonald’s for $1, but that doesn’t make the trading post a fast food restaurant.
If you’re bidding for something – it is an auction.
A buy offer is not a bid. A bit is an offer for an individual item that expires as soon as a higher bid is made, and that bid will become the buy price if no higher bid is made before the auction expires. A buy offer is an indefinite offer to pay a certain amount of money for a certain item, that can be fulfilled at any time, by any seller.
A buy offer is a bid. Just like in an auction you offer to buy the object on the block for a certain amount of money. Therefore the Black Lion Trading Post is an ongoing auction house. The auction never ends until an object is sold. If you keep offering(bidding) such a low amount for an item you won;t get it – just like in an auction.
bid·ding?bidiNG/
noun
noun: bidding
1. the offering of particular prices for something, especially at an auction.
Another Definition: Bidding is an offer (often competitive) of setting a price one is willing to pay for something or a demand that something be done.1 A price offer is called a bid.Anyway, on the actual subject at hand – there probably needs to be an automatic function players can set that will set their offering to buy price(bidding) to go up automatically(to a limit they set) when someone out bid them. The 1 copper bump is fine as is. Many people don’t have a knack for making gold on a daily basis and they may only be able to afford small increments.
The TP is NOT an auction house. You just want it to be an auction house.
The TP is NOT an auction house. You just want it to be an auction house.
Can you elaborate on the reasons you believe it is not an auction house?
The most obvious reason to me is that you’re not bidding on a specific item and the highest bidder isn’t the only person who will get their item – however, this doesn’t appear to be a particularly important distinction.
When you place a buy order, you are making a bid. Something does not need to be a literal auction house in order for it to involve bidding for something. The concept of bidding is simply the process of offering something in the hope that it is accepted. That’s precisely how buy orders work, you’re offering to pay X and hoping that someone accepts X. If you are undercut, you have been outbid.
Also, as an aside – although I have huge sympathy for people who have their sell orders undercut by one copper because they’ll feel the bite of listing fees if they have to re-list, it blows my mind that anyone would complain about 1 copper undercutting in buy orders. Just re-list it for heaven’s sake, if you’re not competing against a bot there’s nothing for you to complain about. It’s the tiniest bit of effort (exactly the same effort that the other party made to outbid you, in fact) and the idea that Anet should change the entire trading post system to save you from the few seconds it would take is so weird.
(edited by Chalky.8540)
The TP is NOT an auction house. You just want it to be an auction house.
Can you elaborate on the reasons you believe it is not an auction house?
The most obvious reason to me is that you’re not bidding on a specific item and the highest bidder isn’t the only person who will get their item – however, this doesn’t appear to be a particularly important distinction.
When you place a buy order, you are making a bid. Something does not need to be a literal auction house in order for it to involve bidding for something. The concept of bidding is simply the process of offering something in the hope that it is accepted. That’s precisely how buy orders work, you’re offering to pay X and hoping that someone accepts X. If you are undercut, you have been outbid.
Also, as an aside – although I have huge sympathy for people who have their sell orders undercut by one copper because they’ll feel the bite of listing fees if they have to re-list, it blows my mind that anyone would complain about 1 copper undercutting in buy orders. Just re-list it for heaven’s sake, if you’re not competing against a bot there’s nothing for you to complain about. It’s the tiniest bit of effort (exactly the same effort that the other party made to outbid you, in fact) and the idea that Anet should change the entire trading post system to save you from the few seconds it would take is so weird.
Do you want the differences in terminology or the mayor differences between the tp and auction houses in other mmos?
Do you want the differences in terminology or the mayor differences between the tp and auction houses in other mmos?
Really just the reason why it makes 1 copper raising better/worse – I understand that it’s not actually an auction house but it seems close as makes no difference when it comes to buy orders and 1 copper raising.
Do auction houses in other games prevent 1 copper raising? Surely that only makes sense in the context of a specific seller specifying the bidding criteria?
On an auction house, other than setting a minimum reserve, the seller has no power in determining how much they will get for an item. That is entirely in the bidders hands.
At the TP the seller has all the power in what they are willing to get paid for an item. It’s their choice whether to sell it to the current high bidder or ask for more and wait for someone to meet their asking price. The bidders are reduced to trying to attract a buyer to them by having the highest bid when a seller looks. The bidder has no power over the seller because there isn’t a seller yet.
Do you want the differences in terminology or the mayor differences between the tp and auction houses in other mmos?
Really just the reason why it makes 1 copper raising better/worse – I understand that it’s not actually an auction house but it seems close as makes no difference when it comes to buy orders and 1 copper raising.
Do auction houses in other games prevent 1 copper raising? Surely that only makes sense in the context of a specific seller specifying the bidding criteria?
Exactly, it makes no difference. The whole auction house discussion started because someone said that 1c increments dont happen in auction houses either, so they shouldnt happen on the tp as well.
I still favour the four significant figure option. For everything under a gold bids can be placed at 1 copper increments. From 1g to 10g it is 10c increments. From 10g to 100g it is 1s increments etc.
The advantage is that the UI could be adapted reasonably simply to make it intuitive to the user what they can and can’t bid.
The disadvantages include that the increment is too small for low velocity items and that dealing with items listed on the market already may require some clever programming to deal with. The first problem might be solved by going to three significant figures, if you believe that bidding in 10c increments is ok for t6 mats and ectos.
I understand the frustration that may arise in some of these situations. I haven’t yet read a suggestion that I think is a great solution. That being said, I do read the suggestions and am always interested in finding outcomes that make everyone better, so keep them coming!
Upping bids by a small amount isn’t the problem. TP bots are the problem (most complaints are about immediate overbids by 1c, which looks very much like bot behavior). ANet managed to get a good handle on bots in PvE, hopefully they can do the same thing for TP bots.
You’re thinking along the right track, trouble is that this would cause a huge problem in the high velocity markets. What is the proper increment in the ectoplasm market? Almost certainly 1c.
Research would suggest that higher velocity markets would need smaller bid increments, while lower velocity markets would benefit from higher bid increments – basically, from a price discovery standpoint, there’s a trade-off between time (the number of bids) and the precision of the ultimate price.
…
So what’s an intuitive, consistent system that puts a minuscule increment on Ectoplasm but a higher increment on, say, rare weapons (which have a much lower velocity but a comparable price)?
Easy enough – use time since last sale to scale the bidding increment.
Item has sold in the last 5 minute: 1c increment
Item has sold in the last 2 hours: 1% increment
Item has sold in the last 24 hours: 2% increment
Item has not sold in the last 24 hours: 5% increment.
This would actually increase the efficiency of the market by driving low velocity items toward equilibrium in fewer increments/overbids.
You’re thinking along the right track, trouble is that this would cause a huge problem in the high velocity markets. What is the proper increment in the ectoplasm market? Almost certainly 1c.
Research would suggest that higher velocity markets would need smaller bid increments, while lower velocity markets would benefit from higher bid increments – basically, from a price discovery standpoint, there’s a trade-off between time (the number of bids) and the precision of the ultimate price.
…
So what’s an intuitive, consistent system that puts a minuscule increment on Ectoplasm but a higher increment on, say, rare weapons (which have a much lower velocity but a comparable price)?
Easy enough – use time since last sale to scale the bidding increment.
Item has sold in the last 5 minute: 1c increment
Item has sold in the last 2 hours: 1% increment
Item has sold in the last 24 hours: 2% increment
Item has not sold in the last 24 hours: 5% increment.This would actually increase the efficiency of the market by driving low velocity items toward equilibrium in fewer increments/overbids.
It’s unlikely that you’ve ever traded on a market that hasn’t sold an item in the last 2 hours.
Exactly, it makes no difference. The whole auction house discussion started because someone said that 1c increments dont happen in auction houses either, so they shouldnt happen on the tp as well.
Ah, thanks, sorry for the confusion – I completely agree in that case!
Easy enough – use time since last sale to scale the bidding increment.
Item has sold in the last 5 minute: 1c increment
Item has sold in the last 2 hours: 1% increment
Item has sold in the last 24 hours: 2% increment
Item has not sold in the last 24 hours: 5% increment.
As Wanze implies, this system probably doesn’t make sense in reality. What sort of items do you think would fit into anything besides the first two options? Maybe precursors and legendaries? I don’t think these items have a particularly big problem with 1c undercutting.
(edited by Chalky.8540)
does anybody know enough about botting to answer few of these questions?
thank you
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
Well I’m not great at markets or understanding economies, but I’m pretty sure an ingame copper is worth more than 1 cent IRL.
does anybody know enough about botting to answer few of these questions?
- How many buy/sell orders does a bot execute per hour compared to a human tp power player? Any educated guesses?
- Do bots always raise for the same amount, say 2c? – are there more agile bots?
- When hitting a bid ceiling due to an artificially low sale offer, do they resume trading immediately after the sale offer was taken?
- Are there any markets where bots either don’t exist or cannot compete with humans?
thank you
Disclaimer: I DO NOT BOT. I am answering the questions because I was reading a guide about what to look for the other day.
The trading post is not an auction house.
This. Exactly, it’s not an auction house, it’s a trading post.
It’s like a flee market, you know.
*…..
- No.
none? not a single market which is too difficult for a bot? That’s a bit depressive…
(market here in this example = flipping market, not speculations)
*…..
- No.
none? not a single market which is too difficult for a bot? That’s a bit depressive…
(market here in this example = flipping market, not speculations)
It doesnt depend on the bot but on the programmer.
*…..
- No.
none? not a single market which is too difficult for a bot? That’s a bit depressive…
(market here in this example = flipping market, not speculations)
It doesnt depend on the bot but on the programmer.
Yes, not an AI
automating processes also takes some control from the human behind it, I’m just curious what the markets would be where a programmer struggles creating a bot for.
bots probably can’t make a (huge) loss but there gotta be environments where it just isn’t worth risking a ban.
you did mention something you did to get rid of one bot in that particular market, something along those lines.
*…..
- No.
none? not a single market which is too difficult for a bot? That’s a bit depressive…
(market here in this example = flipping market, not speculations)
It doesnt depend on the bot but on the programmer.
Yes, not an AI
automating processes also takes some control from the human behind it, I’m just curious what the markets would be where a programmer struggles creating a bot for.
bots probably can’t make a (huge) loss but there gotta be environments where it just isn’t worth risking a ban.
you did mention something you did to get rid of one bot in that particular market, something along those lines.
Well, first of all, only flippable items are worth creating a bot for. Then you also need to identify a market, that has a high enough velocity, supply and demand to make it worthwhile. I have no idea how hard/easy it is to set up a bot and how timeconsuming it is but i would think the majority of items listed on the tp wouldnt warrant circumstances that make botting bids on them profitable.
The thing about speculation markets is that there’s not much point in having a bot. You think something is going to go up in price? You buy loads of it. Bots really only help when you need to make lots of rapid adjustments in price to out-bid others which is generally the case in over populated flipping markets. Speculation only works if nobody else has realised the profit to be made yet, so if you’re having to compete with loads of other people, there’s probably no money to be made anyway.
If it’s flipping, it’s pretty trivial to bot which is why botting is/was probably so prolific.
edit beaten! ^^
Well, first of all, only flippable items are worth creating a bot for. Then you also need to identify a market, that has a high enough velocity, supply and demand to make it worthwhile. I have no idea how hard/easy it is to set up a bot and how timeconsuming it is but i would think the majority of items listed on the tp wouldnt warrant circumstances that make botting bids on them profitable.
I think the bigger issue would be that markets in GW2 fluctuate often enough that what may be a profitable market one day might be a loss-maker the next. The bot could be scripted to perform trading actions that minimize or stop losses, of course, but then is the work worth the limited funds you get back?
Might get me hate mail but…
What if the listing fee were reversed in this case? If a buyer puts a bid out there they pay the fee for the placement. If they want to leap frog someone else then there is a price to pay for that leap frog. If they bot to do it then they run the risk of losing even more since each listing now has a fee associated to it each time. Right now there is a penalty to seller to list something at price no one would buy the item for and if they decide to relist they have to pay for that error, why shouldn’t the inverse be true on buy orders. It still would be less of a penalty since the buy orders would be lower in value but it would still be penalty and may make people reconsider just upping the price over and over and over again.
It’s always kind of bugged me that sellers have to pay both fee’s even when they are filling a buy order versus placing an item for sale out there. When filling a buy order the seller is probably already making less than they expected to make even if they are trading it out for instant currency. This balances that out a little as well as dealing with the constant re-ups and the botting.
Thoughts?
The TP is driven buy sellers since they have the power whom to sell their loot to. Buyers have to fight among themselves in an attempt to have the highest bid to attract a seller. You want that frenzy for bids because the sellers have the power, which is why you charge the sellers and not the buyers.
I have no real issue on players out bidding anything I might bid on, not even if its 1cp.. it’s a simple decision on whether I rebid again and cancel the previous bid (my original bid is returned anyway) – there is simply no risk to someone biding on items.
The big issue these days is when your selling items.. the massive surge in the almost instantaneous 1cp less duplicate item is what’s turning me off using the service tbh.
If I list an item and the price is a little too high then sure I pay the penalty of having to either wait it out or repost it for less. But, these 1cp duplicate items make it too expensive to even bother relisting stuff.. its a gold sink that I am beginning to be very dubious of these days.. it would be useful to have bid / sale stamping cos how do we know this isn’t just a stealth gold sink aimed at manipulating the economy or simply bots.
The Ebay analogy is close for sure but at least you get to see who is bidding.. for sellers now, having to repost in order to keep competitive is just a gold sink too far.. perhaps ANET need to consider refunding listing fees to allow the selling community to play the game on an even keel with the buying community.. it may even help to start bring a better balance in the trading post wars.
(edited by Bloodstealer.5978)
The TP is driven buy sellers since they have the power whom to sell their loot to. Buyers have to fight among themselves in an attempt to have the highest bid to attract a seller. You want that frenzy for bids because the sellers have the power, which is why you charge the sellers and not the buyers.
Problem works both ways.
List an item for 1000 gold. Someone lists it for 1 copper cheaper.
Pretty much we have a system where it’s normal to cut it line, instead of making a new offer/bid that is notably different.
% difference in offer would work, say 5%, with a maximum of 10 gold and a minimum of 1 copper.
Biggest issue on the market right now, in my opinion, is that the listing fee has to be paid each time you list the same item. If I want to lower my price, I have to relist it. And that’s costly.
The TP is driven buy sellers since they have the power whom to sell their loot to. Buyers have to fight among themselves in an attempt to have the highest bid to attract a seller. You want that frenzy for bids because the sellers have the power, which is why you charge the sellers and not the buyers.
Problem works both ways.
List an item for 1000 gold. Someone lists it for 1 copper cheaper.
Pretty much we have a system where it’s normal to cut it line, instead of making a new offer/bid that is notably different.
% difference in offer would work, say 5%, with a maximum of 10 gold and a minimum of 1 copper.
Biggest issue on the market right now, in my opinion, is that the listing fee has to be paid each time you list the same item. If I want to lower my price, I have to relist it. And that’s costly.
IF you made a notably lower listing than 1000g in the first place, the chance of you getting undercut is lower as well.
My suggestion is one I made over a year ago — add a small listing fee to buy orders. This punishes abusive behavior while minimally impacting desired behaviors.
The list fee does not need to be a percentage… although the price of the item could dictate a “bracket” from which the fee is taken. Or the fee could be capped percentage to keep it reasonable for higher priced goods.
The list fee could be dynamic based upon how many times you’ve place a buy order on the same item in a short time frame — again something that would not impact desired behavior but punish abusive behavior.
You want a deterrent that only punishes abusive behaviors while leaving the market generally unaffected for normal players.
This is only limited by the creativity of the designers and the limitations of the software development process.
Why charge a fee and what do you consider abuse. If they are botting then there should be ways to detect that. If a person is sitting there refreshing and making sure they get the top bid then they are doing more work than you and should be the one to get it.
I’d never be patient enough to sit there an re-bid.
My personal opinion is there is nothing wrong with the current TP for buying and selling. If you want the item now, then just simply pay up, otherwise take your chances with a buy order. Sometimes mine don’t go through but usually most eventually do.
The TP is driven buy sellers since they have the power whom to sell their loot to. Buyers have to fight among themselves in an attempt to have the highest bid to attract a seller. You want that frenzy for bids because the sellers have the power, which is why you charge the sellers and not the buyers.
Problem works both ways.
List an item for 1000 gold. Someone lists it for 1 copper cheaper.
Pretty much we have a system where it’s normal to cut it line, instead of making a new offer/bid that is notably different.
% difference in offer would work, say 5%, with a maximum of 10 gold and a minimum of 1 copper.
Biggest issue on the market right now, in my opinion, is that the listing fee has to be paid each time you list the same item. If I want to lower my price, I have to relist it. And that’s costly.
IF you made a notably lower listing than 1000g in the first place, the chance of you getting undercut is lower as well.
This is an extremely good point – if your price is low enough most people won’t undercut you. When you choose to post a price near to the going rate, you are choosing to make more profit at the risk of getting rapidly undercut. You take the hit and post a much lower price, you’ll get a quicker sale.
You can’t have everything your own way, maximising profile and getting an instant sale ahead of all your competitors.
Some of the above hit the point. There is no penalty to re-list a buy but there is on a sell, that seems off. Sellers have to pay a penalty effectively for making a bad call, why shouldn’t people placing buy orders do the same.
Some of the above hit the point. There is no penalty to re-list a buy but there is on a sell, that seems off. Sellers have to pay a penalty effectively for making a bad call, why shouldn’t people placing buy orders do the same.
It is set up that way because the seller is the one bringing the item to the market while the buyers are simply advertising that they are interested in buying an item.
For the buyer, there is no item until a seller shows up. That’s why the seller is paying the listing fee and the buyer is not.
Many I talked to, or there was a thread I can’t find once, that a guy/gal was discouraged of selling on TP as he or she could not sell it for what he/she thought it was worth and not dictated by the current buy and sell prices.
He or she wanted to sell to very old buy orders, but couldn’t as the TP doesn’t allow that.
I just made a suggestion thread (with some of my cynical sarcasm thrown in) describing in detail what I recalled.
If we want to lose money by selling to whomever we fell like, why can’t we? It does foster better competition and gives us more control to what we perceive as value for something in game.
I know in GW 1 I needed something so badly I was wiling to grossly overcharge for something I wanted provided I had the money to pay. People thought I was nuts but I paid that much for it anyways.
Here it goes both ways: If I feel a scrap of silk is with only 50 copper to me (its like 3 silver+ now) I should be able to sell to a buyer way down the list at 50 copper without it bumping me up to the current order price and selling it to them and giving me a refund. That in turn cheats out that buyer that needed it for 50 copper.
(See my thread on buying a heavy loot bag for 48 copper by accident.)
Many I talked to, or there was a thread I can’t find once, that a guy/gal was discouraged of selling on TP as he or she could not sell it for what he/she thought it was worth and not dictated by the current buy and sell prices.
He or she wanted to sell to very old buy orders, but couldn’t as the TP doesn’t allow that.
I just made a suggestion thread (with some of my cynical sarcasm thrown in) describing in detail what I recalled.
If we want to lose money by selling to whomever we fell like, why can’t we? It does foster better competition and gives us more control to what we perceive as value for something in game.
I know in GW 1 I needed something so badly I was wiling to grossly overcharge for something I wanted provided I had the money to pay. People thought I was nuts but I paid that much for it anyways.
Here it goes both ways: If I feel a scrap of silk is with only 50 copper to me (its like 3 silver+ now) I should be able to sell to a buyer way down the list at 50 copper without it bumping me up to the current order price and selling it to them and giving me a refund. That in turn cheats out that buyer that needed it for 50 copper.
(See my thread on buying a heavy loot bag for 48 copper by accident.)
IIRC the official answer on that topic was very few people would take advantage of the feature to sell items below its highest bid and changes to the system are only made, if Anet things the mayority of players would appreciate the change.
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