Guild Wars 2

States.6387:

You can not make “the right bid” in this games current trade house. Literally every time something is put on the trade house be it bids for buying or selling it is almost always immediately outbid or undercut by someone else for 1 copper. And this continues endlessly. That means that no matter what number you make up to sell or bid on an item, it will never “be the right bid”. The only items that are not affected by this issue are the ones in high demand (which is pretty much only crafting materials). That is a problem. The trading system in this game is not anywhere near balanced.

Heres an example of what currently goes on with it:

Item A is listed on the trade house for 10 gold.
I put item A on the trade house for 9 gold. (1 gold less should be good right?)
Immediately after, someone puts item A on the trade house for 8.9 gold
Immediately after that someone puts item A on the trade house for 8.8 gold
Immediately after that someone puts item A on the trade house for 8.7 gold
This continues endlessly or until an item is being sold for the same price as people are placing buy orders. The next day or sometimes even in the next few hours item A can now be as low kitten and my original listing can be behind thousands of other orders forcing me to pull my item off and start over.

This is part of the reason why prices on items fluctuate so often and so dramatically and that is not good for the trading system.

Edit: the “kitten” was five gold with the number and letter g. Not sure why that is bleeped out lol

If your example were true, no trades would ever happen.

Your example is just an example of the market finding the correct pricing for your item. The fact that you have no knowledge or information on what the “correct” pricing might be has no meaning to the market. You yourself explained how the market will find the correct pricing by continously closing the gap between buy and sell orders. In general some research (there are enough websites with trading post data out there, also experience will be a big part. for example knowing the relationship of ecto price to most goods help a lot) will allow a person to figure out an aproximation of a price for an item.

The lower the Sell price drops, the more people drop out who are willing to sell at that price, while at the same time more people willing to buy the item increases. Simple supply and demand affected by pricing. This is how the TP works for 99% of all goods.

Now there might be some items with such a low trade volume that volatility might be a problem. Expensive precursors for example have low trade volumes of less than 100 per day. Here you are left with either babysitting your orders or fullfilling sell/buy orders.

Finaly you complained that you might get outbid by 1c to find thousands of and item be placed infront of your order. Let’s take this example and just mentaly think about what would happen with fixed minimum bids:

- you place a bid for item ABC for price YZ in the trading post
- player A you and lists the item at price YZ + X (X now not being able to be 0 and being bigger than 1c)
- result = item bid is now YZ + X

- Now the player B comes along and outbids player A again not being able to leave X at 0. result = item bid is now YZ +X +X

It’s very clear that X now creates a bigger volatility since the minimum price increase increments are bigger. This creates huge spikes in both ways, in general not good for a market.

Worst of all, you now limit the amount of people able to list their items since you are now unable to list at same price and are FORCED to increase/decrease your bid. This reduces supply of both buy and sell orders on the TP. Again, NOT GOOD!

States.6387:

Wanze.8410:

Just wait for a week until you relist and your item is more likely to sell.
You a greatly exaggerating to prove a point without giving any specific example of an item or any other evidence that this is a widespread occurence.

If you think i am exaggerating then i’m going to assume you hardly use the trade house. The example i provided is not even close to being exaggerated.

I use the trading post quite often and almost exclusively sell item via listings, not directly to buy orders.

In the last 90 days (thats how long the api tracks your sales history), i sold 233k items worth over 48k gold.

I think i know what i am talking about when i say that most of my listings sell within a week.

Except its not finding a “proper” price for the item.
Those that put buy order do so because they know players are impatient and want to get $$ asap. The trade off for instant profit is buy orders being placed at amounts lower than what the item is worth. So when the sellers end up reaching this price due to the 1 copper spam; its not finding a proper price for the item but rather decreasing its actual value.

And your example (which btw were your intentions to try and make it look “complicated” because there is certainly no need for so many letters in the equation) doesnt even make sense. You cant outbid without placing a higher bet in the first place. So your argument of “not being able to leave x at 0” makes no sense. I mean i think i get what your trying to say, which is that making players pay a set price to outbid or undersell players is going to cause a chain reaction and lead to items being undersold or overpayed to a damaging degree. But that is literally what is happening right now and it is currently forcing players to increase/decrease their bids constantly because of it.

ElforTheLandStander.7052:

There really ought to be be a minimum amount by which you have to up the ante for a buy order on the TP. I haven’t been to many real-life auctions, but I’ve never seen a bidding war tediously go back and forth by one penny at a time.

If you really want an item badly enough to outdo the top bidder, you should have to commit a little more to it than 1 copper, literally the smallest unit of currency in the game.

It could be, like…a silver or .02% of the top bid, whichever is greater. That way on big items that are hundreds of gold, it would force you to bid in gold, without being completely insubstantial on smaller items. Since .02% of something that sells for like 12 silver is basically 2 copper anyway.

If players really wanted the item, then they would buy instantly at the sellers price. If they want to buy the item at a lower price, then they bid for the amount that they are willing to pay.
It’s no different than someone who wants to really sell their item. They’ll sell it for the highest offer. If they are looking to make what they believe to be a profit, then they will sell it at a higher price than what is currently being offered.

ElforTheLandStander.7052:

There really ought to be be a minimum amount by which you have to up the ante for a buy order on the TP. I haven’t been to many real-life auctions, but I’ve never seen a bidding war tediously go back and forth by one penny at a time.

If you really want an item badly enough to outdo the top bidder, you should have to commit a little more to it than 1 copper, literally the smallest unit of currency in the game.

It could be, like…a silver or .02% of the top bid, whichever is greater. That way on big items that are hundreds of gold, it would force you to bid in gold, without being completely insubstantial on smaller items. Since .02% of something that sells for like 12 silver is basically 2 copper anyway.

No. This subject was talked to death last year and pops up every few months. 1 copper or 0.2% (because .02% of 12 silver is 0.24 copper) with a minimum of 1 copper isn’t going to change the dynamics of over cutting bids or under cutting sales. It’ll still happen, it’ll still happen as frequently and all that it would change is reduce the number of bid changes until it the bid becomes unprofitable for those who buy items to manipulate (salvage, promote).

Same is true with undercutting the low sell for expensive items. It won’t matter if it’s 1 copper, 1 silver, 1 gold or 10 gold. Players will still get over and under cut frequently and they will still be upset at how quickly they are.

How in the world do you find the “proper” price of items that you get by playing? When you kill a mob or open a chest and you get an item, what is its “proper” price except what the market says it is that moment. To argue that the trading post is not allowing items to reach their “proper price” because of up bidding or undercutting is words without meaning as the upbidding or undercutting is allowing it to reach its proper price, which is the price at that moment.

States.6387:

Except its not finding a “proper” price for the item.
Those that put buy order do so because they know players are impatient and want to get $$ asap. The trade off for instant profit is buy orders being placed at amounts lower than what the item is worth. So when the sellers end up reaching this price due to the 1 copper spam; its not finding a proper price for the item but rather decreasing its actual value.

And your example (which btw were your intentions to try and make it look “complicated” because there is certainly no need for so many letters in the equation) doesnt even make sense. You cant outbid without placing a higher bet in the first place. So your argument of “not being able to leave x at 0” makes no sense. I mean i think i get what your trying to say, which is that making players pay a set price to outbid or undersell players is going to cause a chain reaction and lead to items being undersold or overpayed to a damaging degree. But that is literally what is happening right now and it is currently forcing players to increase/decrease their bids constantly because of it.

My intention was to give an example that works with any item or price mentioned instead of cherry picking an example that fits my agenda. If you think some letters instead of numbers qualifies as complicated, you have a world of hurt comming at you if you every try to do any type of calculations that resemble math. But you are correct, the xample given was very simple, because the entire concept of a trading post is not complex.

Glad you think you understand. Let me clarify so you actually understand. No, the 1 copper over/under bid is NOT the same as a minumum bid price. Far from it.

Example 1 (as is):

Someone using the trading post has 2 options:

- place an item bid equal to what the current maximum/minumum bid for said item is
- place an items bid higher/lower than the current maximum/minimum bid for said item

Example 2 (with minimum bid increase):

- place an item bid modified by the required minimum increase or more

Example 1 and 2 not only differ in the amount that the bid changes (which as I said already would increase volatility and not fix the problem of getting outbid at all). But both situations also differ in that Example 1 allows for prices not to change while the supply to the market gets increased while Example 2 does not. That is a HUGE difference. Simply stating it’s not is simply false.

States.6387:

You can not make “the right bid” in this games current trade house. Literally every time something is put on the trade house be it bids for buying or selling it is almost always immediately outbid or undercut by someone else for 1 copper. And this continues endlessly. That means that no matter what number you make up to sell or bid on an item, it will never “be the right bid”.

You’re overlooking one half of the equiation here: Items are not only bought from the trading post, they are also sold on the trading post. If 10 players try to buy a certain exotic weapon for example, there’s a good chance another 10 players try to sell the same exotic weapon in the same timeframe. Sometimes it’ll only be 8 players selling, and prices will rise. Other times it’ll be 12 players selling, and prices will fall. Overall, there’s a pretty good balance between people placing orders and people filling those orders around the current market price.

Less theory, more practical observation: I’m not a trading post player, but I occasionally use the trading post to buy a piece of equipment for a character (both leveling gear and “fresh 80s” exotics), rarely buy items for a skin I’m interested in, and every now and then sell a piece of loot that I don’t have any use for (although most equipment I find gets salvaged and most materials used or stored). Still, the number of times my buy orders didn’t get filled within a week are negligible compared to the orders filled at the price I put, even if they get “outbid” initially.

The system works, all you need to use it is a little patience. And if you can’t wait a couple of hours, or at worst days, there’s always the option to just buy from the lowest sell order (which, as often as not, goes down a few copper if not silver if you wait a bit and try outside of peak times, too).

I’m not seeing the need to constantly adjust bids and I have to wonder if the people doing this are misunderstanding how the trading post works or if they are impatient.

I’m one of the ones who sells a few items a day and sometimes buy a few. If I buy 1000 green wood logs I check what the day’s range is in on gw2tp and place a bid in that range. Of course it will immediately be undercut but I leave it overnight and it will fill within 24 hours. If I sell, I list and then leave the items up. I check every couple of weeks and pull things that haven’t sold but that’s usually only 4 or 5 items out of a few hundred sold in that time.

It really sounds like the people who are constantly adjusting their bids are micromanaging the trading post. They should try the the “post and leave it” approach to see how it works out.

Delightful Game Theory conversation aside, doesn’t the game automatically select the Highest Bidder (for sellers) and the Lowest Seller (for bidders) when you select “Buy Now” or “Sell Now”?

Honestly, I would prefer the ability to sell directly to other players.

Up to now, i havent even seen a suggestion that would disallow overbidding by 1c.

As i already mentioned, with the proposed change, i can simply up a 1g highest bid by whatever value will be the minimum, lets say 1s, making 1g1s the highest bid.
Then i place a bid at 1g1c and cancel my bid at 1g1s.

States.6387:

Wanze.8410:

Just wait for a week until you relist and your item is more likely to sell.
You a greatly exaggerating to prove a point without giving any specific example of an item or any other evidence that this is a widespread occurence.

If you think i am exaggerating then i’m going to assume you hardly use the trade house. The example i provided is not even close to being exaggerated.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA………

wanze you only made 41k over the last 90 days… you are slowing down in your old age….

1-100g min upbid=1g
101-500 min upbid=5g
501-1000 min upbid=10g
u get the idea

States.6387:

Wanze.8410:

For people that want minimum increments implemented, can you explain to me, why you think this would chance anything about the fact that you will get outbid?

It seems to me that you want a way to be able to place a bid and not get outbid without having to update your buy orders.

If you think someone who outbid you a copper on a 100g item before wont outbid you 10s or 1g now, i think you will be disappointed.

You already have the chance to minimize the risk of being outbid by bidding 110g instead of 100g, so i dont see, how this system would give your bid addional security that isnt already available via personal choice now.

All it would to is increase the pace of price spikes and dumps or in demand and oversupplied items.

I dont have a problem with people wanting to outbid or undersell players on the trade house. The issue i have is that there is no balance to it. A player can jump on the trade house and instantly step in front of 5k people for the price of 1 copper. I’d rather there be limits to to how much you can undersell or outbid someone so its a fair trade off to all the players who are now having to wait behind the person choosing to jump in front of them. And this issue is not just on the bidding side of the trade house. It occurs just as much (if not more) on the selling side of the trade house which is even more of an issue imo. You cant just list all your items for dirt cheap to ensure they get bought. It would defeat the whole purpose of grinding those items to make a fair profit off them.

The implicit argument here is that there’s something more noble about placing an offer 5 minutes before at 10 silver then there is about being five minutes later at 10 silver 1 copper. Or that somehow that someone putting the item for sale at 20s is somehow more deserving of price protection than the person that comes by four minutes later to sell at 19s 99c.

In each case, everyone is trying to squeeze out an extra bit of silver (and who can blame them?). If everyone was willing to meet in the middle, there would be no undercutting or overbidding to worry about.

tl;dr if you don’t like getting outbid (or undercut), accept the offers already on the TP (or make one closer to those prices).

This is a L2P issue. You’re getting outbid because you’re trying to lowball it. Your price is not higher than what everyone else is willing to pay so you don’t deserve the item.

the min upbid also helps seller, just look at ebay bid price goes up higher than buy it now price all the time.

Taxidriver.2043:

the min upbid also helps seller, just look at ebay bid price goes up higher than buy it now price all the time.

But bidding on ebay works like an auction house.

The Trading Post is not an auction house. It is a trading post. Hence why they called it the Trading Post.

You don’t bid on a trading post. You can’t use ebay’s auction parts to justify anything related to the Trading Post. Because the Trading Post isn’t an auction house.

You place orders. If you find your buy orders are constantly getting new orders placed that are more expensive even after you replace the order at higher than the one that out did you, then maybe you’re just trying to be too greedy too often (coupled with impatience).

If you feel the need to babysit items that are not super super expensive (like precursor level expensive), then you’re being impatient and should just buy the buy now order and not babysit. Unless the difference is super huge, you’re time babysitting the order could have been spent earning the gold it would take to make up the difference between your buy order and the buy now choice.

Going to put this here since some people still seem to not understand or sufficiently think about the main differences:

Trading post =/= auction house!

Both are very different with different set of rules and mechanics of how they work. Please consider this when writing responses (ideally try to figure out what the differences are and how they might affect behavior befor posting).

As others have said the trading post is not an auction house and there is no problem to be solved here.

If you need the item quickly, buy it straight off the tp and don’t put in a buy order. That’s not what that part of the trading post is for and you’re using it incorrectly. You are the problem in this scenario.

If you don’t mind getting it later, put in a bid within the normal range for that item and then ignore it. Don’t know the normal range that an item sells for? gw2spidy has charts that will show you.

Trying to just get a better deal on it vs. the “retail” price to flip? So are your competitors. Forcing higher increments on subsequent bids will just lower your savings and thus lower your profits.

These also apply when some one undercuts you by 1c. Need gold now? Sell to highest bidder. Don’t mind waiting? List it within the normal range and wait. Forcing greater differences between listings =’s lower profits.

Minimum increments were discussed to death in that old thread that was linked on the first page by Wanze.

Essentially, there are as of yet no good reasons to use them, and plenty of negative impacts if you do. Unless someone can explain an actual problem that exists as a result of not using them this is a very moot discussion as the game’s economist isn’t going to change the way the system works without a really darn good reason to do so.

Trading Posts are a listing of offers. If my post is 1c over yours then that means that the amount I’m willing to pay is more than what you willing to pay, which is why mine will be filled first. If you are actually willing to pay more than what your original posting said you were willing to pay, then you are simply using the system incorrectly.

mtpelion.4562:

Trading Posts are a listing of offers. If my post is 1c over yours then that means that the amount I’m willing to pay is more than what you willing to pay, which is why mine will be filled first. If you are actually willing to pay more than what your original posting said you were willing to pay, then you are simply using the system incorrectly.

Well, now hold on a second… If I’m actually willing to pay 1g more than my offer, but I finagle an offer for 1g less than what I was willing to pay, I thought I was using the system quite correctly….

On topic, watching countless orders placed above/below yours in 1c increments can be frustrating, but it definitely isn’t game breaking. I barely even use third party sites for pricing, and I manage to make a profit selling and catch some deals buying. It definitely can boil down to patience, but also just a hint of foresight about the market for the item can spare a player some headaches. Sometimes, speculating hurts, but that’s what happens when you play the market.

bidding takes no permament money from you, any time you’re losing a bid, simply either wait it out, or take money back and re-bid, there’s no issue here.

I want to know where ohoni is, his insight into these matters is usually very enlightening.

Mojo Gris Gris.5941:

Well, now hold on a second… If I’m actually willing to pay 1g more than my offer, but I finagle an offer for 1g less than what I was willing to pay, I thought I was using the system quite correctly….

On topic, watching countless orders placed above/below yours in 1c increments can be frustrating, but it definitely isn’t game breaking.

First, let’s clear up some terminology. Several people are using the wrong terms, which muddies up the discussion.

• An offer is the price you set on an item you’re selling – you’re offering it for sale at a certain price. Usually this is called the asking price (ask for short). Sometimes it’s called the sell price.
• A bid is the price you’re willing to pay for an item you’re buying – you’re bidding on the item at a certain price. Sometimes it’s called the buy price.

So what you really mean is that if you’re willing to bid 1g more, but you finagle a bid for 1g less than you were willing to pay, you were using the system correctly. Yes you are using it correctly. The basis for a market economy is that the item is worth more to the buyer than to the seller. That margin (aka arbitrage if you’re reselling) is the incentive for the transaction to take place. If the margin shrinks to zero, then no trades take place because the item is worth as much to the seller as it is to the buyer, and the seller won’t sell.

In other words, you will never pay as much as you think an item is worth. You will only buy it if it’s priced less than you think it’s worth. If the price for an item were exactly how much you thought it was worth, there is no incentive for you to buy the item – the money is worth just as much in your mind and it takes less effort to just keep the money. (And likewise, the seller will only sell it if it they can get more than they think it’s worth.)

So what’s going on is that you and other buyers are quibbling with each other about how much you’re willing to pay below what you think it’s worth, before the deal is no longer worth it to you. Unfortunately, the current system doesn’t do a very good job of letting you express the highest price you’re willing to pay. You have to do a lot of busywork monitoring TP and re-upping your bid if someone outbids you. That time and work is an inefficiency, and decreases the overall market price. (The value of the item to you has to exceed what you bid on it + the value of the time you spend bidding. If the value of the time spent is large, you will not bid as high for the item.) That’s the problem with this viewpoint:

Xbon.9086:

bidding takes no permament money from you, any time you’re losing a bid, simply either wait it out, or take money back and re-bid, there’s no issue here.

While re-bidding doesn’t directly cost money, the time it takes has an opportunity cost which can be expressed in terms of money (e.g. you could’ve spent that time farming). So in that respect, th inefficiency of having to re-bid does really cost people money.

A better system would be like how eBay works. Allow the buyer to secretly set the maximum price they’re willing to pay for an item, and have the TP auto-raise your bid if you are out-bid. That would immediately raise the market price to the second-most any single buyer is willing to pay + 1c (until his order is filled and he drops out of the market). Sniping would not be a problem because unlike eBay, nobody knows when a seller is going to sell an item, so you can’t swoop in a few seconds before he sells to raise your bid. I suppose someone could place a bid, see that yours auto-outbid his, and re-place his bid until eventually his bid was higher than yours. But that shouldn’t bother you because the system stopped auto-bidding for you at the amount you set as your maximum – he paid more than you were willing to, plain and simple. It’ll only bother you if you lied about what was the most you were willing to pay.

Final sale prices will be higher (good for the seller). But in theory the time the buyer saves by not having to monitor his bids and constantly re-bid more than offsets the higher price. And the sale price will still be lower than if you set your bid at the max you were willing to pay. (Assuming you win the bid, you would actually pay what the next highest buyer bid + 1 copper, which should almost always be less than your bid.)

I think that’s the real issue the OP is complaining about – time wasted constantly having to monitor his bids and update them. And suggesting a minimum upbid increment was just a misguided attempt to fix that problem.

This could be implemented on the selling side too, but the fact that it costs you money to retract an offer adds a wrinkle. I’m not sure how the two would interact.

What’s really amusing is babysitting buy order bids up until the bids are the exact same price as the regular sell price. Makes me lol since everyone could have just bought the item outright and saved themselves the time.

I don’t typically place buy orders anyway, but I don’t see a problem with allowing players to put whatever they want. I don’t see why it should be restricted at all.

Xbon.9086:

bidding takes no permament money from you, any time you’re losing a bid, simply either wait it out, or take money back and re-bid, there’s no issue here.

I thought the listing fee was non-refundable, as an anti-spam measure to hinder manipulation?

starlinvf.1358:

Xbon.9086:

bidding takes no permament money from you, any time you’re losing a bid, simply either wait it out, or take money back and re-bid, there’s no issue here.

I thought the listing fee was non-refundable, as an anti-spam measure to hinder manipulation?

Listing fees only apply to sellers who make listings, not bids.

Bidding is done by buyers, who can cancel their bid and receive 100% of their gold back.

Menadena.7482:

If they are going to just change only one thing about the tp it should be not letting bids below the minimum selling cost of the item (and removing the ones already there).

Oh dear lord, yes. I very much agree.

Solandri.9640:

A better system would be like how eBay works. Allow the buyer to secretly set the maximum price they’re willing to pay for an item, and have the TP auto-raise your bid if you are out-bid. That would immediately raise the market price to the second-most any single buyer is willing to pay + 1c (until his order is filled and he drops out of the market). Sniping would not be a problem because unlike eBay, nobody knows when a seller is going to sell an item, so you can’t swoop in a few seconds before he sells to raise your bid. I suppose someone could place a bid, see that yours auto-outbid his, and re-place his bid until eventually his bid was higher than yours. But that shouldn’t bother you because the system stopped auto-bidding for you at the amount you set as your maximum – he paid more than you were willing to, plain and simple. It’ll only bother you if you lied about what was the most you were willing to pay.

One more time — the difference between the trading post and eBay is that if you get outbid on eBay, you don’t get the item. Here, you generally do — it just takes longer.

A bid is a buy order. If someone outbids you, your order still stands and will get filled after the person who outbid you gets theirs. It’s more like the stock market (except for the TP tax, which is the biggest difference). Markets are better for large numbers of identical items. Auctions are better for one-of-a-kind items.

(And yes, the min bid botting problem more or less exists on the stock market — it’s called “high-frequency trading”.)

Taxidriver.2043:

1-100g min upbid=1g
101-500 min upbid=5g
501-1000 min upbid=10g
u get the idea

So if the highest bid on an item is 1g and the lowest listing is 1.5g, i have to buy directly because 1g + 1g upbid is 2g.

Cool suggestion, bro.