Guild Wars 2

The trading post, to date, still a lot of ‘dead items orders’ which are essentially: Buy orders that can not be fulfulled.

E.g. Major Runes have a merchant value, which dictates that no item can be sold for 1s54c or less on the auction house because then the seller would be (after -15% deduction) below the merchant value. Yet there are still a lot of buy orders out there who are below this value.

This means that when I click ‘sell on trading post’ and it highlights a seller, I get my hopes up. Then I try to click sell, but I cannot because I don’t ask the minimum value.

What I’m asking of anet is to purge the black lion trading post of all ‘dead buy orders’ and prevent people from placing new buy orders that are below the minimum transaction value. I’ve already heard complains of many ‘beginners’ who are confused why their items aren’t selling. Well, it’s because we’re not allowed to fill the orders. (In case there’s already a block on too low buy orders, it’s not working)

I think they did do this at one point in the past. But either they couldn’t clear them all or people somehow managed to add new ones.

I assumed it was something they’d keep doing periodically, but I’m not sure.

The Devs did purge a lot of the ‘dead’ orders, but not all old orders were caught in the purge. New orders can’t be placed below minimum.

I believe they stated they would purge again, after seeing not all were removed; it’s just not happened that we have noticed, anyway.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The Devs did purge a lot of the ‘dead’ orders, but not all old orders were caught in the purge. New orders can’t be placed below minimum.

I believe they stated they would purge again, after seeing not all were removed; it’s just not happened that we have noticed, anyway.

If working at Anet is anything like my job it could be as simple as it needs to be done by a specific person and even though it’d “only” take a day they have a lot of higher priority things which make finding a day to do it in tricky.

Actually, looking at major runes specifically, the ones you get out of dropped armor tend to have a vendor price of 1s8c, this puts the minimum on the TP at 1s28c and not 1s54c. And craftable runes have a vendor price of 30c which sets their minimum at 36c.

Yes, there are a few bids at the old vendor plus 1c while below the “new” vendor / 0.85 price but a quick survey shows these bad bids are less than 1% of all bids so they aren’t distorting “demand” significantly.

Danikat.8537:

If working at Anet is anything like my job it could be as simple as it needs to be done by a specific person and even though it’d “only” take a day they have a lot of higher priority things which make finding a day to do it in tricky.

And if that person’s boss is anything like, oh, all my bosses ever… they wouldn’t authorize the time to purge the orders that cannot be filled — it’s a visual annoyance, to be sure, but it’s not causing actual harm to the market or the community. There are many, many higher-priority issues to address.

I’m amazed they had time to do the previous purge (which incidentally cleared the vast majority of the older orders).

It isn’t just runes and sigils that have this problem. There are a whole lot of various crafting materials with buy orders below the minimum amount. A lot of it are items that have way more supply then demand, where there is a whole ton listed for sale at the minimum sell price.

I did notice a long time ago it appeared as though ArenaNet did go through it and cancel quite a lot of those buy orders below the allowed price. But over time I’ve noticed more and more items had new buy orders below the minimum price.

The bottom line is there are way too many items like this for ArenaNet to have missed. A few items is quite possible. But I have a habit of gathering and salvaging a lot of stuff and sell off everything in the trading post every couple weeks or so and I notice odd stuff like this.

My only guess is there’s either some kind of weird glitch where this happens and the devs haven’t been able to fix it yet, or it’s done intentionally by someone who found a glitch in the system to exploit.

My suggestion is to actually investigate the matter, instead of just cleaning house by cancelling the buy orders. Some of these buy orders only have a few, while others can be over 10,000. Are the buy orders posted by many, many accounts, or only a few? For buy orders below the allowed minimum price, is there 1 or more specific account that shows up for multiple items like this?

I do wish they would look into it. It’s kind of annoying seeing thousands for sale at the minimum price, but I can’t fill these orders because they’re too low. And with so many for sale I wind up having to just vendor some items because it would take a rather long time before mine finally gets sold.

Charrbeque.8729:

I did notice a long time ago it appeared as though ArenaNet did go through it and cancel quite a lot of those buy orders below the allowed price. But over time I’ve noticed more and more items had new buy orders below the minimum price.

I can’t find any examples of where there are more underpriced listings. The only exceptions that I’ve seen are:

• Leftovers from before the two changes to minimum pricing (first was vendor +1c, second was vendor/0.85 + 1c)
• Items that changed vendor value (very few of these)

What examples have you seen? It would be great to make a list and send them to ANet — if there is a glitch allowing people to do that, I’m sure they’d want to fix it. (that’s easier than removing the actual listings)

For those unfamiliar with targeting specific bits of a database, here’s why it’s more difficult than it sounds.

• It’s almost always easy to write a script to identify the listings that need to change — I can just about do it and I’m not a programmer. (Grab vendor values from the API, divide by 0.85, add 1 copper, and compare to existing listings. Make a list.)
• It’s almost always easy to write a script to cancel those orders (take the above list, cancel the order).
• What takes longer is the QA:
  • Testing that the list doesn’t include any false positives, weird edge cases, etc.
  • Testing that the script only removes the items on the list.
  • Testing that the script refunds the coin, as expected.
  • Testing that running the script doesn’t cause any other issues, including hurting TP performance or mucking up the queue that would show people the refunded coin.
• In addition, there are other considerations, such as introducing a lot of coin back into the money supply, writing the appropriate blog to warn people about the impending change, etc.

tl;dr with a comprehensive script like this, it’s easy to make minor mistakes that have big consequences. So the risk is relatively high, while the benefit to the community is relatively low.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Charrbeque.8729:

I did notice a long time ago it appeared as though ArenaNet did go through it and cancel quite a lot of those buy orders below the allowed price. But over time I’ve noticed more and more items had new buy orders below the minimum price.

I can’t find any examples of where there are more underpriced listings. The only exceptions that I’ve seen are:

• Leftovers from before the two changes to minimum pricing (first was vendor +1c, second was vendor/0.85 + 1c)
• Items that changed vendor value (very few of these)

What examples have you seen? It would be great to make a list and send them to ANet — if there is a glitch allowing people to do that, I’m sure they’d want to fix it. (that’s easier than removing the actual listings)

---

For those unfamiliar with targeting specific bits of a database, here’s why it’s more difficult than it sounds.

• It’s almost always easy to write a script to identify the listings that need to change — I can just about do it and I’m not a programmer. (Grab vendor values from the API, divide by 0.85, add 1 copper, and compare to existing listings. Make a list.)
• It’s almost always easy to write a script to cancel those orders (take the above list, cancel the order).
• What takes longer is the QA:
  • Testing that the list doesn’t include any false positives, weird edge cases, etc.
  • Testing that the script only removes the items on the list.
  • Testing that the script refunds the coin, as expected.
  • Testing that running the script doesn’t cause any other issues, including hurting TP performance or mucking up the queue that would show people the refunded coin.
• In addition, there are other considerations, such as introducing a lot of coin back into the money supply, writing the appropriate blog to warn people about the impending change, etc.

tl;dr with a comprehensive script like this, it’s easy to make minor mistakes that have big consequences. So the risk is relatively high, while the benefit to the community is relatively low.

OK. I post some examples on crafting materials, and some screenshots.
It seems to be mainly the lowest tier materials that this happens to, as well as minor runes and sigils, i.e., the most common stuff that has way more supply than demand.

Vial of Weak Blood: vendor value is 3 copper, minimum buy/sell price is 5 copper
-Buy orders: 48,380 at 4 copper (1 copper below minimum price), 187 for 3 copper (2 copper below the minimum price

Bone Chip: vendor value is 4 copper, minimum buy/sell price is 6 copper
-Buy orders: 6,952 at 5 copper, 59 at 4 copper

Tiny Claw: vendor value of 3 copper, minimum buy/sell price is 5 copper
-Buy orders: 17,072 at 4 cooper, 33 at 3 copper

Pile of Glittering Dust: vendor value of 3, minimum buy/sell is 5. Although, there are a lot of buy orders for 5 copper up to 33 copper, there are still a lot of orders too low when scrolling down
-Buy orders: 14,157 at 4 copper, 2,689 at 3 copper

Sunstone Nugget: vendor value of 24, minimum buy/sell is 29.
-Buy orders: 30 at 26 copper, 529 at 25 copper, 205 at 24 copper

I’m not going to through the entire trading post to compile a complete list of every single item with buy orders that will never be filled.

It’s quite possible my memory and observational skills suck. It’s also possible the devs never really went through the trading post to clean up most of these orders. But there are a lot out there.

The Devs did purge the Trading Post. (In fact, more than once.) They announced it when it happened, and we saw the result. Some things weren’t affected.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Old-Invalid-TP-Order-Clean-up/first#post6028517
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Old-Invalid-TP-Order-Clean-up/first#post6058327

Can you show screenshots taken after the purge showing those items were included in the purge, and now have orders below vendor price?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The Devs did purge the Trading Post. (In fact, more than once.) They announced it when it happened, and we saw the result. Some things weren’t affected.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Old-Invalid-TP-Order-Clean-up/first#post6028517
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Old-Invalid-TP-Order-Clean-up/first#post6058327

Can you show screenshots taken after the purge showing those items were included in the purge, and now have orders below vendor price?

Ahh…….I thought I remembered dev posts on the forums saying they went through and cleaned it up.

In my previous post^ the screenshots were taken as I was writing that post.

But like I said: my memory and observational skills could be faulty. In other words I could be wrong about seeing new buy orders below the minimum price being placed on items the devs had already cleaned up.

Just look at the items I mentioned in my previous post and you’ll see for yourself that there are still at least a few items that have buy orders that are too low.

Edit: Ahhh…..the second link in your post…..2 posts down: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Old-Invalid-TP-Order-Clean-up/first#post6060094

The most recent clean-up is now complete!

That was the last dev post in the thread, and the few player posts that followed still claimed there were a lot of items in the TP that were listed below the minimum price. Most likely they just never got around to finishing the clean up.