Guild Wars 2

@Miv:

I tested it on a quiet market with a big buy-ask spread. My orders were the only ones available at the price.

However, it’s possible to observe this behaviour even with many thousands of items available/demanded at the specified price:-

1. Create many many orders for Iron Ore at the current price of 4c.
2. Observe that some of them are fulfilled immediately, others remain unfulfilled indefinitely

There are many many tens of thousands of units of Iron Ore currently demanded at 4c and new orders are created with sub-second frequency. What should happen is that a new order for Iron Ore at 4c should go to the back of the queue and be fulfilled once all the previous orders have been fulfilled.

The observed behaviour indicates that the trading post is not correctly using FIFO. It indicates that the trading post is either fulfilling random orders (unlikely), or using LIFO.

The trading post is incorrectly not charging a listing fee for creating a buy order, and incorrectly charging for selling into one.

Steps to replicate:-

• Buy orders:-
  1. Place a buy order
  2. Observe that no fee is deducted
• Selling into a buy order:-
  1. Place a buy order
  2. On a different account, sell into that buy order
  3. Observe that the 5% listing fee is debited from your inventory (in addition to the 10% selling fee deducted from the sale price)

Expected behaviour:-

The 5% listing fee should be charged for placing a buy order. The 5% listing fee should not be charged for selling into a buy order.

Rationale:-

Conceptually the fee is a “listing fee”. A player selling into a buy order is not placing a listing and so should not be charged. A player placing a buy order is placing a listing and so should be charged.

The current behaviour produces two undesirable results:-

1. A player with an empty wallet cannot fulfil an existing sell order.
2. Speculative buy orders are free, causing both market distortions and increased server load.

Notes:-

This report does not refer to the 10% transaction fee that is deducted after an order is fulfilled before the sale proceeds are placed in the pick up tab. This report only refers to the 5% listing fee that is charged upon creating an order.

The trading post appears to be incorrectly fulfilling newest orders first.

Steps to replicate:-

1. On two different accounts, create buy orders for any item with the same sell price.
2. On a third account, sell that item at the listed price.
3. Observe that the newest order is fulfilled first.

Expected behaviour:-

The older order should be fulfilled first.

Rationale:-

First-come-first-served is standard behaviour for this kind of trading. In particular, if newest orders are fulfilled first there is greatly reduced incentive to be the first to undercut/outbid.