Absence of auction posting fee leads to abuse

shirghe · November 2021

Currently VIP rank 8 bonus completely removes auction posting fee. This leads to disproportionate amount of abuse.

I propose to either retain 2% posting fee for everyone or make it 1% instead of current 0% for VIP.

I understand that having no fee is very convenient and many players benefit from it in a harmless way. But it also hinders normal exchange of goods through auction in many, surely well-known to Cryptic, ways. That includes: constant re-listing, listing far above market price, listing for buyout only, taking all 400 spots with bulk lots (hello, PlayStation).

plasticbat · November 2021

1. This has been the feature since the beginning of VIP. i.e. 6 years?
2. Nobody like the feature be taken away except those who do not have the feature.
3. There is nothing wrong with re-listing.
4. There is nothing wrong with far above market price. It can't be sold anyway.
5. There is nothing wrong with listing for buyout only.
6. Everyone can have VIP. Yes, there is a cost. Yes, the cost gives you advantage. This is one of the feature why people gets VIP.
7. One character cannot take all 400 spots. There is a limit of number of posting. Sure, one can use many characters to do so. You can post the lowest price to defeat all those 400 postings and laugh at their silly effort.

rockster · November 2021

Most people who buy do not use the auction part and just buyout. Listing for buyout only is part of the game. Otherwise it would throw out an error when you don't enter a lower number. In fact people shouldn't put a lower number because if they suffer sellers remorse after posting, they can't take it down again. Reasons for sellers remorse may include putting multiple things up because someone is desperate for very fast AD and selling one thing and then not needing to sell the others, putting the wrong thing up in error, finding the thing they wanted to buy elsewhere and are selling to get the AD for has been sold and they no longer need the AD immediately, or just deciding that they are being rash and should wait longer and don't want to sell in the first place. As for what people want to sell for, they are able to sell it for a gazillion AD or 1 AD if they want, it's up to them. If it's too high it won't sell, if it's very low it will sell fast and the quick sale is a trade-off for losing potential AD.

shirghe · November 2021

plasticbat said:
7. One character cannot take all 400 spots. There is a limit of number of posting. Sure, one can use many characters to do so. You can post the lowest price to defeat all those 400 postings and laugh at their silly effort.

Tell that to PlayStation players trying to buy MoP4s. But relisting once an hour to take the first pages is already bad enough.

plasticbat said:
3. There is nothing wrong with re-listing.
4. There is nothing wrong with far above market price. It can't be sold anyway.
5. There is nothing wrong with listing for buyout only.

It encourages abusive behaviour when it comes without cost. Basically, people list items without intent to sell and aren't punished for it. Or buy out some rare items and re-list them at astronomical prices for some time, again, paying nothing for it. But you already know, and likely practice, all of this and just pretend to be clueless.

greywynd · November 2021

Does it hurt you in any way? No, it does not.

autumnwitch · November 2021

As far as "all 400 spots with bulk lots" you can sort your results by 3-4 different ways which will give you a better view of what's on besides the bulk lots. Sorting by "expiring soon" is usually the best way to do this IMO

tgwolf · November 2021

Nobody forces you to buy anything from anyone. Heck, I refuse to buy almost anything from anyone that I can get from the game instead even if it costs more, simply so my AD doesn't go to anyone else. I also won't buy anything for an odd amount of AD. It must be to the nearest appropriate multiple of 10/100/1000 etc.

The whole point was to remove posting fees entirely so the AH is more friendly to use. Any time there is a screw-up and the no posting fee part of VIP stops working,as rare as it is (though vastly more common than them actually fixing the mountain of issues the game has), everything falls apart and people go for each others throats.

plasticbat · November 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

plasticbat said:
7. One character cannot take all 400 spots. There is a limit of number of posting. Sure, one can use many characters to do so. You can post the lowest price to defeat all those 400 postings and laugh at their silly effort.
Tell that to PlayStation players trying to buy MoP4s.

In the end of the day, I guess the 'fault' is still VIP. It is not about posting fee though but about the AD store discount. People buy MoP4 from AD store with VIP discount and resell in AH for slim margin. So, again, if you have VIP, you won't have this MoP4 problem because you would just buy direct from AD store. If there is a posting fee, most would not take the risk to resell for that slim margin. In the end of the day, MoP4 will be more expensive.

shirghe#4424 said:

But relisting once an hour to take the first pages is already bad enough.

Why relisting once an hour instead once per day if needed? If you are talking about others, it is their time and their effort. Good for the buyers anyway. Price competition is good for buyers. More cut throat the better for the buyers.

shirghe#4424 said:

plasticbat said:
3. There is nothing wrong with re-listing.
4. There is nothing wrong with far above market price. It can't be sold anyway.
5. There is nothing wrong with listing for buyout only.
It encourages abusive behaviour when it comes without cost. Basically, people list items without intent to sell and aren't punished for it.

What is the problem? How does that affect you? Don't you sort with the lowest price anyway? If PS4 can't do sort, then lack of the sort ability is the problem.

shirghe#4424 said:

Or buy out some rare items and re-list them at astronomical prices for some time, again, paying nothing for it.

What is the problem? They still need to take risk. Many got burn because of it. You don't have to buy if the price is not right.

shirghe · November 2021

greywynd said:
Does it hurt you in any way? No, it does not.

How is your reading comprehension? Unsatisfactory.

I can't match the lowest price and wait for the lot to sell — in an hour I'll be undercut by 50 re-listings for 0.0001% lower price. I wouldn't play such stupid game even if I had VIP to do so.

I can't buy rare items at reasonable price in reasonable time, because hoarders would rather relist it for a year, than sell for 10% lower. Any item that can't be farmed is a potential target for this.

autumnwitch said:
As far as "all 400 spots with bulk lots" you can sort your results by 3-4 different ways which will give you a better view of what's on besides the bulk lots. Sorting by "expiring soon" is usually the best way to do this IMO

There is plenty of workarounds for a lot of problems, but only one cause that needs fixing. Listing without fee is very obviously bad and there is no argument to be made for it, other than "players will whine".

arazith07 · November 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

greywynd said:
Does it hurt you in any way? No, it does not.
How is your reading comprehension? Unsatisfactory.

I can't match the lowest price and wait for the lot to sell — in an hour I'll be undercut by 50 re-listings for 0.0001% lower price. I wouldn't play such stupid game even if I had VIP to do so.

I can't buy rare items at reasonable price in reasonable time, because hoarders would rather relist it for a year, than sell for 10% lower. Any item that can't be farmed is a potential target for this.
autumnwitch said:
As far as "all 400 spots with bulk lots" you can sort your results by 3-4 different ways which will give you a better view of what's on besides the bulk lots. Sorting by "expiring soon" is usually the best way to do this IMO
There is plenty of workarounds for a lot of problems, but only one cause that needs fixing. Listing without fee is very obviously bad and there is no argument to be made for it, other than "players will whine".

Even if there are listing fees, people will still undercut you to try and sell faster. Rare items will always seem overpriced, it just will no longer be on the AH and instead people will just spam chats to sell for MoPs. Your 'fix' won't actually fix what you want to change. Welcome to capitalism.

armadeonx · November 2021

I don't sell on the AH often and if I do it's usually only one or two items. I do however buy from there fairly frequently.

I don't have time to bid for stuff, waiting several hours or days and get sniped at the last second and have to start over. That was my experience in the old days when I did used to bid for stuff (like 4 years ago). I just want to find the cheapest buyout on offer, click the button and open the mail.

I've never liked the posting fee though. I've always been of the opinion that they are already taking a 10% cut of my sale - that's the 'tax' paid and I've always resented the additional cost. I'm saying that as someone who always has VIP and doesn't pay that cost!

I understand the point about people who post single items at the same low price per unit and fill up a couple of pages, I usually sneer and avoid such players, preferring to pay 1AD more to get the same item from the next player up the list.

I have also found out that if someone has 20+ listings of something you want to sell, they are not inclined to repost everything if you make a single listing at a slightly cheaper price, it's often not worth the effort to compete with 1 post - they usually do it to compete with other multi-posters.

That said, I would (in principle) be in favour of the number of unique listings being lowered. I'm thinking of a limit of around 20 AH postings per acct as this would encourage sellers to bundle items into higher quantities (e.g. marks, gold bars, wards etc) instead of posting multiple single units.

rockster · November 2021

The posting fee is refunded when you sell the item, only the 10% commission comes out.

greywynd · November 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

How is your reading comprehension? Unsatisfactory.

I can't match the lowest price and wait for the lot to sell — in an hour I'll be undercut by 50 re-listings for 0.0001% lower price. I wouldn't play such stupid game even if I had VIP to do so.

I can't buy rare items at reasonable price in reasonable time, because hoarders would rather relist it for a year, than sell for 10% lower. Any item that can't be farmed is a potential target for this.

There is plenty of workarounds for a lot of problems, but only one cause that needs fixing. Listing without fee is very obviously bad and there is no argument to be made for it, other than "players will whine".

My reading comprehension is just fine, thank you.

So don't play the market.

"Reasonable price in reasonable time"; reasonable to you? Don't be impatient.

Another reasonable argument is the listing fee is theft. All depends upon your point of view.

plasticbat · November 2021

Cut throat re-posting happened before VIP. That was WORSE than now. Today, it is child play. It was really cut throat (as blood came out). People undercut to hurt other sellers intentionally to MAKE SURE they would lose the posting fee. People (with big capital) used that to drive/dry/bleed others out of the market so that they could be the monopoly. It was weaponized.
Buy low sell high happened before VIP. People bought low in Eastern time and could sold high in European prime time.
The only difference was the price was higher because the "posting cost" was factored in in the price.

greywynd · November 2021

Not to mention the delay between Live and Gateway to help undercutting.

tchefi · November 2021

Personnally, I view the auction house basically as a selling competition where sellers don't have the same goals nor the same intentions. Try to sell high, try to sell fast, try to sell at the "right" price, be sure to sell, do not mind if it sells or not, speculate, attempt to own a temporary monopoly, attempt to manipulate the prices for any purpose, etc.
It is sometimes a wild fight (especially the 2-3 weeks before and after a new module), but smart small fishes can do some good business even when there are very big VIP sharks roaming the ocean.

Undercuting (be it by 1 or more than that) the lowest price on the AH, and cancel to repost lower if someone undercut you and if the system allows it without a really prohibitive fee, is a common seller's behaviour on pretty much any game featuring a centralized auction house (or even for more complex and decentralized ones like for exemple on EvE Online).

No matter what system you get, no matter if there are little fees or not (or only VIP with no fee), you will always see this, unless the auction house is pure auctions without the possibility for the seller to decide the starting price nor the buyout (so all items would be listed at 0 and auctionned upon from that by potential buyers, time being the only limiting factor for how high the selling price would get. Would be a very fun and speculative system ^^, i don't have in mind any MMORPG exemple of that though, only some obscure browser games).

Being able to put an item to be sold on the AH without paying a fee is a VIP advantage. It is one of the reasons why a player wants to be VIP (but not the biggest one I think), and maybe pay $€£ for that, or get it from the Zax and from someone who has payed for these Zens, which at the end helps the game in staying afloat and in investing on further development (no matter what my opinion is about the quality of the various modules since mod15).

Is it a too great advantage ?
maybe, I can't really be a good judge on that as i might be biased by 5 consecutive years of being VIP...
In my opinion (and that's only my opinion), the daily lockbox key, the ability to spawn a travelpost/bank/mailbox/vendor and the wonderous bazar discount are already good enough to justify my will to pay some € to keep being VIP, and I wouldn't mind if no one had this "posting in AH" fee (i would prefer this solution rather than a fee for everyone)

xenocide · November 2021

shirghe#4424 said:
Currently VIP rank 8 bonus completely removes auction posting fee. This leads to disproportionate amount of abuse.

To be honest this isnt all bad, if you are buying this can help to drive the prices down making items more affordable for newer players.

mystar · December 2021

Rare items are usually going to cost more, and sure some people will try to capitalize on that, but nothing about it sounds like abuse.

Punishing people without intent to sell? That sounds like a pretty big assumption to assume their intent isn't to sell let alone to be punishing players for it.

I've re-posted stuff for the same price several times before it sold. Not everyone who wants or needs something is online to buy it when you want them to buy it.

I've also bought some items at low cost and resold it for much higher than what I paid. I don't feel guilty for that and wasn't using it to abuse anyone...just to make a profit. If there's a list of an item in the AH and the lowest is 100k while the next lowest is 300k...wouldn't you buy it, if you had the AD, and re-post it for more? So what if some people post it at an outrageous price and most likely never sell it...it's not abusing anyone or anything.

Personally, I don't do a whole lot of selling in the AH...the game isn't that generous to me to get stuff worth selling, but I have sat on some items that weren't worth very much and then suddenly worth millions of AD...like the tiamat orb for a while. I never would have been able to sell them all without the VIP fee waiver....which means all the upgrades I did on the characters I play would be way less to none.

While you're trying to stick it to the big guys on the AH for something that really isn't abuse, it's not gonna benefit players like me in the situation with the tiamat orb.

My vote is NO to removing the AH fee waiver VIP perk.

plasticbat · December 2021

mystar#5733 said:

Punishing people without intent to sell? That sounds like a pretty big assumption to assume their intent isn't to sell let alone to be punishing players for it.

This is the part I always wonder why someone has problem with it.
1. If the price is low enough to be on the front page, it could be sold.
2. If the price is ridiculously high, it will be on the last page. Why would anyone care?
3. Punishing someone who does not even cost you anything?

mystar · December 2021

plasticbat said:

mystar#5733 said:

Punishing people without intent to sell? That sounds like a pretty big assumption to assume their intent isn't to sell let alone to be punishing players for it.
This is the part I always wonder why someone has problem with it.
1. If the price is low enough to be on the front page, it could be sold.
2. If the price is ridiculously high, it will be on the last page. Why would anyone care?
3. Punishing someone who does not even cost you anything?

I totally agree, why would anyone care?
I still can't get over assuming a player is posting without intent to sell and thinking they should be punished for it lol.

shirghe · December 2021

mystar#5733 said:
I don't feel guilty for that and wasn't using it to abuse anyone...just to make a profit.

Of course you don't. That's why we need limits and fees.

The Auction House exists to allow a convenient exchange of goods between players, not to make you rich at their expense.

plasticbat said:
2. If the price is ridiculously high, it will be on the last page. Why would anyone care?

There will be only one page, the wares will be out of circulation for months, but not only the hoarder won't incur any penalty for creating such situation, he's encouraged to do so by the long-term profits.

plasticbat · December 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

The Auction House exists to allow a convenient exchange of goods between players, not to make you rich at their expense.

Where do you get the idea that "Auction House exists to allow a convenient exchange of goods between players, not to make you rich at their expense."? The name "Auction house" already means opposite of that. Yes, AH is for making profit in the expense of others although one may not be able to do that but everyone intend to do so. Otherwise, do personal trading instead.

Which Auction house in the world does not aim for big profit? How much a game tag of Michael Jordan's rookie game was auctioned off recently? Are most customers of the Auction House hoarders/collectors?

shirghe#4424 said:

plasticbat said:
2. If the price is ridiculously high, it will be on the last page. Why would anyone care?
There will be only one page, the wares will be out of circulation for months, but not only the hoarder won't incur any penalty for creating such situation, he's encouraged to do so by the long-term profits.

If there is a long term profit, it means one intends to sell it, right?
1. Nothing wrong to be a hoarder.
2. Nothing wrong to set a high price if someone actually wants to pay for it. Nobody is forced to pay the price if it is considered "unreasonable".
3. Yes, I encourage people to do so so that at least the item can be available instead of not available at all. I still don't understand why that would bug you. A page that has items you would not pay the price vs a page that does not exist (because it is empty).

irene · December 2021

Hehe I faced the same experience. I undercut someone's 5M item to 4.98M and the player changes it to 4.95M. I was not able to lower it further because I'd be paying a lot of AD to AH. But I think about it - the player paid $ for VIP and the end result is that he will sell things cheaper, so I think it's still fair.

hadestemplar · December 2021

About this issue have been talked plenty of times, nothing changed then, nothing changing now and it will not be changed..
Simply too many players happy with current VIP features and they don't want to lose it. And for company it's beneficial, cuz it's force player to buy VIP, and since we know the current ZAX situation, the only way to get VIP is via $$$$.

There where talking in CDP about VIP. And all talks remained just talks.

armadeonx · December 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

There will be only one page, the wares will be out of circulation for months, but not only the hoarder won't incur any penalty for creating such situation, he's encouraged to do so by the long-term profits.

If there's one page of something and it goes out of circulation, you're talking about rare items and not the everyday stuff that regular players need. As such, it doesn't impact the majority of players, only those chasing rare items for build tweaks or cosmetics.

But that wasn't the original point of your post. You appear to have a general dislike of how players play to their advantage and the VIP posting discount was only one aspect of this.

mystar · December 2021

shirghe#4424 said:

mystar#5733 said:
I don't feel guilty for that and wasn't using it to abuse anyone...just to make a profit.
Of course you don't. That's why we need limits and fees.

The Auction House exists to allow a convenient exchange of goods between players, not to make you rich at their expense.

You're assuming that making a profit is all about getting rich in AD.
I was looking through the AH pricing some of the upgrades I needed and noticed a mount posted for way less than all of the other posts for the same mount. I had enough AD to buy it, but not enough to buy the items I needed to do any significant upgrades. I had a lot of room to up the price and still keep it as the lowest price. When it sold, I went through my shopping list and spent every last astral diamond in the AH and got several significant upgrades done. Other players got the profits I made and I got some upgrades I needed....and you think I should feel guilty for that and should have just let that opportunity slip away and not get my toons upgraded.

I think your idea of removing this VIP perk is going to do more harm than good for players trying to get their toons upgraded than those players who you say are abusing it. It seems to me that you're more focused on how you think things should be for your own benefit and not considering the overall impact on players trying to do upgrades.

With all the changes that have happened over these last couple years, every step I've made in upgrading keeps getting set back two steps. I've spent more game time trying to reconfigure and get caught back up to the level I was before the changes and it's becoming less fun. I can't help but think where my toons would be with your idea of how things should be with the posting fee. I had a couple toons close to end game, but the changes have put that goal pretty far out of reach without spending real money.

I still vote NO to this change...for the players looking for ways to do upgrades.

plasticbat · December 2021

I still don't know what OP's beef is. Is it about AH price too high? Is it about AH price too low?

No posting fee allows sellers to undercut each other easily. That means cut throat competition. As a buyer, I love it.

No posting fee allows seller to stand on his ground to set a price for his own item. One may not able to sell it but one is not forced to set a price he does not like. As a seller, I love it.

I take the advantage of both ends as buyer and seller. What one needs to be is: patient and research. I always get good price as a buyer because I don't jump on stuff with the price I don't like. I can wait. Sometimes, just few hours.

stark760 · December 2021

plasticbat said:
I still don't know what OP's beef is. Is it about AH price too high? Is it about AH price too low?

No posting fee allows sellers to undercut each other easily. That means cut throat competition. As a buyer, I love it.

No posting fee allows seller to stand on his ground to set a price for his own item. One may not able to sell it but one is not forced to set a price he does not like. As a seller, I love it.

I take the advantage of both ends as buyer and seller. What one needs to be is: patient and research. I always get good price as a buyer because I don't jump on stuff with the price I don't like. I can wait. Sometimes, just few hours.

I think the undercutting battle is the issue he has, which will never be stopped.

mystar · December 2021

plasticbat said:
I still don't know what OP's beef is. Is it about AH price too high? Is it about AH price too low?

No posting fee allows sellers to undercut each other easily. That means cut throat competition. As a buyer, I love it.

No posting fee allows seller to stand on his ground to set a price for his own item. One may not able to sell it but one is not forced to set a price he does not like. As a seller, I love it.

I take the advantage of both ends as buyer and seller. What one needs to be is: patient and research. I always get good price as a buyer because I don't jump on stuff with the price I don't like. I can wait. Sometimes, just few hours.

It's sounding like his beef is that he can't compete with cut throat competition. Hopefully the devs wouldn't take this request seriously.

Absence of auction posting fee leads to abuse

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