I can't buy items on the AH

cowbait · June 2014

First, I tried to file this issue twice in-game, and while it said that a ticket was created, none appeared. I think I've managed to file an issue in the Support Center, but I have no idea how to categorize it. Is it a UI issue? An account issue? I have no idea.

So, between my wife's and my accounts, we've spent $30 to get ZEN to convert to AD to buy Mulhorand items in the AH to help us level, but the AH isn't letting us purchase items we want. Instead, we're both getting this error:

Your account has already spent the maximum amount of AD allowed on the Auction House for today. Very valuable items and accounts with a max-level character are exempt from this restriction.

We see this error even if we haven't already spent any AD on the AH that day. I don't know why this limitation exists, but it's SUPREMELY FRUSTRATING. All we want to do is spend the money we've put into the game on the gear we want, to be able to level and have fun. The frustration around this is drastically affecting our ability to enjoy the game.

And for what it's worth, I can't find ANY documentation on this issue via the Support Center, FAQs or even Google searches. Nothing explains why we can't buy those items in the AH. Nothing explains this error. All I know is that I'm sitting here, wondering what to do, feeling frustrated.

PLEASE fix this, thanks.

beckylunatic · June 2014

Last week's scheduled patch implemented a change to restrict how much an account with no level 60 characters was permitted to spend on the AH per day, but the actual spending cap was not disclosed. It was not intended to affect "normative play" (as they call it), but to hinder goldseller auction-bots. From the sounds of things, you're being affected by an unintended consequence of a very recent change.

Regardless, it doesn't make sense that you'd be unable to make one big-ticket purchase when you haven't spent anything yet. The error message even indicates that your intended purchases should be exempt.

I'd recommend that you submit a customer service ticket explaining the situation in detail and see what comes of it.

Edit: I've attempted to bring your thread to the producer's attention, just in case there's something buggy going on with their change.

cowbait · June 2014

Thanks, we have multiple tickets submitted now. It would be great if this was more thoroughly documented. And if there was an easy way to ping support about it!

iambecks1 · June 2014

Out of interest how much did you spend or what is the cap if you know it if you don't mind sharing the information , I asked the game's producer on patch day but he didn't want to give a clear answer xD

beckylunatic · June 2014

Mulhorand main hand appears to be between 50k and 250k, depending on class.

cowbait · June 2014

Yeah, Ancient Mulhorand Greatsword is over 200k.

And I just got an support response saying:
Private correspondences must remain private

Except that this has already been a problem for two days.

I've only been playing for a few days, but when I started, I found multiple leveling guides that suggested buying Mulhorand gear as a way to help out. Some of these guides have been up for over five months. The only sensible way for me to acquire Mulhorand gear, as a new player, is to buy them with AD on the AH. Buying Mulhorand gear along with enchants in order to level a brand new character should absolutely be considered "normal circumstances and purchase activities."

beckylunatic · June 2014

5 months ago, Mulhorand weapons were actually in the then-dropping lockbox and were dirt cheap (5-10k), *and* there were no spending caps.

But they're total twink items and not remotely needed, just a nice thing to have. Which isn't to say that you shouldn't have nice things if you're willing to pay for them. I'm just saying that any levelling guide that strongly recommends you get them is probably a bit outdated, unless it's a guide to how to stomp faces in lowbie PvP.

If you and your wife play a few hours a day, you'll be at the level cap in a few weeks. It is really that fast. Also, if you're playing together, you'll find the levelling content even more fast and easy than normal because it's all balanced to be doable solo.

Panderus did reply to my post in last week's patch note thread, so the issue does have dev attention now.

cowbait · June 2014

Sure, beckylunatic. I get that.

This is really all about managing expectations. When I spent $30 on ZEN to convert to AD to buy this gear in the AH for our toons, there were no warnings on what we could and couldn't spend the AD on. If I knew this was going to be a problem, I absolutely would NOT have spent the money in the first place, and would've just continued playing the game for free.

As it stands, I'm (unfortunately) pretty frustrated because I feel like I've just thrown away $30. Unless somebody can fix the issue.

And this is the last word from Customer Support:
Private

Not the answer I was hoping for.

beckylunatic · June 2014

Sadly, I can't really think of anything that Customer Service could have said differently because your problem is caused by a design decision.

What I would suggest is converting your money back to Zen and considering spending it on a 110% speed mount and/or a greater bag of holding (bag on sale until Thursday, btw). These are items that would likely make a much bigger impact on your Neverwinter gameplay, and which can actually serve you after you've reached the level cap rather than up until then.

Mounts are account unlocks, available to any character you'd ever make, and bags don't bind so you can pass them around.

A Mulhorand weapon is pretty useless after the one character you bound it to hits 60.

loboguild · June 2014

Convert your diamonds to zen, find somebody to buy you the weapons and pay in keys. Might take some minutes but the workaround is actually pretty easy.

cowbait · June 2014

What does the other person do with the keys?

ambisinisterr · June 2014

I am sorry but I had to remove the quotations from Customer Support. Messages from support count as private correspondences and may not be posted on the forums.

As for the issue at hand, as Becky said the producer has been made aware of the situation and will likely look into improving the system for the future but unfortunately changing the limit on a case by case basis is not likely something that is either possible or something that CS is willing to do.

Your frustration has been noted and they will be looking into any possible improvements to be patched in. I am sorry but that is all that can really be done for now.

cowbait · June 2014

Or they can revert the change until it can be implemented properly. That's a fairly common practice in software development.

loboguild · June 2014

cowbait wrote: »

What does the other person do with the keys?

Keys are a common currency, you'll likely find someone willing to do the trade.

Btw.: You can also buy Mark of Potencys from the Bazaar and trade them for your Mulhorands.

ambisinisterr · June 2014

Not on the table. The change was implemented to combat a far more serious problem.

I understand you are frustrated and feel like this is the most serious issue in the world but this is truly an extremely niche situation you are in and combating the gold farmers and bots is a far more serious problem.

As others have said the mulhorand weapons are luxury items and are far from required to level. In fact you would probably enjoy the game far more if you did not use them the first character you play through the campaign. The guide you are reading is almost assuredly a power leveling guide and not a guide geared for new players. The developers will look for any possible solutions but I guarantee they will not revert the change because of this.

This is a serious issue for you but it is far from normal circumstances.

cowbait · June 2014

I wasn't reading power leveling guides. A friend bought us each a Mulhorand cloak, and after he explained how it scaled with level, I started poking around and found out there were more pieces. Mostly from positive user comments on general leveling guides.

Also, please consider that by suggesting I'll enjoy the game even more without the items I want to purchase, you both invalidate my decision to want the items while at the same time conveniently disregarding the fact that I've spent actual money to do so, money which is currently in limbo.

Besides, you don't consider the possibility that I've played a bunch of MMOs already and have a pretty good idea of how I'd like to level.

Finally, when you condescend to me by suggesting that I think not being able to purchase a few virtual items in a F2P MMO is the "most serious issue in the world," you miss the point. The point isn't about the gear. The point is that I've spent money, my expectations have not been met, and I've yet to receive anything approaching reasonable customer service.

iambecks1 · June 2014

You will probably get some kind of half decent help from support since the games producer is aware of your issue now .

The message you received when you initially found out you couldn't spend more mentioned "Very valuable items are exempt from this restriction." I wonder what items they are and wouldn't having the most valuable items exempt just make the whole system pointless since the regular players will not be buying the most valuable items but the people this is meant to stop will be buying and trading the most valuable items xD

towahn · July 2014

I came across this thread because I am having the same problem and was doing some research to see how to fix it, but it appears that im not the only one anyhow after reading this thread I am a little bit more mad then I was before, a post from the moderator says as of 6-9 the producer was aware of the issue, well I wasn't and a heads up would have been nice. I can't imagine that it would be hard lets say when you get the first quest at low lvl to go to the AH it could explain how the cap works, but with no warning or explanation, I mean come on

damnataanimus · July 2014

beckylunatic wrote: »

Sadly, I can't really think of anything that Customer Service could have said differently because your problem is caused by a design decision.

What I would suggest is converting your money back to Zen and considering spending it on a 110% speed mount and/or a greater bag of holding (bag on sale until Thursday, btw). These are items that would likely make a much bigger impact on your Neverwinter gameplay, and which can actually serve you after you've reached the level cap rather than up until then.

Mounts are account unlocks, available to any character you'd ever make, and bags don't bind so you can pass them around.

A Mulhorand weapon is pretty useless after the one character you bound it to hits 60.

And how exactly is he meant to convert it back to zen? There is currently a zen backlog of over 4.2million zen xD

By the time his order gets filled he will likely be 60 anyway and have no need for the weapons

About the only other thing I can suggest is making a 2nd char and running them to PE and seeing if they can buy it for your mains. Offer to buy zen on your main char and then cancel the listing on your 2nd to xfer the AD across (with no loss). And for the record you've probably got a better chance of seeing pigs fly than having your problem fixed by a GM xD

gerbilhurdler · July 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

I understand you are frustrated and feel like this is the most serious issue in the world but this is truly an extremely niche situation you are in and combating the gold farmers and bots is a far more serious problem.

It will not be a niche issue if you do not put the info in the game SOMEWHERE.
Why don't you make paying customers aware of the limitations of what they buy?
In a month or so when your bottom line gets hit by this policy of making people grind through the game before they can spend on auction house items I am sure the story will change.

damnataanimus · July 2014

beckylunatic wrote: »

Sadly, I can't really think of anything that Customer Service could have said differently because your problem is caused by a design decision.

What I would suggest is converting your money back to Zen and considering spending it on a 110% speed mount and/or a greater bag of holding (bag on sale until Thursday, btw). These are items that would likely make a much bigger impact on your Neverwinter gameplay, and which can actually serve you after you've reached the level cap rather than up until then.

Mounts are account unlocks, available to any character you'd ever make, and bags don't bind so you can pass them around.

A Mulhorand weapon is pretty useless after the one character you bound it to hits 60.

And how exactly is he meant to convert it back to zen? There is currently a zen backlog of over 4.2million zen xD

By the time his order gets filled he will likely be 60 anyway and have no need for the weapons

About the only other thing I can suggest is making a 2nd char and running them to PE and seeing if they can buy it for your mains. Offer to buy zen on your main char and then cancel the listing on your 2nd to xfer the AD across (with no loss). And for the record you've probably got a better chance of seeing pigs fly than having your problem fixed by a GM xD

zubnr · July 2014

Fortunately I only spent $20 before being hit with this undocumented decision. To find out this has existed almost a month and the limits are still undocumented means they're happy to take our money but they don't intend to change. I quit EverQuest years ago because the producer was continually lying. I'm glad I only wasted $20 before learning how this producer thinks player should be treated.

adinosii · July 2014

this issue could have been avoided by giving people who spend real $$ a much higher limit. However, I wouldn't spend the AD on Mulhorand items in the first place - they become worthless anyhow once you hit lvl 60 - something which does not take long.

Anyhow there are workarounds - buy marks in the Bazaar and trade them for Mulhorand items, for example.

nwknight5280 · July 2014

I have NEVER had a satisfactory experience with the NWO customer service – when they even bother to respond. And this is another one of those almost fraud like cases (“deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.”) I’d recommend that you look into charging this back on your credit card.

gerbilhurdler · July 2014

amvek wrote: »

I personally would have them refund the Zen and take the life time ban on that account. If they refuse to refund the Zen then go to your credit card company and have them reverse the charges again the account you do this on will be banned. Hit them where it hurts in the wallet!

Then again leveling to 60 takes 3-4 days for a full-time player and a week or two for a part-time player. Get the refund take the ban and then create a new account.

While I applaud them punishing Gold sellers doing so at the expense of legitimate players is just bad for business.

I agree wholeheartedly. Until a tool tip is put in and paying players are made aware of the limitations of what they purchase, any CC charge back would be easy to get passed through.
The #1 biggest reason for charge backs? Not receiving product that has been paid for.

antovaras · July 2014

gerbilhurdler wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly. Until a tool tip is put in and paying players are made aware of the limitations of what they purchase, any CC charge back would be easy to get passed through.
The #1 biggest reason for charge backs? Not receiving product that has been paid for.

Except he got the product he paid for; he paid for Zen, he got Zen.

zshikara · July 2014

As I mentioned in a thread very similar to this one: I ran into this AH cap problem as well.

I bought some keys to open beetle boxes that had been given to me by a friend when she heard that I started playing this game (given to me since they don't drop anymore, and I really love bug mounts). Needless to say I didn't get the mount *sad face*, but I did get some things that I was able to sell on the AH for a decent sum of money. I had roughly 200K AD after all that and I sat on it for a while, but once I got into the mid 50s in level I decided I should buy myself a set of level 60 epics off the AH. It took me 3 days to get the whole set because of this limit and I only spent around 150K on everything I believe. Maybe a bit more. But I bought myself the full Divine Conduit set (I play a DC) as it had the stats I wanted on them. I am not upset and am now 60 and rocking my awesome epics I bought myself, but I don't feel this issue is something I should have had to experience, especially since gold sellers are still rampantly posting in all chat channels all the time. Do something about that please devs.

dragosani84 · July 2014

beckylunatic wrote: »

Last week's scheduled patch implemented a change to restrict how much an account with no level 60 characters was permitted to spend on the AH per day, but the actual spending cap was not disclosed. It was not intended to affect "normative play" (as they call it), but to hinder goldseller auction-bots. From the sounds of things, you're being affected by an unintended consequence of a very recent change.

Regardless, it doesn't make sense that you'd be unable to make one big-ticket purchase when you haven't spent anything yet. The error message even indicates that your intended purchases should be exempt.

I'd recommend that you submit a customer service ticket explaining the situation in detail and see what comes of it.

Edit: I've attempted to bring your thread to the producer's attention, just in case there's something buggy going on with their change.

Hello and thank you. I did fill out a ticket in game, I don't think I've had a response yet. I need to check my email today. I've been so busy that I somewhat forgot and haven't even had much time to play. I don't think I made my ticket as detailed as I should have though. I have 3 lv. 60 characters so that shouldn't affect me. Basically I was trying to bid on 10 enchanted keys. The bid price was around 430,000 AD which is a very good price. The buyout was insanely expensive. I'd bid on it the first day it was up and someone outbid me so I waited until the last day and it was down to 10 minutes or so when I started trying to bid and each time got the your bid has failed notice. I even tried upping the bid by over 100k and it still wouldn't work. Oh and I hadn't bought anything that I know of before trying to bid. I think I just logged in that morning, checked it in game then went to the gateway so I could see the actual timer.

Should I resubmit a ticket? I don't have a lot of ad, a little over a million so I had enough for one or two bids max but I've been having this problem. I don't even buy stuff very often but I just couldn't pass that one up. I know I didn't spend a lot of money that day. I have no idea what the cap is but I doubt I even have enough AD to reach the cap. It's rare that I buy anything over 10k ad. Going to check my email and in game and see if anyone contacted me. If not is okay too, just wanted you'll to look into this. Thanks so much.

panderus · July 2014

dragosani84 wrote: »

Hello and thank you. I did fill out a ticket in game, I don't think I've had a response yet. I need to check my email today. I've been so busy that I somewhat forgot and haven't even had much time to play. I don't think I made my ticket as detailed as I should have though. I have 3 lv. 60 characters so that shouldn't affect me. Basically I was trying to bid on 10 enchanted keys. The bid price was around 430,000 AD which is a very good price. The buyout was insanely expensive. I'd bid on it the first day it was up and someone outbid me so I waited until the last day and it was down to 10 minutes or so when I started trying to bid and each time got the your bid has failed notice. I even tried upping the bid by over 100k and it still wouldn't work. Oh and I hadn't bought anything that I know of before trying to bid. I think I just logged in that morning, checked it in game then went to the gateway so I could see the actual timer.

Should I resubmit a ticket? I don't have a lot of ad, a little over a million so I had enough for one or two bids max but I've been having this problem. I don't even buy stuff very often but I just couldn't pass that one up. I know I didn't spend a lot of money that day. I have no idea what the cap is but I doubt I even have enough AD to reach the cap. It's rare that I buy anything over 10k ad. Going to check my email and in game and see if anyone contacted me. If not is okay too, just wanted you'll to look into this. Thanks so much.

Hey Dragosani, Specifically, which items are you attempting to purchase or already purchased today?

nwnghost · July 2014

There is a known issue floating about since release whereby items on the Auction House sometimes bug out after some bids and become "unbiddable" for most anyone until it expires and also cannot be bought out.

The problem is that it isn't something that I know exactly how to reproduce, but it affects maybe 1-2% of all items on the Auction House regardless of category.

26.Auction House: Sometimes (unclear of the cause), bidding on an item can result in the item becoming locked for any further bids or buyout until it expires. When this occurs, anyone attempting to bid on or buy out the item either in game or via Gateway will be told that an error has occured.

I can't buy items on the AH

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