To address some issues related to the Auction House, we’re reconsidering how deposits—the refundable fees you pay to list your auctions—are calculated. This fee is based on the item’s vendor price, and for profession materials in particular, vendors offer very low prices, so these mats have a low deposit cost. Deposits are substantial on items such as BoE uncommon gear, gems, and so forth, but not trade skill materials (trade goods such as cloth, ore, leather, etc.).
One thing we’ve identified as particularly troublesome is a large volume of trade skill materials being auctioned off in stacks of 1. Some addons make posting quantities of this size trivial to do, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds, of pages of auctions for a single item. As we looked at ways to change this behavior and improve the overall Auction House experience, we found that we prefer to avoid inflexible solutions such as caps on the number of listings a player can make, or increased minimum stack counts, which might interfere with many players' common gameplay habits.
Our current plan is to increase the deposit cost of some profession materials on a per-stack basis, which should provide incentive for players to post items in larger stacks.
Here's an example:
• Let’s say that a player is trying to sell 200 Tidespray Linen for 10g (gold) each. Today, each item has the normal deposit cost of 1c (copper), with a 1s (silver) minimum deposit, so 1 auction of 200 linen requires a deposit of 1s, and 200 auctions of 1 linen each adds up to a total deposit of 2g.
• Now imagine an additional 20% deposit added to the listing fee per auction. With an asking price of 10g each, that raises the deposit by 2g per stack. In the case of 1 stack of 200 linen, the total buyout price is 2000g, and the new deposit is 2g1s. In the case of 200 individual stacks, the new deposit of an additional 2g per stack brings the total deposit up to 402g.
In either case, the deposit is returned to the seller if the item sells. Successful auctions aren’t affected by this change.
Our goal is to give players some forewarning on this change, and to gather feedback. We’re putting together a list of the items that would be affected by this deposit change, which we expect to be limited to high-quantity trade goods. Furthermore, we’re deploying the change to the PTR first, so that addon authors can work through the change while we test it thoroughly.
This change will likely be a temporary measure, as we’re also working to broadly improve the default Auction House in the future. It’s clear to us that many players use addons because they find the default Auction House interface inadequate. A temporary change to deposit fees will help with this in the short term, and we’ll continue to work on overall improvements to the Auction House for a future patch.
3 Likes
I'm assuming you guys have math that supports this change? As it changes nothing for successful auctions, this must mean that a non-insignificant percentage of these large quantities of single-stack auctions do not end up selling.
I'm grateful with this change and excited about Auction House improvements in the future. I don't remember the last time I used the default Auction House interface, it's been literally years.
1 Like
I would think a better, longer lasting change would be to implement a posting limit per account? But I mean I'll take what I can get.
08/22/2018 09:49 AMPosted by YthisensIn either case, the deposit is returned to the seller if the item sells. Successful auctions aren’t affected by this change.
So nothing will change then?
3 Likes
20% is not enough to deter people from doing this. Needs to be a larger amount.
3 Likes
It's not NEAR enough, but it's a start for now
08/27/2018 05:50 PMPosted by ButterknivesThis doesn't solve anything because people who post thousands of stacks of 1 are too stupid to even notice the listing fee. Sorry, ban me if you like, but it's the truth.
If you use the average trade value of ore which is 30g per, or 6000g for a stack
posting that stack will be 15g to post it together, or 3000g to post it in 200 stacks of 1. I'm pretty sure they'll notice that after first time they do it.
However, I do agree that returning it to seller defeats the purpose. don't return it. those single stacks still sell. they'll still bog down AH if they still sell.
3 Likes
How about a “toy” section similar to the battle pet and mount sections?
It's impossible to know if a change like this is going to work or not, until it shows up on live servers.
If I were making the change, i'd probably opt for a somewhat hamfisted "minimum 20 stack" on crafting reagents. Storing all of these one item auctions is probably a contributor to the immense lag the AH has seen since BFA launch.
And yeah, the AH interface needs all the help it can get.
If I were making the change, i'd probably opt for a somewhat hamfisted "minimum 20 stack" on crafting reagents. Storing all of these one item auctions is probably a contributor to the immense lag the AH has seen since BFA launch.
And yeah, the AH interface needs all the help it can get.
1 Like
08/22/2018 09:49 AMPosted by YthisensTo address some issues related to the Auction House, we’re reconsidering how deposits—the refundable fees you pay to list your auctions—are calculated. This fee is based on the item’s vendor price, and for profession materials in particular, vendors offer very low prices, so these mats have a low deposit cost. Deposits are substantial on items such as BoE uncommon gear, gems, and so forth, but not trade skill materials (trade goods such as cloth, ore, leather, etc.).
One thing we’ve identified as particularly troublesome is a large volume of trade skill materials being auctioned off in stacks of 1. Some addons make posting quantities of this size trivial to do, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds, of pages of auctions for a single item. As we looked at ways to change this behavior and improve the overall Auction House experience, we found that we prefer to avoid inflexible solutions such as caps on the number of listings a player can make, or increased minimum stack counts, which might interfere with many players' common gameplay habits.
Our current plan is to increase the deposit cost of some profession materials on a per-stack basis, which should provide incentive for players to post items in larger stacks.
Here's an example:
• Let’s say that a player is trying to sell 200 Tidespray Linen for 10g (gold) each. Today, each item has the normal deposit cost of 1c (copper), with a 1s (silver) minimum deposit, so 1 auction of 200 linen requires a deposit of 1s, and 200 auctions of 1 linen each adds up to a total deposit of 2g.
• Now imagine an additional 20% deposit added to the listing fee per auction. With an asking price of 10g each, that raises the deposit by 2g per stack. In the case of 1 stack of 200 linen, the total buyout price is 2000g, and the new deposit is 2g1s. In the case of 200 individual stacks, the new deposit of an additional 2g per stack brings the total deposit up to 402g.
In either case, the deposit is returned to the seller if the item sells. Successful auctions aren’t affected by this change.
Our goal is to give players some forewarning on this change, and to gather feedback. We’re putting together a list of the items that would be affected by this deposit change, which we expect to be limited to high-quantity trade goods. Furthermore, we’re deploying the change to the PTR first, so that addon authors can work through the change while we test it thoroughly.
This change will likely be a temporary measure, as we’re also working to broadly improve the default Auction House in the future. It’s clear to us that many players use addons because they find the default Auction House interface inadequate. A temporary change to deposit fees will help with this in the short term, and we’ll continue to work on overall improvements to the Auction House for a future patch.
Feedback : this sounds like a very sensible plan and I support it 100%, since you will not put min caps of say 10.
How about we bring back the mobile auction house? You know make the armory app valuable again? Or just an actual auction house app.
1 Like
I would go the other way: deposit doesn't get refunded, remove the AH cut on sale.
2 Likes
08/27/2018 05:58 PMPosted by KkHow about a “toy” section similar to the battle pet and mount sections?
Its not relevant to this discussion, but.... i support this anyway! lol
On topic, I agree with a post above that said to not return it. I know everyone hates comparing, but SWTOR does that and takes an AH cut.
It would be simple to just increase the cut based on the stack size.
I cannot possibly see how testing this on PTR is effective. If the AH had a new interface, sure; people would pop on to check it out, see if maybe they can unload an add-on in the future.
But if the goal is to eliminate the 100’s of duplicate pages of the same 1-per-stack listings, no player who’s doing this is going to download the PTR just to see how much gold they may eventually lose, or see how ineffective their future selling is going to be. They’re going to abuse the AH as it is now and make as much gold as possible before it becomes more difficult for them to do so.
But if the goal is to eliminate the 100’s of duplicate pages of the same 1-per-stack listings, no player who’s doing this is going to download the PTR just to see how much gold they may eventually lose, or see how ineffective their future selling is going to be. They’re going to abuse the AH as it is now and make as much gold as possible before it becomes more difficult for them to do so.
08/22/2018 09:49 AMPosted by YthisensTo address some issues related to the Auction House, we’re reconsidering how deposits—the refundable fees you pay to list your auctions—are calculated. This fee is based on the item’s vendor price, and for profession materials in particular, vendors offer very low prices, so these mats have a low deposit cost. Deposits are substantial on items such as BoE uncommon gear, gems, and so forth, but not trade skill materials (trade goods such as cloth, ore, leather, etc.).
One thing we’ve identified as particularly troublesome is a large volume of trade skill materials being auctioned off in stacks of 1. Some addons make posting quantities of this size trivial to do, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds, of pages of auctions for a single item. As we looked at ways to change this behavior and improve the overall Auction House experience, we found that we prefer to avoid inflexible solutions such as caps on the number of listings a player can make, or increased minimum stack counts, which might interfere with many players' common gameplay habits.
Our current plan is to increase the deposit cost of some profession materials on a per-stack basis, which should provide incentive for players to post items in larger stacks.
Here's an example:
• Let’s say that a player is trying to sell 200 Tidespray Linen for 10g (gold) each. Today, each item has the normal deposit cost of 1c (copper), with a 1s (silver) minimum deposit, so 1 auction of 200 linen requires a deposit of 1s, and 200 auctions of 1 linen each adds up to a total deposit of 2g.
• Now imagine an additional 20% deposit added to the listing fee per auction. With an asking price of 10g each, that raises the deposit by 2g per stack. In the case of 1 stack of 200 linen, the total buyout price is 2000g, and the new deposit is 2g1s. In the case of 200 individual stacks, the new deposit of an additional 2g per stack brings the total deposit up to 402g.
In either case, the deposit is returned to the seller if the item sells. Successful auctions aren’t affected by this change.
Our goal is to give players some forewarning on this change, and to gather feedback. We’re putting together a list of the items that would be affected by this deposit change, which we expect to be limited to high-quantity trade goods. Furthermore, we’re deploying the change to the PTR first, so that addon authors can work through the change while we test it thoroughly.
This change will likely be a temporary measure, as we’re also working to broadly improve the default Auction House in the future. It’s clear to us that many players use addons because they find the default Auction House interface inadequate. A temporary change to deposit fees will help with this in the short term, and we’ll continue to work on overall improvements to the Auction House for a future patch.
My feedback would be to go through with this, except instead of returning deposits make the deposit the "auction house" cut. Because with Auctioneer and Auctionator it's actually extremely simple to just buy out all the single stacks and ignore the overpriced larger stack added ontop to the Mailbox change done in Legion where you can auto loot everything in your mailbox, there needs to be an actual deterrent to placing 2000 of a single herb/cloth/ore and a 400g deposit that will almost certainly be returned isn't going to fix the issue that you're attempting to rectify.
08/27/2018 05:52 PMPosted by Dirkalock08/22/2018 09:49 AMPosted by YthisensIn either case, the deposit is returned to the seller if the item sells. Successful auctions aren’t affected by this change.
So nothing will change then?
People are not going to buy single stacks, people will stop posting single stacks, because they lose $.
08/27/2018 05:58 PMPosted by Omegall08/27/2018 05:50 PMPosted by ButterknivesThis doesn't solve anything because people who post thousands of stacks of 1 are too stupid to even notice the listing fee. Sorry, ban me if you like, but it's the truth.
If you use the average trade value of ore which is 30g per, or 6000g for a stack
posting that stack will be 15g to post it together, or 3000g to post it in 200 stacks of 1. I'm pretty sure they'll notice that after first time they do it.
However, I do agree that returning it to seller defeats the purpose. don't return it. those single stacks still sell. they'll still bog down AH if they still sell.
yep, dont return to seller, I dont mind paying a lil more in the fee to keep form having 30+ minute auction scan times or having to scroll through so many listings to find stack counts I want
08/27/2018 06:15 PMPosted by Pve<span class="truncated">...</span>
So nothing will change then?
People are not going to buy single stacks, people will stop posting single stacks, because they lose $.
People already buy single stacks, nothing is going to change because the money that you're claiming they "lose" gets refunded to them when the auction sells.
AH addons make single item buying super easy. I use Auctionator and I can clean out 400 single lets say herbs in 2 minutes and with the updated mailbox from Legion, I can loot all the herbs in another 2 minutes. With this process it take a minute longer, but I save a huge chunk of gold.
My 2 cents:
The minimum stack size should be implemented, especially for common crafting materials such as Unbroken Claw or Unbroken Tooth. Because the only reason they're posting the stack size 1 of both items is so they can drown out other sellers and make their stuff the only stuff listed for pages (a form of trolling which should have been squashed eons ago). It's annoying, it makes people not want to use the AH, and above all, I always find myself buying the stack size 1 auctions and reposting it as a full stack so that way the other sellers at least get a chance to be represented.
The minimum stack size should be implemented, especially for common crafting materials such as Unbroken Claw or Unbroken Tooth. Because the only reason they're posting the stack size 1 of both items is so they can drown out other sellers and make their stuff the only stuff listed for pages (a form of trolling which should have been squashed eons ago). It's annoying, it makes people not want to use the AH, and above all, I always find myself buying the stack size 1 auctions and reposting it as a full stack so that way the other sellers at least get a chance to be represented.