I’d ask if any casual player even make much gold on it anymore but nearly anyone that comes to these forums is likely not a casual player. I’m on a low pop server yet there are several people that work from home or office jobs that let them play the game (according to them) and they can literally cancel scan every 30secs to couple minutes and control any current content market.
I don’t think this was ever the intent of the AH and I blame TSM for most of the issues since it allows such easy posting. You can literally just use an auto clicker set on a random timer and once you see it highlight something, click 2 times and already undercut your competition. It’s insane.
I don’t know how you can improve the AH off the top of my head currently and Im sure most on here like it the way it is because I think most forum users are not really casual players but I’d like to hear any ideas.
I make plenty of gold off the AH and I never cancel scan. Set it and forget it, come back two days later to mailboxes of gold, repost the rest, and repeat.
Are you posting transmog or things like shadowlands enchants and such? Because I can post 20 of every enchant at the lowest price and come back the next morning and nothing have sold. Same with any leather/hides/cloth/legendaries. Herbs you might get lucky on. The few people on my server will just post over and over every couple of minutes or sooner.
Goblins will do anything for an edge on the AH, no matter how skeezy. One of the reasons Blizzard shuttered the mobile AH is because people were using the app in Android emulators and the mobile AH API to automate posting/cancelling/reposting/buyout/etc.
IMO they should make the AH UI “protected” (as some bits already are), restricting addons to price history/tracker types only.
I post a little bit of everything, from current content consumables/transmog to all kinds of old content trash. I also do the auction housing for my guild when the guild bank starts to get a little bloated, which is just easy gold for the guild.
I’ve made tens of thousands of gold on the AH in just the last couple of months from just posting BoE greens and crafting mats and just setting the buyout price at 1 silver less than the lowest going price for that item on there already.
Revert the system to first-in-first-out, and then implement buy and sell orders, similar to the steam community market. Sellers can choose to fulfill the prices the buyers want (for fast sales) or post higher.
My market is crowded, with many regulars. The change they made to Cancel Scanning seems to have worked well. It’s ridiculous the amount of time it takes. Frankly, if they want to spend their life like that - one item per min, then they’ve earned it.
What I’ve observed is that unless you’re actively engaged in a cancel war with another poster, what appears to be cancel scanning could just be expiration relisting, or second wave relisting. That’s how the Goblins do it - they don’t cancel scan, they just cycle the next set - crafting enough sets or holding enough product so that all they do is post. Has the same effect as cancel scanning w/out triggering the slow. Faster, more efficient. Goblin territory.
But do continue to adjust the AH until you’ve driven out all the small market players. It seems to be the goal - fix it until only the top can engage in it.
I do a little bit of that too, depending on the product and how many are fighting it. Keep enough floating around, post for the shortest amount of time, and just keep cycling X amount every few hours or so.
yup…that was me.
I do it and Id agree…being able to scan like that should be restricted. Give a few cancels a day for mistakes in listing, but not everyone can sit there all day long cancelling every 30 seconds like I did.
I just sell one piece of transmog which requires rare items to make and price it so that people can’t make gold on it by buying the materials - that solves the problems of competition.
They already made the deposit higher to try and counteract that, but I think its based off of vendor value cause some things cost nothing to cancel endlessly now still.
I wouldn’t mind an even larger deposit since you get it all mostly returned but I don’t think it’s as bad as it was before the changes.
If I find I’m babysitting something too much I cut the price and just let them buy it up from me and lean more into other markets for a bit, saves me time while they nickel and dime a random battle pet for days.
They did restrict it. You can’t do it now, unless you have a ton of time on your hands. For each scan they increase the time between cancel actions until it’s unbearable. It’s also been two expacs since TSM has been able to bind scroll wheel to list/cancel. There is no difference between the native AH and TSM in the mechanics behind those two processes: one click for one item. The delay registers in the TSM interface as well.
There may also be a cap, but I’m too small to have ever seen that.
“But do continue to adjust the AH until you’ve driven out all the small market players. It seems to be the goal - fix it until only the top can engage in it. ”
I am here to find out why the AHs on my low population realms are so overpriced for armor I need for low level avatars trying to make it on their own. Why is a lvl 20 cloak 999 gold? If deposits were 10% of price it would make AH better for everyone. Then prices are pressured back down to earth because it costs proportionately to list and if no fool buys the overpriced stuff the seller looses which causes the whole system to adjust for the better.
What I see happening these days in terms of Shadowlands herbs, ores, leather and other mats is someone severely undercutting. They’ll sell one item at like 1 gold, 1 silver hoping someone is gullible enough to sell bulk mats at that same price so they scan swoop it off for dirt cheap. I love playing the auction house, so it isn’t just the ones that cancel, but ones who try to use cheap tactics like that.
I see one person doing this all day and night. Post for one mat for 1 gold, 1 silver, I’ll buy one and 10 seconds later a new one is on there. Maybe it’s automated, but I’ve seen other people bulk sell their mats at 1 gold 1 silver by mistake as well when I would re-load and observe. Maybe it’s allowed, but it’s a scummy thing to do.
Because you’ve chosen to remain on a low pop realm. It’s a seller’s market. If deposits are 10% of the price, they’ll just include that in their offerings.
Your change will just drive out the small seller. The goblins have years of “10% charges” to spend. All you’re doing is removing the competition.
Let me ask you - have you sat in a Goblin discord, do you use the Undermine Journal, do you config TSM and sit on their boards (stormspire back in the day)? Any of those?
I cancel scan when I run out of stock but I have more than 1 item in stock. It is easier to craft legendaries in batches for starters and it means I don’t have to cancel scan.
