The AH Problem: Tackling the Root Cause

Community General Discussion
1

TLDR

Goal:

  • Identify the underlying problem, distinguish them from the symptoms, and pose a potential solution to the overarching problem.

The Problem:

As a standard player trying to sell consumable on the auction house, I have a near zero chance of them selling by simply posting them.

The symptoms

While these may be considered problems, they are not the cause. I believe these have all been created by the statement above.

  • “Making gold” efficiently through the AH requires downloading a 3rd party application, multiples of mods, and hours of research, setup, and experimentation.
  • Decreased supply of consumables due to the complexity of selling them
  • Significantly low percentage of population holds the majority of gold (and the rich get richer).
  • Extremely high amounts of unnecessary scanning on the AH, for both posting and canceling. This will get worse as the supply market gets higher.
  • The AH fails to accommodate casual players, forcing those who wish to sell items to log in multitudes of times per day
  • The Longboi inflamed the problem to a more noticeable degree, and will get worse over time.
  • With the new assumption that from here on there will be temporarily available high gold mounts to the game, people are now forever going be stock piling gold “just in case”, inflating the problem even more.

The (potential) solution

Note, this will make little sense without full clarity below, and need to be implemented together

  • Unlimited duration on auctions
  • Round Robin instead of LIFO or FIFO
  • You can match, undercut, or price higher
    • If you undercut, it must be by at least 5%
  • Keep 5% fee for selling. Add 1% retainer fee based on buyout price (this prevents people using it for storage, and lost if item is cancelled)
  • Change AH to be an account/faction based model, rather than by character.
  • Allow the modification of prices (and properly manage retainer fees if increased) without taking the item down and back up.

---- The actual post ----

I would like to start with a thank you for the recent AH rework. It has brought new life to the AH, and made it much more usable for purchasing items in general.

Now to talk about a problem which has existed for many years before: the requirements to sell consumables on the AH.

A simple example: A friend of mine made a few glyphs to put on the AH soon after earning them. After a few attempts, they didn’t sell, so she just put them in the guild bank and moved on. Chatting with her later, I discovered the experience actually made her not only dread the idea of trying to sell things, she grew an actual hatred for those using the AH for the purpose making gold. Ok… huh?

After hearing about the removal of the Longboi, I decided to speed up my own gold making, and finally did some research. I downloaded the “required” application, setup all of…6, maybe 7 mods? Everything which is repeated over and over again in any Gold Making 101 video. There was something I kept hearing about, yet avoided. I was making a bit of gold, so it was fine, but the phrase was getting repeated a lot: “cancel scanning”. I was doing fine, for a while, but as more people entered every market, at some point I found myself doing the same thing. There was a distinct difference in the amount of gold made, based on the number of times you ran the scans and reposted.

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The problem

As I moved forward, I began to the understand her hatred. The only way to sell something on the AH is to be the lowest price (or now, the last to post at the same price). This means that those that babysit the AH win. If person A posts something on the AH, and Person B re-posts theirs within 5 minutes, the chances of person A getting the sale has been reduced by 99.83%, since they actually only have 5 minutes for someone to buy. The smaller the server, the lower the demand, this is then accentuated. Add more people to the supply market (such as means of removing the Longboi) and it’s inflamed even more.

The problem defined: As a standard player trying to sell consumable on the auction house, I have a near zero chance of them selling by simply posting them.

–

The symptoms

While these may be considered problems, they are not the cause. I believe these have all been created by the statement above.

  • “Making gold” efficiently through the AH requires downloading a 3rd party application, multiples of mods, and hours of research, setup, and experimentation.
  • Decreased supply of consumables due to the complexity of selling them
  • Significantly low percentage of population holds the majority of gold (and the rich get richer).
  • Extremely high amounts of unnecessary scanning on the AH, for both posting and canceling. This will get worse as the supply market gets higher.
  • The AH fails to accommodate casual players, forcing those who wish to sell items to log in multitudes of times per day
  • The Longboi inflamed the problem to a more noticeable degree, and will get worse over time.
  • With the new assumption that from here on there will be temporarily available high gold mounts to the game, people are now forever going be stock piling gold “just in case”.

The (potential) solution

This was a challenge to come up with as there are a lot of factors that have to be considered: server size cannot matter, cannot be manipulated, the base UI can support it, etc. Whether it is good or bad doesn’t matter so much, if nothing else it may spark better ideas by the pros. Even if you do plan to do “something” of a few of these varieties, I would not expect to see it until well after Shadowlands comes out, as it would require quite the overhaul. “We are working on it” is always nice to hear though!

The below is intended to be done together. A single one of anything below will do nothing. An ideal solution will also work across all server populations.

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1. Unlimited duration

(note: greatly coupled with #4)

This primarily takes care of one thing: you don’t have to be the first to sell. If posting something provides the expectation that will be 3rd or 4th, and you are ok with that, a sole requirement needs to be up long enough to sell. This is a (one of the few) good experiences I have with the FF14 Market board. I can put things up, and even if they are not always the lowest right now, they might still sell as the market re-rises again. This should be coupled with at least logging in though, for example, if you do not log in for 7 days on that character, perhaps that auction becomes “inactive”, but stays on the AH for when you next log in, and becomes active again. That is more optional though.

–

2. Round Robin instead of LIFO or FIFO

(note: greatly coupled by #3, #4, and #5)

The idea sounds simple, but kinda complex. Let’s say you have 3 people selling Potions, all with a matched prices. Based on who posted first, you would simply rotate until one person is out of potions. Let’s say 4 potions are bought
A -> B -> C -> A.
If player D comes in at the same price, they go to the back of the current line
B -> C -> A -> D
This creates a new dynamic. You will look closely at many people are in the supply market before stepping in. If you see 2-3 people selling potions, it may be profitable vs 15 people selling the same potions. Either way, you will still make gold over the course of time.

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3. 5% undercut, match, or price higher

One of the major benefits we got out of the new LIFO system is the lack of the one copper undercuts (on a side note, I for one didn’t buy from those individuals if possible…). Implementing any other system improperly would just bring those back. If we were to force a more “meaningful” undercut, say equivalent to the AH cut, now it takes some thought. You have two choices:

  • Do I take lower the price by 5% (also knowing people will eventually just match)?
  • Do I match and share the profits over time with others at the current price?
    This is different than the one copper undercut, which was strictly for being first in line. 5% is also enough where you can easily take things below crafting cost if you are not careful. It’s even low enough for someone to buy out and re-post at the current standard with no loss, so going lower and you are just choosing to lose potential gold which someone else will take.

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4. Add 1% retainer fee based on buyout price. Keep the 5% sell fee.

(note: greatly coupled with #6)

I noted above the idea of unlimited durations. This has a major drawback: people using auctions as additional storage. We could reduce the amount of auctions permitted, but that would eliminate high posting strategies like transmog (which expect 500 to 1000 posts to work based on which guide you follow). A fee based on buyout, however, would prevent people from putting things up for storage, or at the very least cost them a very pretty penny to do so (and blizz likes their gold dumps). It would also eliminate the random cloth up to several hundred thousand gold, which I think are getting used simply to inflate the overall market value average? Really not sure though.

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5. Change AH to be an account/faction based model, rather than by character.

For round robin to work, you also have to prevent someone from making multiple posts across characters to “cheat” and get more in line with the round robin. As for multiple unlinked blizzard accounts, I wouldn’t care as much, as they are paying money for each individual account, and would need to earn gold for things like the Longboi separately for each account. This would also mean a “max” sell list based on account as well.

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6. Ability to Modify prices

If we up the retainer fee by buyout, you then lose quite a bit for wanting to re-post lower if something happens to the market… like that really uneducated undercutter that just runs around deflating markets. To prevent this from being a problem, we would need the ability to modify the price of something on the AH. Ideally, you would pay more if you are upping the buyout, but get charged nothing (and would get nothing back) if you are decreasing it. This allow drops in cost while also not allowing this to be abused for storage.

In summary

There is no simple fix to this problem, but I do think by reworking a few things (which admittedly will be difficult), there are solutions. I hope the example solution I’ve provided does show how it can solve the root problem, along with the provided symptoms.

Thanks to anyone who actually read this far, especially prior to commenting. I do want to hear additional problems/symptoms so I can see if the solutions above would help with resolving them or not.

2 Likes
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Everything I post on the AH, using the default AH system, sells
Maybe you’re on a dead realm
Or maybe you’re playing the AH instead of using it normally

1 Like
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Pretty much this ^

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A system needs to work on ALL realms. Being on a “dead” realm is no excuse.
I do know that the above does not affect full realms nearly as much, but that is also only a subset of realms.

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Nah, he said he sells potions which is the problem if his realm has goblins. I’ve seen people re-post within a minute max after being undercut with potions all day and night. Was better when undermine could track sellers. You could see the one’s that never logged out or only for 1 hour a night.

1 Like
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Im over the AH issue personally, I think its as broken now and forever as RL trading.

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Pretty much this.

Our realm has some pretty bad bots. Some will undercut within minutes, some a few seconds. Gets really hard for the common Joe to sell 20 potions when someone will undercut you 5 minutes later with 500.

It also doesn’t matter what you’re selling, undercutting is just… just… weird. Hey the common price of item X is about 100g on the server and regional average is 200g, makes a little sense to put up 20 for 100g each. 5 minutes later you see them for 72g, then 64, then 13g, and all the way down to 7g within 20 minutes. It’s sometimes nice to buy them when they get that cheap. How about when there is 5000 of them at the 7g? Do you think that market is coming back? What about the person selling for 72g? They going to keep there 200 up there or they going to cancel scan and hopefully bring the price back up. Sadly the server average just got tanked for TSM and people are now meeting the 5000, so it becomes 10,000 at that price. Meanwhile the average Joe doesn’t know cauae he just put up a random item he had in his bag trying to make some money and have some fun.

This is a common issue across the board and it effects EVERYONE. It’s not simply a mentality issue as bots are a part of it, while the rest is how the system is set up. You need to be the first in the list to sell an item, people can’t just not buy from the known bots, and the common person really can’t make money used the AH.

1 Like
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I don’t see “unlimited duration” doing anything but keeping a person from having to manage their auctions. With the current undercutting and re-posting, those auctions will just sit there forever.

I agree a round robin or partial sell to all sellers would improve the system.

The current system and yours will still encourage undercutting and re-posting. The best way to prevent undercutting is a 50% tax on your whole sell if you undercut. And to discourage re-posting, 1 hour delayed posting of your auction, during this time you can cancel your auction, after that hour you have to ride out the auction timer.

9

Just allow purchase orders. You want some mats or flasks? Price currently higher than you’re willing to pay? Put in a purchase order for X items at Y gold each. Then when a seller gets to the create auction screen, they can see both the listed prices AND the PO prices and can choose to either list the item or fill a PO.

1 Like
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These two hand in hand. They can’t put in a turn based order and at the same time provide limits on how fast they have to sell. That said, not having to manage the auctions is one of the benefits too.

As for undercutting, some undercutting isn’t necessarily bad, as there is a such thing as prices being too high. Putting in a tax for undercutting doesn’t work without also drastically inflating the market.

Note that I am posing 5% minimum undercut, but that could be shifted too. It’s actually crazy how many people out there “reset” markets trying to boost it back up again trying to help everyone. This makes it easier on them too, rather than wait for things to drop below vendor price (which I see a lot too).

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I posted a variation a couple of days ago, which gets at a lot of the same points.

Repost
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Ty for the post, analytical with suggested solutions.

I think the commitment of the small number that make good profits from the AH creates barriers to the majority of ordinary players wanting to use it. I think a region-wide AH (with load distributed off the game servers or on low use servers) with both sell and buy orders would go a long way to curing the current ills. It would certainly be beneficial to people on the low volume realms - make prices more competitive but also counteract the low pop servers emptying even more.

I think this sums up how I feel about the AH.

I remember when stuff on Cael used to sell - before the AH became faction-free even [Ed. as in only 1 factions items avail to buy and sell to any individual char]. Those days a pop scan would throw up 1100 ppl at peak (which was what the big servers were getting off peak!)

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AH game is like any other game. those who spam M+ and raid all the time will get more loot than those who don’t.

Undercut scan in 5 minutes are typically not done by the real AH barons, who on my big server i’d recognize. They are done by those new AH player, desperate to make gold for longboi, but don’t know the concept of diverse portfolio, who made 2000 flasks and sit there in desperation trying to sell all of it.

The real AH barons have too much stuff on sale to bother reposting every 5 min. Markets with that kind of competition often have very low margin, hence not worth their time.

I have actually participated in a couple of this kind of undercut wars in alchemy market. normally, its a couple of barons just post. and undercutting every few hour or so whenever their schedule is up. Then some new guy comes. and undercuts. Then another new guy undercuts in about 2 min. then i undercuts. then soon, you don’t see any more of those barons on anymore, and its 3-4 name i don’t recognize spam reposting.

at that point i just leave. and in about 2h i come back and see a wreck of a market with ample evidence of the brutal fight that had occured.

2 Likes
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You will never make it an even playing field. Those that put the effort into the AH reap the benefits.

It’s sorta like the catch up mechanics vs someone who is ahead of the curve so to speak. I won’t be able to get to their level of gear/skill by playing less.

And dead realms are always going to affect the AH.

Think of it as having a store on an island with you and a few people, compared to someone having a store on an island with thousands of people. One will have more movement of stock than the other.

You would have to restructure the AH again which I doubt they’ll want to do.

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The ‘fix’ to the server problems is leaving listing alone but instead reducing cancel scans drastically.
Ive tested it. These clowns will literally sit there all day running scans every minute or less.
I did it myself and could see the listings coming down very quickly after Id cancel mine, then Id be undercut by the same number of listings nearly immediately. All within 60-90 seconds.
Cancel scans running all day every day is where the problem is.

They should allow us maybe half a dozen cancel scans each per daily reset…and that just so if we make a mistake listing we can delist and correct.
This would allow everyone to post as much as they want, but drastically reduce the server lag.
Yes, they can just break up their stacks and list them a few at a time instead so they can keep undercutting, but IF this is about the server performance too that must be addressed first and foremost.
And if they list fewer items at a time…boom…less server performance problems.

There will always be competition trying to sell stuff. both in game and in real life. Thats the nature of doing business. Someone will ALWAYS undercut you no matter where you are and what youre selling.
So that aspect of the AH has to take a back seat to server performance, which would be made much better by taking away most of our cancel scans. Which again doesnt need to throttle listings going up.