Baz price scripts are getting out of hand

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Sindace, Sep 28, 2019.

  1. Sindace Elder

    Dear DBG,

    Please look into the incredible volume of baz mules using non-legit programs to continually undercut (trader) or overbid (buyer) people that actually play the game right. The prices are obvious. Continuously undercutting by 1% or 2% - when you call them out it's a simple "good luck, it's not like I set my prices manually..." I get that the script from software that isn't supposed to be used is doing things that a player could do manually. But the fact that DBG has continually turned a blind eye to this continues to embolden people to cheat at the expense of others. I get that they pay for kronos. I generally sub 6-8 accounts myself. But this is just obnoxious at this point. For all the complaints about botters, they don't impact my game much. This is a nuisance. Would be nice if you did something about this.
  2. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    Just have fun with the script kiddies. It's easy to figure out the ones that have a trader and a buyer up all the time. There's three in particular on Bristlebane - one literally has an entire section of the bazaar lined with Ogre sellers. Abuse their software to continuously lower their cost, buy it from them and sell for "inflated" costs back to their buyer. It's good fun, often not that profitable but screwing over these guys is just good fun. People have been abusing the usual suspects at their own game for some time and it's glorious to just annoy them now and again.

    Spells are the easiest to effect pricing. Depending on going rate is, a little knowledge of where ores, silks and pelts prices tend to be at goes a long way. You're actually helping more casual players to get their rank 2's a bit cheaper than the often insane pricing we see on our server. You can't dislike that.
  3. Zanarnar Augur

    What your missing is DBG seems to be 100% ok with this level of automated gameplay. So you just need to run your own scripts to counter the other boters.

    Again, I'm going by their actual ACTIONS, not their pointless words. On this subject, their lack of any action speaks volumes louder then their lipservice. (save your effort copy/pasting hollys post here mr/mrs forum mod.. we've all seen that, but once again the lack of action proves it to be just more pandering to us hoping we.. what.. forget about it? not sure the endgame here for you guys)

    So either sink to the level of folks running automated scripts, or give up any hope of being on an even playing field. There don't seem to be too many other choices on DBG's servers.
    Nennius likes this.
  4. Tappin Augur

    The Bazaar is dead, and has been for ages. My suggestion is to sell your big ticket items in General chat and sell other items in packages.
  5. Cadira Augur

    This thread should have been titled "Bazaar scripts -- Let's get this over with"

    Don't let it happen again.
  6. Duder Augur



    wrong
    Mukkul, Paladin, Jhenna_BB and 2 others like this.
  7. Tappin Augur


    It is dead. It's filled with bots and people trying to corner a piece of the market. I really only use it off load junk at a discounted price.

    With the amount of people I see in general chat selling stuff, I am sure there are others that feel the same.
  8. Duder Augur



    Its anything but dead. But combating the Auto-Updating traders is an effort that really takes too much time. People say so manipulate their prices... done it, still takes a long time and is risk on your end of having some one finding what yer manipulating and buying it for cheap (had this happen with conflagrant). The traders like Jhenna spoke of on BB, the ogres, really aren't a big deal. Their prices aren't updated regularly enough to pose an issue, maybe once a week? They aren't even in online mode like the other real problematic auto updating traders.

    Regardless, I still run a trader 24/7, I update prices maybe once a week, and it still makes enough to support its account and some of my others. I don't sell anything in particular, everything. As well, they aren't highly inflated unfair prices either. For me, its not about asking price, its about moving stuff to make room for more stuff and having the prices fair enough for items to move quickly.

    But I do agree, for most people the bazaar has become useless. They play for their typical weekly session, login their trader, adjust prices, and put it in offline mode for the rest of the week. All the while the auto-updaters and other scripted updaters undercut their prices in minutes and make it impossible for them to sell anything. So after a while of this happening they just don't login their traders, or update prices, or sit them in offline mode, they give up. This is the big issue with these scripts and the bazaar, they ARE killing the bazaar. But its not dead just yet, not on BB atleast.
  9. Whulfgar Augur

    Yep.
  10. Duder Augur



    Surely seems to be the case... no good argument against it. It goes on unchecked, petitions get canned responses for CS reps who seem to know nothing about the game or the community and the quantity of these traders only increases over time.

    I don't think that's a problem. Enterprise is fine, cheating is the issue at hand. If you're speaking of the cheaters cornering the market, yes, that occurs, and is no good.
  11. Whulfgar Augur

    This old of a game.. its not shocking to see this occuring.

    Based off of how rampent 3rd party programs are (off of pure in game observation, as well as people blatentely admitting such things)

    It was literally only a matter of time before automated script took over bazaars . I'm actually a lil shocked its just now being noticed.
  12. Coagagin Guild house cat

    Or is it a problem of DBG manpower or assigning someone competent to investigate? Is this something that client support could be trained enough to observe and report such behavior? Are they "too busy" to do such? I dunno. Just throwing ideas out there.
  13. Sindace Elder

    Just boggles my mind how easy it is to see from a distance, it's all done in one zone, in real time, and yet DBG continues to bury their heads in the sand.

    Either that or we have some math geniuses at work running a bunch of traders. It's not common numbers either. I didn't know what 99% of 346,499 was, but a script trader nailed it at 343,034. Must be a coincidence right? /sarcasm.

    Before the community manager or devs try to say "take it to /report" that's nonsense. This is highly visible to anyone that pays attention so it's also even more highly visible to you on the backend. Once someone starts using scripts, all of a sudden there are quite a few. If you buy someone updates 18 accts of traders continuously without using the third party programs you claim to get bent out of shape about even being mentioned on these forums, I've got a bridge to sell you. No one can update dozens of prices in the span of a second, there have gotta be logs of this being done. Almost like if you were able to graph out the number of transaction changes there'd be the scripters at the one end, then everyone else at less than 25% of their changes. It's not even close.

    Do something. Stop burying your head in the sand. These people while yes, they pay for the traders, chances are they also heavily impact the black market kronos also keeps players from buying them from DBG directly for double the price. People don't stop cheating when you do nothing to stop them, you embolden them to see what else they can get away with.
    Duder likes this.
  14. Zanarnar Augur

    Not one to throw shade without offering (imo) a way forward, I've been thinking about this...

    The bazaar, while a cool concept, is in need of a revamp. I think they should take this opportunity (they will have to spend time coding in counter-measures to the existing system) to move the game to an auction-house style.

    They could even bring back a slightly changed version of the original bazaar, complete with its arena but without trader stalls. They could even present us with a similar UI where we have tabs of slots to put stuff up for sale. They could even sell us additional tabs for DBC. This would give them a chance to update the max selling price and remove that issue (and they can set the max in code, and raise it as they feel its needed based on the economy)

    I mean, they've already removed the feeling of having to run to the bazaar to buy something buy letting us remote-buy and send to the parcel vendor (or even right to our inventory at a price)... so while it might bum some folks out to lose the old trader model, it would remove the cheat aspects, let them clean up the code and bring it up to modern standards, and improve the system overall while they're at it. (fixing the barter issues brought up in other threads for example)

    YA, it would take some time.. likely more then writing anti-cheat code for the existing system.. but imo its a better way forward. In the end, no matter what they do, I really hope they do something. The status-quo is not good.
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Maybe they should make it like EBAY where you have a "buy now" price and a bidding war on a timer.
    Fenthen, Micker, svann and 1 other person like this.
  16. Metapsyche Augur

    I’m so confused why people are complaining about this. If someone’s willing to undercut you why does it matter if they do it instantly or in 3 hours? You’re just upset that you can’t trick someone into paying more for an item that they needed to in the 3 hours (or whatever) it would take for a human to undercut you anyway? Stop being greedy.

    If you want to sell something quickly, just list it for an attractive price? Seems obvious.

    **I was selling some Djinn raid coins, about 230 or so past week. Some guy kept undercutting me by pennies. I think I was listed st 120k each (almost 15k below the next highest). Someone listed at 119.7 or something like that. I scoffed a little and listed at 100k each- they sold in about 3 minutes. Did I make less than I could have, but that’s on me. I don’t buy into the whole “I don’t have time to fight undercutters” or “I can’t sell my goods” arguments. Just lower your price, sell your worthless junk, and move on with your day.
    Fenthen likes this.
  17. Zanarnar Augur

    According to the company running the show, unattended automated gameplay is against the rules.

    This issue, is 100% automated, unattended gameplay. (scripts running to auto-adjust your price to beat the lowest seller, noone is making these types of adjustments by hand.)

    So either its against the rules, and they need to punish the offenders/handle the issue -OR- its not against the rules, and everyone needs to do it to be on even ground. Many people won't sink to this level without official word that this is OK and not going to get your account suspended.
  18. Duder Augur


    List it for an attractive price? Say 1 plat maybe, then you depend on some one seeing it within the 5 minutes before the auto updaters undercut? And what makes it even worth some ones time to list something for nothing? Your logic is flawed.

    Everyone is trying to get a fair exchange in time and effort. Time and effort to acquire the item. Effort in actually looting the item, keeping track of the item. Transferring that to a bazaar mule. Loading that bazaar mule, listing the item. There is a considerable effort to bring any item to the market. Its not that people aren't willing to go lower, its that they don't have the time to monitor their prices every 5 minutes for some one else undercutting and should not have to, that is not how the Bazaar was designed or implemented. Making things cheaper is NOT a good thing.

    Does that clear up your confusion? Because to me, what I have said is the obvious, and what you said, the abstract.
    Vumad and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  19. Metapsyche Augur

    You want to talk about abstract? How about selling something for 1 plat, lol. Why bother?

    If you’re willing to sell something for 50k, but are asking for 150k- you’re taking responsibility for monitoring your listing every 5 minutes from 150k all the way down to 50k. You have some easy choices...

    1.) play the market game in general
    2.) list at the price you’re actually willing to sell it for (if someone beats your “lowest” price, I guess it’s not for sale anymore)
    3.) heavily monitor your listings

    That is obvious. Your weird “low prices are bad” and “I should be the only one allowed to undercut when it’s convenient for Me” arguments are about as abstract as it gets.
  20. Metapsyche Augur

    The ONLY reason y’all notice the bazaar bots undercutting you is because you in fact undercut them. Why should you be the only one allowed to undercut and drive prices down?
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Fenthen like this.