Are bazaar automated price script users causing lag?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Deux, Feb 7, 2021.

  1. Stageguy Lorekeeper

    Could they put a cooldown timer on price changes? Once you change a price you cannot change it again for 4 hours? Not sure that would help with lag, but it would stop those auto-bots from listing their item for 1 plat less than yours over and over and over. My personal preference would be to see the third party software banned but I am not going to hold my breath on that one.

    I have to admit one of them had restless silks at 5k and was hoarding them all so I bought a small stack in PoK off another player, listed them and sat and watched to change my prices over and over as soon as their auto-bot would change his price. Got him down to 850p per silk and bought all he had. So you can work it to your advantage if you don't mind the trouble.
    Pikachuuu, minimind and OldCa61 like this.
  2. Cicelee Augur

    Considering there is hardly any lag on Beta servers where there is not a bazaar economy, and where the higher populated servers like Xegony and Bristlebane and Cazic have a lot of lag and probably a higher chance of bazaar bots... you might be onto something here.
    minimind, Deux and Duder like this.
  3. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Im sure they know where lag comes from, or at least whether bazaar is causing lag in other zones. Maybe a dev could comment?
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  4. Metanis Bad Company

    It's all conjecture because the Devs aren't allowed to share real info. My personal opinion is they have simply undersized the compute requirements in their data center in order to save a few bucks. But since they won't actually tell us anything it's simply a guess on my part.
  5. Windance Augur

    I'd really like the way the WoW auction house worked. You put your items up for sale but it costs you a fraction of the price to place the "add" and it only runs for a certain length of time.

    It wouldn't stop the bots from putting items up for sale undercutting people, but it would make it more interesting.
  6. adetia Monkess Wonder, Ruler of All

    yep - they've already said the expense of this query would be overwhelming unfortunately :( originally pitched this idea via the issue tracker a couple years ago.
  7. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    I like you, human! I make a lot of sales in baz from a lot of people trying to not support the bots. Sometimes, the price difference is in the 1-3kpp range. People know the names of the traders that bot. They do so at their own detriment.
  8. Veteran_BetaTester PIZZA!

    That is @#$@n BS!

    Developers get on this right away. WTF Scrips in bazaar now?

    When will hacking stop in the game?
  9. Veteran_BetaTester PIZZA!

  10. Windance Augur

    When they shut down the servers. Other wise people will find a way to script things to their benefit.
  11. Windance Augur

    If you log in at 4-6 am do you notice "worse than normal lagfest" ?

    If so then it might be the bazaar bots or AFK grinders because they would be running 24/7.

    If not and you notice the "worse than normal lagfest" from 6pm to 10pm then ... its likely because a couple hundred people have logged in to raid and are hitting the server combat code hard.
    Corwyhn Lionheart and Tatanka like this.
  12. Accipiter Old Timer


    I wouldn't do it that way. If I really had a lag problem related to this, I'd just do a snapshot every x minutes and use that value for all requests until the next snapshot. Does it matter if they report 17,491 items for sale when the actual number is 17,499? Not in the least. It's just a novelty.
  13. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    In this case it's easy and quick to prove. All a Dark Paw employee needs to do is read a petition and place a trader with all the same inventory as the botter, undercutting the price a few times. They just don't want to do it and that's why people are so frustrated about it.

    Pushing the issue a step forward, it's looks really bad. The bazaar on Live servers is a Krono Mine. People sell my buyer a Krono or two and then take the money I handed them and take it right to my Trader on my other account and spend the money right away on things to skill up to 300 on. I truly hope Krono sales don't get in the way of policing this. It's a really bad look.
    Coagagin likes this.
  14. Windance Augur

    I was just using that to point out the number of items on my server that a baz search has to loop over for each search request
    Accipiter likes this.
  15. Windance Augur

    There is one benefit to the automated trade bots. They are good for the buyers. Since the baz bots keep dropping the price they tend to bottom out the prices which is good for the shoppers!
  16. Kovachs Lorekeeper

    Often times people suggest running the bots down in price and then buying their stuff. Not so simple. You might buy all their stuff at rock bottom prices only to find the next day they’ve just restocked more with their afk- gotten goods.

    If you want to stop the bots then shop local. By that I mean if a person has the same items you want but at just a tad higher price, just buy it from them instead! You can do the same for collections. It’s so easy to spot the auto bot collectors. If a person has a 100 stack of the rarest ground spawn collection, or every single one of their collections on a trader is a ground spawn — support someone else. Even if it costs a little bit more.

    I do find it funny though when two auto pricers start undercutting each other in lock step. The crap they’re selling becomes worth less than the account up keep. Talk about stupid!
  17. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    And I thought some of us concluded in a recent discussion that they COULD add an expac filter for collectibles, which wouldn't cost much at all. Per sources who know, every object has an expac flag internally, so it would be a simple filter to implement.

    The other idea would be, require all collectibles in the same set to have some portion of the text string in common. There were several of these in TBL... "Rusted Cliffs Glory", "Ash Covered", etc. At least make them easier to search that way.
  18. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Here's another VERY simple solution to this problem.....

    Once you enter trade mode, you have 5-10 minutes to go offline trader (time to adjust a few prices, etc). If not, it kicks you out of trader, and won't allow you back into trader until the next time you log in.

    I mean, seriously, once you're in trader mode, why are you staying online?
    Coagagin likes this.
  19. Windance Augur

    That doesn't fix the problem. They would write something to auto login every 5-10 min and update their pricing.
    Barton likes this.
  20. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    Let's punish every non-bot trader? Hard pass.

    Make them do their dang jobs and read the petitions and investigate. It's not hard. They just don't want to do the work.
    Barraind and Andarriel like this.