Suggestion: Auction House bid limit (Quality of Life enhancement)

Hello.

I wanted to put forth a simple yet very useful improvement to the auction house bidding system. Today we can only place a direct bid of an amount we desire for an item and the bid goes directly through, raising the current bid price to the bid price we enter in. While this system works, I think most would agree that we would like to save peds any way we could. In today’s system you either have to place your max bid up front, or engage in a bid war for an item (ignoring buyouts ofc) which can drag for a long time since every last minute bid resets the 5 min end time for the item on AH. With many players having families/work/different time zone/etc, the bid war option is often ruled out. So why not improve the AH by adding a bid limit feature.

To explain with a simple example, let’s say there is adjusted Maddox IV for sale on auction house with a start bid of +1K ped and a buyout piece of +10k ped. With today’s average prices for a adj Maddox IV being roughly +4K, this start bid is very attractive but the buyout is unreasonable, therefore most people will want to bid but not buyout. Let’s say I was comfortable paying +3700 which is right at market price. In today’s system I can big 3700 and just wait and see if I get outbid, but with a limit I can set it to +3700 and it would set me as a top bidder at +1000 and beat any counter bid <+3700 by 1 ped, no different than me sitting at AH all day and immediately outbidding by 1 ped. If someone set a limit of +3600, I’d be the top bidder at +3601. If someone sets a limit at +3750, then I would be out and my money would be returned to me. If someone bids +3700 also, the first who submitted the limit should take priority - but I admit this is the only flaw that I can find in this system. Perhaps if my limit is +3700 and my limit was set first, when the next person tries to submit a new limit bid of +3700, my limit is instantly engaged and the current bid price would then be +3700.

I think this would help many people who want to buy items on auction house but don’t have the ability to engage in bid wars. This feature is very common in other games and other real life auctions, such a simple eBay. Also, this would partially solve the auction house bid mistakes where someone places their whole ped card (or substantially more of a bid than they wanted to) as opening bid thinking it was a buyout. In this case, if an item has a +10 starting bid and no buyout but someone puts in a 100 ped opening bid, they would be the top bidder at 10 ped with a limit of 100 ped -- a limit that they can adjust after bid if the 100 ped was a mistake -- but wouldn't hard commit a 100 ped bid to the seller up front.


Thoughts?

This already exists, you just need to create an order for the item in question.

Bertha Bot said:

Auction Order Improvements
Auction orders will now place bids automatically on offers with no buyout and on offers with buyouts higher than the auction order’s maximum bid. The automatic bids will be made at the lowest legal bid amount and the system will continue to raise the bid against subsequent competing bids as high as the order’s maximum price will allow. Offers with a buyout price lower than an order’s maximum price will be matched immediately at the offer’s buyout price, functioning the same as before this update.

Click to expand...

Have to admit,didnt all underestand 100% ....but atm order do work similar this way..they autmatically bid for you until your max bid (only goes for Ul items and components)

AND yes RL also makes it difficult to compete in some ways...but you could also use the Virtual Tycoon app...and be ontime then in auc for your desired item...

another point is also...if your highest price would be +3700 and you bid on it first day...AND thats your max....then yes one who gets it for +3710 then gets it.....BUT is was over your max then...

so best to pay a little more then and get it i guess...(+using the app ofc)

Eddie

Haruto Rat said:

This already exists, you just need to create an order for the item in question.

Click to expand...

I guess that a problem is that if the kind of people who engages in endless bidwars sees the order (for let's say 3750.00 PED), they'll create another order at 3750.01 PED. And I don't think the (previous higher) orderer gets any message that he's been "outbid". (Check orders on CLDs/AUDs to see what I mean.) And in the long run it requires a deep pocket to be able to counterbid that kind of orders (ie you need at least 0.02 + 2x3750 PED that you can afford to lock until orders expire), well unless you can cancel an order and get money back.

I lost my bid on an apartment on Rocktropia due to someone bid +1 ped in middle of night (like 03:00 my local time).

Thanks for the replies. In regards to orders there is a few issues that I feel that they fall short on which is why I brought this thread up.

First, orders explicitly state your max bid. This isn’t a deal breaker per say but it dilutes the chance of winning an item since your “opposition” can see your max bid up front. No other auction really does this and it takes away from the nature of the audio , which is competing bids one against the other.
Edit — aia also does a great job providing a stronger argument on this point

Second, orders aren’t attached to specific items. In my example, I want to bid on an adjusted Maddox IV. Let’s say I really want this specific one since it has tiers that I really want. Or if I’m buying a coat, it has specific colors or textures that I really like. Orders are blind to this and will bid regardless of which one I want. On top of this, I can’t assign an order to a specific item. Say there are two items that satisfy my order but one is ending in one day and another in 7 days. I don’t know which item the order will pick (I don’t use this feature tbh) but I would be annoyed if it chose the 7 day auction instead of the 1.

Third - Orders require timing. If I want to buy an item that isn’t frequently sold, my options are paying 1 ped per day to keep an order open and hope someone posts it up or timing an order when I see an item pop up. Furthermore I need to remove my order before another item pops up that I don’t want. In my example maybe I want to buy a specific adj Maddox, it gets bought out and now another’s one pops up in auction that has poor tiers that I don’t want but the order instantly bids on it. Another timing issue is if I buy the same item in another channel (in person trade for example) I have to cancel my order before an item pops up on AH.

All of these issues would be resolved by auction limits on a specific item. If MA wants to charge a 1 ped fee to attach a hidden order/limit for a specific item then so be it, but I think that is a bit ridiculous. This feature is common across many auction houses in other games and places, but That’s up to MindArk to decide.


Keep the comments coming though!

Edward-James said:

Have to admit,didnt all underestand 100% ....but atm order do work similar this way..they autmatically bid for you until your max bid (only goes for Ul items and components)

AND yes RL also makes it difficult to compete in some ways...but you could also use the Virtual Tycoon app...and be ontime then in auc for your desired item...

another point is also...if your highest price would be +3700 and you bid on it first day...AND thats your max....then yes one who gets it for +3710 then gets it.....BUT is was over your max then...

so best to pay a little more then and get it i guess...(+using the app ofc)

Eddie

Click to expand...

There is no app for iOS so virtual tycoon is a no go for me. I shouldn’t have to buy an android device to bid on a game item. Furthermore many items have end times in the middle of the night or when I’m working which would disqualify me from bidding in real time as well.

Cheers

aia said:

I guess that a problem is that if the kind of people who engages in endless bidwars sees the order (for let's say 3750.00 PED), they'll create another order at 3750.01 PED. And I don't think the (previous higher) orderer gets any message that he's been "outbid". (Check orders on CLDs/AUDs to see what I mean.) And in the long run it requires a deep pocket to be able to counterbid that kind of orders (ie you need at least 0.02 + 2x3750 PED that you can afford to lock until orders expire), well unless you can cancel an order and get money back.

I lost my bid on an apartment on Rocktropia due to someone bid +1 ped in middle of night (like 03:00 my local time).

Click to expand...

so then u are back to square 1 if someone orders at +0.01; but then again i ask you: u already submitted a MAX bid of 3750. whose fault is it u got outbidded? seems fair to me and yes the order system does exactly what op was proposing in the first place

Downside to the order system is that it doesn't work on (L) items.

aka_fr0st said:

so then u are back to square 1 if someone orders at +0.01; but then again i ask you: u already submitted a MAX bid of 3750. whose fault is it u got outbidded? seems fair to me and yes the order system does exactly what op was proposing in the first place

Click to expand...

No one is disagreeing with you that if your max bid is outbid that you lose the auction. You are just completely overlooking the other points that are being made. If your order was the highest out there and someone places a higher order, no notification is set (rightfully so but this is a short coming in my argument for auction limit bids since the only reason order is being used is to +1 auto bid up to my order amount) so you wouldn’t know that you aren’t the front runner anymore without constantly checking. Also orders are blind to a specific item for sale - it only knows the item name but if multiple ones are for sale it chooses one (I’m not exactly sure what the logic is for order bids)

Darth Revan said:

Downside to the order system is that it doesn't work on (L) items.

Click to expand...

Yep. That’s is another shortcoming of the order system and another argument for limit bids on an item

+rep Hypnotic

Shouldnt be too difficult to do this I wouldn't think. I mean EBAY has been using this system for years why shouldnt we be able to get similar functionality in game?

Hypnotyk said:

No one is disagreeing with you that if your max bid is outbid that you lose the auction. You are just completely overlooking the other points that are being made. If your order was the highest out there and someone places a higher order, no notification is set (rightfully so but this is a short coming in my argument for auction limit bids since the only reason order is being used is to +1 auto bid up to my order amount) so you wouldn’t know that you aren’t the front runner anymore without constantly checking. Also orders are blind to a specific item for sale - it only knows the item name but if multiple ones are for sale it chooses one (I’m not exactly sure what the logic is for order bids)



Yep. That’s is another shortcoming of the order system and another argument for limit bids on an item

Click to expand...

well i am totally down with notifications for orders if they can implement that so that you know when u are no longer the top bidder
cheers

OP's suggestion would allow me to both place a limit above which I don't automatically bid, and automatically place bids below that limit, even when the item's buyout is not above my max. Can't do that by placing an order.

I am strongly in favor of OP's suggestion.

Oh and I am NOT going to take the time away from real life activities such as sleeping at a decent hour in order to engage in something as stupid as a bid war at 3am.

a little bump for developer visibility