Spiral Knights - Auction House Time Phrases

Auction House Time Phrases

20 replies [Last post]

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 05:00

Paintool

Very Long, Long, Medium, Short, Very Short.

What does this tell you? A relative amount of time?
The game is FULL of timers: Lockdown, Blastnetwork, and arcade gates at one point in time, giveaways, reboots...

But this is the one area of the game we are forced to do guesswork. WHY?
Why do I have to be afraid to go to sleep at night when I see an auction with "LONG" and I wake up in the morning and It's gone.
Why do I have to be victim of overnight time zone poaching?
It sucks being an east coast player... I keep losing auctions that end in the middle of the night, because I think it's gonna be okay.
I want to know why we can't calculate to a T how much time we have left.
The terms aren't helping anyone. VL is at 2 days to nearly 12 hours. Long is 1 day to 4 hours, and Medium is 4 hours to anyone's guess at Very Short bid wars.

I'm tired of this. I can't buy what I want on limited time events...

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 05:34

Skepticraven

↓

Because the time changes when bids are placed.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 05:41

Paintool

Then why not just tack on

Then why not just tack on more time to a REAL timer with a countdown clock with days, hours, minutes, and seconds?

Tin Foil Hate Theory: Some crazy punishment denial factor that's designed to make you play the game more and watch auctions like a hawk, and if you miss it or it goes too high WELL I GUESS I HAVE TO WAIT FOR NEXT TIME AND PLAY THE GAME MORE.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 06:31

Bopp

exercise

It's always a useful exercise to try to argue the opposing viewpoint: Why should the Very Short timer be imprecise? Hint: It has to do with nobody placing any bids until the final seconds of the auction.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 08:36

Arylide

Yeah, the Auction House drives me insane too, maybe every timer should be precise, except for the "Very Short" one? Because you're right (Bopp), nobody would bid until the last seconds (but then the time is extended AGAIN). So the AH timer really is a huge pain, if I really want something I have to stand right there in Haven all day long because I don't know for sure how what "Medium", "Long", etc. actually mean (I know, I've read the wiki, one day two days, etc. but that's an estimate that's just not helpful at all if you can't play SK 24/7).

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 11:59

Hexzyle

Autobidding would solve this whole problem.

Bid sniping is already countered by the fact that a minute is added (to a maximum of 5 minutes) every time someone bids on an item during the Very Short time period, but if autobidding were in place this could be removed without consequence.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 13:24

Flowchart

You can approximate by what page it's on when you sort by end time.
Or put up a cheap item like an ecto drop or something for 12 hours, so you can see whether the item you're interested in comes before or after that.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 15:25

Leekcoco

I'm up for auto-bidding and a counter on the long timeframes. The difference between Long (4-12 hours) and Medium (1-4 hours) is ridiculous, but leaving Very Short as is will give AH hawks less leverage (though auto-bidding would render it redundant anyway). Does that need a new thread in Suggestions? I've seen it suggested before.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 15:40

Hyper-Galactic

RAWR

Also some fun facts:

End times are extended by how long the server was down for.
The auction house item end times are aliased to the minute, it's why a lot end at the same exact second.
The item count-downs are powered by a clock by the server done once a minute.
This clock alias is why you also see a big difference in the very short time duration.
That's a full minute of give or take from the server only clocking the items once a minute.

tl;dr end times have a resolution to the minute, not the second.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 16:01

Paintool

Flowchart, no offense, but

Flowchart, no offense, but those are really the worst work around suggestions to a broken system.
You mean to tell me that instead having a precise timer for auctions I should rather flip around and pages and tabs and approximate with guesswork?
Really? Because That's gonna give me more questions than answers. I'd rather KNOW that the auction I like is going to end at 3AM in the morning than go to sleep and bid to high heaven and hope no one outbids me... I can't do that because I need sleep.

Drop an ecto drop in the system, look for said ecto drop compared to item I want...
I'm not doubting you, but I am going to criticize you. Who does that? Are you going to do that every time you want something and don't know when it's ending?
Vs.
An actual timed clock.
Give me peace of mind if I know I really can't be around for when it ends. I have a life, and I come here to get away from it.
I mean are there any downsides to having a real timer on AH? Any?

The more I think about it, the more I ask myself, "Why isn't this a thing? Who else has a stupid long-medium-short time system? WHO!?"

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 18:21

#10

Flowchart

Well, you can say making a change is better than a workaround.

However, you can use my advice immediately. They won't change things immediately, if they do at all.

If there was an auction right now I wanted to check and didn't know the time, yes that is what I would do rather than assuming they'll both take your suggestion and implement it before the auction ends.

Mon, 03/16/2015 - 13:52

#11

Fehzor

Lol, you can say what you'd like but I've sniped TONS of auctions in the middle of the night.. even through the immense and unbreakable safety measures of not telling me more than "very short" and adding a whole minute every time I bid. I've also been sniped at every opportunity, purely because I didn't have the ability to be sitting there 24/7 for when the auction ends. And I don't like it either, so don't hate on me for sniping bids; hate the game for letting me snipe bids. As was mentioned above, autobid is the solution to these kinds of things.

Having real times however, would really benefit newer players that haven't yet read the wiki article describing how long "short", "very short", "long", whatever they want to call it are. If I go on the auction house I know about how long a "long" has left, at least vaguely... but if I didn't know how long "long" was, I'd be at a loss.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 11:44

#12

Ultoros

Auto-bidding?

What about the newer players? I can see so many problems arising for new players/early stage players if this was implemented.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 14:20

#13

Hexzyle

How so?

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 15:52

#14

Ultoros

Knights who have banks of money would dominate the AH. Especially those who primarily make their crowns by buying and reselling items. Newer Knights, or simply those who don't have a lot of money, may not be able to win bidding-wars which is what would lead to wealthier players dominating the AH. There should also be a chance for less wealthy players to get their hands on more valuable items rather than having it snatched from them the moment they bid (higher) for it. The reason they would've have won that may have been because of luck as the other player wasn't at an AH, but then so be it. That's the way it goes then isn't it.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 16:40

#15

Fehzor

Wealthy players already dominate the auction house... the only reason new players get anything off of it is because wealthy players don't value the same things newer players do.. if I saw a slime high autogun for sale, I'd ignore it because I quite frankly can't be bothered to win+resell it, and already have the autoguns with nicer variants and heat to boot... but if I was new to the game maybe I'd be willing to pay a good 10-30K for the item, depending on just how new I was.

Autobid would let the newer players put down say, 30K crowns on that 5K bid-only slime high autogun that I really really want for the jelly king, and have a chance at getting it when the experienced players cut out at 10K to aim for nicer price margins on the whole. Then when the auction ends, the newer player pays a little over 10K and wins, despite being asleep and away whereas right now, some seasoned veteran would most likely just bid 6K at the last second when the newer player wasn't there. Seasoned veterans are online at 3 AM Tuesday night, newer players aren't.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 23:28

#16

Ultoros

I admit, you make a great point but I still can't help feel that it could lead to inflation of decent UVs. If I was a wealthy player and I seen a Slime: High on autogun, I would most definitely bid for it considering the price is alright - which it most likely would be if newer players are bidding for it. I mean, if I can get a Slime: High for a cheap price, I have the money for it and all I have to do it press a button that will likely result in me winning then I'm all up for it whether I have a better one or not. Profit.

I thought 'very short' was like 4 minutes? Oh well. I kind of like the times being anonymous. It slightly encourages people to buy now. If you see a great item and don't want to risk loosing it then buy it. If you could work out the time then of course you would appear when it's on the verge of being very short.
Then again, I could also argue that it people knew exactly when an item was going to enter the time period for 'very short' then it would increase the chances of a bid war by a fairly good amount.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 23:42

#17

Leekcoco

No one sensible will let an auction run out when it's something they actually want. They'll most likely buy it out which means you will still lose out if you can't pay up. You will pretty much never get a "cheap" deal unless your competing buyers either flat out didn't see the item, or you managed to trade outside of the AH. People who want stuff enough will currently wake up at ungodly hours of the night to win auctions, auto-bid will only change the fact that they will no longer need to do that. I'm not talking about things like Slime High Autoguns though, I don't think anyone will wake up for that.

Tue, 03/31/2015 - 01:25

#18

Hexzyle

Well then, auto-bid will ensure sellers will get what their item is worth, rather than just two bids: the one from the person who wanted it, and the one from the person who sniped them.

Tue, 03/31/2015 - 03:04

#19

Paintool

I like the idea of autobid,

I like the idea of autobid, but there's something I'm afraid about it also.

Couldn't a rich merchant use and Alt account to bid shill and raise the price of items while you're offline to maximize profits?
Like say you put 200K down on something and go to sleep. Merchant proceeds to bid and autobid on his own item to raise the price straight from your account.

Is this a flaw or am I not seeing something here?

Tue, 03/31/2015 - 03:39

#20

Hexzyle

That's just the same as just setting the starting bid price higher than normal: The item won't sell (from your possession) until someone bids at least your shill-bidding account's reserve.
It's also the same as shill-bidding already; if the owner recently got a bid on his item, he knows the person who bid is still online, so he can place shill bids on it to give the illusion of demand, or to raise the price to a more agreeable amount if the auction is nearing its end.
Especially if they set their shill-bid higher than your max bid. Then they're bidding on the item and have to pay the auction house fees, effectively rendering it a not-sold item.

Shill bidding has and will always be a problem, and there's nothing that can be done to alleviate the issue.

If you know you've been shill-outbid, be cautious about how much you bid on the item in the future, because the seller now has an idea of what max price the person who wants to buy it is willing to pay, and they'll often try to exploit that. I once bid on a particular item for 90k, only to be outbidded by one bid right at the very end of the auction. The item then popped up directly after for 100k. That's too cheap to be a flip, it's obvious that the seller wasn't expecting to shill-outbid in one go, and was trying to make back the relisting fees in that sale.

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Auction House Time Phrases