Spiral Knights - Red's Notes 01

Red's Notes 01 - AUCTION HOUSE

50 replies [Last post]

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 13:28

Red-Rascal-Post

Hello and welcome to my first GUI suggestions thread! :)

My day job is in technical and media design, and maybe I have an annoying tendency to look for GUI improvements everywhere ... but as it is an open forum I thought I might put down some ideas for you to peruse, and, possibly, to alert the developers to some potential game fixes. I will do this systematically by selecting a different part of gameplay for each thread.

The goal with GUI suggestions is twofold:

1) Find changes that require the smallest amount of possible effort to implement, and only ask to change things that make a systematic difference rather than an aesthetic one. In other words, always look for changes that can be done easily by the developer team instead of saying "rebuild the whole thing!"

2) Always respect the design and artistic choices of the original developers. It is important not to ask for changes that go against the spirit of the game design already in place, but rather only to ask for changes that make existing content easier or more fun to use.

With each suggestion I have also included an "Importance" rating which gauges my feelings of how important each change is. If something is rated 5 / 5 it's because I think it is critical to change a part of the design in order to make the game better because something is really quite broken. (This is rare of course). In the case of lower scores suggestions that are useful but not necessary can be found.

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This thread's topic is the AUCTION HOUSE.

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Importance 5 / 5: ★★★★★

1. Change the Very Long - Long - Medium - Short - Very Short system.

So many great ideas just don't work in practice. Here is an example. This is the most important thing to change about the Auction House because it is the most broken. MMOG after MMOG has attempted to combat predatory trade activities with all sorts of restrictions and blindspots set up for players, but in the end the same problem ALWAYS rings true: Restrictions of utility or ease of understanding a free market ONLY benefit the merchants and not the average player. This means that predatory behavior is only encouraged by these restrictions, not curbed.

The current system needs to be replaced with a timer that tells exactly how long there is until an auction ends. Whether it's an active timer that ticks down or just tags such as "Less than X hours" which cycle each hour until below one, and are then replaced with "Less than X minutes," is somewhat immaterial. But the current system, while, again, surely is meant to prevent sniping by merchants, only favors them and makes it unbelievably frustrating for the average player who just wants to buy an item to do so successfully. The requirement of CONSTANT attention-paying to auctions only favors those who do nothing but sit at the auction house, after all. And furthermore it's not particularly fun. It's tough as a developer to change an idea which is innovative. But critical to do so when the idea is one that works so poorly in its implementation as this one. It's not a bad idea; it's a clever one. But it doesn't work in practice.

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Importance 3 / 5: ★★★☆☆

2. Improved notifications on being outbid.

As it is, there is far too much game text appearing in the same place for outbid messages to be properly noticed. Simply add a chime and a color change to these messages to vastly improve their effectiveness. Better yet create an icon somewhere that's visible -- much like the "you've got new mail" icon -- which appears to indicate that you've been outbid on an item. Currently it is far too difficult to play the game and be aware of auctions one is bidding on at the same time. (Note that the urgency of this change would be severely mitigated if the change suggested in item #1 above were made).

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Importance 2 / 5: ★★☆☆☆

3. Change the color of the Buy Now button.

This is such a simple change but such a useful one. As it is, it is decidedly too easy to accidentally click the "Buy Now" button when meaning simply to place a bid because the buttons are next to each other and the same color. Just make the Buy Now button bright red and this probably would never happen again.

This suggestion can be extrapolated upon for button design and placement in general in the game, too. Just to take a simple example, when crafting items the buttons to buy or sell CE instantly at current market values are too close to the Transmute button and look too similar.

These are not actual "problems" per se -- the functionality is all there. But it's a question of good user interface design. When things are visually distinct, their functions are more clearly distinct to even the subconscious mind. Any time one can make an incredibly small and easy change -- like switching the color of a button -- and improve the GUI measurably, I think it's a no-brainer.

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Importance 4 / 5: ★★★★☆

4. Updating prices should not conflict with current offers being typed.

This is a small fix but VERY IMPORTANT. Right now, when entering a new bid price for an item, you click into the box where you type your offer. The default number is calculated based on current bid price; for example if the current bid is 2100 the default (and also minimum) next bid is 2200. The trouble is that if you're bidding on multiple items and looking at your Bid Summary page, then WHILE YOU ARE TYPING A NEW BID the number is suddenly replaced by a completely different number when a completely DIFFERENT item you're interested in has been outbid. This can mean that while you're typing "100" suddenly a 25 appears in the middle of your numbers, and you end up with a 12500 instead of a 100 ... which is a bid that you can't take back as soon as you press Bid.

This is so potentially devastating -- making players able to accidentally pay 100 times what they want for an item -- that it needs immediate attention. Simply don't have the textbox into which bid amounts are entered update automatically if the user is typing at that moment.

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Importance 3 / 5: ★★★☆☆

5. Allow a filter by actual bid prices rather than reserve prices.

In spite of listing fees there are always many items listed at the AH with unreasonably high reserves. Since these are considered "bid" prices, when one orders the list of available items by "Bid Price" the list is cluttered with items that are listed at too high a price for anyone to want to bid. It would be a nice little feature to add a filter to the list saying "Offered Price" so that only items that have an actual bid on them come up. In many situations these are the items most interesting to shoppers, casual or otherwise. A small add-on but I think a useful one.

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Importance 1 / 5: ★☆☆☆☆

6. Allow sorting by alphabetical order when browsing sales.

A very simple suggestion, but surprising that it doesn't already exist. If I'm windowshopping and I see a Brandish I might like, it's useful to see what other Brandishes are also available. But unless I specifically type "Brandish" into the search window, I can't get all of the offers to line up. Alphabetical order as a "sort" option in the drop-down would solve this instantly. Minimal effort to implement, lots of increased functionality. Talk about an easy fix!

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Importance 1 / 5: ★☆☆☆☆

7. Indicate sale price in completed auction e-mails.

So often I will bid on something in the AH because it is a good deal, and then win the auction a few hours later. By then, however, I don't remember the exact price I bid ... and yes, I could check the bid history in the AH but it would be so much more convenient if the e-mail that comes to my inbox with the attached won item just reminded me how much I paid for it! Instead of saying "Here is your item:" it could just say "You paid X for this item:" ... More easy fixes.

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Importance 3 / 5: ★★★☆☆

8. Let players "watch" auctions.

There are plenty of auctions players would like to keep track of, yet there is no way to keep them in a separate list without placing a bid. Simply add a button to each auction that says "Watch" in order to let a player add the auction to his watched list. This is how normal auction sites work and for good reason ... it allows players to make sense of the jumble out there and better assess the prices of items they care about.

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Importance 1 / 5: ★☆☆☆☆

9. Consider other sorting methods. contributed by Kive and others

It's important to adapt the sorting methods based on what players usually look for. When it comes to weapons and armor, UVs are the name of the game. Therefore it would be very, very useful to create a sort or search method by UV. It may also be useful to allow double-filtering, to narrow down to such combinations as "3-star armor with fire resistance UVs" and the like.

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Importance 1 / 5: ★☆☆☆☆

10. Feature add: Re-bidding remotely. contributed by Fehzor

One extremely irritating side-effect of the current "very long" to "very short" timing system is that when bidding on an auction, players are forced to stand around until the auction ends, without doing anything, for fear that their bids will be sniped if they go questing. Often this results in hours lost standing around bored, only to find that snipers in fact start bidding up item prices at the last second. Changing the timing system as delineated in suggestion #1 would help this problem immensely but another approach could pave the way for a fun feature add: Allow players to re-bid on an item remotely when the auction is near over. This would entail a button attached to the message saying "you've been outbid" that simply allows the player to say "yes" to the question "re-bid" ? for the next minimum.

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Red-Rascal - Helix
RRR Recipes: Node 52426
Red's Notes 01: Node 52791
« And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief. » - Ben Franklin

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 16:44

Luguiru

The pantsless system

The subject for this post has no meaning.

The vague time indicator is meant to prevent auction sniping; Alpha has been bidding on an item for derpbillion years, Beta sees it has one second remaining and bids over, Alpha is sad. With vague time titles Beta has only a vague idea of how close the auction is to ending. Beta is a punk. This point has actually been suggested multiple times in the past.

Yes. They could at least make a blue message appear in chat rather than the gray lettering which is usually ignored.

The "buy now" and "bid" buttons are different sizes, the latter being smaller, but a visual difference between the two beyond this would be convenient; color, shape, something.

People manually enter bids? Normally it goes to the default values where Alpha and Beta have a bid war raising 500-1000 crowns per bid until the once 5kCr recipe is suddenly 50kCr. Derp. But yes, it would be horribly annoying to be bidding on something and suddenly have another bid open where you are entering the bid for the first auction where the second auction is far cheaper.

This one is essentially asking overpricing to not exist. I agree they are only doing that to troll the board but avoiding them is a very low priority; this is where manual price checking comes into play with the eyeballs most people have in their noggin.

What purpose would this serve, comparing bids and/or buyout numbers? I would rather have an option to only search for items under the name with UV(s); "search for one UV", "search for double UV", "search for triple UV".

The auction history normally lasts a day or so after the bid is over. This one is not necessarily very important or useful but it may have convenient moments.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 17:20

Red-Rascal-Post

Thanks for your comments :)

For #1 I'm not sure why you decided to explain about sniping ... very very very clearly in my post I said I understand completely that the system is SUPPOSED to prevent sniping. And I understand how it is SUPPOSED to work as per your explanation. The problem is that it DOESN'T actually work.

For #4 you did not understand what I was saying. I am not talking about two different auctions - I am saying when you are bidding on an item, sometimes there is a bug in the system where while you are typing your bid the numbers from another player's bid get inserted into the item you're currently bidding on. So you mean to type "200" but you end up typing "22000" or something, and it makes you bid 22,000 on something when you were trying to bid 200. This is because the numbers APPEAR out of nowhere IN THE SAME TEXTBOX where you are entering your bid. If you haven't had it happen to you, you may not know quite what I mean.

For #5 I am not "asking overpricing not to exist." It's fine if people put stupid reserves on their objects, but there's no reason I shouldn't be able to filter the list to only SEE the objects that are bid on. Actually it would encourage people to make smarter reserves as a collateral benefit.

For #6 I explained the purpose that alphabetical order serves. Let's say I am looking for a fun sword. I can click on "swords" but then there is no way to have all the Caliburs line up next to each other. If I see a Calibur and think it might be a good buy, it would be nice to see what other Caliburs are being offered that I might buy instead.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 17:28

Luguiru

No, thank you more

What would they switch the vague time titles with? I would be game for a change, but would the new version be better?

That makes more sense than what I thought it stated. Does the auction still null the bid/buyout buttons when a new bid is placed for a few seconds? I remember there being a cooldown after something has been bid upon before anyone can bid on it. No, this has not happened to me and I do not have experience with being annoyed by it.

I agree completely with having an option to ignore the silly prices, but the silliness of the price varies by item; some items are worth over a million, though most are not.

I am still unable to understand this. Do you mean by searching "Calibur" it only shows the items with that exact name (no Tempered Calibur, etc.) or having all items under the search show at once?

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 17:44

Red-Rascal-Post

Alpha order

Well it's not that important (I rated it only 1 / 5 after all) XD but what I mean is that sometimes when I shop I just want to look at swords. So I click on the swords button, and all the swords auctions are shown. Then I see a Cutter (for example) for a low price. Should I bid? Well, usually I check to see if there are other Cutters and how much they cost ... so I have to now search for Cutter to see them listed. Instead, it would be easier if I could just sort by alpha ... then ALL the Cutters would already be next to each other. If I didn't find the Cutters interesting I could go further in the list ... C, D, E ... Flourish ... see if any Flourishes are interesting to buy. Etc. It would just be a different way to browse. It seems strange to me that it doesn't exist but maybe that's just the way I think about things myself.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 21:17

Red-Rascal-Post

As for the auction times -

This can be a very long conversation if we want XD.

Really the crux of the matter is that when you limit information you hurt casual buyers and not merchants. When you have a system that says "short" instead of telling you how many minutes, the people who are most likely to be able to watch and then bid at the last minute are merchants.

Merchants in general are very adaptable. Just having a system which is designed to make things harder doesn't hurt them because the whole reason they have an advantage on other people is they use the system better than others. When the system is already hard to use, then an expert in the system has even MORE of an advantage over others.

Some days, I watch the Accessories auctions at all times for the whole day ... and I see that any time an Accessory auction is underpriced, the interest in lukewarm until under 5 minutes are left and merchants ALWAYS bid them up to a certain price depending on the item. Unless you notice a cheap Buy-it-Now price before anyone else, you will never ever get an awesome deal on the AH unless you're a merchant, because of this.

A system that says EXACTLY when auctions will end works like real life. People who are interested will watch the auction just before it ends ... which means anyone who really wants the item will be able to put in bids before it's over. They won't be robbed of their chance because the system surprises them by ending without them knowing it. With that kind of a system, items will usually sell for what they are actually worth, and the average player will have much less difficulty getting what he or she needs.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 22:08

Mk-Vl

Just a thing about sniping

When it gets to very short (5minutes) every bid restarts the timer at five minted to prevent sniping.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 23:28

Hexzyle

@Mk-Vl

I'm fairly sure each bid only increases the time by one minute up to a max of five minutes...

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 01:18

Red-Rascal-Post

Yep

The bid restarting is great in my opinion and perfect to stop sniping. Still, the 5-minute window can entirely pass without being noticed when someone bids on a Medium or Short auction and a sniper (who by definition sits around watching auctions constantly) can often sneak a bid in there, stomach the added couple minutes, and effectively steal the item from under the first bidder's nose that way.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 03:07

Nurdell

Loadouts

I know that this is not the theme about it, but are you going to write something about loadouts in the near future or keep all the "notes" in one thread? I am just asking because I really liked what you wrote there and do want notes to continue.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 04:06

#10

Asukalan

@Hexzyle Nope, one bid

@Hexzyle
Nope, one bid increases time again to 5 minutes.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 04:39

#11

Rainxo

I wouldn't mind having #3 (changing color of buy now button) going through the patches.
I don't agree with everything you wrote, but one thing I have to talk about is your #1.
I don't think it deserves the 5* importance status. The current system has been working fine, and maybe a change is needed, but I don't think it's the most important issue.
I would rather replace #1 with a better sorting method. For example, being able to sort through specific UVs, whether the uv is low or max, accessories attached, etc.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 22:33

#12

Red-Rascal-Post

Some comments

A bit busy today so may not be able to respond much until tomorrow but thank you guys for your kind and thoughtful comments. :)

@ Nurdell Yes I will have a different thread for each topic.

@ Rainxo Well that's an interesting perspective. I am a pretty big advocate of free markets in MMOGs ... Actually I'm a little obsessed with it. I am working on a piece with a colleague in real life on virtual economics that may eventually turn into a book. That's not to make myself sound more knowledgeable on the subject, actually maybe it discredits me a little because it really is my primary focus in the game.

Definitely sorting by UVs has something to it ... do you think you could do a small write-up of what you would suggest and I could add it to the list at the top? Or should I edit the alpha ordering bullet to talk about re-ordering things in general? I am curious how for example you would envision the sort working exactly.

I guess I'm also curious whether other people similarly don't think #1 is that important? To me it's the single biggest flaw in the entire game, let alone the AH (the second biggest is probably the sliding scale of stats that adjust through the Clockworks but that's for another thread).

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 07:51

#13

Mk-Vl

For #1

I had a thread on this somewhere I'll have to find it later and post it. I believe that the way it is now adds to the levity of the game, a theme that they are trying to convey that the game really isn't that serious. My idea was to just add a few more time slots in there to even out the massive gaps that long and very long cause but to also put a mission in that explains it all to the new people like how everything else is now explained.

Edit: found it http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/50510

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 14:21

#14

Blue-Phaze

I approve this thread and

I approve this thread and love how you organized it, looks really neat.
The devs should totally have a conversation about this...
+1

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 22:37

#15

Red-Rascal-Post

Thanks for your comments

@ Blue-Phaze - thank you :)

@ Mk-Vl - A very good point which I tried to address in my opening comments. It is critical to respect the developers' design style as much as possible, and I agree that there is an "unserious" overtone which affects things like battle numbers which are not strictly consistent.

However the auction system is really detrimental to gameplay which is why it needs to be changed. It makes the AH harder to use. It makes the game worse. Sorry to be harsh but as far as I'm concerned that's a basic reality. The improved functionality of knowing how long auctions would last comes with zero drawback. The idea that it would enable last-second sniping is silly; they can still implement a 5-minutes-gets-added-for-any-last-minute-bid policy, and as explained at length in prior posts, knowledge of auction timing will help the casual player compete against merchants rather than the opposite.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 23:05

#16

Kive

I love and also came up with the thought of being able to see the exact time of the auction. Unfortunately it go shot pretty hard by some people *COUGH* luguiru *cough*. Of course youre article is much more organized and well put together. keep on fightin dude I feel its a worthy cause

Sun, 05/06/2012 - 10:30

#17

Spectrumized

Nice idea; I don't see anything that I don't disagree with. Would be a nice set of improvements to the game.

Sun, 05/06/2012 - 13:53

#18

Red-Rascal-Post

Um thanks XD

If you don't see anything you don't disagree with that means you disagree with everything XD but I know what you meant so thank you. :)

Sun, 05/06/2012 - 18:19

#19

Serell

I agree with everything.
The way the AH is set up hurts us casual players.
Someone could see an item that is at "Medium", which means under 4 hours, so they could think they have some time to do some stuff and log out.
But after a few minutes when they log out, the item could go to short and he could come back an hour later and it would be bought from a merchant.
Merchants can snipe all day, casual players cannot. If he knew it was going to go quicker he could have stayed and possibly got it. I would say it should be changed to something like "X Hours until it's gone". It would go "Under 12 hours", "Under 11 hours", "Under 10 hours", etc. That would good enough to help casual players.

Sun, 05/06/2012 - 19:38

#20

Mk-Vl

I think that if they took a

I think that if they took a level one or two mission slot and dedicated it to explaining the AH it would solve alot of problems. Even if it's just Kora screaming "READ THE GODDARN WIKI!!!" With angry eyes and exploding jelly coming out her ears.

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 09:50

#21

Red-Rascal-Post

Tutorials are good

In general this could be a topic for an entirely new thread. But yes, I agree completely that in-game instruction could be improved with some tutorials covering more aspects of the game. As it is, many parts of gameplay the majority of players only learn about by fumbling through them the first time.

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 13:59

#22

Rommil

all good suggestions

RRP,
and ignore luguiri he is simply a troll who comes around trying to shoot down every suggestion with no basis while offering nothing even slightly productive to the overall proceedings.

I understand exactly where you are coming from with these simple interface tweaks that could greatly improve the system. Like the buy vs bid buttons. Heck, why not put bid below the item and buy above it? or something like that. Its not happened to me yet, be the number of people who have accidentally bought stuff out for 100x the price an item is worth (when attempting to bid) is countless.

A simple interface change could have cut that number to an incredibly small fraction of the errors and mis-clicks.

Good thread.
Good suggestions.
They all have merit (perhaps shouldn't all be implemented, but all have merit).

If i'm already waking up at 4am to try and catch an auction, its at short, i now thats 60 mins or less....it'd be nice to know if it was 57mins vs 10 mins.

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 21:16

#23

Red-Rascal-Post

Thanks for your comments

It may be the subject of a different thread, but one annoyance I have with SK is that accounts created from third-party sites (like Kongregate) cannot be transferred to Steam, or vice-versa. Which means I can't have my forum account be the same name as my avatar, and not everyone realizes my avatar name is Red-Rascal. The -Post suffix is just my forum account that I use to post threads.

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 20:24

#24

Kive

@romli

nvm -.-

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 20:23

#25

Luguiru

"Maybe he is an admin"

If I were an admin I would use my admin account; then suspend/ban those who make horrible threads with entirely selfish intent, such as "remove the energy system" or "combat pets".

I never suggest anything? I am never in any other forum? Derp. I am not trying to call you out for this but you are mostly correct; I normally avoid other forums to limit how often I create large posts. I normally give constructive criticism to threads with enough content to work with to begin with but most of the new threads as of recent times have been horrible, stupid, or selfish; it appears I hate everything because the majority of what is around us is fecal matter. There would be no problem if not for these users. Imagine a dog with its leash tied to a tree and someone walks up to it and kicks it; should the dog respond? Does it respond violently to being kicked?

Again, I am not an admin/dev/aardvark. If you need me I will be hiding in your closet again.

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 21:14

#26

Red-Rascal-Post

Stop flaming my thread.

Everyone has their own style and I responded to Luguiru's comments, and he was polite and nice in our exchange. I see no reason to criticize him here but if you have problems with him elsewhere then go deal with those problems elsewhere. Thank you. :)

Mon, 05/07/2012 - 21:12

#27

Luguiru

Was this a flame war

I imagined it as a pillow fight.
Except no one was in their underwear.

Is there anything else you wish to suggest for this thread?

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 17:25

#28

Red-Rascal-Post

Does anyone else think a new timer system is a bad idea?

I'm curious if there are any folks who prefer the Long-Medium-Short system to the suggested alternative (knowing the exact timing of auctions) and if so, why. My guess is that it's a conceived benefit against merchants although as I've stated above I don't think that in reality it is that.

But are there other reasons we are overlooking for that system to remain in place?

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 18:08

#29

Mk-Vl

Although my thread shows my full opinion. I still think it fits better with the risk/gamble thing they have going. For example although it makes a bigger difference in T1 but I may hit a slime and do 9 dmg or I may do 12. Also there is the UV rolling and crafting chances. As of now you throw down a bid it could be four hours it could be one hour with a few minutes. Even the heat and damage done to you is vague. It feels more of a game than a giant equation.

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 18:38

#30

Canine-Vladmir

+ ∞ !!!!

dEVs hire the kid!!!!!!!
i like what u did there, really professional, and the GUI was magnificent!
im just gonna comment on how beautifully you organized this forum thread :D for now.
cant wait for more of you 'notes' to come out.
*ill later comment on the topics mentioned but for now, think of this as a bump ;)

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 19:21

#31

Red-Rascal-Post

Haha ... thanks

At 32 years old I'm not exactly a kid but compliment appreciated. I do technical and media design for a living which is actually pretty close in some cases to what some parts of video game company's staff does anyway. Hopefully my thoughts are at least on the same wavelength as some of theirs.

Perhaps it's a good moment to point out that any suggestions are made with deference to the great product that Three Rings has put out in the first place. It's precisely because I appreciate the quality and art of this very well made game that I enjoy playing it; and it's for the same reasons I am willing to take time to write threads about it.

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 19:23

#32

Red-Rascal-Post

Risk-gamble concept

Mk-Vl ... thanks for your comments.

I agree completely that "randomness" is an important gameplay aspect, as you put it, in part to make the game seem less like a "big equation." Still I don't think the AH should function under the same premise. Not knowing when auctions are ending would be fine if it were true for everyone, but it's not. The system is not impossible to read, just very time consuming and inconvenient. Which means that the exact players the system is trying to defend against are the only ones who can really use it to their advantage!

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 21:57

#33

Pauling

I very much agree with the

I very much agree with the suggestion to make outbid notices more prominent. There's inconsistent UI here: you get a chat message when logged on, but a mail message when logged off.

That's a problem, because people use the area around the auction house to shout and sell things: it's a very spammy environment where chat messages get lost easily.

In addition... to help players monitor auctions when they log in periodically, I'd love to see an auction house button added to the ready room. Depending on where you last were in Haven, you may have to go through 2-3 loading screens before reaching the auction house under the current system. That's silly.

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 01:49

#34

Red-Rascal-Post

Well said

I think Pauling makes excellent points (better than I did). As SK is a game that many free players enjoy, and as they are not able to run the clockworks with regularity, many spend gobs of time at, around, or involved in activities related to the Auction House. As such it's a major hub of game activity and should receive the attention -- and prominence in GUI design -- it deserves. I think a shortcut from the Ready Room is a great idea.

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 06:54

#35

Canine-Vladmir

IM BACK.

k im back and ready to shed a little of my insight.
#1 change AH time format.
idk, i mean on one side, it will help people like me able to buy something cheap, yet on the other hand, anybody can snipe, waiting for the last few minutes and bidding on them. (isn't that the way the Great american depression start? [maybe, but i suck at history])i see two solutions, one) sellers will know be forced to start the bid at a higher number or 2)the timer can be how you suggested with X hours left. and instead of having Less than X minutes, should just be less than one hour.

#2 YOU got mail!
agreed. the chat message, or mail when ur not on, doesnt work as it should. i prefer the chime or a chat message with eye catching font (like officer chat and its killer green color). if it goes with the mail, i would prefer it to be the same mail over again, i dont want to get spammed by the AH xD

#3 To buy or not to buy
agreed. i would like to suggest also that one may check a prompt which is telling you, are you sure you want to buy this item?

#4 is this the X files???
whoa, and i though i was the only with that problem. well done sir

#5 um...bid?
confused but im pretty sure i would like it anyway.

#6 ♫ ABC easy as 1 2 3 ♫
not as the MOST important one, yet very useful if you dont feel like typing in or checking lot sizes

#7 You just wasted this much on that! Ha Sucker! suggestion
+1

and @Pauling i would like that. more faster and less waiting for laggy players who have to go through 2+ loading screens

ps i call everybody kid. (im from Jersey!)

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 23:07

#36

Red-Rascal-Post

Perception does not equal reality.

Thanks for your comments.

The trouble with the discussion over issue #1 in this thread is that so many people give theory about it without any real concept of practical application.

It's just plain wrong to believe that the current system is preventing sniping. Sniping is prevented by the fact that a last-minute bid automatically adds another 5 minutes to any auction. Sniping is a complete non-issue.

Changing the system to one where a person would know exactly when an auction ends is important because as it stands it's not possible for someone to offer the true amount of crowns he or she wants to pay for an item. The system works best when every sale that happens goes to the buyer who was willing to pay most for the item. That way items are correctly valued and everybody has a fair chance at any auction. And, anyone who wants an item badly enough can either make a large bid that will stand, or watch the item at the end of the auction. In order for those things to coexist in a working system, one needs to know when the sale will end.

Not knowing these things has absolutely no context in reality because it is supremely silly. What kind of a store in real life would let you bid on something and then suddenly sell it without telling you, to someone else, in the ten minutes you are gone to look for something else? The answer is no store would ever do that. It's not in the store's interest because it reduces the amount of bids it will receive and makes the system harder and more irritating to use.

Remember, it's very simple:

Restrictions of utility or ease of understanding in a free market ONLY benefit merchants and bad businessmen, and HARM average or casual buyers.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 09:29

#37

Kive

god that sums my thoughts on the issue so well. great logic and put all the non believers worrys away great job dude

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 10:19

#38

Red-Rascal-Post

I hope the thread is helpful

Thanks. I sincerely hope that discussion about these issues will ultimately reach the developer team so that they can have an outside perspective and weigh it in their design decisions moving forward. Just as two heads are better than one, the player community's views added to their teams views can only be a good thing, I believe.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 11:54

#39

Rangerwillx

Also, make it possible to search for specific UV's, and for specific UV's on specific items, like ASI on a Flourish, etc.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 23:36

#40

Red-Rascal-Post

I remember now!

I knew I had forgotten something. Checking over my notes I realize I didn't post suggestion number 8 ... so I added it now.

Watching auctions is a very basic concept in online auction setups and would be extremely useful in SK.

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 00:25

#41

Ztephanie

time format and one more important feature

The time format's confusing, but particularly with "very short", the anti-sniping functionality does work. Bidding on auctions while at very short actually increases the time by a few seconds as a further defense against sniping. I'd support "less than 5 minutes" "less than an hour" etc labels though, as these would be easier to understand.

Pricing guidance while placing a listing would also be helpful. Nothing as crazy as the auctioneer addon for WOW, but at least don't make me bounce back and forth between search and posting the item to figure out a sane price. (Maybe integrate search into the sell pane?)

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 21:56

#42

Red-Rascal-Post

Thanks for your comments

Thanks Ztephanie; it's nice to see more people chime in on how to improve the AH time format.

As for pricing guidance I agree it could be useful but I suspect that providing a feature like that would require an extreme amount of work from the developers. I don't believe that they have built the tools to access the AH database in the way you're implying -- simply because there's no evidence of it in the game. It would be a nice feature to have but I've left it out because I intentionally tried to make all of my GUI-fix suggestions easy to implement.

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 22:21

#43

Luguiru

Edit bump spamming

Cut that out.

Sun, 05/13/2012 - 11:21

#44

Red-Rascal-Post

Not a fight you're going to win

Par for the course throughout this forum and more appropriate here than elsewhere, as long as the discussion stays active. Rather than randomly aligning yourself negatively you should be happy that there are vibrant discussions on the subforum upon which you (conspicuously) most enjoy posting.

I am curious for some more feedback before I post my next GUI thread. Cheers.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 11:46

#45

Red-Rascal-Post

Any further views?

I am curious if anyone has any further input here before I move onto the next GUI thread.

In particular I did not include any suggested interface changes with posting auctions or selling items through the AH -- in part because I didn't find any problems with that system and in part because I haven't done it with any frequency. Perhaps regular AH sellers have views on something that could use a tweak ?

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 19:54

#46

Kive

possible adds

#1 being able to sort by stars. right now you can only go from lowest star items to the highest star items but nothing in the middle. another problem Ive run into was the fact that they count accessories as 0* star items making it very painful to look through the lower star items.

#2 allow UV sorting. personally it is very annoying to have to put my mouse over every UV item just to find out if its an ASI weapon.

#3 allow double filtering. basically let us double search ex: the highest star item with the most UVs.

there was more but my mind is drawing a blank atm.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 21:44

#47

Rommil

okay

i have something positive that would benefit anyone trying to win an Auction. Assuming they keep the v.long, long, med, short, very short model.

We get updates when we are outbid on an item. We should receive an update when an item we have bid on changes lengths!!! How many times has an item went to v.short and disappeared when you were on a vana run. Would be nice if on d27 you got

"prism halo has changed from short to v.short."

message. Or whatever the item was. Then you could logically decide "is this worth ditching my run and going back to AH? or just let it go?"

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 21:55

#48

Luguiru

Derkay

Assuming the above post is implemented, how would they contact the user? Would a chat message appear or would it be mailed? Would the text be the less visible gray, blending in white, or obvious blue? Order now and get our special purple flavor for four easy payments of nine ninety-nine. Our current bidding system suffers from subtle auction update with an often disregarded gray text which tends to blend into the background or disappears in market Havens. Receiving a message upon the bid beginning the next time phase would give users the ability to go about their normal business while keeping their auction in check. However, is this feature limited to items the user is selling, items the user is bidding on, or both? For the auction creator, would they receive messages upon their auctioned item being bid upon? If a bid war breaks out on their item their chat or mail would be flooded.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 22:00

#49

Fehzor

I've got one! Importance 2 /

I've got one!

Importance 2 / 5: ★★☆☆☆

Let players bid on their auctions through the mail system when they are outbid.
I noticed that when I'm on runs, I'll sometimes be outbid on items that I'd like to make sure to win- but hey, I'm not going to quit my FSC run midway through and let my party down simply so that I can take part in a bidding war over some random item. What if the outbid notice were to come with the option to bid back? It would just be a button that opens an attachment, and lets you send in stuff. Or perhaps one that just pulls up the AH, and your current bids for a minute.

Mon, 05/21/2012 - 17:27

#50

Red-Rascal-Post

Thanks for your ideas! :)

Kive:

Great points. I especially agree that sorting by UVs would be helpful as some folks have also mentioned in this thread. I am adding a suggestion #9 to the original post on this topic.

Rommil / Fehzor:

I agree definitely that it's too difficult to follow auctions in general, and too easy to get outbid while away as a result.

Much of this would be solved by changing the system away from the unhelpful-and-annoying system of very long-long-medium etc, but another very smart approach is Fehzor's proposed feature. Once already a bidder in an auction, why not be able to bid remotely? That would be an incredibly appreciated feature by much of the community. I am adding it as suggestion #10 in the original post.

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Red's Notes 01 - AUCTION HOUSE