[X] My Assistant

Yeah, bidding more, adding the discount to the bid on purpose, wasn't really the aim of this system (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) (and troublemaking anytime possible just to back out afterwards wasn't either (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif) )
In fact there shouldn't be any discount but only punishments.
And this "tempted exploit" shows again that modifying the actual bids was not the right choice.
Just influence bid increases...penalizing late ones and encouraging early ones.

People intentionally bloating bids will always continue to exist. But higher bid increases (if late) drastically reduce the number of bids they can do without risking to have to overpay themselves.

And this "tempted exploit" shows again that modifying the actual bids was not the right choice.

like bidding earlier just to hope in a discount and giving up when the discount is no more? yep, i was thinking about that as well.

All this fuss started to sound ridiculous to me. Why oh why, why not just add rule that once registered by the system, bidder cannot back down. Even if the post is later edited. The only way to cancel should be by posting cancellation post, which is unacceptable in the last 24 hour.

About deliberately raising price, well, colluding player ran a risk. If he bid more than real bidder willing to pay, then he will pay the full price. Even if he ask the credit from the item owner, there is still 10% fee that must be paid.

If the winner not happy to pay so much, well, he shouldn't commit that many to begin with.

Penalty from failing to lead 25% of the time? It should be unnecessary. Bid war is where the fun at. You see, when a really good equipment turn up in an auction, some of us tune in and whisper "Whoaaa, whoaaa" every time ridiculous bid coming in. We sometimes filled with schadenfreude when people confess they overbid. And don't forget, It also ran a risk of people unwilling to bid higher, seller will get lower price.

Hope my rant will inspire auctioner to strive for simpler rule.

All this fuss started to sound ridiculous to me. Why oh why, why not just add rule that once registered by the system, bidder cannot back down. Even if the post is later edited. The only way to cancel should be by posting cancellation post, which is unacceptable in the last 24 hour.

what's different if compared to current rules? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

The cause of one of the problem is magical nature of edited post. Some enforcement, in my opinion, is enough to solve it. No, not any change of rule.

Well, all things considered: I love experiments, and I am excited to see what Super's experiment will bring. Maybe it works? Maybe it fails? Only one way to find out - stay tuned until Saturday!

(　￣.)o-　　【　TV　】

IT IS HABBIDINGS??? ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ
"Updating...
I'm debugging something, sorry, I'll re-enable this once I'm done"

This post has been edited by reality_marble: Oct 26 2017, 20:19

Someone who bids at the last minute and accumulates no winning time will be on the hook for the full charge of 8%. Anyone who is winning an item for at least half of the auction duration will receive the full discount. Someone winning an item for 1/4th of the auction duration won't be penalized, but won't get a discount either.

The discount amount between 1/2 and 1/4th is a linear function, as is the penalty between 1/4th and 0.

I think 1/4th (~18 hours) is a good separator between those who get discounts and those who get taxed; for someone who's going to bid the most for the item, winning it for at least 1/4th of the time shouldn't be hard, even if it's hotly contested. (and potential winners can try to get even more of a discount by winning it for longer, which they'll probably do at least for ease of mind)

I want to make it so that each auction is revenue-neutral, rather than (for instance) manually adjusting percentages and deadlines as behaviors change. So while the maximum penalty will stay at 8% (which only the rudest bidders are likely to incur), the maximum discount will vary depending on how much sniping there is. I can only guess, but since people will probably quickly adjust their behavior to avoid sniping now that the rule is in place, the maximum discount may well end up being pretty low compared to 8%, since there probably won't be much revenue to take from the snipers.

(Which would be a good thing - it would be great if everyone bids before the end and there's no need for any penalties or discounts. A new equilibrium the same as before but without people sniping would be ideal)

It might end up like:

Duration winning | End price
100% | -2% (Discount)
50% | -2% (Discount)
40% | -1.2% (Discount)
30% | -0.4% (Discount)
25% | 0 (Same as end price)
20% | +1.6% (Tax)
15% | +3.2% (Tax)
10% | +4.8% (Tax)
5% | +6.4% (Tax)
0% | +8% (Tax)

That's the current plan. Soon (before Friday) I'll integrate the info for each bidder next to items on the forum, and onto the bid times page.

The specifics aren't incredibly simple, but the general idea is. Bid early, get discount. Bid a while before the end, no penalty. Intentionally wait until the very end, high penalty.

Maybe I'm taking this all a bit too seriously but I think a solid system with positive incentives for everyone coordinating is worth working for.

Certainly worth trying, but sniping is something you do to avoid extended bidding wars during the week. Leaving someone with an object until the last minute stabilizes the price to top at the last minute. IMO, a candidate for sniping would be worth the 8% penalty.

That said, in this auction you can proxy bid, but that leaves people open to the kinds of folks who nibble proxy bids whether they want the item or not.

Mu (.) (.) y

Certainly worth trying, but sniping is something you do to avoid extended bidding wars during the week. Leaving someone with an object until the last minute stabilizes the price to top at the last minute. IMO, a candidate for sniping would be worth the 8% penalty.

That said, in this auction you can proxy bid, but that leaves people open to the kinds of folks who nibble proxy bids whether they want the item or not.

Mu (.) (.) y

Or they just simply adjust their max bid by putting the penalty into account, and snipe like usual.

Oh, it was -8% on the web system when I bid Mat23, and you changed the rule during the auction because it may make you deficit.
Cancel my bid please.

I should have made it more clear that the top bidtimes graphic there was only a framework rather than the final product, sorry. (updater coding is done, as we can see in the thread, but I still need to code the bidtimes javascript)

In fact there shouldn't be any discount but only punishments.

I did consider something like this, but I thought that ensuring a revenue-neutral outcome would make it feel a lot more fair for the participants. You're right that the (up to) 8% fee is the main point, but the discounts to everyone else go a long way towards showing that it's not just an abusive grab for cash or something.

And this "tempted exploit" shows again that modifying the actual bids was not the right choice.

like bidding earlier just to hope in a discount and giving up when the discount is no more? yep, i was thinking about that as well.

The mistake was ultimately caused by the rules being unclear, which is quite understandable, hence why I'm being forgiving. When everything is completely fixed up and the rules and stats are all clear to everyone, everyone can trust that such a request would have no merit and I wouldn't honor it.

(but yes, intentionally bidding more just for the sake of a possible discount definitely isn't the point. only bid if you're willing to pay the full price you bid; after all, you can't be sure how much, if any, your discount will be)

Just influence bid increases...penalizing late ones and encouraging early ones.

The problem is that the people who try to snipe at the very end are very often willing to bid a whole lot more than the last winning bid, so even an extravagant minimum bid increment for the first sniper probably wouldn't discourage much:



You see how large the jumps are at the end already? They're often already willing to pay tons more than the bid that's been winning up to that point, and once they make their first serious bid near the end and start winning, that's being quite discourteous to everyone else, which is what I want to prevent. The fact that the sniper may make multiple attempts at the very end isn't what I'm concerned about: what I'm concerned about is that they're able to make such attempts at all, since any such last minute snipe attempt hurts those who have been bidding in good faith for the past 99% of the auction.

All this fuss started to sound ridiculous to me. Why oh why, why not just add rule that once registered by the system, bidder cannot back down. Even if the post is later edited. The only way to cancel should be by posting cancellation post, which is unacceptable in the last 24 hour.

People canceling bids was never much of an issue. It's annoying but understandable, and people in good faith do mistype now and then. The point of "all this fuss" is to discourage snipers, and has nothing to do with the occasional canceled bid, as far as I'm aware.

Penalty from failing to lead 25% of the time? It should be unnecessary. Bid war is where the fun at. You see, when a really good equipment turn up in an auction, some of us tune in and whisper "Whoaaa, whoaaa" every time ridiculous bid coming in. We sometimes filled with schadenfreude when people confess they overbid. And don't forget, It also ran a risk of people unwilling to bid higher, seller will get lower price.

Making things fun for observers isn't the point at all though, and without some sort of penalty for late bidders, what is there to discourage last-minute sniping?

If anyone has a better idea for de-incentivizing sniping, I'm all ears.

I know I could have made it simpler via something like "Those winning for under 5 hours get 8% penalty" full stop. Something like that would be simple but less fair, and I prefer fairness more, hence the (more complicated) smoother curve.

Even so, although the implementation isn't incredibly intuitive to visualize, the way to win is: simply proxy bid your true maximum in a timely enough fashion, without intentionally waiting until the very end. Many people do this already, and the discount coming out of my pocket should make them a bit happier.

IMO, a candidate for sniping would be worth the 8% penalty.

Or they just simply adjust their max bid by putting the penalty into account, and snipe like usual.

They would do well to assume that someone who went to the effort of winning for most of the auction is seriously interested in it, and will bid against them should they try, in which case the sniper will be noticeably disadvantaged given the 8% penalty (compared to the prompt bidder's 2%? discount). For the sniper, it's not "I can win the item if I just take an 8% penalty", it's "I can start to contest the other guy if I take an 8% penalty".

Yeah, 8% still isn't a whole lot (auctions before my time generally had 10% minimum bid increment), but I think it's a decent starting point for encouraging people to bid promptly, and I don't want the magnitude of change to be too much, especially when we're just starting out this experiment.

The problem is that the people who try to snipe at the very end are very often willing to bid a whole lot more than the last winning bid, so even an extravagant minimum bid increment for the first sniper probably wouldn't discourage much:

People intentionally bloating bids will always continue to exist. But higher bid increases (if late) drastically reduce the number of bids they can do without risking to have to overpay themselves.

^

^

I'm indifferent as to whether someone makes 1 or 5 late bids; it's the fact that they first show their intent so late that's the problem. Despite being annoying, the quantity of late bids the sniper makes on an item isn't what this is intended to address.

And for anyone who "intentionally bloats" bids, if they happen to bid more than anyone else is willing to pay by the end, then they are on the hook for the item.

Less bids to get the same increase = less time = less people frustrated by snipers who wait 14 minutes and half for every bid.
And casual sniper will be discouraged by the increased bid increases.

This already helps for something.

Instead, a mere +8% penalizes the sniped fighting back more than the actual sniper, and bidding 0.92x your true intentions makes the penalty completely useless.

and bidding 0.92x your true intentions makes the penalty completely useless.

But snippers don't bid this way. They will always bid by minimum increment.
Even now , they will bid for every bid with minimum increment but now at least there are some sort of penalties and incentives for them to change their behavior.
. So, 0.92x argument is not a good one.
(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But snippers don't bid this way. They will always bid by minimum increment.
Even now , they will bid for every bid with minimum increment but now at least there are some sort of penalties and incentives for them to change their behavior.
. So, 0.92x argument is not a good one.
(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Nope, trust me. It is for the current system. The sniper may use minimums, but when you have to make a step towards the bigger numbers, a lot will consider bidding 920k instead of a more round 1m

You said it right though, they mostly use the minimum increment.
That's why those should be raised to punish snipers.

I'm not very care about 8% tax(sorry it may be incompatible with your ideal).
If there is something really good I might bid at first and follow it all the way through,but for something less interest me I'll just take a look and leave,check it again at last 30 mins and decide whether i'd like to bid or not.

And one of the reasons I don't like proxy very much is that I can barely decide my final price.If I decided it at 10m and someone bid 11m I'll think "uh 12m is also acceptable for me" .At most time it can raised up to 150% of my first considered price,sometimes even 300% (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) but put proxy to 150% of my final price at first is too much (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) .

I have a question about Time-Based Price Multipliers.

If a person bid at the last minute on an item that has no bids (ie, starting price), will they pay 8% more?

@Basara Nekki: As it is now the answer is yes, see below.

Ok, as it is now i really dislike the system.

1) The discount\tas is unbalanced, 2-3-4% tax need to be paired with a same 2-3-4% discount, 2-8 is bad, 8 in any direction is bad.

2) How is the discount\tax divided? The only sensible way is 1-2% loss or gain for both seller and Super cause if on a 100M seller have to lose 4% more (14% in total) it may get upset and item get 4% more and he don't se anything it will get even more upset (it a strong human trait, any human want to pay less and gain more).

3) The main point: The whole thing is not useless, in my opinion is harmful.
I don't see any point giving who bid immediatly a discount and who bid late a tax, the auction is a play and there are different way to play it.

I can offer little at the beginning and increasing in time if i get outbid, put immediatly a big bid like i say "i REALLY want this", i can put starting bid at the end of the auction to get somthing of little worth or try to "snipe" an user that i AFK at aution end, all those system are ok and legit, cutting down some only cause some users don't like it is bad, objectively.

As an example i have done this:

CODE

[Lig15] Legendary Jade Shade Breastplate of Negation (386, ADB 97%) (seller: Maharid) Maharid 50k #136; winning for 0.0h; +8.0%

It is a starting bid, why an user have to pay 8% more? Nonsense.

Starting bid don't have to get tax and if starting bid is made really late, like 24-12 hours before auction end, no tax\discount need to be applied to ani bid and outbid.

Even more, an unsold equipment near the end of auction can get minimum bid by someone that think "ok, not really worth but i can use it as a stub" but if bidder need to pay an extra tax it can decide to not bid at all, even for 1% (both because he can dislike paying more for an item no one else want and because, as i said, if a human have to pay more for a thing, for any reason, he will be more reluctant to do so).

4) Bonus: This punish anyone that make a bid later and was not the winner for X time, regardless the fact that he was able or not to be online at the start of auction (someone can try to snipe, someone else can have time\connection only in the weekend and so bid only on Friday\Saturday).

5) Extra Bonus: And the ones that look at 1000 High Grade Woods and place a starting bid of 50K?
The is nothing about it but maybe he still the winner until Friday when someone else put a 2M bid, still low but not a total scam for the seller and the first is still prized if win in the end? (And not punished for making a tentative scam?).

In my opinion this system is only confusing and limitating for both seller and bidder so from next week on i will not sell\bid on this auction until the new system is reworked in a fair for all way (giving penalitis also for the low-bid scammer) or totally removed.

And, here are "Starting Bid" to wave away the one that don't really want something, if not used by seller is specious trying to force them by system default.

My english is not that good (i took like an hour to compose this massage) but i hope i was clear enough.

EDIT: In truth if for a seller the only thing iis get the more he can, any system that discourage higher bidder in the last moments of the auction (snipers) can damage the seller that will drift somewhere else.

This post has been edited by Maharid: Oct 27 2017, 23:58

2) How is the discount\tax divided? The only sensible way is 1-2% loss or gain for both seller and Super cause if on a 100M seller have to lose 4% more (14% in total) it may get upset and item get 4% more and he don't se anything it will get even more upset (it a strong human trait, any human want to pay less and gain more).

i'm quite positive he'll use taxes to fund discounts and not for a mere personal revenue

As an example i have done this:

CODE

[Lig15] Legendary Jade Shade Breastplate of Negation (386, ADB 97%) (seller: Maharid) Maharid 50k #136; winning for 0.0h; +8.0%

It is a starting bid, why an user have to pay 8% more? Nonsense.

Starting bid don't have to get tax and if starting bid is made really late, like 24-12 hours before auction end, no tax\discount need to be applied to ani bid and outbid.

i agree. especially since it's part of (at least my) suggestions for low-levels and people with tight budgets: go for leftovers at auction.
it would be a really good thing if they were left out of the discount/tax system.

i'm quite positive he'll use taxes to fund discounts and not for a mere personal revenue

Of course, because if you look at the chart there on the "Bid Times" page, the amount of discounts is the same as the fees.

As an example i have done this:

CODE

[Lig15] Legendary Jade Shade Breastplate of Negation (386, ADB 97%) (seller: Maharid) Maharid 50k #136; winning for 0.0h; +8.0%

It is a starting bid, why an user have to pay 8% more? Nonsense.

Starting bid don't have to get tax and if starting bid is made really late, like 24-12 hours before auction end, no tax\discount need to be applied to ani bid and outbid.

i agree. especially since it's part of (at least my) suggestions for low-levels and people with tight budgets: go for leftovers at auction.
it would be a really good thing if they were left out of the discount/tax system.

I also think that would be a good solution.

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And about this new system, I do not think it's bad. I think it's a good experience in an attempt to reduce snipers. The whole experience takes some time until people get used, and also to the improvement of the rules. Let's see how things will develop in the coming weeks.

This post has been edited by Basara Nekki: Oct 28 2017, 04:58