Legion Broke the Auction House

[Hawg]

Copying from this thread on the official forums (eu):

http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/t...3361779#post-1

Curious if you guys have any other ideas for fixing the Auction House?

Dear Blizzard,

In all the celebration over the fantastic successful launch of Legion, you may have missed a huge problem with the game: The Auction House

I’m not sure what is causing it, but since launch, on my large server (and others too if social medial can be trusted), the Auction House is now all but unusable for profession materials (cloth, enchant mats, gems, ore, herbs, and leather). For example on my server (Silvermoon EU), last time I checked Leyiron ore, there were approximately 60 pages of listings. The first 50ish of those pages were full of single pieces of ore posted by a handful of people. So if you needed to buy, say 2 stacks (400 items) you would need to individually click "buy out", then click on the "are you sure" button, then wait 10 sec for the server to do its thing, before you actually purchase it and can go to number 2 of your 400 purchases.

To make it worse, with the default AH UI, you can only sort by “bid price”, not by “buy-out price”. So there is really no way to know if you are buying the best deal without scanning through those 60 pages, which would literally take longer than leveling an alt from 100 to 110. Let’s face it, the bid price is basically useless, almost no one waits for an auction to end, they use the “buy out “ option. I can count on one hand how many times I have bid on an item in the decade+ I’ve been playing. So why not also include the ability to sort by “buy-out price” (per unit)?

For this reason, almost no one who is serious uses the default UI for auctions. But now those add-ons are essentially useless because the speed of the AH has deteriorated so dramatically with Legion (is this a DDOS problem or is it because of that one jerk posting 1000 auctions of one item?). It shouldn’t take 30 min to figure out what is the best price for 5 ore, and buy it. Right now, on my server, it takes that long.

Speaking of the decade-plus I’ve been playing, I don’t recall a single update to the Auction House UI. It’s time. Now. Please don’t wait for 7.1, its broken now making it almost impossible to level professions without a gatherer.

So, given all that, I was trying to think of some possible solutions. Here are some ideas:

1) Redo the AH UI so that it natively has all the same functionality as popular addons such Auctionator (but hopefully much, much faster)

2) Limit the number of Auctions you can have active at a time (maybe 20 or 30?). This would help keep those idiots from posting 1000 stacks of 1. I seriously can’t think of a legitimate reason for anyone to post 1000 auctions of the same item. It’s either griefing, trying to overload the system, or just trying to hide lower priced auctions by sheer numbers and frustration.

3) Create a "work order" system. The idea would be that a buyer could just select an item and set a price at which they are willing to buy it along with a quantity to buy. So for example I could say I want to buy 400 felslate at 50g each. This would allow sellers to get instant gratification, and would allow buyers to not have to spend hours searching for the best deal in the AH.

Anyway, I’m sure other people have other ideas, but something needs to be done and soon.

Please.

[Grimbold of Skullcrusher]

Maybe get an addon. This is like complaining about how raids are broken without having a boss mod addon.

[WintersLegion]

But it's not broke. Just because you don't like how someone else is doing it doesn't mean it's broke.

[Amerissis]

Maybe get an addon. This is like complaining about how raids are broken without having a boss mod addon.

Did tou read the post? Even with the addon it's impossible. I use auctionator. By the time it processed the 50 pages of ore and I click buyout, it has to rescan and the stack is already sold. Every time.

[Deleted]

I think it would be best if they limit how many pieces of an item you can list at the same time.
For example: You can list a total of 50 auctions. But you can only 5 of the same item, regardless if its one or 200.

So if you list 5 ores, each on their own, you can't list more of said ores until someone buys it.

In my opinion this is the real problem: 100+ single ores of the same guy spamming the auction house.

[chazus]

The GW2 system I felt was pretty robust for the most part.

Want to buy? Find the item, and it shows the lowest price. Need 100, but only 20 of the lowest price? It buys 20, and you buy 80 of the next price up.

Want to sell? Post the item, and it simply marks it 1c cheaper than the last one, so yours will be bought first. Lowest goes fastest. Lots of competition? Pull it and repost at lowest.

[Nahela]

I haven't noticed any slowdown, but a purchase order system would definitely be a benefit

[Hawg]

Did tou read the post? Even with the addon it's impossible. I use auctionator. By the time it processed the 50 pages of ore and I click buyout, it has to rescan and the stack is already sold. Every time.

This
/10char

- - - Updated - - -

But it's not broke. Just because you don't like how someone else is doing it doesn't mean it's broke.

What legitimate reason is there to post 50 pages of one leystone ore auctions?

- - - Updated - - -

I haven't noticed any slowdown, but a purchase order system would definitely be a benefit

Curious for those who are not noticing a slow down, are you on low pop servers?

[Deianeira]

While i do think the posters that post 1 piece auctions are the spawn of satan. I dont see the problem here. If you use Auctionator sure you can have the problem of the first few lines are "sold" once it has scanned. But then you move on to the next item in Auctionator or whatever addon you use.

[callipygoustp]

With how old the game is, how, HOW is anyone that uses the AH regularly NOT using an add-on?

Auctionator is updated for Legion. Get it. This one add-on alone resolves so so SOOOOO many of the issues people run into with using the standard UI. Hell, Auctionator also shores up several of the short comings of Auctioneer.
Add-on : Auctionator(at curse.com)

[Runefeather]

I think a lot of those single ore problems is caused by tradeskill master. The default "quick post from bags" posts everything in stacks of 1. People should be thinking and creating groups etc. to do it properly, but well, people are lazy. I have a feeling if tsm fixed that a lot of ah problems would be solved.

[rogoth]

to be fair, this is only a "problem" on high pop servers, and silvermoon-eu is the highest pop alliance realm in the whole region, and one of the highest pop realms overall, on medium-low pop realms this isn't an issue, furthermore the "single" auction items are also necessary, sometimes (and from my own personal experience as i used to own several markets on my own realm a while back) the majority of stuff i was selling would sell better as a single list item, than as a huge stack (back when stack size was limited to 20 etc), i would guess that this pattern exists today and that it is more profitable to list individual items than a stack, there are multiple addons to use to help smooth out the process, i agree the AH needs an overhaul since it hasn't been changed much since classic, but nothing too major, maybe updates to the default UI but it works fine for the majority of people.

[Deleted]

I knew I was right to focus leveling my professions (have all) which I do at beginning of every xpac. I avoid the AH as much as possible..

[Grimbold of Skullcrusher]

Did tou read the post? Even with the addon it's impossible. I use auctionator. By the time it processed the 50 pages of ore and I click buyout, it has to rescan and the stack is already sold. Every time.

I am using TSM and I have no issues like this. Try TSM.

[Hawg]

With how old the game is, how, HOW is anyone that uses the AH regularly NOT using an add-on?

Auctionator is updated for Legion. Get it. This one add-on alone resolves so so SOOOOO many of the issues people run into with using the standard UI. Hell, Auctionator also shores up several of the short comings of Auctioneer.
Add-on : Auctionator(at curse.com)

Dude, you are missing the point, even with Auctionator, on high population servers, you cannot buy crafting mats.

Back to the example: You use Auctionator, you go to the search function, you put leystone ore in:

First it scans the AH for leystone ore, 60ish pages of scanning takes Auctionator about 15-20min.

Second, you select one of the options, like the first guy who is posting in stacks instead of singles, you tell it you want to buy, Auctionator scans for that auction again, another 5-10 min wait.

At that point you try to buy it, wait 2 min and you get an error saying the auction is not found. You are not at 20-30 minutes and still have not bought any more ore. Repeat the second step. Pray.

Now maybe that is different on different realms. But that is what it is currently like on Silvermoon EU.

[Delaios]

They don't need to limit the number of auctions. The AH just needs to merge all of the posts of the same item at the same price into a big pile. The seller selects the bid and buyout price per unit. The buyer can see how many are left and choose how many he wants to buy.

Hundreds of potential listings are merged into a single one. People can still singles if they want, but they no longer need an AddOn to buy mass quantities of single ore auctions (or even worse, manually buying each one).

I'd even be fine for hot selling items to follow a similar system to the token. A fixed, region wide price that fluctuates depending on demand.

[Zephire]

to be fair, this is only a "problem" on high pop servers, and silvermoon-eu is the highest pop alliance realm in the whole region, and one of the highest pop realms overall, on medium-low pop realms this isn't an issue, furthermore the "single" auction items are also necessary, sometimes (and from my own personal experience as i used to own several markets on my own realm a while back) the majority of stuff i was selling would sell better as a single list item, than as a huge stack (back when stack size was limited to 20 etc), i would guess that this pattern exists today and that it is more profitable to list individual items than a stack, there are multiple addons to use to help smooth out the process, i agree the AH needs an overhaul since it hasn't been changed much since classic, but nothing too major, maybe updates to the default UI but it works fine for the majority of people.

Low pop servers might not have the same amount or time consuming scanning to do but the UI is still dated. Rarity order, price types (buyout, bid), amount, exclude/include parameters are all very basic things that I would argue is more or less mandatory for today's array-listing UI's and the auction house really needs it. You shouldn't be required to get an addon for those simple things. Addons are for calculations and statistics or other extras.

[Hawg]

to be fair, this is only a "problem" on high pop servers, and silvermoon-eu is the highest pop alliance realm in the whole region, and one of the highest pop realms overall, on medium-low pop realms this isn't an issue, furthermore the "single" auction items are also necessary, sometimes (and from my own personal experience as i used to own several markets on my own realm a while back) the majority of stuff i was selling would sell better as a single list item, than as a huge stack (back when stack size was limited to 20 etc), i would guess that this pattern exists today and that it is more profitable to list individual items than a stack, there are multiple addons to use to help smooth out the process, i agree the AH needs an overhaul since it hasn't been changed much since classic, but nothing too major, maybe updates to the default UI but it works fine for the majority of people.

I agree there are times when it is legitimate to list stacks of one. But there is some point at which that becomes abusive, or maybe "wrong", is a better label. 1000 auctions of one stack, is way beyond that point IMHO.

But back to the original point, AH UI needs an overhaul. Right now the UI doesn't handle single stack auctions in large quantities well. As a result you have to use an addon. But the Addons are not effective on large servers.

[uxzuigal]

Have not had a single issue, I've earned 450k on AH selling leather last 3 days...

[HumbleDuck]

Maybe get an addon. This is like complaining about how raids are broken without having a boss mod addon.

I use TSM, the is sooooo slow, that most of the time ( for crafting mats) I just use the default action house layout. Don't even get me started on " auction not found" stuff ...

They really should just merge all the posts with the same price and qty to reduce the page count. Yesterday there was over 100 pages of silk and almost 90% of it was 1 item posts.