Warning: Exploiting Auction System in Cross Server Dungeons

[KatHead]

Op, I am sorry this happened to you. This is the way the system works though. You just need to slow down and bid very slowly on items you desire, if you ever get in a hurry this could happen again. Happened to me yesterday, cost me 1 gold which is no big deal but it could have been a lot worse. 1g for a 1s item, woot !

 

[shakti]

22 minutes ago, gothicshark said:

Why would me being female have anything to do with my gameplay style? I've been a hardcore gamer since the 80's, when it was dice and quarters. When I was younger I would kick most guys arses in Tekken. My issue with jumping is why I gave up on Wildstar, if it wasn't for the old school fighting game feel of this game I would have left back to FFXIV last month. I hate the Story, I dislike Jumping. 

 

Also 22 gold would be back in a dick move. So yah, he was a dick, and it sucks. But he didn't effect your freewill, and he didn't actually harm you. Learn from this, and be cautious when bidding. You are not the only one with physical limitations, you are not alone in some of your problems, but become stronger, take your time, and dam them if they don't like it. As I said, I slow walk my Warlock in that one run, granted I bust the boxes for the Shortcut, but that's not like jumping. I can't even do the 3rd one because I have yet to get the jump upgrade. As I wont buy the item on the AH, and I'm working to make it. Also I have a guild of just me and 9alts, all of whom are crafting for me to get all the needed stuff. (yes 2 accounts one on my laptop, one on my desktop. needed a way to deal with my altism, and my need for a cute Lyn Fem Boi.)

Oh I ended up in a run like that once, I dropped out when I saw the min bid notice. No way, on a random run I wont take that Bleep from anyone. 

I was referring to myself regarding gender, but of course individual style trumps any other differences. That's definitely not an excuse for anything, and my references to my vision are also an effort to explain the circumstances I'm working with.

 

Glad also that you agree 22 gold was a d*ck move! We can agree to disagree on whether it should be treated as scamming.

[gothicshark]

3 minutes ago, shakti said:

I was referring to myself regarding gender, but of course individual style trumps any other differences. That's definitely not an excuse for anything, and my references to my vision are also an effort to explain the circumstances I'm working with.

 

Glad also that you agree 22 gold was a d*ck move! We can agree to disagree on whether it should be treated as scamming.

I'm confused, now. Your color problem sound like a form of colorblindness, which is a Y usually gene issue. As to the later, dick move, not a scam, they have to do something to convince you to spend for it to be a scam. Bumping up the bid by a large amount is something you just have to keep an eye out for. Which is why everyone said "Slowdown" 

 

 

 

[shakti]

I have a condition that causes premature macular degeneration. I have a lot of vision distortions including difficulty reading low contrast lettering.  Again - not an excuse, just answering your question.

 

I include exploiting a system in my definition of scamming. Making a "social engineering" phone call to obtain someone's password is still considered hacking even if the person voluntarily gave their password because of expectations about tech support. In another game I played upgrading a weapon through the equivalent of "card counting" was considered an exploit even though it was enabled by game mechanics. Grifters, con artists - they all rely on expectations to achieve illegal ends. This guy was out to trick and cheat people during high end dailies, and he cost me days of work grinding for hours on end (ouch!). That's a scammer in my book!

 

Thank you to those who commiserated over my loss whether they agree it was a scam or not.

[Vivien]

Here's the real exploit.

 

Yesterday I ran Yeti 6 man with my bf from cross-server's pug party.

We joined one from the party recruitment on the top left of the screen (LFP usually ends up giving worst experiences but this particular party was just as bad) as I've experienced before, if you have to pug the dungeon, joining these are better than LFP about 70% of the time.

My bf was having a bit of a bad day and when we were fighting Yeti, he just saw that everyone was on the ground but didn't confirm if anyone was ready and jumped in on the boss.

I guess that ticked off the LBM that was in party, assuming he wasn't able to get the dragonbloods.

It's bf's fault, I get it and I'm sorry for him being a bit hasty.

However, when Yeti did his first grab, he grabbed the FM who had aggro and threw her, but she immediately stepped out of it after being thrown so we weren't able to get the hot zone to get rid of our debuff.

I assumed the party knew what they were doing for this dungeon since recruitment asked for certain AP + experience.

So I asked in party chat, why did you back out of it? Obviously asking the FM why she didn't stay down till hot zone was created.

Then LBM decided to ask me a question instead, why did you start when I wasn't ready?

LBM and my bf ended up having a short exchange of words (in a non-friendly way) and bf said he's going to leave if they back out again if the one with aggro gets grabbed.

Eventually more mistakes with FM happened and everyone got frozen once again, and bf left party.

By that time, boss had about 600k hp left so I decided to just stay and finish it up anyway.

 

After Yeti died, it dropped #3 Soulshield. I opened my reward box to see if I get same piece or not, was going to pass if I did. I got a different number so I decided to bid on the loot.

Highest I'll go usually is up to 2g and I won't pay more than that.

When I started bidding, someone else bid against me till I had up to 2g then they still bid on top of that so I just didn't click Yes again (I didn't click Pass, I just waited it out while trying to decide if I want to bid or not).

About 1~2 secs left in the person winning the bid, they took the exit portal and left the dungeon (not leaving party but taking portal so they're still in party).

Because of that, bid reset and it started back from the start again.

I bid again and same thing happened. Still by then, I was skeptical but wasn't sure what was really going on.

After the 2nd reset, 3 people were left behind inside the dungeon including me.

I bid again and one of the people started doing the same thing. After I got up to 2g and they bid over me once again, I had enough and clicked Pass, thinking they just didn't want me to have the Soulshield.

Well, that thought was right, but in the worst way.

After I clicked Pass, that person who had the highest bid left dungeon again via exit portal, and when the Soulshield auction reset once again, I was no longer able to bid on it because I clicked Pass.

So the last person besides me left in party was able to get that Soulshield for just few coppers.

When that happened, all those players in party started flooding and typing in party chat with "OMG IT WORKED!" "LMAOOOOO"

I said in party chat, "I don't mind paying up to 2g for a Soulshield, but really? Making someone lose it on purpose?"

LBM replied saying, "all about making $$$"

They were all in it together to make me lose out on that on purpose and have one of them win the Soulshield without having to pay basically anything but few coppers.

I don't know if it was because of my bf being hasty and arguing with that LBM in party or me pointing out FM's mistake, but I'm sure they noticed that I was in same clan as my bf and clearly wanted me to not get anything while saving their asses with my AoE Seed Shroud while FM didn't even bother trying to Frost Sheath.

 

I know some things prior to the boss drop might have triggered sourness in party, but this is one example of people exploiting the game's loot bidding system to purposely make someone not get a drop they would like to fairly bid against.

[gothicshark]

2 hours ago, shakti said:

I have a condition that causes premature macular degeneration. I have a lot of vision distortions including difficulty reading low contrast lettering.  Again - not an excuse, just answering your question.

Sorry to hear that, sounds like   Stargardt disease. I understand that can be difficult. I use to work as a caregiver/social worker and had a client who had that among other issues. 

 

Just remember the wise words of Cave Johnson:

 

“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”

 

 

 

[AttacKat]

7 hours ago, shakti said:

There is a player on the cross-server dungeons who is changing copper bids to gold while everyone is trying to rush to get to the real price. This is especially a problem for players with low vision who can't tell silver from gold.

1. Price depends on the item. If you are talking about items that costs only silvers on the market, yeah, he is trying to scam people. But if you are talking about items that are a few gold, then no, he is just trying to speed things up and not waste time.

2. Cannot tell difference between copper/silver/gold? I find that hard to believe. There are 3 value positions on the bidding screen and it is always G:S:C.

3. Cannot see the values? Move the bidding window so you can see all the values.

[Dethla Hadyn]

This effect occurred in a dungeon I was in as well. The fellow snipped the bid or what have you and then the few coppers went up to a few gold.  It was very cheeky and I'm sure everyone else in the party were astonished, as to how this one fellow beefed the bid, expecting the rest of us to follow through...but no one did, and this jackass paid a lot to the rest of us. 

 

Was as poetic to see him snared in his own web, lol, but at first I was confused what the hell was going on. Glad I didn't place bid, but definitely will take caution from here on out.  

 

Sympathies to the OP, and all who've been tricked. This game is filled with *cricket*ing douchebags.

 

Be cautious. 

[shakti]

@Vivien - thank you for recounting that group scam. Earlier in the thread when some people suggested that I log out, I speculated that this might enable people working together to get items for a very low price. Sad to see that people have really been trying this. On the bright side, now that the story is out, the game operators can consider more angles and take steps that will improve everybody's experience.

[Archess]

12 hours ago, shakti said:

snip

 

I spent over a week trying to save up to buy moonstones so I can upgrade my items enough to try the new purple dungeons. I need around 35 moonstones at this points, and I still don't have enough money after a week of farming all day. I finally got the Merry Potters recipe in Brightstone, and my first attempt to get just ONE moonwater tear cost a third of the gold I had left.

 

snip

I just cannot stop facepalming...i am sorry....it is comon knowledge that if you buy something with all your money, you have less money left then when you started that day, farm a few days, then buy the tears?

 

Also you should have just spend the 25 ish gold of the recipe on transformation stones to upgrade your gear, there is little profit to be had to make your own transformation stones, it results in a few gold saved in the long run, but on only 15-20 stones for your own use, its a net loss at the end of the road.

[fruitie]

It really is pathetic how some people put the blame solely on the OP. You people are what's wrong with the game. If the scammers were forced to pay when they messed up then you could have a shred of validity to your argument, however we all know it doesn't work that way. They attempt to scam others with bids way above what the item is worth and they leave when it doesn't work out their way. Why anyone would consider exploiting other people this way to be ok is beyond me. Frankly the amount of selfishness I see in such games disgusts me.

[ThePrelate]

23 minutes ago, fruitie said:

It really is pathetic how some people put the blame solely on the OP. You people are what's wrong with the game. If the scammers were forced to pay when they messed up then you could have a shred of validity to your argument, however we all know it doesn't work that way. They attempt to scam others with bids way above what the item is worth and they leave when it doesn't work out their way. Why anyone would consider exploiting other people this way to be ok is beyond me. Frankly the amount of selfishness I see in such games disgusts me.

We do not think it's okay. We do think it's an exploit of the bidding system. It IS his own fault that he didn't see it before pressing YES on bid (sorry, but for some things in life you simply have to take the blame, no one forced you to do it). And we do not want him to feel bad about it. This same problem happened to a lot of people (myself included) and we simply learned from this experience. When that happened to me, I simply was astonished by it, how someone can fall so low and then went with a curse for him (something like: 'I hope you choke on every gold piece you earned on me.') and after it, I simply learned from my own mistake and I won't let it happen to me ever again. Simple as that. No one said that this action is okay, some may have said that it's the OPs fault in a more aggressive manner but ultimately, it's the message that counts. I personally don't think NCSoft is going to do anything about it, because nothing in this world is perfect and this is simply a way the game works. Now that someone found a way to exploit the inherent weakness in the system and other participants, that's a completely different topic because it doesn't make the game unfair. Just because someone is 'foolish' enough to not pay attention is not their problem. You can always try to do groups with people you trust or guildies or even solo. But what you, me, the OP and everyone else can do is learn from their or others mistakes and not let that happen to them. Like I've said before, there are some pretty good advices here that are definitely worth looking into and practicing. It's a good thing the OP shared the experience with the rest of us on this forum and hopefully people will come across this thread and learn from it.

[Titania Zero]

More reasons for me to never run with strangers...  The auction system is a terrible feature.  Minimized only by friends who agree and we friendly give out what is needed through multiple runs.

 

What is wrong with the normal need/greed random 1-100 roll thing?  >>

[Laethiel]

14 hours ago, shakti said:

There is a player on the cross-server dungeons who is changing copper bids to gold while everyone is trying to rush to get to the real price. This is especially a problem for players with low vision who can't tell silver from gold. The exploiters add some copper change, so it also looks like silver because there is just 2 places and makes the bid in what would be a plausible range for silver. In this case the bid went from a few coppers to 22 gold and copper change: players would have expected the end bid to fall between 20 and 40 silver, so they would continue to bid fast at 22.

 

Several players have reported this, but I have a feeling Player Support will say it's unfortunate but legal.

 

I spent over a week trying to save up to buy moonstones so I can upgrade my items enough to try the new purple dungeons. I need around 35 moonstones at this points, and I still don't have enough money after a week of farming all day. I finally got the Merry Potters recipe in Brightstone, and my first attempt to get just ONE moonwater tear cost a third of the gold I had left.

 

I'm already unable to complete the main Yellow quest line because of a bug in my qing gong jumping skill. This kind of setback, which prevents me from going on to the high level purple dungeons as well as making me afraid of the auction system, is extremely disheartening.

 

It is legal, When you are bidding in an auction you should not blast through bidding wars. It's a good way to get taken advantage of. Take your time between bids. you have a good 10 seconds between each bid to check what the current bid is and whether or not you want to bid again. Rushing through it is your own folly. You'll find no sympathy here.

[Dethla Hadyn]

12 minutes ago, Titania Zero said:

More reasons for me to never run with strangers...  The auction system is a terrible feature.  Minimized only by friends who agree and we friendly give out what is needed through multiple runs.

 

What is wrong with the normal need/greed random 1-100 roll thing?  >>

I actually like the bns bidding system.  Newer players should watch a tutorial about how it works.  If the epic loot you want drops but the other guy has more cash than you, you'll still get a mild payout if you bid it up.  It rarely occurs tho, and lately I'd say the loot has been nerfed/reduced in heroic dungeons. 

 

I think need greed roll rules on loot are awful. Trash.  

 

 

On topic, just be aware that these elite cocksuckers posting  +999 AP to run heroics, have been using this bid you up/leave party scam, and more of them will begin to do so. 

 

There are a lot of weird people that play this game, and even more that try only to exploit it. 

 

The need to develop a worthy friends list, has never been more important, and in this cesspool of bns douchebaggery, never been harder to find. 

[fruitie]

26 minutes ago, ThePrelate said:

We do not think it's okay. We do think it's an exploit of the bidding system. It IS his own fault that he didn't see it before pressing YES on bid (sorry, but for some things in life you simply have to take the blame, no one forced you to do it). And we do not want him to feel bad about it. This same problem happened to a lot of people (myself included) and we simply learned from this experience. When that happened to me, I simply was astonished by it, how someone can fall so low and then went with a curse for him (something like: 'I hope you choke on every gold piece you earned on me.') and after it, I simply learned from my own mistake and I won't let it happen to me ever again. Simple as that. No one said that this action is okay, some may have said that it's the OPs fault in a more aggressive manner but ultimately, it's the message that counts. I personally don't think NCSoft is going to do anything about it, because nothing in this world is perfect and this is simply a way the game works. Now that someone found a way to exploit the inherent weakness in the system and other participants, that's a completely different topic because it doesn't make the game unfair. Just because someone is 'foolish' enough to not pay attention is not their problem. You can always try to do groups with people you trust or guildies or even solo. But what you, me, the OP and everyone else can do is learn from their or others mistakes and not let that happen to them. Like I've said before, there are some pretty good advices here that are definitely worth looking into and practicing. It's a good thing the OP shared the experience with the rest of us on this forum and hopefully people will come across this thread and learn from it.

It's still victim blaming. There is little preventative action to make sure it doesn't happen. Basically from some peoples opinions in this thread you could say that it's ok to take advantage of other people because its the other persons fault anyway. That is not a good lesson to teach. And frankly I doubt they'd hold similar views if it was more personal. You wouldn't blame a child for being exploited for letting themselves get caught by some stranger offering free candy just because they should've known better. Frankly no matter how much you inform people, there will always be a victim. You can pay more attention but even without bid spamming it can still happen because the only safeguards are to leave which essentially benefits the scammers. Force them to pay or have a 1 second delay on bidding when the bid has risen by 1 gold or so and then maybe we can say that pay more attention is a valid method. Otherwise there is no consequence.

[Vivien]

14 hours ago, shakti said:

@Vivien - thank you for recounting that group scam. Earlier in the thread when some people suggested that I log out, I speculated that this might enable people working together to get items for a very low price. Sad to see that people have really been trying this. On the bright side, now that the story is out, the game operators can consider more angles and take steps that will improve everybody's experience.

No problem.

I just didn't expect people to be actually grouping up together to screw over other strangers for their own benefits with this loot system.

Stuff like that is to be expected when you play MMO but I didn't know people can do it like this too with this.

I've seen people purposely bid on item they don't need, such as class specific weapons that someone in party actually needs but themselves don't but bid on it anyway to make the person who needs it to pay more than they should.

My case was more extreme where rest of the party except me were in it together to screw me over. Gotta love this bidding system...

 

As for the ones bidding on the class weapon someone needs but they don't, I don't agree with Enhance's post about making others pay for what you worked to "help" them get it.

You joined in on the dungeon that you were either looking to farm for your gear materials or get daily done.

Unfortunately, the weapon that dropped wasn't for your class, that's too bad. Better luck next time and hope it'll drop or from the chest box you get as reward.

But I would not bid on purpose to raise the price up high for someone else in party who actually needs that weapon to pay up.

You're all in it for the similar purpose, they did their part in the group as much as you did (unless they were absolutely useless throughout the dungeon and got carried).

 

This is example of someone being a douchebag to purposely make me pay so they can get some coppers.

 

Spoiler

 

 

I crossed out the names of the other players due to naming/shaming policy.

 

As you can see, there are only 3 people left in party.

This was my LBM back when I was leveling her for the level up event with Warlock release.

After the last boss died, other people left party and it was just 3 of us left bidding on the stuff.

Thankfully weapon for my class dropped on my 2nd run and I was happy that I got lucky (because usually I gotta run stuff like this 20+ times to get my weapon).

This Summoner in party purposely started bidding on this weapon knowing that I need it. I kept telling him to stop but he didn't listen and kept bidding until my bid got up to 1 silver and then he dropped his bids...

What he said after that was "5copper" and left dungeon. wtf is that supposed to mean -.-

The other person (the Warlock) just stayed in party to see what was happening, they weren't in on it or anything (except getting some coppers as share I guess)

1 silver is not an issue for me but it's people like this that tries to screw other people over on purpose.

This one wasn't even about making me pay for the work others did, because this Summoner literally got carried through the dungeon by me.

I tanked everything on my LBM and while others did their part throughout the dungeon, this guy kept dying over and over. Then at the end did this to screw me over.

 

I searched their name on the Character Info database after, well they had other characters but didn't have any up to lv 45 (back when 45 was cap), must have needed some coppers that badly.....

[876605_1452550437]

Maybe he needed to salvage a purple weapon?

13 minutes ago, Vivien said:

\As you can see, there are only 3 people left in party.

This was my LBM back when I was leveling her for the level up event with Warlock release.

After the last boss died, other people left party and it was just 3 of us left bidding on the stuff.

Thankfully weapon for my class dropped on my 2nd run and I was happy that I got lucky (because usually I gotta run stuff like this 20+ times to get my weapon).

This Summoner in party purposely started bidding on this weapon knowing that I need it. I kept telling him to stop but he didn't listen and kept bidding until my bid got up to 1 silver and then he dropped his bids...

What he said after that was "5copper" and left dungeon. wtf is that supposed to mean -.-

The other person (the Warlock) just stayed in party to see what was happening, they weren't in on it or anything (except getting some coppers as share I guess)

1 silver is not an issue for me but it's people like this that tries to screw other people over on purpose.

This one wasn't even about making me pay for the work others did, because this Summoner literally got carried through the dungeon by me.

I tanked everything on my LBM and while others did their part throughout the dungeon, this guy kept dying over and over. Then at the end did this to screw me over.

 

I searched their name on the Character Info database after, well they had other characters but didn't have any up to lv 45 (back when 45 was cap), must have needed some coppers that badly.....

 

[Vivien]

19 minutes ago, 876605_1452550437 said:

Maybe he needed to salvage a purple weapon?

 

If he wanted to, he could've kept bidding on it.

But he laughed in middle of me trying to asking him to stop (you can't see it on the screenshot from those bidding texts but I asked him to stop 3 times in total).

And he's lv 16. At that level, you can just feed blue/green fodders for your weapon rather than salvaging weapons for a chance for the element powder which is expensive to craft at that level.

Element Powders can't be transferred to other characters under the same account and the person had 3 characters all in different servers.

So no I doubt he wanted to get the weapon just to salvage it.