So in the last 7 hours, this is what the bots have managed to generate:
Just to name a few things. The rest of the market is consistent with this. Whilst I appreciate that you made some Steam changes and showed that you’re trying to handle the situation, the problem hasn’t really gotten any better, and in fact it has gotten worse. For a while, instead of undercutting each other to oblivion they actually learnt to stack on the auction house so they were actually able to maintain pretty high prices for some of these items, but now after a while of going completely unchecked they’ve just overstocked to the point that they’re hard undercutting each other. Either way, are you still doing anything to tackle this? As a bunch of threads have previously shown, the same bots have been logging into the game for weeks now (which is why we don’t see all that many levelling anymore) to do their farming, and have been completely uninterrupted in the process. Seems like you just don’t even ban them anymore and force them to remake their characters. They simply just have permanent spots and are able to freely pollute our economy.
This is something I have an issue with, as well. I was doing adventure tome farm, it would take me like 5 hours to get anything decent, maybe 7 blues and a single one of the hard drops. It was not fast at all, and when the prices were their highest it was maybe 1k gold an hour, if you’re lucky. Now it’s not even worth doing, because everyone undercut each other to the point that everything is pretty worthless.
There are definitely people macroing this stuff. I’ve seen them while I farm it. They cast the same abilities at the same intervals always, while standing still on an area with quick spawns. I don’t feel like any of the Adventure Tome items should be this worthless when they are really annoying droprates and lengthy farm.
Saying all that though, it’s the only consistent gold-farm in the game. It could be just now that everyone has already got their skill points they are just levelling alts and selling excess. Since they are just passively getting them, and have nothing to do with them, it would make sense that they don’t know how to value item, and just chuck it up 1g lower than everyone else.
It’s heavily documented in these forums that they’re being macro’d. There’s just less people complaining because they’re not forced to level anymore so they’re not flooding the early zones teleporting around because they’ve no reason to remake their characters anymore. They are no longer being banned since the Steam changes, so from my perspective (could be wrong) it just seems like Amazon pulled a one-and-done.
I have a similar experience to you with all of this. I’ve been holding stock that I spent a long time farming, and have been waiting to sell it but it’s literally impossible and I refuse to put the items up at these crazy low bot prices. It’s having a large impact on my unhappiness with the game right now because a lot of gold I was depending on is tied to those items. If Amazon continue to ignore the problem, all of the hours I put in will return me a pittance in comparison to what I should be able to get in terms of gold, if this marketplace was remotely natural.
I think AGS and SG are doing more than just steam guard, they still ban from what I understand. They had bans happen last hotfix, which was after steam guard.
Their early solution to bots making money, was to remove the gold from quests and rapport. The bots quickly took to market, and sold Adventure Tome and trade skill loot. I am afraid if they were pressured to make a solution for this, the solution would be to remove tradable from adventure tome, and rare material from early trade skill.
The prices of everything are going down now, but it is actually the lack of the bots doing it. The RMT has changed from $10 for 10k gold, to almost $45 for 20k. There is just less cheap easy gold for people to spend and inflate prices with.
What I’m saying is, it’s hard to tell if it is the bots, or the lack of bots. Funny to say, but true.
I hate to inform you but I’m afraid what you’re saying is inaccurate. There was a period where RMT gold shot up to $1.4 / 1,000G, but currently on EU Central it is at $1 / 1,000G. More than a week, bots farming at the same spot, with the same names. Just as an example, this guy saw the same bots farming the same spot for an entire week without them being banned. Maybe they are banning a very small amount, but they are still running massively rampant right now. In that picture I linked at the top of this thread - the Hybee Honey one - when I logged off yesterday, that stock was pushed to 6G per listing. Everything under 6G there is brand newly generated. That is the sheer volume of what these guys are able to put out on a daily basis, so there is most certainly not a lack of bots.
The RMT prices are certainly a lot higher. I am looking right now. Zinnervale is the lowest price of all servers, and even that is $28 USD for 10k. If you are seeing lower, they are likely the scam sites. There are still plenty of places that offer $1-1K, but they are just going to steal your information. As well as, it is obvious just in starting areas and area chat on my server. There used to be hundreds of them zooming around, now there is usually like dozens.
Not saying it’s completely solved, not saying it’s great, and I agree, adventure tome tanking is definitely a lot to do with bots farming it. Yet the prices in general for everything are tanking, and it is because RMT is harder and more scarce, so they are doing something.
Whether they steal your information or not is besides the point. People will still buy from those sites, and their prices are centered on how easily their gold is obtained. The fact their prices are dropping just goes to show that they’re still able to obtain their gold. And yes, I agree that more things are tanking, but adventure tome items are the one thing that should have gone up as more naturally generated gold was available (Oreha Hard/Argos), as the amount of people who farm these items - and how low the drop rate is - are disproportionate to the people who would like to buy the rest of their pieces out for completion.
They don’t get the gold when they buy it for $1-1k, they just take your information. That’s the point.
I completely agree though, the amount it is farmed, and the amount it is sold for, does not line up with the numbers it should. It’s unfair to the time we both spent farming it, and it really sucks. I just don’t think there is a viable solution that they are not already working on, and their working on it is definitely evident.
I mean I know people who have bought from those sites and have gotten the gold so I don’t see where you’re getting that information from. I’ll rephrase, I know people who have allegedly bought from those sites.
Basic online trading principles. If the most practiced sellers are selling for X amount, and the competition is somehow undercutting them by over 50%, the competition is simply not a real trade. If the people who can farm it the most efficiently, and sell it the most efficiently, are selling it so much higher than people who could not possibly, then it is simply a scam.
It comes in many forms. Usually how it works is, they do sell gold, but very few people actually receive gold. What they do is, they scam a lot of people, buy a little bit of gold with that money, legitimately sell to a few people to build reputation, and then continue. Much like a Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile they collect your information, and then sell that too.
You don’t have to acknowledge what I am telling you about RMT being worse at all. I’m not trying to hurt your case or anything either. I just think they are doing their best already, and if they were pressured into another change, they would make a poor decision that might leave you worse off than you are now.
Unfortunately we are going to have to hold onto our items for a long time to see a very slight increase in value, most likely, and there is nothing AGS or SG can do to fix it now. They should’ve known bots were gonna be a problem and been more prepared.
Other than the RMT stuff because I’m not educated on it, I do agree with what you’re saying. It just feels pretty frustrating to me, and maybe my frustration is taking over and I do not recognise that AGS are still continuing to be diligent following the Steam changes, but from my perspective it does feel an awful lot like they’ve given up with it.
I was hoping very much to see something in the latest weekly maintenance patch that they would have continued their work in this regard, but nothing came up and I was left pretty disappointed.
Rest assured, it most certainly getting harder to bot gold. They can’t share their anti-bot methods because the botters may be able to change their scripts around it.
Definitely frustrating. I feel you. Got about 500 adventure tome items sitting in my storage looking sad.
