What happened here?

[Bricktop72]

I've had a bid up for enhancements for a few days.  In that time I've scooped up 4.  Then I come in today and see that someone purchased one well under my bid price.  I asked in HELP but was told that the sale goes to the lowest bid (There is no way this is correct right?)  Is there some other thing that I'm missing?

[Glacier Peak]

4 hours ago, Bricktop72 said:

Snip

 

Edit: Market guru's corrected me!

Edited September 3, 2021 by Glacier Peak

[The Chairman]

Wait, I thought the highest bid purchased the lowest asking price.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Based on your photo, and based on my knowledge of the programming of the AH, there are a number of options that are based on errors.

 

1.  You falsified your image.  Shame on you!  You should use your Photoshop skills for good, like putting Jeff Bezos on a space unicorn.

 

2.  The past 5 is glitched and is showing a history for a different (possibly imaginary) item.

 

3.  A glitched trade went through.  Should that happen?  No.  But it’s glitchy.

 

4.  A fictitious trade got printed.  Again, that shouldn’t happen.

 

I’ve seen 3 and 4 happen occasionally and 2 happen all the time.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Yomo Kimyata
I like editing

[lemming]

I have been told highest bid goes to lowest offered first.   However, as pointed out by Yomo, glitches happen in both the trades and in the report it seems.

[Triumphant]

As others have pointed out, the problem here is the buggy-as-all-get-out AH.  

[Bricktop72]

9 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Based on your photo, and based on my knowledge of the programming of the AH, there are a number of options that are based on errors.

 

1.  You falsified your image.  Shame on you!  You should use your Photoshop skills for good, like putting Jeff Bezos on a space unicorn.

 

2.  The past 5 is glitched and is showing a history for a different (possibly imaginary) item.

 

3.  A glitched trade went through.  Should that happen?  No.  But it’s glitchy.

 

4.  A fictitious trade got printed.  Again, that shouldn’t happen.

 

I’ve seen 3 and 4 happen occasionally and 2 happen all the time.

 

 

My knowledge of Photoshop is limited to spelling it!

I figured there was a glitch somewhere.  I wasn't sure if it was a common thing or not. 

[Ukase]

In the interest of providing more information than just what was asked, in my own effort to bring all of you horses to good drinking water, let me elaborate a smidge. 
Example: 
You have placed a bid for 10 identical items at the identical bid price, and for the sake of this example, let's say your bids were all 1,111,111.

When someone places their item identical to the one you've bid on, the AH is expected to scan all the bids at that time and release that other players identical item to whomever has the highest bid out for that item. 

Lowest post price goes to the highest bid price.

Is it possible that we've misunderstood how the AH rules process? Could it be this lowball price was in place before your bids and was processed at the time you were placing your bid, but the display didn't refresh in order for you to see it? It's a bit of a mystery. I think the easiest conclusion is probably the right one - AH glitch. I don't think there's a way that so many of us marketers have gotten it wrong all this time. 

Of course....maybe you also placed the lowball bid by accident? maybe you didn't put as many 1's as you thought? 
 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Ukase

[Bricktop72]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Of course....maybe you also placed the lowball bid by accident? maybe you didn't put as many 1's as you thought? 

 

My bid was 50k.  I placed the purchase order for 10x earlier this week and managed to purchase 4.  Then I was just farting around this morning and saw that 1 had been sold for less than my existing bid.  I think the AH displaying the wrong info is possible. 

[Miss Magical]

I strongly suspect that the AH sometimes glitches on certain items and either: 1) does not show the correct purchase price in the last history, or: 2) does not correctly assign the highest buy order to the lowest sale order.

 

I first noticed this when bidding on Defender's Bastion: acc/dmg/end and dmg/end/rech during a period when I was leveling many defenders. The "normal" price for these is between 7 and 8 M, as standard for an ATIO. But these two pieces semi-regularly show sales prices ranging from 1 M to as low as less than 1k, yet my bids ranging from 3 M to 4 M never filled. In fact, looking at the AH right now, I can see this:

 

 

... which is not a normal sight for any ATIO!

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, Miss Magical said:

 

 

 

... which is not a normal sight for any ATIO!

 

But it *is* a normal sight for a lot of recipes.  In fact, that's probably one of mine.  I mean, I don't own the rights to "50,005" but it is one of my fists that I use for buying large amounts of recipes, generally rares.

 

This example could be a straight port from another, real, item's history.  If we ever get a time stamp, it would be easier to suss out.

[A Cat]

Can you not sell to yourself? I had some lvl 31 lotgs at 6.5 mill, and was trying to buy attuned versions at 6.5 mill, but the order did not fill, and my lvl 31 lotgs remained for sale for awhile. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

20 minutes ago, A Cat said:

Can you not sell to yourself? I had some lvl 31 lotgs at 6.5 mill, and was trying to buy attuned versions at 6.5 mill, but the order did not fill, and my lvl 31 lotgs remained for sale for awhile. 

 

One character cannot sell to itself.  Another character on the same account (or a different account) can.

 

Also, if you are buying and selling the same object on the same character, make sure that your bid is lower than your offer.  Otherwise the queue gets mucked up, since you are prohibited from dealing with yourself and that doesn't mesh well with the other algorithms.

[A Cat]

I see. Good to know. 

[UltraAlt]

On 9/3/2021 at 12:29 PM, Bricktop72 said:

I've had a bid up for enhancements for a few days.  In that time I've scooped up 4.  Then I come in today and see that someone purchased one well under my bid price.  I asked in HELP but was told that the sale goes to the lowest bid (There is no way this is correct right?)  Is there some other thing that I'm missing?

I see stuff like this all the time.

 

Could be buggy.

Could be legit.

 

I often pay more than what things are selling for on the market.

I sell my white and yellow salvage for 1 inf. I buy white for 10,000 inf and yellow for 50,000 inf. So the Auction House could show my posted as 1 inf sell as 1 inf while directly next to is one I bought for 10k or 50k inf.

 

It could be that someone had 18 posts to buy at 11,111 inf. Someone posted to sell below that price (assuming trying to make more money by not paying the auction house. After posting one at such a low price they posted another one for a higher price. Someone saw the last bid, tried to get it one for the lower price and may have accidentally purchased it at the price with the additional 1.

 

What I have seen things that I have posted at a set price and thing sell for a much lower price.

I have also seen things showing have sold for a much lower price when I know I have bids on the market at a higher price.

 

The recording does seem to be glitchy sometimes.

I think there are some stealth factors going on as well.

 

Not only can someone be posting something on the market for a low price showing a sudden low purchase if the last bid up is a low one, but the market seeds itself, so it is also throwing stuff up on the market. At what price? You would have to do your own testing to determine, but sometimes it reveals itself.

Is the seeding for this item coming in at or below 11,111 inf or was a player posting below that?

 

I have the feeling that the DEVs are also changing the inbound seed price from time-to-time.

 

I won't say more, because when it comes down to it, people would consider me to be one of the Ebil Marketers.

 

.... I better run while I can ! ....

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by UltraAlt

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

 

What I have seen things that I have posted at a set price and thing sell for a much lower price.

I have also seen things showing have sold for a much lower price when I know I have bids on the market at a higher price.

 

 

 

I feel that there is some incorrect information in the previous post, and some pretty big guesswork, but wanted to directly address these two comments.

 

The first happens all the time, and should happen all the time under the constraints of the system.  If there is an overlap, the offer goes to the best bid.  Someone came in and posted at a lower price than you did.  Working as intended.

 

The second should not happen if you have bids in the queue at a higher level.  Maybe your bids aren't registering, maybe it's a presentation glitch, who knows?  But it should not happen.

 

Going back to the OP's picture, we know they have 6 bids of 50k in the system, and based on their commentary those bids have been there since before 9/2.  Under my understanding of the AH rules, unless those bids have somehow been invalidated, they are higher than the print of 11,111.  Maybe this history is of a different item.  Maybe a false trade printed.  Maybe a trade executed that shouldn't have due to a glitch.  But based on the rules as we see them and the information we have, this should not have occurred.

 

Now, I know for a fact that glitches occur all the time, because I see a lot of things that shouldn't happen under the rule set.  But non-glitches occur even aller the time, and 99% of the information I see matches with my knowledge of how the system is supposed to work.  Is it possible that I don't understand the rules correctly, and that if you put in a trade with your left hand on the weekend after midnight while eating a turkey sandwich, a trade goes off randomly?   Sure, it's possible, but I'm going with Occam's Razor here and saying that the AH is buggier than the Jersey Shore in August.  That seems to match up with what I hear from the devs.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

The first happens all the time, and should happen all the time under the constraints of the system.  If there is an overlap, the offer goes to the best bid.  Someone came in and posted at a lower price than you did.  Working as intended.

 

Never said that wasn't the case.

It doesn't negate what I said was true. You in fact indicate that it is true.

 

3 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

The second should not happen if you have bids in the queue at a higher level.  Maybe your bids aren't registering, maybe it's a presentation glitch, who knows?  But it should not happen.

 

Agreed again.

Factually observed by me, and I see them listed as still being listed.

 

I do a lot of crafting.

Sometimes I even see a set of bids on the same character where each of the separate bids are for the same thing are showing random amounts of purchased item ... and in the middle of multiple bids ... one that hasn't been able to buy any ... when all are set for the same price.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 4/21/2021 at 12:15 PM, UberGuy said:

I just went digging in some of the public I26 code, which is a couple of years old now. I didn't study it in great detail, but here's what I got from it.

 

The list of bids and listings are stored in "binary heap" structures storing pointers to structures representing bids and sales, respectively. A processing loop iterates over both in parallel, popping items off of the "top" of the two heaps looking for matches where a bid fulfills a listing. "Skipped" bids and listings that don't line up are stuffed into temporary heaps during processed and all of them are shoved back into the main bid/sale heaps before moving on to the next loop iteration.

 

Sort order of items with different values in binary heaps is stable, meaning the sort order of unchanged entries will be the same after an insertion or removal of an item to/from the heap. However, the sort order of items with equal values (ties) is not guaranteed to be stable. The auction item listings stored in the heaps are sorted by item name and the bid/sale price, without reference to who is bidding on or selling the item, or when the bid/sale was posted. This means changes to the structures can re-order the ties on each heap change.

 

 

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

 

I do a lot of crafting.

Sometimes I even see a set of bids on the same character where each of the separate bids are for the same thing are showing random amounts of purchased item ... and in the middle of multiple bids ... one that hasn't been able to buy any ... when all are set for the same price.

 

 

I got the order wrong in this quote chain, but @UberGuy [all hail @UberGuy] answers that last mystery.  It appears to be by design, or at least to fall out from how the programming manages queue order.

 

It's a weird design, to be sure!