Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.

[Sszl]

21 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

From casual observation as someone who did not realize they had made changes to the AH:

 

When server population is low, new changes seem to make the AH more responsive. When server populations are medium to high, it is much worse. I think it is a scaling issue. 

What times were you testing?  I can try to test at the same times of the day and see if that changes my results.

 

I have tested many times a day all day with my online times being between 4am-9pm central time, US.  I don't know how to see the server population at those times.  Can we see that as players, or can only the devs see that?

 

Thanks.

[Sunsette]

24 minutes ago, Sszl said:

What times were you testing?  I can try to test at the same times of the day and see if that changes my results.

 

I have tested many times a day all day with my online times being between 4am-9pm central time, US.  I don't know how to see the server population at those times.  Can we see that as players, or can only the devs see that?

 

Thanks.

 

In two places, to my knowledge. You can check on the right-side of the forums in desktop mode: 

 

And you can see when you select a server after logging in:

 

The icons are a bit off because the game's offline for maintenance atm. 

 

Note that the AH is shared over all servers. I don't know if your particular server's population has an effect on it separate from the overall server population status. I play on Everlasting, which is one of the busier (though not busiest) servers. 

 

Most responsive times for the AH for me have been around 8 AM EST, when I imagine most of the game's population across the Americas and Europe is at work, asleep, tending to children, etc. Worst have been late afternoon to night-time, which is also when pops are high.

 

Edited March 5 by Sunsette

[Sszl]

Thanks for sharing.  I had seen 2 of the 3 resources that you posted, but I don't see how to see the population there, only up or down status.  I did find this link on the forums just now - is this the same as your screen image?  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/status/  Servers are down for maintenance so it shows only 0's right now.

[Sunsette]

That looks like the same information, yes! Your screen might not be wide enough for the forum widget to pop up automatically, on further investigation.

 

The dots show population on server selection, with one dot being low pop and three being high pop. As noted, they have zero dots now because they're offline.

[Sszl]

Tested some of the Fortunata attuned io's and their recipes on Brainstorm just now.  I added some Armageddon recipes as well after seeing the results from Fortunata.  Results are different in some ways but similar in others than Torchbearer / live:

 

Attuned IOs - for all of these examples - less than 2 seconds to display results the first time I clicked on it for most of them.  1 was less than 5 seconds and one was over 30 seconds.  Subsequently clicking on the same items instantly shows the same results.  Results did not clear/flash and re display with different results like it does on live.

• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Chance for Placate
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Recharge Accuracy
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration  (took about 5 seconds to display initially)  Note that this is the only one of the 6 IOs that have any items showing in the For Sale or Bidding stats in the lower left of the display in the AH.  All the others showed 0 / 0.
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Endurance Reduction
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Recharge
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Recharge/Accuracy
• Armageddon:  Chance for Fire Dam - less than 2s to display.  No flash to blank / no change to display different results.  3 for sale, 0 bids
• Armageddon:  Dam/End reduction - less than 2s to display.  No flash to blank / no change to display different results.  3 for sale, 0 bids
• Armageddon:  Dam/Rech - Over 30 seconds to display results. 1 for sale, 0 bids
• Armageddon: Dam/Rech/Acc - less than 2s to display.  No flash to blank / no change to display different results.  1 for sale, 0 bids
• Armageddon: Damage - less than 2s to display.  No flash to blank / no change to display different results.  2 for sale, 0 bids
• Armageddon: Rech/Acc - less than 2s to display.  No flash to blank / no change to display different results.  5 for sale, 0 bids

Recipes:  Only the first one displays results on the recipes for the Fortunata's.  All 5 of the others don't display results, even if I click on them multiple times and even if  I wait 1 minute per click.  Two of those had an item of that type for sale, and three didn't.  Note - retested this again after I finished typing up my notes, about 10 minutes later, and response is different - now seeing results on those within 2-5 seconds.

• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Chance for Placate - less than 2 seconds to display, and subsequent clicks provided same results instantly. 0 for sale / 0 bids.  No change on retest 10 minutes later
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Recharge Accuracy - never displayed results.  1 for sale, 0 bids.  Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration- never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids  Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Endurance Reduction- never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Recharge- never displayed results.  1 for sale, 0 bids   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Fortunata Hypnosis:  Sleep Duration/Recharge/Accuracy- never displayed results.  1 for sale, 0 bids   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Armageddon:  Chance for Fire Dam - never displayed results.  1 for sale, 0 bids.  Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Armageddon:  Dam/End reduction - never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids.   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Armageddon:  Dam/Rech - never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids.   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Armageddon: Dam/Rech/Acc - never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids.   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 5 seconds
• Armageddon: Damage - never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids.   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds
• Armageddon: Rech/Acc - never displayed results.  0 for sale, 0 bids.   Did load on retest 10 minutes later, sub 2 seconds

Just testing what I can while the servers are down.  My observations on Brainstorm:

• I think the database on Brainstorm is different than the one on the live servers, so I expected to see some variation in results.  I was a little surprised to see what was consistent and what wasn't.
• It's very interesting that different item types give different results.  Attuned IOs behaved differently that Recipes for those IOs.  That seems to support there could be issues at the data value level that is affecting system behavior and performance.  i.e. code that looks at values in the database and changes the search and display behavior based on those values.  In this case, the item types.
• It's interesting that the delay to display initially is still up to 5 seconds on Brainstorm for items that do have history. I expected it to be faster, since it's probably a smaller database.
• It's also interesting that I can't reproduce the behavior of seeing an item's results near instantly, then blank results for a few seconds, then different results on brainstorm that we have reported from live servers.  
• It's interesting that testing an item once upon log on to server and loading the AH gives different results than if I test them again after waiting 10 minutes after logging on.  This makes me think something with the database indexes, or caching if that is used in this solution.  I'm thinking it is more likely that there is something there at the database level given the different results just from waiting after logging on.  Maybe just try running stats / reindexing the database to see if that helps?

I'm not sure what else we as players can do at this point.  I think we need some guidance from the devs - i.e. do they know about this already and it's a known issue?  Do they need us to do more testing or clarify / document what we are seeing?  I guess we could continue testing whatever occurs to us to test, but I would think the devs providing some guidance on the specifics they need tested would be more effective in determining root cause of what has been reported.

 

Thanks.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

When server population is low, new changes seem to make the AH more responsive. When server populations are medium to high, it is much worse. I think it is a scaling issue. 

There is probably something to this.  I look at the example of hero/winter packs, which were in very short supply on Live but were prevalent in very large numbers here on HC.  The solution was, I believe, to put a governor on it to space out transactions and relieve pressure on the system.

 

on the one hand, the overall /AH has far fewer individual users than live, and population at any given point in time is lower than live, so you would expect the system could handle the stress since it handled it on live.

 

on the other hand, each of my characters has 150 to 200 market slots, versus about 20-30 on live, so was that decision by the HC devs short sighted?  If you “claim all” on the /AH it hangs it you have more than about 25 items.  Also, I think I recall that the /AH had its own server on Live, which I do not believe is the case on HC.  That may explain so many ghost last 5s, but I’m not an IT person.  I’m just a boxer dog swimming in a pool.

[Sszl]

I see the patch notes are up and the devs made a change to the AH process noted here:

 

Retested on Torchbearer for Fortunata IOs and Recipes.

I'm seeing faster response than before this change and I'm not seeing the initial display/blank display for a few seconds/different display issue I was seeing before this change.  

I'm still seeing examples where my orders that are for higher buy prices than the prices shown in the display were not executed, but the lower price order was.  See screen shot:

This makes me think that either:

• This is a display issue that persists after the changes made to live today OR
• This is an actual issue with order processing where higher buy prices orders are not executed consistently

Thanks for the fixes today, devs.  Looking forward to more changes.

 

[AboveTheChemist]

Sszl posted while I was typing this up, but from from today's patch notes:

 

Quote

• Fix consignment house UI to not show "No History" if the server sends an empty history response after it has already sent the item history. Make it a bit more aggressive about requesting updates.
  • This does not (yet) solve the issue with wrong history sometimes being displayed but gave us insight into a larger scope of work that needs to be done on the backend.

 

The second (indented) bullet is the interesting bit, but I included the entire section for context. This is perhaps the glimmer of hope needed that a fix for the display bug(s) may be somewhere out there on the horizon.

[Sszl]

15 minutes ago, Sszl said:

Retested on Torchbearer for Fortunata IOs and Recipes.

I'm seeing faster response than before this change and I'm not seeing the initial display/blank display for a few seconds/different display issue I was seeing before this change.  

 

I spoke too soon.  I am seeing this issue less, but it still happens.  It was very frequent before today's change.  And I've only seen it once today after clicking on about 30 items so far. Here's an example from just now on Torchbearer.  Got one result set displayed, then it changed after a few seconds to a different set of values.  I wasn't fast enough to screen grab the first display, but it had values in the 1m+ influence, and this one is 200k on all records:

[Number Six]

13 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

This is perhaps the glimmer of hope needed that a fix for the display bug(s) may be somewhere out there on the horizon.

 

It's a bit more than a display bug, and I suspect I may know what's going on, but it's proving to be difficult to reproduce in a lab environment or even on the beta server because it's something that can only happen when there's a lot of item histories getting recycled at once due to ongoing transactions.

[Sszl]

I think I am seeing more frequent displays showing that orders aren't processing correctly (unless the display data is getting worse and it's just a display issue).  I screenshotted 12 examples of sell orders today on Torchbearer where there were commonly sales completed higher than my sales prices.  All of the examples I checked were for sales orders placed days before the patch/change this week.  If it's helpful I could post lots of examples.  Here's one to illustrate that shows all 5 of the orders completed today were 1 million+ higher than my sell order.  I guess it's possible there are a ton of orders in at 2 million that are older than mine.  I think its more likely the data displayed is just not correct.  

 

 

Update, I looked at the item from the Attuned Enhancement / Pet Damage / Commanding Presence category, and I'm seeing different results than when I clicked on it from my Selling list:

And again if I changed the Bid to 1 and click the item on the list on the left again - exact same item, just a different bid amount before I click it, same character, still Torchbearer, within 2 minutes of the last click:

 

I'm thinking these results can't all 3 be correct right?  Any insights anyone can share?

 

Thanks.

 

[Ukase]

On 3/5/2024 at 7:41 AM, Sunsette said:

From casual observation as someone who did not realize they had made changes to the AH:

 

When server population is low, new changes seem to make the AH more responsive. When server populations are medium to high, it is much worse. I think it is a scaling issue. 

So, because when Yomo talks, people listen, I happened to see this post. 
On Excelsior, I can confirm this delay of 20-30 seconds before a price history displays. 

On Indomitable, it's instantly. No issues, at least, not for me. 

That said, I think the lack of price history made me a ton of inf I might not have otherwise gotten. 
Who needs a price history anyway? Not me. 🤑

[AboveTheChemist]

13 minutes ago, Sszl said:

Any insights anyone can share?

 

It is one of the two observed variants of the display bug. Yomo explained it on the previous page thusly:

 

On 3/3/2024 at 11:50 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

Type 1:  The item alternates between two different price histories, only one of which is accurate for that item. 

 

I also explained it in the older thread that I linked earlier, under the name of 'dual price list' bug.

 

18 minutes ago, Sszl said:

I screenshotted 12 examples of sell orders today on Torchbearer where there were commonly sales completed higher than my sales prices.

 

The AH matches the highest buy price with the lowest sale price to complete a sale, so this could simply be the result of folks offering the same items for sale at a lower price than yours. Until all those lower priced items are purchased, yours won't be matched for sale.

[Troo]

On 3/6/2024 at 11:28 AM, Sszl said:

orders aren't processing correctly

 

I am under the impression there is an additional aspect that can appear mysterious to folks. (maybe applicable here maybe not)

 

Can't be buying & selling the same items at the same time.

 

Listing items high and trying to buy the same at a lower price can cancel each other out.

[Sszl]

Can you expand on this?  I have seen cases where I have a buy order in for a specific item at one price and neither order seems to process (only sometimes, not consistent) - maybe 500,000 influence, and sell orders on the same item - maybe 2,000,000 influence.  Are you saying that having both of those orders active is an issue somehow?  How would that "cancel each other out"?

[AboveTheChemist]

2 hours ago, Sszl said:

Are you saying that having both of those orders active is an issue somehow?

 

The AH won't process buy and sell orders for the same item on the same character. I've seen it mentioned a few times on the forums but the only reference I could find was this thread:

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/31773-a-foolproof-way-to-transfer-items-in-the-ah-with-pictures/

 

Specifically, rule A near the top. Yomo (the OP of that thread) is a marketing guru and has written/tested extensively on buying/selling to yourself, so I believe what he says.

[Sszl]

Thanks, I wasn't aware.  I am sure I have cases where I have buy and sell orders on the same items (at different prices) for the same character.  I'm unclear why that is restricted, but it seems that it is based on what you have both said.  If that's intentional, I can adjust how I use the AH.

[Sszl]

Question on the restriction mentioned - does the AH limit buying a recipe and selling the finished enhancement on the same character, or does it recognize the recipe and the finished enhancement are different items?

[AboveTheChemist]

40 minutes ago, Sszl said:

does it recognize the recipe and the finished enhancement are different items?

 

Yes it should recognize those two items as separate. A quick but not 100% foolproof method of determining if the AH considers items the same or not is to look at the Bidding and For Sale numbers on the item. If those are the same for each item, then those items are probably considered the same item (although there could be rare coincidences where different items happen to have the same bidding and for sale numbers).

 

For example, if you look at the screenshots of the Commanding Presence: Accuracy/Endurance enhancements you posted earlier in the thread, you'll notice that the attuned and level 27 versions both show 88 bidding, 389 for sale. Going by those numbers, it's a safe bet to assume that the AH considers them the same item. And, in this case, I know for a fact that it does, because attuned and non-attuned enhancements of the same set and type are 'bucketed' in the AH.

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Sszl said:

If that's intentional, I can adjust how I use the AH.

 

I believe it is intentional. Thanks @AboveTheChemist for the answers above.

[Hardship]

On 3/5/2024 at 8:57 AM, Number Six said:

 

It's a bit more than a display bug, and I suspect I may know what's going on, but it's proving to be difficult to reproduce in a lab environment or even on the beta server because it's something that can only happen when there's a lot of item histories getting recycled at once due to ongoing transactions.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

The AH won't process buy and sell orders for the same item on the same character.

 

It will, but only if all the bids on that character are below all the offers on that character -- in that case they are all just legitimate bids and offers in the queue.

 

It's when you have a bid that is equal to or higher than an offer on the same character that the queue gets circumvented and things go screwy.  Think of it this way:  if I could instantly sell inanimate carbon rods to myself at a loss, I'd get all the sales badges instantly!  But the devs hate badgers!  Darn!

 

In practice, it's easy to play around with bids and offers on an item in order to try to get more information about the other bids and offers in the queue, but accidentally leave in bids that are higher than your offers.  Or at least it has been easy for me to make those accidents...

 

Edited March 9 by Yomo Kimyata
Why so nosy with the asking for the reason for edit?!?

[Shin Magmus]

Just throwing in my anecdotal experience that refreshing to get a price history to show up is also worse for me after the patch.  It's maybe like... 20%-30% less likely to show me any price history at all on average.  Hard to quantify since I never really measured how much time it wastes before, but it definitely feels worse. 

[Marine X]

Actually had a Wentworth's anomaly that just keep happening. Was listing an item and it showed one history, then a different history, then back to the first, it kept flipping back and forth till I closed the AH window. There was a huge difference between the 2 lists, like from 100,000 to 3,000,000. When I reopened it didn't do it again but will keep looking.

[AboveTheChemist]

2 hours ago, Marine X said:

Was listing an item and it showed one history, then a different history, then back to the first, it kept flipping back and forth

 

That is the 'dual price list' bug that I elaborated upon upthread at this post.