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Station Trading Bots - CCP Please do something about this!

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Oki Troom
The Dissolute
#1 - 2013-03-26 00:06:23 UTC
So I have been station trading for a few months now and the bots are getting totally out of control. I have now problem competing with and being undercut by flesh and blood humans, but the bots are making station trading inaccessible to new players (i.e. those with less than 10bill ISK).

For example, I update my by and sell orders several times a day and on anything with any volume my price gets under cut by 0.01 ISK by 3 or four other players within about 30 seconds. Now you don't need to tell me about obsessive game playing but this is too fast to be anything other than an automated trade. Even the recently implemented email alert system takes about 2 minutes to receive notification and then change a price.

I realise this problem has been around for a while but I believe its reaching a tipping point. As more bots enter the market it becomes harder for players to make a reasonable profit Station Trading, which in turn encourages more players to join the botters, which in turn adds more bots to the market.

Given how long it takes to skillup a station trading character I don't believe the three strikes rule provides ANY deterrent. CCP please implement a policy where anyone caught botting will be immediately perma banned. In addition continue to vary the methods of Bot detection in each patch and then perform the mass bot bans on a monthly basis.

There is no excuse for botting. It wrecks the economy and provides an unfair advantage to unscrupulous players.

K thanks bye!
Elizabeth Naerth
Tactical Feed.
Pandemic Horde
#2 - 2013-03-26 00:24:46 UTC
given you are in a trade hub, and there are 1500 people in system, you are lookinga t about 1200 traders. 1200 traders looking at main markets will easily update passed you, given the pur volume of people lookign at major sellers, minerals, and certain t2 goods.

i really only ever have out like 100 orders but i reccomend you just focus on 1 region and control it entirely. A few hundred orders in 1 region would keep you busy.

Yes, there are bots, Yes, it sucks. buy if there are 1200 people looking at the same item, they arent all going to be bots. Even if i AFK for an hour, in that hour, looking at trit prices, it would have adjusted like 100 times in each direction.....

Its not that the bots are ruining you, you are just doing it wrong.

I really only make like 40% on everything i do, which is nice with my continual rollover, but like i said, being market toon in a major hub you will have issues.

Set yourself up somewhere else..... And you will control it.... then you can undercut EVERYONE in a place like jita and still make more money. If you have issues competing, find lower places to buy. :)
Grozen
Mateber Mining and Manufacturing Company
C U L T
#3 - 2013-03-26 00:26:02 UTC
Have you thought that it might be just the fact that jita population mainly consists of traders and it grows everyday?Trader bots are actually the lowest population among botters.

knowledge is power.
Lux Imperator
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#4 - 2013-03-26 00:34:14 UTC
I don't know if it was a bot or just a desperate trader, but once I was undercut almost instantly on one of my orders.
So what I did was to put 4 units of that item as buy order and started to undercut the guy /bot. Each time increasing the price by 2 %. Futile to say that after 2 hours my order was filled and his order was filled as well, only he was asking for 12000 thousand units at a 80% higher price almost.

Do bots have any type of protection against this type of maneuver ? How can a bot determine when the competing order is just a scheme ?
Grozen
Mateber Mining and Manufacturing Company
C U L T
#5 - 2013-03-26 00:41:56 UTC
Many traders can sometimes act like a bot if they have free time and the most frequent technic for undercuting you asap is spliting your sell orders into several chuncks so that you can undercut even if your last order has just been edited.Idea

knowledge is power.
Alex Grison
Grison Universal
#6 - 2013-03-26 00:44:34 UTC
Lux Imperator wrote:
I don't know if it was a bot or just a desperate trader, but once I was undercut almost instantly on one of my orders.
So what I did was to put 4 units of that item as buy order and started to undercut the guy /bot. Each time increasing the price by 2 %. Futile to say that after 2 hours my order was filled and his order was filled as well, only he was asking for 12000 thousand units at a 80% higher price almost.

Do bots have any type of protection against this type of maneuver ? How can a bot determine when the competing order is just a scheme ?



One could program a bot to stop after a certain number. But there is no way for a bot to know your Intent

yes
Candy Oshea
Techfree Investment Group
#7 - 2013-03-26 01:16:35 UTC
Alex Grison wrote:

One could program a bot to stop after a certain number. But there is no way for a bot to know your Intent


Alex's First bot he made, went drastically wrong, it bought from sell orders then dumped straight to buy orders. Fortunately for all of us, the new bot only does that with thulium.

iCandy  - I have accidently swallowed some Scrabble tiles, my next shit could spell disaster!
Forio
Perkone
Caldari State
#8 - 2013-03-26 02:37:36 UTC
Like someone else said Jita is a crazy full of traders...probably 3/4 or more are station trading. Some other regional hubs are alot more new-trader friendly as you might be competing against 200-300 players rather than 500-1000 on a particular item.
Keep a minimum of 3 buy/sell orders for each item that lets you raise or lower prices on one of the orders to keep competitive. More if it is a high demand/high trade item. People doing that can seem like bots just cause every few minutes or even seconds you can update to out-bid the competition.
Also don't get caught up in updates thinking you have to be the one on top. Think about your bottom line: your % return. Every buy order you increase decreses your profits. Sometimes its best to not chase the market and switch items your flipping.
Oki Troom
The Dissolute
#9 - 2013-03-26 03:22:54 UTC
Forio wrote:
Like someone else said Jita is a crazy full of traders...probably 3/4 or more are station trading. Some other regional hubs are alot more new-trader friendly as you might be competing against 200-300 players rather than 500-1000 on a particular item.
Keep a minimum of 3 buy/sell orders for each item that lets you raise or lower prices on one of the orders to keep competitive. More if it is a high demand/high trade item. People doing that can seem like bots just cause every few minutes or even seconds you can update to out-bid the competition.
Also don't get caught up in updates thinking you have to be the one on top. Think about your bottom line: your % return. Every buy order you increase decreses your profits. Sometimes its best to not chase the market and switch items your flipping.



Just to clarify, I'm not at Jita, I'm at Dodixie.
And yes, you can always move to less profitable or lower volume items. The point I am trying to make though is that, as the number of botters increase, they will move into more an more of the market. As competition between botters increases and squeezes margins they will also start to compete in these areas. I am not saying its not possible to make money Station Trading, I am just saying that if something isn't done about the trading bots - it soon will be. Anyone who has been trading for any period of time will tell you that bots are getting worse.
joyous the
Slippery Penguin
#10 - 2013-03-26 06:00:28 UTC
There's a few hardcore traders in Dodi, because it is, actually a pretty lucrative market if you have market dominance. You are a less productive trader competing against constant updaters. Many markets in Dodi aren't updated frequently outside of a few, which makes for the avid traders within to quickly cycle though their orders and efficiently update, since most wont require an update/ or a minimal scroll-wheel flick.

You've laid out why you're not good enough for this market. Deal with the facts. You'll know a bot when you see it, and you're still lookin.

"not saying its not possible to make money Station Trading, I am just saying that if something isn't done about the trading bots - it soon will be. Anyone who has been trading for any period of time will tell you that bots are getting worse."

-It'd hold a bit more clout if you're a notable Jita trader saying this, not a guy being outplayed in #3.
Stonkeep
Osmanli Empire
#11 - 2013-03-26 09:49:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Stonkeep
There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.
Brewlar Kuvakei
Adeptio Gloriae
#12 - 2013-03-26 10:07:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Brewlar Kuvakei
The problemwith trading bots is that you can take the **** with them really easily and make billions in a matter of hours. CCP does not enforce botting unless you really start making massive amounts of isk, RMT or upset other players.

You could easily run 5 mining bots or ratting bots and not get even a warning off CCP. Start using a market bot which can easily rack in a few billion per day then you'll **** peeps off and get a warning or a time ban when they complain to cpp.

There is also a lot of macro EULA legal software that can update 100's of market orders every 2 mins that is totally legit in the game rules. You have to click 'OK' every order but it does the maths for u insta .01 isking the best order, you have to create a spreadsheet but once it's up you can just hit ok all day. You can make billions legit with this but don't get the spread sheet wrong because you can also lose billions too. :)

I recentely caught a dude using a market bot and petitioned him, he was back on 23/7 after 7 days no doubt after his first time ban, oh well he has got 2 time bans to go before he even gets threatened with a ban. (his bot purchased over 75 buy orders at 2 units each in under 2 mins.) 75 buy orders set up by a human in under 2 mins. Looks like you botched your spread sheet there dude!

As to those who say botting is unfair, understand this. EVE's allinces and markets were built on the backs of botters. To tell new players not to bot and to actually enforce a no botting game would be unfair. You would simply have mega rich players who used bots versus new players who have not. The only way CCP could implement a no botting rule practically would be after a full server restart which is not going to happen. Bots are part of eve love them or hate them they are here to stay. No one is forcing you to bot and no one is stopping you from botting unless you RMT or take the ****.
Brewlar Kuvakei
Adeptio Gloriae
#13 - 2013-03-26 10:21:40 UTC
Stonkeep wrote:
There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.



This dude is using a spreadsheet and a program tied into the market api. It's totaly EULA legal, the program automaticaly generates the .01 isk number, all he has to do is copy paste or click ok depending on the program he is using. The reason this macro is legal is that it in no way automates anything within the eve client. The user must manually click the ok on the order or copy and paste the number.

With a good set up you can get this down to 4 keyboard commands ie ''q'' copy from spread ''w'' open eve client (or move mouse x distance), ''e'' double click order (or right adjust order) ''r'' paste/ enter.

Now repeat 50 times every 15 mins while youu pvp on your null sec main.
Oki Troom
The Dissolute
#14 - 2013-03-26 11:13:36 UTC
joyous the wrote:
There's a few hardcore traders in Dodi, because it is, actually a pretty lucrative market if you have market dominance. You are a less productive trader competing against constant updaters. Many markets in Dodi aren't updated frequently outside of a few, which makes for the avid traders within to quickly cycle though their orders and efficiently update, since most wont require an update/ or a minimal scroll-wheel flick.

You've laid out why you're not good enough for this market. Deal with the facts. You'll know a bot when you see it, and you're still lookin.

"not saying its not possible to make money Station Trading, I am just saying that if something isn't done about the trading bots - it soon will be. Anyone who has been trading for any period of time will tell you that bots are getting worse."

-It'd hold a bit more clout if you're a notable Jita trader saying this, not a guy being outplayed in #3.



Not sure what you are contributing to the discussion here other than, you're not in Jita and so are not l33t enough to have an opinion.
Thanks for your input...
Monnty
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#15 - 2013-03-26 11:17:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Monnty
You can use the mousewheel...god damn it

Thanks
Oki Troom
The Dissolute
#16 - 2013-03-26 11:19:03 UTC
Brewlar Kuvakei wrote:
The problemwith trading bots is that you can take the **** with them really easily and make billions in a matter of hours. CCP does not enforce botting unless you really start making massive amounts of isk, RMT or upset other players.

You could easily run 5 mining bots or ratting bots and not get even a warning off CCP. Start using a market bot which can easily rack in a few billion per day then you'll **** peeps off and get a warning or a time ban when they complain to cpp.

There is also a lot of macro EULA legal software that can update 100's of market orders every 2 mins that is totally legit in the game rules. You have to click 'OK' every order but it does the maths for u insta .01 isking the best order, you have to create a spreadsheet but once it's up you can just hit ok all day. You can make billions legit with this but don't get the spread sheet wrong because you can also lose billions too. :)

I recentely caught a dude using a market bot and petitioned him, he was back on 23/7 after 7 days no doubt after his first time ban, oh well he has got 2 time bans to go before he even gets threatened with a ban. (his bot purchased over 75 buy orders at 2 units each in under 2 mins.) 75 buy orders set up by a human in under 2 mins. Looks like you botched your spread sheet there dude!

As to those who say botting is unfair, understand this. EVE's allinces and markets were built on the backs of botters. To tell new players not to bot and to actually enforce a no botting game would be unfair. You would simply have mega rich players who used bots versus new players who have not. The only way CCP could implement a no botting rule practically would be after a full server restart which is not going to happen. Bots are part of eve love them or hate them they are here to stay. No one is forcing you to bot and no one is stopping you from botting unless you RMT or take the ****.


I don't really follow your logic of, as fortunes have been made using bots in the past, it would be unfair to ban them now. Unfair to who? The guys with lots of cash, or the guys wanting to make lots of cash.

I think you are missing the point. Bots don't make money, they just give you an advantage over those not using bots. If everyone used bots then all the margins would disappear overnight as they automatically updated buy and sell orders against each other.
Rita Jita
Caldari Provisions
#17 - 2013-03-26 11:27:17 UTC
Brewlar Kuvakei wrote:
Stonkeep wrote:
There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.



This dude is using a spreadsheet and a program tied into the market api. It's totaly EULA legal, the program automaticaly generates the .01 isk number, all he has to do is copy paste or click ok depending on the program he is using. The reason this macro is legal is that it in no way automates anything within the eve client. The user must manually click the ok on the order or copy and paste the number.

With a good set up you can get this down to 4 keyboard commands ie ''q'' copy from spread ''w'' open eve client (or move mouse x distance), ''e'' double click order (or right adjust order) ''r'' paste/ enter.

Now repeat 50 times every 15 mins while youu pvp on your null sec main.



http://www.evementat.com/

i'll just leave this here

Founder of the "Haulers Channel"

Come Check It Out
Rhivre
TarNec
Invisible Exchequer
#18 - 2013-03-26 11:43:48 UTC
Stonkeep wrote:
There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.



If I am in jita on an alt (Say, trading T2 items/ships), I will absolutely do that. I either highlight the last few digits and then change them, or scroll the mousewheel to change it.

Also, when I am in Jita, I am trading probably 20 items, and I have them sorted by time remaining, so, I have my wallet open one side, market open the other, and just keep an eye on the time, and when it gets to 5 mins, give or take, I will check the order.

In a particularly competitive market, I will have 3-4 orders open per item, and if someone outbids me, I may just open a new order.

Fluffy Bunny Pic!

Brewlar Kuvakei
Adeptio Gloriae
#19 - 2013-03-26 12:13:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Brewlar Kuvakei
There are always enougth players trying to earn ISK without using bots that make botting an attractive option without destroying margins or having every man and his dog in supercarriers, well almost anyway. CCP is happy to keep the current status quo where people who don't bot can point to the EULA and have the moral high ground while at the same time keeping botters happy by not actively enforcing a no botting policy (must be stressed that RMT botting is enforced harshly).

Also on the point I was making about how CCP can not all of a sudden enforce botting. Lets say we have Allince A (who've happily botted a supercarrier and techmoon empire over the last few years) comes up against Allince B (who built an allince up of new players in the last year with out bots). Of course Allince B under a no bot new eden does not have a hope in hell against allince A's stockpiles.

It's best to do what CCP is currentely doing. Allow small to medium scale botting while curbing back on massive scale or huge isk generating bots. The allows allinces like B to fight on a more level playing field. It also allows botters to play the game they want while keeping the anti-bot crowd semi happy. Throw in a few anti-RMT campaigns and call them anti-bot campaigns and you have CCP's policy on bots summed up.
Alex Grison
Grison Universal
#20 - 2013-03-26 15:30:16 UTC
Candy Oshea wrote:
Alex Grison wrote:

One could program a bot to stop after a certain number. But there is no way for a bot to know your Intent


Alex's First bot he made, went drastically wrong, it bought from sell orders then dumped straight to buy orders. Fortunately for all of us, the new bot only does that with thulium.


At first. Then it stole my shuttle and developed delusions of grandeur. currently he is on his way to the eve gate where he thinks that he will be able to "Make everything right" ( I have heard him mumble this phrase repeatedly )

yes
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