Hide Auction End Times

natureluvr • 23 August 2023 at 4:39 PM

I'm so tired of people stealing auctions that others have been bidding on for DAYS by coming in at the last second and bidding some random amount unexpectedly. To combat this horrible user behavior I wanted to make a suggestion to turn off the timer that shows you when an auction is going to end so that nobody will know how long it will run for. I just think it would be much more fair that way, and more in the spirit of what the purpose of auctions are supposed to be.

Thanks for reading and I hope you consider my suggestion!

heatherm19 • 23 August 2023 at 8:52 PM

Sorry, absolutely no support.

I understand that some people get angry at 'snipers', but seriously, that's how most auctions work. Not just here, everywhere. There is nothing wrong or against the rules or 'horrible' (!) about biding on an auction at the last minute. People seem to *assume* that others are doing it on purpose, assuming ill intent, instead of realizing that sometimes people actually *do* simply open the auctions and see an auction about to end and decide to bid.

This is a really unfair assumption and a really strange suggestion. How would this even work? How would users who've already bid know when to expect the end of the auction? We also get notifications that an auction is about to end, if we've bid on it before, which would seem to show that biding after getting that notification is not a bad thing. Really, this just makes no practical sense.

natureluvr • 23 August 2023 at 9:25 PM

This is the only game I play that has auctions that work by bidding, all the other games I play with auction houses you set your sale price and whoever buys it first at that price gets it. I don't know what sites you're referencing but I would love to hear if they found solutions to the problem other than just setting a flat sale price! I figure the Trading Center here is supposed to serve the "flat priced sale" purpose.

For your point about people happening to open the auction house and bid on an ending auction, I would have a very hard time believing it's a coincidence when the same people repeatedly bid 2 seconds before auctions end, otherwise I would agree with you about giving benefit of the doubt. If auction timers could be turned off and someone happened to bid last second, it would be guaranteed that it's a coincidence since they couldn't possibly do it on purpose 😊

To answer your questions: people who bid wouldn't know when the auction ends, it would be like a surprise! But you'd know it couldn't be any longer than a week and a dayish since that's the maximum time you could set an auction for. To make sure you stay top bidder, you'd have to keep bidding when you are outbid, and check back somewhat often, helping to increase site activity. Then as for the ending notification thing, that would also be turned off for auctions with hidden timers in my idea.

raretreasurehunter56 • 23 August 2023 at 9:30 PM

I think the hidden auction end time can be useful in certain circumstances. By hiding the end time, it may help discourage sniping. There is a flaw with it though that one may miss out on an auction if the end time is hidden. It can possibly be addressed by showing an approximate time of when the auction ends rather than the exact time. I can think of two examples of where this feature may be useful

🪺 The Nest 🪺- used to host a members-only auction as a way to promote activity, but is now discontinued partly due to sniping

Twinkle's Auctionhouse 💸 (Closed)- closed due to some problems regarding the rules and mechanics

I had participated in auctions before and had experienced both sides (sniping and being sniped). I do not think sniping is downright wrong since it is a chance for beginners starting out or those who either do not have enough EC or looking to save EC. However, I do think those hosting an auction should have a choice of whether or not to permit sniping.

minnie298a • 23 August 2023 at 11:53 PM

@natureluvr
I've always been under the belief that auctions involve bidding. What you seem to be describing by the "set a firm price" concept is covered by user shops and the trading house. Where the seller can lay out what they want and others can chose to pay that without interference or correspondence from others.

Besides, sniping is part luck, part skill and always a gamble. Not being able to be there at the ending time is an issue all players will come across if they wish to participate in auctions due to time zones and life. There have been times when I have bid last minute, because that's when I happened to see the auction. There are times when I have been outbid on said auctions, or my bid failed because it was out sniped. There are way more times when I've been the only bidder for a day and someone has out bid me an hour before the end at 5am my time when I can't respond due to being unconscious. It sucks but it's the nature of auctions.

I'm 99% against the proposal of no ending times. The 1% goes to the only way I would consider accepting it is if the seconds where removed so you only knew the hour and minute it finished. Which wouldn't fix teh majority of the problem anyway.

heatherm19 • 24 August 2023 at 12:15 AM

@minnie298a "I've always been under the belief that auctions involve bidding. What you seem to be describing by the "set a firm price" concept is covered by user shops and the trading house."

Yes. This exactly. Setting a price and the item/creature going to the first person to give that price is not an auction, that's a sale (or trade, on sites like this). Auctions are, by their very concept, not a guarantee. People can, and *should be allowed to* bid after you do.

For a little clarity, some actual dictionary definitions:
auction
1 of 2
noun
auc·​tion ˈȯk-shən
Synonyms of auction
1 : a sale of property to the highest bidder
(merriam-webster)


auction
noun [ C or U ]
US /ˈɑːk.ʃən/ UK /ˈɔːk.ʃən/
Add to word list
C1 a usually public sale of goods or property, where people make higher and higher bids (= offers of money) for each thing, until the thing is sold to the person who will pay most
(cambridge)

werewire • 10 November 2023 at 4:40 AM

i feel like auctions would benefit more from a snipe guard that could be turned on/off by the auction's creator rather than hiding the times themselves

heatherm19 • 10 November 2023 at 5:48 AM

@werewire But what sort of 'snipe guard'? This has been discussed in multiple ways around here, but I've never seen anyone propose a real solution that would actually 'work', ie prevent snipping while still allowing for the spirit of bidding/auctioning.

Just hiding an auction's timer seems like a really backwards way to do this and would create plenty of new problems (a few I mentioned in earlier posts). There have been suggestions to not allow re-bidding in quick succession, or have some sort of buffer-time where no one can bid for a minute before the auction ends or something, but none of that actually solves snipping, it only targets a few specific *types* of 'snipping' in a few specific situations.

And then there is the question of why 'snipping' should be eliminating at all. Yes, I get it, it's frustrating when you've been bidding on something and someone snaps it up at the last second. But really, think about it, why *shouldn't* another user be allowed to bid on that auction before it ends? It just doesn't make sense to me. That's what auction *are*, they go to the highest bidder, period. Trying to add in extra conditions and restrictions may just make it *less* fair, since it's no longer a straight-forward 'who bids last'.

werewire • 10 November 2023 at 5:53 PM

@heatherm19 i was thinking about what another site i briefly played on had, i believe it was called pixpet or something like that? where bidding on a low-time auction would add 2 hours onto the time. though this could cause other problems like someone purposely extending an auction until the other user has to leave

generally i think auctions on here work pretty intuitively and could still work unchanged, other sites like flight rising who have their "auction houses" be flat sales do not count as auctions imo. but if people really feel so strongly about sniping maybe the option would be worth looking into, rather than suggestions like "hide the end time" which would hinder the auction experience.

komore • 11 November 2023 at 8:32 PM

Tbh rather than hiding the timers, hiding the bids would be more practical, even if it loses the spirit of auctions somewhat. You can't snipe if you don't know what the bids are. It would also force people to bid the highest they're willing to for the lot.
Either hide the bids for the whole duration, or hide them at the last few hours - so there's still some sense of an auction.

poptarts • 11 November 2023 at 9:13 PM

I personally have no issue with the way the auctions are, but I can see why it may be frustrating to some, especially if you do not have fast internet. Though I rarely participate in bidding, I would prefer auction times not to be hidden.

One decent solution would be 5 minutes added onto bid times when they reach the 1-5 minute threshold. (2-hours is a bit excessive in my opinion for sure and can indeed lead to exploitation, but 5-minutes added every time the countdown hits 1-5minutes is a bit more doable) So I do like the solution werewire brought up, with some minor adjustments.

But, if given the option to toggle on snipe guard, I am unsure if I would bother putting it on since I would want the pets I am selling out of my cove as soon as they can be.

heatherm19 • 11 November 2023 at 9:35 PM

@komore Ooh, now that's an interesting idea. I wonder how practical that would really be, if it would affect anything else... It would change the way we approach auctions in terms of the amount we bid, but that may not be a bad thing.

@poptarts Would that be able to extend the auction times indefinitely though? Just continuing to add more time to an auction doesn't seem fair, to the bidders or the auctioneer. Not knowing when the auction will *actually* end.

poptarts • 11 November 2023 at 9:42 PM

@heatherm19
Yes, that could indeed extend the auction times indefinitely and it could indeed be unfair, but who knows, perhaps both players have a specific amount they are willing to bid before they drop out? That is personally why I would not bother using any snipe guard if we had the option to toggle it.

With what @komore mentioned, perhaps I am misunderstanding what they are envisioning, but with hiding bids, how would players know how much they need to bid? If a creature is selling for 10k ec, and a player bids 12k ec, would you know that the bid is up to 12k ec? or would you be stuck guessing how much is the right amount to outbid the player? (not sure if what I wrote makes sense or not)
``````
I honestly prefer how things are currently with the auctions. : 3

komore • 12 November 2023 at 7:53 AM

@poptarts
My thought is to have the bidding procedure function as auctions always have - up until the final hours, where any new bids will be hidden. Anything you bid then won't be denied, and the final victor will be revealed at the end.
The basis of how much one is to bid would be based off the publicly shown bids, as well as the community contributed price guides, or just how much you're willing to spend really.
Honestly, it is already a guessing game with how sniping functions, as you will often see someone bid many times higher than the previous bid to secure it.

discordia • 17 November 2023 at 7:59 PM

I've never had a personal problem with how auctions are conducted, really the only problems I've ever seen on the internet regarding auctions in general are people with auto-bidding bots. We must all examine why auctions exist on this site. A seller takes the risk of an item going for less than what it usually costs, but equally it's possible for a sold item to be made a profit on especially if it is popular. This goes into the nature of closed and open bidding that has to due with whether you are seeing the current bid or not.

[While securing a bargain is always a possibility, if there are multiple bidders, it is also possible that the buyer in an auction will actually pay more because of the potential competition of other bidders.]

Pros of Auctions:
Seller controls process
Find rare items
Buy at a discount
Seller can maximize bargaining power

Cons of Auctions:
Competitive process can deter some buyers
Cost of running an auction is significant
Competitive bidding process can drive up price

I feel personally if there are too many restrictions but on prospective buyers there is then undue advantage given to seller, thus driving up the market prices. On the selling end it would be possible to exploit if a "set price" was given. Which in a way is silly as we have a Trading Post where people can ask for set prices. Now I myself rarely hit up auctions, sometimes I win when I do and it's nice but it's unreliable especially when seeking specific pets/items.

My advice if you cannot be here for the ending of an auction is choose auctions that have an ending time within the scope of when you are active on Eggcave. I.e choose proper timezones and specific auctions lining up with free time.