Why you SHOULDN'T trade with trade bots

[Adolf Storms]

Well this sums up trade bots quite well. Confessions of a bot owner;

 

http://postimg.org/image/ec6k0umql/

 

Do you want to be part of the trade decline in tf2 ? Read the last little bit especially. Think twice before you trade with a trading bot. It's not just a suspicion that they're trying to collapse the trade economy, it's a confirmed fact.

[Mengh.]

Yes, that is our plan.

 

But seriously, trade bots are there to be used by anyone, you don't have to use them. However, there are other people, including me, which like bots due to their automation and the fact that the owner doesn't have to be around online when I'm attempting a trade with the bot. Really, bots are there for the option of getting pure fast. 

 

As well as that, I'm quite sure that trade bots haven't really caused a trade decline in TF2. They merely follow the market and buy a bit cheaper than market / bp.tf price and sell for more. That's simply what most human traders do. Buy low, sell market price. 

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

this thread assumes that all trading bots buy at rock bottom prices, which they all don't.  on this alone, your point is disproven and the warning shown to be pointless

 

you're also assuming tons of people will sell to scraptf's unusual banking bots at the rock bottom prices, but if they're too low, very few will sell to the bots, and we'd just consider it quickbuying/quickselling anyways

 

I also highly doubt scraptf is attempting to collapse the tf2 economy, that would be bad for them... and that's hearsay, you have no actual facts to prove some supposed malicious intent

[Gasoline]

OP need to go talk to Cashew LOL

 

And I don't get why are you complaining about scrap.tf unusual banking. We finally have a dumpster to throw in all our robo cancer hats. Scrap.tf did take a risk on their part as a lot of unusual price are outdated, some are super hard to sell (aka that Vivid Plasma ROBO HEAVY hat, thanks god it's not n&b ). I actually see this as a chance to quickbuy unusuals from scrap.tf then sell for later with higher price, or quickly ditch my robo cancer for a nicer hat.

 

Also as a person who use bp.tf automatic, I think bots are convenient, useful tool and I don't see how this will crash the market.

[Discovery]

I wouldn't take Spirit seriously, seems like he's joking. Even if he's not, I'm pretty sure bots wouldn't mean the end of trading.

 

 

 

"Confessions of a Bot Owner"

 

 

[Nobu]

"Don't quote me on that"

 

brb screen cap of chat

[puddingkip]

But if I buy my stuff off trade bots I don't have to talk to people so I like trade bots. Also, automation is pretty great. No need to wait for people to come online anymore, no need to wait for people to finish their other trades before they can trade with you etc.

 

As somebody who was around when trading bots were still not really a thing I am incredibly grateful for bots

[The Oddball]

-snip-

+1.

I was around in ~2012 - 2013, trade bots didnt exist yet.

When scrap.tf came out, it was so great. No needing to wait on people to get online anymore.

 

Then trade offers. This made things even easier.

 

Also, OP,

its called [sarcasm][/sarcasm] 

[Fr3unen]

Tf2 economy will die someday.. maybe soon idk.. but people focus only on making Profit out of other people instead of doing more or less fair trades. Kinda sad

[Purple Smart]

That's like saying that Superman is a bad guy even though he saved the world twice.

 

Why would you think that? We made bots so that they can trade while we're away, not destroying the economy. How can you miss this fact?

[Gren]

Learn sarcasm OP, the guy was clearly joking when he said all the bot owners want to tank the economy.  Why would they do that?  How would that be good for them? Why are we even discussing this? 

[xG:CL Scootaloo]

What exactly is the difference in a bot buying low-end quicksale unusuals at 30-40% off of market price and an actual player doing the same thing in an unusual server?

If someone wants to liquidate a cancer unusual for fast keys, they'll find someone willing to do it, bot or not. >.>

[Spirit]

Hello,

 

I am glad that a good friend of my... Adolf, has decided to turn against me =P

 

You can go ahead and not support bots, like... Scrap.tf, Spirit-Bots, Users that use backpack.tf automatic, Trade.tf users.

We all appreciate your concern for the economy.

 

We provide a great service for all the users. Access to instant trades. Something that users use in the event of needing something right then and there.

 

We hope that you enjoy our services, when you need them.... But then again... The only people who can destroy the economy... is Valve =P

[Adolf Storms]

I'm not turning against YOU spirit. This is in response to a disturbing trend that I've noticed especially in the last 3 months. It is a trend of stockpiling, dumping, lower price suggestions based on 1 or 2 users flooding market, and then seeing it repeated under a month later. A recent example is the bushi-dou. Literally within 1 month went from comfortably trading at 5.66 or 6 ref to now being traded at 4. Suggestions based on 1 or 2 users flooding the market driving down prices. (I realize that this is not entirely a bot's fault because there were impulse-sellers who sold at too low of a price to the bot in the first place). A short few months ago this sort of thing was mainly kept off bp.tf classifieds on a bot's own dedicated trade site (for ex scrap.tf or tf2wh - both of which I appreciate and hold in high regard). The seemingly intention price manipulation is what I take exception to.

 

TF2 has been a well-enjoyed gaming experience that has a very much enjoyed trading aspect to it as well. Dear Mr Gaben and others have been benifitting from trading by taking a percentage for quite some time which allows the furtherment of the design of the game. Trading has gone on relatively smoothly and I hope will continue to do so long into the future. How many other FPS games have a built in economy and such widely enjoyed side-aspects as tf2? When I see something that may potentially jeopradize that, I feel the need to speak out a little.

 

I hope I'm wrong about some of the trends I've noticed, but seing them repeated so often over the last 3 months has me worried. I guess time will prove my theories correct, or make me look like more of an ass than I already do in some people's eyes. IDC tho, just looking out for my favorite game and one of my liked side-games-within-a-game

[Spirit]

I do mind that you have unfriended me after the months of communication we have had, but that is your choice.

 

What you are pointing out is a trend that i have seen as well.

We have taken action against this, in order to prevent the trend from continuing.

Since the release of miscs/hats being capable of being found in tf2 randomly again, there has been a large sum of them being sold off instantly.

Due to this we were stuffed with miscs/hats and were unable to sell them.

 

With our latest measures, we have dropped our buy prices so that we do not obtain such a large quantity of the same item.

At the same time we are trying to maintain our sell prices in order to maintain the price of the product.

 

We are currently working on something new that will most likely help out with preventing the trend from occurring further more.

If we are the cause of the trend we would love to not be.

 

 

But if we are to think about the economy...

 

To be clear... There are 10,000s of every single item, We cannot expect the price of items to remain stable, when so many are being added to the game every day.

[zirune]

Why would people intentionally drop the prices of items they own? They wouldn't, unless they're playing an extremely long con where they tank an item's value in order to buy it up at the lower price. But there are better, more reliable, and faster investments than that.

 

And what difference does it make if one item tanks in value? Or a dozen? One item doesn't define an economy. Earbuds used to be one of the highest-impact items in the economy, and now they're basically worthless compared to what they used to be... and the world didn't end. In many respects, it's better now than it was before. New items are coming out on a regular basis, so any one random item should go down in value over time. How fast it goes down (or if it goes down at all) depends on supply and demand, and the supply and demand depend on both randomness and competition between items. If an item tanks due to a very high supply that won't sell, then either the demand is too low for its current value or it will recover some of its value once the supply goes down. There's a ton of items (limited late summer crate items being the example that sticks out in my mind) that used to have a ton of supply and thus low prices but have been going up in price (sometimes quickly) after the supply waned.

 

In the case of Spirit, it makes me laugh. You're not being smart by listing all of your items for sale at once, flooding the classifieds. It would be way better to just list one and re-list if you ever sell the specific one you had listed. If you're the cheapest and accept offers automatically, people will buy from you without you having to spam classifieds. Imagine if backpack.tf listed all of their 249 Backpack Expanders for sale on backpack.tf at the current price... Guaranteed drop in price, as the demand isn't high enough to eat through those fast enough for other people to actually sell theirs at that price in a reasonable time. Some of your buying prices are also way too high, for example 15.33 on the Schadenfreude, which bp.tf has at 15.55. There's a reason scrap.tf generally has a larger margin than that, and it's because you don't want to buy up a lot of every item and make a tiny profit off of each. If you ever fall behind the market trends (natural or caused by you/other mass-sellers), you lose money because the price can drop to/below your buying price and you have a huge stock you'll make no/negative profit off of. The smaller your margin, the larger that risk is. You're selling convenience with automatic trades, and people are willing to pay a fair amount for convenience. You don't need to take many risks when you're selling convenience... That's why sites like scrap.tf are so successful.

[Spirit]

You are right.

 

We are currently working on improving our system in order to fix the issue you have brought up, in order to prevent any further supply/demand issues.

 

If you think we are buying items for too much, i would like to point out that we have recently actually lowered a large amount of our buying prices.

In order to decrease the amount of items coming in and lowering our stock, so that we do not contain as much of one item.

 

In the example you have provided. Taunts are a highly traded item. Since there is more automated competition brought by trade.tf users.

If we lower our buying price by .11 we will not receive a single taunt.

 

We will not be sharing any further strategies or what we are doing publicly from here on. We can only say we are working on improvements.

 

Thank you for your time,

 

Spirit.

[TheVirtualEconomist]

this thread assumes that all trading bots buy at rock bottom prices, which they all don't.  on this alone, your point is disproven and the warning shown to be pointless

 

you're also assuming tons of people will sell to scraptf's unusual banking bots at the rock bottom prices, but if they're too low, very few will sell to the bots, and we'd just consider it quickbuying/quickselling anyways

 

I also highly doubt scraptf is attempting to collapse the tf2 economy, that would be bad for them... and that's hearsay, you have no actual facts to prove some supposed malicious intent

 Obviously scrap.tf is not killing the economy, and ofc, Spirit is joking. Honestly, I think everyone is missing the point of what scrap.tf's unusual banking is actually doing. In my opinion their prices are actually quite fair. They suck for shit tiers, but are honestly not bad at all for decent hats. (they offer 17 pure on my 22 key vivid ol geezer, not bad). Their prices are to be expected, because that is the price that most quick buyers will buy for, so im not complaining about that. If anything, they are offering an outlet where you can rid yourself of shit unusauls without any bs, and thats awesome.

 

What I am complaining about is that now each low teir (and probably high teirs once they expand) now has a "minimum" price that only the seller knows about. They know that they will not accept anything lower from a real person. So, when real people try to offer less, they will just sell to scrap.tf, Thus making the only quicksells of real value on the market the shit that I see on outpost all day, the "1 key discount is a quicksell bs" Like the OP says in the screenshot, I agree that this might be "strangling" the economy. It promotes selling ANY and All "good" quicksells to bots, so the general public just sees horrable qs offers all day. Automation is awesome, but it seems to come at a cost to real human unusual quickbuyers.

 

Tf2 economy will die someday.. maybe soon idk.. but people focus only on making Profit out of other people instead of doing more or less fair trades. Kinda sad

Its what happens when the economy is driven by *cosmetic items* and not items that people *need to play the game*.

 

 

But if I buy my stuff off trade bots I don't have to talk to people so I like trade bots. Also, automation is pretty great. No need to wait for people to come online anymore, no need to wait for people to finish their other trades before they can trade with you etc.

 

As somebody who was around when trading bots were still not really a thing I am incredibly grateful for bots

The automation part is pretty nice, and I think they work well for lower tier items. For unusuals, however I am less certain. It is though pretty awesome to have an easy outlet to get rid of your horrible unusals. But just like in the real world I fear it will displace the real quickbuyers.

[Adolf Storms]

I have spoken to spirit personally and have seen that there is a change being implimented on his trading bots as to not 'spam' the classifieds with a barage (sp?) of listings. Now the issue I hope is put to rest. I don't regret having posted this because it has brought about a possitive and necessary change. Was what Spirit said , said tongue-in-cheek? Ask Spirit. He's the only one who knows. What has been said, has been said. I personally am going on about my regular trading routines, as I always go out of my way to trade 'in person'. If you use trading bots and find it convenient and neccessary, I'm in no way trying to force my opinion on you. Just food for thought in the end. I truly enjoy the experience of 'in person' trade and find I meet a lot of great people that love and enjoy TF2 as much as I do. Brings a higher level of enjoyment to the game when you game with people you have gotten to know.

 

Having said that, there are others that continue to spam classifieds with numerous listings of the same type of item at the same price. What are their motivations behind this? If you're the lowest seller people are going to respond to your ad whether you have 1 ad or 30, and loyal customers will trade with you in any case. So why the 2 or 3 pages of spamming? Is it a bot issue? Or is it intentional. Hope this gives pause for thought.

 

Happy trading - however you chose to do it  and remember we all started somewhere. Support the little scrap bankers and keep the tf2 economy healthy and filled with fresh gamers. We all need a new way to look at things once in awhile just to shake us out of our ruts, and nothing does this better than a fresh pair of eyes.

[neemo]

Having said that, there are others that continue to spam classifieds with numerous listings of the same type of item at the same price. What are their motivations behind this? If you're the lowest seller people are going to respond to your ad whether you have 1 ad or 30, and loyal customers will trade with you in any case. So why the 2 or 3 pages of spamming? Is it a bot issue? Or is it intentional. Hope this gives pause for thought.

I think the reasoning behind spamming classifieds with the same item is that it ensures that the item is sold through the bot automatically. bp.tf automatic functions by checking the trade offer's item id and seeing if it matches with the one listed on classifieds (or something on the lines of this) meaning that if you list 1/3 on classifieds, people may send a trade offer for 1 of the other 2 which won't activate automatic. They're kind of forced to list all of their stock if they want a guarantee that if someone sends an offer, it'll sell. So they are doing it intentionally but they do have a reason for doing so, it's definitely annoying though.

[Spirit]

You do make a point.

 

We do have custom bots, so we are going to be trying to further improve them in order to decrease our impact on the classifieds.

 

As for the backpack.tf automatic users, you are quite right, they need to list every item of the same type in order for the backpack.tf automatic bot to accept and confirm the offer 100% of the time.

Because as you said if a user selects an unlisted item, the bot wont consider it, even if another of the same item is listed.

[=TNW= Maximus™]

I highly doubt bots are the reason why the economy "collapsed". It didn't even... Think about trading without bots, do you know how big of a pain in the butt it would be to get pure quickly?

[Gand Pika]

Trading is at it place, you broke someone's trust that he/she told you their thing.

 

Not cool bud.

[Regenbogenbjörn ⇄]

i don't like spirit, he kicked me out of his group just because i had a buy order at a higher price as him for an all father

[Spirit]

i don't like spirit, he kicked me out of his group just because i had a buy order at a higher price as him for an all father

If you are part of the group in order to take our strategy intelligence and use it for your own gain. Why would we want you part of the group?

We do not mind that you are trading, at least now you can trade without us influencing your decisions.

 

Thank You,

 

Spirit