Auto-overcutting scripts

[Yurchik*]

12 minutes ago, Julia said:

As I am one of the developers, I would like to say I haven't used overcutting until 3 months ago. I have not seen much difference in my trades as a result. I just don't see much of a reason not to when about literally every other trader (bot or not) will list over you. You can see these strategies being used on the Steam Community Market and Marketplace.tf, except on those platforms the difference of 1 cent makes all the difference. Being 1 scrap over the next buyer does not guarantee you a purchase over every other buyer like it does on those platforms. I have bought so many things where I was not the highest buyer (yes, even when other bots were higher).

 

I wouldn't mind getting rid of auto overcutting as it's never been integral to my trading. This sort of pricing drives up competition and cuts margins (often to the point where certain items are no longer worthwhile to buy). This is very good for those that just want to buy hats and dump it when they don't want them anymore, but not as good as those out for profit.

I have also spoken to DedAndrei and we have mentioned that you were one of those who wasn't undercutting our prices and me (i think DedAndrei too but not sure) was trying to put same price and not undercutting you on 0.5-1 key, if i was placing my buy order higher then yours - it was usually to beat the highest one atm or on high tier unusuals. But i have stopped making/updating trade offers when i was getting 7000+ notifications every day, it's pretty hard when you are placing a buy order and 10-20 seconds after it's bitten by a bot.

[Goliac]

17 hours ago, Chuck said:

 Oh look, its this thread again.

By "usefull to users" you mean making profit for yourself. Regular user wanting do buy or sell some items fast and easy actually benefits from bots. Those complaining about bots are not "users", they're profit whores just like bot owners. If you can't "make money" without a bot, get a bot instead of whining, you only need a couple of brain cells for that nowadays. This site is obviously pro-bot, bots probably make a decent chunk of money for site owners through donations/premium since they use up a lot of listing space, won't be surprised if some admins run bots themselves. And then you guys show up and ask site owners to cut their own profit so you can make more profit on their resource. Hilarious.

On a side note, sprekt isn't even a good target for OP whine, he doesn't have auto accept. I doubt most sellers going to choose his listing over autoaccept bot that buys unusual hat 1 ref lower.

This doesn't work as good as you think either.

Yes i mean making profit for myself. When i put hundreds of buy orders i obviously expect to make a use of them. Overcutting scripts though take zero effort.

No i’m not a profit whore just because i want to trade... Is that not allowed anymore? What’s the problem with you?

[sfpt]

13 minutes ago, Goliac said:

Yes i mean making profit for myself. When i put hundreds of buy orders i obviously expect to make a use of them. Overcutting scripts though take zero effort.

No i’m not a profit whore just because i want to trade... Is that not allowed anymore? What’s the problem with you?

pretty sure chuck's just being a cynical asshole for the sake of being a cynical asshole.

 

I think that this is an important issue to solve. I appreciate julia's response a lot, but there needs to be some consideration for human players. The argument "just make a bot yourself lol" is stupid. One shouldn't have to be expected to make that sort of time investment just for your buy orders to actually work. People will sell for LESS just to sell to a bot. It's almost impossible for humans to compete. Also thank you xergoyf for the stats

[Abstract]

Just wanted to add that while some people can't compete with other quickbuyers using such scripts, it's foolish to say there's no way of making any profit because of them. Set up alerts, check for good deals regularly, there's always a bunch that go unnoticed for a while.

[aethez]

I somewhat agree and disagree.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

22 hours ago, MFB Goobie said:

"I can pay more than the rest!!"

And yet, ultimately... they can not. LMAOOOO

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

15 hours ago, Markt3 said:

Imagine getting mad over other's point of view not matching with yours*

:'D

[creepio]

Not sure why so many people complain about bots and their scripts ruining trading.

 

The real killer to the economy has been collectors. 

 

As a hands-on trader, I'm not a fan of bots. 

I'm also a collector.

I live a sad existence lmao

[sfpt]

39 minutes ago, creepio said:

The real killer to the economy has been collectors. 

i think collectors just kill nice hats that nobody will get to own ever again, not the economy as a whole. bots arent killing the economy its just making it difficult for humans to compete

[Chuck]

On 6/10/2020 at 5:14 PM, Goliac said:

Yes i mean making profit for myself. When i put hundreds of buy orders i obviously expect to make a use of them. Overcutting scripts though take zero effort.

No i’m not a profit whore just because i want to trade... Is that not allowed anymore? What’s the problem with you?

I used a term "profit whore" to outline people who use this site to make profit as opposed to "users" just wanting to get stuff they want/get rid of something they don't want. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make profit. There is also nothing wrong that everyone else gives jack shit about your profit and if they can increase their by reducing yours, they won't think twice. Welcome to the real world.

 

I gotta add that I don't even use overcutting on my main bot where I do most of my trading anymore, because as Julia correctly pointed out it reduces profit margins without boosting trades amount enough to compensate, and it's much worse with non-unusual items where margins are already quite low. Really not worth doing in the long run, that's why most big bots don't overcut, they just match a best price. That said if admins will for some reason listen and restrict overcutting, next thing you guys will whine about will be automatic price matching, and then auto accept itself,  because "I can't do it hence it's unfair advantage". Thinking the world should change according to you will lead you nowhere  if you don't even have what it takes to change yourself according to the world.

 

On 6/10/2020 at 5:14 PM, Goliac said:

Overcutting scripts though take zero effort.

 

23 hours ago, sfpt said:

One shouldn't have to be expected to make that sort of time investment just for your buy orders to actually work.

Legit funniest part of this thread.

[creepio]

1 hour ago, sfpt said:

i think collectors just kill nice hats that nobody will get to own ever again, not the economy as a whole. bots arent killing the economy its just making it difficult for humans to compete

Collectors take a lot of dream hats and bots kill profit margins on a lot of what remains. Trading for profit in general is more difficult today for humans. 
 

With less incentive to trade, less people will do it. Bots are essentially replacing user traders. The economy may not be taking a hit, but the trading community is. 
 

I guess I wasn’t really trying to defend bots. They make trading more convenient but overall, with collectors, hurt more than help. 
 

*by collectors, I’m specifically referring to the guys that don’t/barely play and have $20,000+ backpacks full of awesome hats. During my time as a collector, I never had more hats than I could equip on one class. I know there are many collectors who are active in the community. Nothing against them. 

[sfpt]

6 hours ago, creepio said:

 

*by collectors, I’m specifically referring to the guys that don’t/barely play and have $20,000+ backpacks full of awesome hats. During my time as a collector, I never had more hats than I could equip on one class. I know there are many collectors who are active in the community. Nothing against them. 

so you mean tax evaders

[sfpt]

7 hours ago, Chuck said:

snip

Why you so cynical bro, did you just get divorced or something

[Sniper Noob]

This sort of seems like a branch off of this thread.

 

 

Bot users have an inherent advantage over non-bot users, no one really disputes that. Unfortunately, the API for bots wasn't designed in such a way to enforce any sort of regulations about overcutting, relisting, etc. so you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you're within the rate limit. To enforce new regulations around the API usage would require a massive manual effort by the staff, to the point where it wouldn't really be feasible. On the flip side, to overhaul the API in a way that it would enforce restrictions would be a massive effort on the dev side, and it seems like they're already stretched thin as it is. Sadly I don't see a great solution to this problem that doesn't require an enormous amount of work by the staff, other than eliminating bots altogether. Just my 2 cents.

[Zeckatz]

Instead of crying here, go cry to valve. If valve add tradehold on tf2 items, it can be fixed.
Here is how:
Rubi, has buy orders on 90% of all unusual hats. If he quickbuys something for his buy order, he will re-quicksell it for a few more keys to keep the key supply coming.
Same with zol, killua, sprekt, BBN bots, etc. They won't have endless key supply once the tradehold gets added. They will run out of keys at some point, and won't be able to dominate 99% of unusuals.

Yes i know im big brain.

[Zeus_Junior]

Instead of complaining and telling bptf to "add rules and restrictions", does anyone instead have a doable solution?

Simply restricting for the sake of human traders not able to keep up or whatever is not really a valid reason to me.

 

For example:

Quote

sprekt needs to be banned from making buy orders temporarily so he shuts off his damn script and i can actually make buy orders again

 

[Crazyy Cow]

10 hours ago, Zeus_Junior said:

Instead of complaining and telling bptf to "add rules and restrictions", does anyone instead have a doable solution?

Simply restricting for the sake of human traders not able to keep up or whatever is not really a valid reason to me.

 

For example:

 

I don't know if its a solution, but having a rules section for bot owners outlining what penalties are, and whose fault inflating buy orders is, should be a start. IMO it should make it clear that bots are alright to exist, but losing value with shitty coding or bad scripts is their fault. The onus is on them not to get fucked by auto pricing scripts.

[Chuck]

27 minutes ago, Crazyy Cow said:

I don't know if its a solution, but having a rules section for bot owners outlining what penalties are, and whose fault inflating buy orders is, should be a start. IMO it should make it clear that bots are alright to exist, but losing value with shitty coding or bad scripts is their fault. The onus is on them not to get fucked by auto pricing scripts.

If we're allowing  actions with straight up malicious intent (and abusing someone else's bot for your own profit is, regardless of the way you frame it), let's also allow sharking. If it's bot owner fault not knowing about his code loopholes, then it's sharking victim's fault not knowing his item values and making his inventory public. And hey, while we're here, let's also allow scamming shall we? It's victim's fault not knowing scam methods after all.

Also, guess what will happen if everyone will start abusing bots? They won't stop undercutting, no. They'll just turn off autoaccept,  like sprekt did, and replace it with some kind of automatic trade alerts with manual accept. This will result in far less convenience for, you know, actual majority of users on this site and there won't be any less antibot forum whiners who "can't make profit". Listening to a few loudest mouths when making decisions never resulted in anything good in entire human history.

[sfpt]

49 minutes ago, Chuck said:

If we're allowing  actions with straight up malicious intent (and abusing someone else's bot for your own profit is, regardless of the way you frame it), let's also allow sharking. If it's bot owner fault not knowing about his code loopholes, then it's sharking victim's fault not knowing his item values and making his inventory public. And hey, while we're here, let's also allow scamming shall we? It's victim's fault not knowing scam methods after all.

Also, guess what will happen if everyone will start abusing bots? They won't stop undercutting, no. They'll just turn off autoaccept,  like sprekt did, and replace it with some kind of automatic trade alerts with manual accept. This will result in far less convenience for, you know, actual majority of users on this site and there won't be any less antibot forum whiners who "can't make profit". Listening to a few loudest mouths when making decisions never resulted in anything good in entire human history.

this is your first message so far in which I agree with you to an extent

[Markt3]

1 hour ago, Chuck said:

If we're allowing  actions with straight up malicious intent (and abusing someone else's bot for your own profit is, regardless of the way you frame it), let's also allow sharking. If it's bot owner fault not knowing about his code loopholes, then it's sharking victim's fault not knowing his item values and making his inventory public. And hey, while we're here, let's also allow scamming shall we? It's victim's fault not knowing scam methods after all.

Also, guess what will happen if everyone will start abusing bots? They won't stop undercutting, no. They'll just turn off autoaccept,  like sprekt did, and replace it with some kind of automatic trade alerts with manual accept. This will result in far less convenience for, you know, actual majority of users on this site and there won't be any less antibot forum whiners who "can't make profit". Listening to a few loudest mouths when making decisions never resulted in anything good in entire human history.

I guess it is not the same when a human is sharked and when a bot is "sharked"

 

A human player's objective may not always be only to trade and make profit. They may be in the game for fun or other stuff. Some may not even have a reason to learn about trading or to involve themselves with it at all. There is a bit of fault in the scammed side but it is almost not existant.

 

On the other side, a bot is made for the only purpose of trading. The person that made them didn't gave them other purpose either. The fault (in my opinion) is on the bot's owner side coz they couldn't manage to make the bot do the only thing it is supposed to do.

It is like a game's exploit, there may be some fault on the side using that exploit. But there is fault too in the people not correcting it, and even more fault on them if they don't do anything to fix it.

 

 

 

[Markt3]

13 hours ago, Zeus_Junior said:

Instead of complaining and telling bptf to "add rules and restrictions", does anyone instead have a doable solution?

Simply restricting for the sake of human traders not able to keep up or whatever is not really a valid reason to me.

 

For example:

 

 

I think a doable solution would be to add a percentage you can undercut or overcut by. Like somewhere from 0.1% to 1%, that way people would actually need to think if they want to undercut instead of mindlessly adding/lowering a scrap more/less to the highest/lowest buy order/sell order

[Crazyy Cow]

10 hours ago, Chuck said:

If we're allowing  actions with straight up malicious intent (and abusing someone else's bot for your own profit is, regardless of the way you frame it), let's also allow sharking. If it's bot owner fault not knowing about his code loopholes, then it's sharking victim's fault not knowing his item values and making his inventory public. And hey, while we're here, let's also allow scamming shall we? It's victim's fault not knowing scam methods after all.

Also, guess what will happen if everyone will start abusing bots? They won't stop undercutting, no. They'll just turn off autoaccept,  like sprekt did, and replace it with some kind of automatic trade alerts with manual accept. This will result in far less convenience for, you know, actual majority of users on this site and there won't be any less antibot forum whiners who "can't make profit". Listening to a few loudest mouths when making decisions never resulted in anything good in entire human history.

I don't control what backpack says is their stance, I just think they should have a clear one. 

[Zeckatz]

11 hours ago, Chuck said:

If we're allowing  actions with straight up malicious intent (and abusing someone else's bot for your own profit is, regardless of the way you frame it), let's also allow sharking. If it's bot owner fault not knowing about his code loopholes, then it's sharking victim's fault not knowing his item values and making his inventory public. And hey, while we're here, let's also allow scamming shall we? It's victim's fault not knowing scam methods after all.

Also, guess what will happen if everyone will start abusing bots? They won't stop undercutting, no. They'll just turn off autoaccept,  like sprekt did, and replace it with some kind of automatic trade alerts with manual accept. This will result in far less convenience for, you know, actual majority of users on this site and there won't be any less antibot forum whiners who "can't make profit". Listening to a few loudest mouths when making decisions never resulted in anything good in entire human history.

Exploiting overcutting/undercutting scripts is just too easy. Most people don't fix their script because they know bptf will ban the abuser and not many people want to get banned.
I'm not saying that the abuser shouldn't get any punishment, maybe, first time when they do it, an admin/mod will give them a -rep and tell the script user to fix the problem. If the abuser does the same thing again, give him a temporary ban, and 3rd time permanent. This should apply for abusing overcutting/undercutting scripts only.
Exploiting a bot in some other way, like if the exploiter knows about a bug and takes advantage of it, they should get permanent ban.
For example: Remember when someone found a bug that would make the bots accept stranges for the prices of Australium?
But now bots aren't easy to exploit (unless u have shitty code that is just calling ppl to exploit it, like using backpack.tf-automatic)

[Zeus_Junior]

2 hours ago, Zeckatz said:

I'm not saying that the abuser shouldn't get any punishment, maybe, first time when they do it, an admin/mod will give them a -rep and tell the script user to fix the problem. If the abuser does the same thing again, give him a temporary ban, and 3rd time permanent. This should apply for abusing overcutting/undercutting scripts only.
Exploiting a bot in some other way, like if the exploiter knows about a bug and takes advantage of it, they should get permanent ban.
For example: Remember when someone found a bug that would make the bots accept stranges for the prices of Australium?
But now bots aren't easy to exploit (unless u have shitty code that is just calling ppl to exploit it, like using backpack.tf-automatic)

The second part of your post counters the first part.

Knowingly abusing a bot is a permanent ban. You are scamming.

[creepio]

On 6/11/2020 at 4:17 PM, sfpt said:

so you mean tax evaders

Yes.. many of which have assets that have appreciated with time, further adding to my confusion of why they don't sell their unus and at least stockpile keys