Bots? Exploit? Or some hidden tricks I don't know of?

Victos · October 2016

Hey,

so I've recently seen prices of "rubedo hide scraps" drop enormously - nothing wrong with that so far.

But I've seen prices of 108 ea drop down to 60 - in an instant, that's just not natural human behaviour. Now today I've sat down and looked through my guild and I've seen freaking hundreds of stacks of hide been sold by only two players.

Yesterday alone one of them sold 71 Stacks and the other one sold 69 stacks (coincidence that both are nearly 50/50?) now lets see.

Who on earth would sell 71 freaking stacks - which are 14200 scraps - for 60 each if he literally controls the market within that guild?
Now they sold these stacks - together 140. And just now they threw in another 30 stacks.

How are they even able to put on such an supply only being two people? Why would they sell it so freaking cheap that it's an insta buy for any crafter? A bot would.

Now I'm no expert in hide farming but I can get around 400+ hide scraps within one hour in old orsinium. Considering these numbers I could pull the last supply of them within 7 hours of permanent grinding. Now who grinds 7 hours like that?

The first 71 or 69 stacks a person like myself would have to grind 37 hours straight.

Now to my point:
- I doubt there is anyone selling it cheaper than those guys thereby all these scraps have to be farmed
- I doubt these guy are farming for hours upon hours straight
- I doubt anyone would sell these raw mats so cheap even though they could make more profit just to make it a no brainer to buy them

So my assumtion would be one of the following:
- they are bots
- it's a bigger group using only those two to sell everything and split the profit afterwards
- they found an exploit
- they know a spot that's absolutely insane
- I am missing something
- a combination of everything

What do you guys think? Have you experienced something like this before? Am I missing something?

EDIT:

As many seem to get hung up on the prices, I need to make this clear: Everyone knows how supply and demand works, I'm not talking about the dropping prices. I'm talking about how a small group of two players is able to literally monopolize the rubedo hide scraps market within a big trading guild. Before those two there was competition in the guild, we had lots of scraps but spread out over countless players. Now these two undercut every single one by a big margin and have a huge supply. Nearly 1.7 million gold worth of raw rubedo hide scraps on a single day.

They may or may not do something fishy - I don't know - but it just looked very suspicious.

SirAndy · October 2016

Are they selling to each other? Trying to drive the prices down in MM?

Or bots ...

susmitds · October 2016

In 1T, every spot drops ruby mats, so the price would naturally drop a lot. These guys predicted that and sold a huge amount of it before it falls more.

driosketch · October 2016

- they know a spot that's absolutely insane

This would be my guess.

I don't know how good old orsinium is for strictly hide farming. My crafter ran through there a while back hunting motif pages. I don't remember the hide take being, well, memorable.

I will tell you, waiting around other public dungeons for bosses to plunder for skulls, that a lot of hide dropping mobs respawn quickly while you wait on a boss. I'm guessing old orsinium got its rep back before One Tamriel because it was the best place out of the few were those hides dropped. Now every place does, and some gold mat refining farms are now also hide farms.

Victos · October 2016

SirAndy wrote: »

Are they selling to each other? Trying to drive the prices down in MM?

Or bots ...

They sell it in the guild - the guild has a good amount of rich people because it's a big one.

These two guys drop in a ridiculous amount of hide scraps and everyone in the guild - including myself buy all of it and refine it.

susmitds wrote: »

In 1T, every spot drops ruby mats, so the price would naturally drop a lot. These guys predicted that and sold a huge amount of it before it falls more.

Of course every spot drops it - yet why would they keep thousands of leather around to sell it AFTER the One Tamriel release?
Every sane person would've sold it at 108 (that was the price in that very same guild prior to OT) and laughed their ass off afterwards. So if they "predicted" that, they did it wrong.

Even if every single spot drops leather now - to provide a constant supply of so much scraps one literally has to farm all the time.

notimetocare · October 2016

Supply:Demand

MakoFore · October 2016

i dunno about your case but in mine I sold some items, treasure maps, glyphs, various things at a very reasonable price. I dont really care about making a profit as much as clearing inventory space and giving someone a bargain. however that guild had people snap up anything under market and resell at the market rate.

so perhaps these guys go around buying cheap leather and selling it?
kinda smart. I just can never be bothered to do it in a game when its essentially what i despise in the real world with bankers and brokers.

Victos · October 2016

notimetocare wrote: »

Supply:Demand

Smart comment - but it actually explains nothing.

My questions aren't regarding the dropping of the prices. Everyone knows how and why prices fluctuate.

It's about how two people are able to farm so much hide scraps and why they are undercutting everyone else by such a large margin.

I repeat myself: They sold 71 and 69 full stacks of 200 hide scraps each within a single day - and were able to put in the next supply just one hour ago. Thats straight up 852000 gold for one and 828000 gold for the other dude just from raw rubedo hide - within a single day.

Both guys aren't that high in cp (around 200) so I doubt they're some ESO gurus.

driosketch wrote: »

- they know a spot that's absolutely insane

This would be my guess.

I don't know how good old orsinium is for strictly hide farming. My crafter ran through there a while back hunting motif pages. I don't remember the hide take being, well, memorable.

I will tell you, waiting around other public dungeons for bosses to plunder for skulls, that a lot of hide dropping mobs respawn quickly while you wait on a boss. I'm guessing old orsinium got its rep back before One Tamriel because it was the best place out of the few were those hides dropped. Now every place does, and some gold mat refining farms are now also hide farms.

It's totally possible there is some spot I'm missing - but as everyone farms these bosses now - shouldn't the supply be more spread out throughout the masses of players?

jeevin · October 2016

I most likely the fact that all zones scale and materials scale to your crafting. All the toons I play are max crafters so I get max level raw material in every zone, dungeon and every where in between. It's simply a case of there is more material, larger supply for the demand and prices tumble.

Victos · October 2016

jeevin wrote: »

I most likely the fact that all zones scale and materials scale to your crafting. All the toons I play are max crafters so I get max level raw material in every zone, dungeon and every where in between. It's simply a case of there is more material, larger supply for the demand and prices tumble.

Again - if there is more material it would be spread out over all of the players - not monopolized by few. On top of that - I'm not talking about the prices dropping, I'm talking about the huge amount of supply by a small group (two people)

Buffler · October 2016

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

Vaoh · October 2016

Buffler wrote: »

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

-_-

Brokensocket · October 2016

Whats the guild and were is the trader?

WillhelmBlack · October 2016

Buffler wrote: »

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

10 minutes?

Iyas · October 2016

Maybe they waited with their survey maps for one tam. I did that and I have about 6k from every raw mat and still about 40 survey maps left...

Buffler · October 2016

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Buffler wrote: »

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

10 minutes?

Yup, 10mins

Victos · October 2016

Buffler wrote: »

Yup, 10mins

Ok if that is true, then that could explain how they get such a big supply. That would nearly be 10 times the mats I was able to pull before One Tamriel.

Brokensocket wrote: »

Whats the guild and were is the trader?

I don't really want to name the guild or the trader, because then it would be easier to track down the people I'm talking about. And I don't want to get their names involved just because I don't know how they are able to do something.

I don't want them to be accused of something and neither do I accuse them - I'm just curious in general.

The guild is a big one with daily sales worth millions, raw mats were usually a sure sell within minutes or max some hours.

Iyas wrote: »

Maybe they waited with their survey maps for one tam. I did that and I have about 6k from every raw mat and still about 40 survey maps left...

Thanks, that could be another solution, but that would - depending on the amount - sooner or later decline wouldn't it? So it's advisable to watch the situation for a longer period of time I guess. As they aren't throwing around "6k only" but around 14k per person.

I've just logged in and there are another ~70 full stacks of hide scraps waiting to get refined by some investor.

Junipus · October 2016

Bosses aren't the only places that drop scraps now.

I don't know of the exact potential spot myself, but I suspect there's a few places they might be able to farm potentially hundreds of scraps per hour.

BabylonRocker · October 2016

Victos wrote: »

- they know a spot that's absolutely insane

Tamriel is full of spots that are absolutely insane, especially for Leather.

driosketch · October 2016

Victos wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

- they know a spot that's absolutely insane

This would be my guess.

I don't know how good old orsinium is for strictly hide farming. My crafter ran through there a while back hunting motif pages. I don't remember the hide take being, well, memorable.

I will tell you, waiting around other public dungeons for bosses to plunder for skulls, that a lot of hide dropping mobs respawn quickly while you wait on a boss. I'm guessing old orsinium got its rep back before One Tamriel because it was the best place out of the few were those hides dropped. Now every place does, and some gold mat refining farms are now also hide farms.

It's totally possible there is some spot I'm missing - but as everyone farms these bosses now - shouldn't the supply be more spread out throughout the masses of players?

Well, I don't know. Is it or isn't it? Have you checked every one of the other 160+ stores to be sure?

Also, there are three other issues at play.
- Not all those players have access to a guild store. And of those that do, their slots could already be taken up by set or motif drops. They are farming bosses afterall.
- Maybe they aren't trying to sell, but keeping mats for personal use, in their craft bags. This would be reflected in less demand and mats sitting for days in the stores even slightly under the old price point.
- Not all player's are observant, I can still find untouched bosses even with groups farming them. Many might not be aware of the respawn to drop rate. Also maybe they are leveling non vets so they aren't collecting CP160 mats.

The other Public Dungeons are just an example. I'm sure there's some other secret places out there. The other day I came across a delve boss that takes seconds to respawn. I didn't stick around because the loot cool down makes farming bosses like that pointless, but mobs don't have that cool down. Those guys likely just found such a spot.

AsteriaStarfall · October 2016

North of the map in Rivenspire there is a nice daisy chain of bots running in a loop killing the skeevers over and over and they respawn fast. Never really saw a bot before One Tamriel that stuck out in my head as "hey, that's a bot" but now i see them daily.

Reported them two days ago, and the same toons are there. Very very easy to spot, because their movements and path are pixel perfect each time.

Victos · October 2016

I've just looked in guild and one of them seems to have deleted the char or something.

I'm able to see his account name, but character name, alliance, region, class and level are all invisible in guild.

Looks even more suspicious now.

And just at this time, another one joined the guild and put on a massive amount of rubedo hide scraps - at the very same price - no real competition whatsoever.

And just to make things more suspicious:
- all of them (at least 4 now) are templars
- all of them are DC
- all of them are cp ~220
- all of them are new to the guild
- all of them do only sell scraps - absolutely nothing else

THEDKEXPERIENCE · October 2016

AsteriaStarfall wrote: »

North of the map in Rivenspire there is a nice daisy chain of bots running in a loop killing the skeevers over and over and they respawn fast. Never really saw a bot before One Tamriel that stuck out in my head as "hey, that's a bot" but now i see them daily.

Reported them two days ago, and the same toons are there. Very very easy to spot, because their movements and path are pixel perfect each time.

Haha! Glad you said this. I stepped foot in Rivenspire yesterday and, while I didn't see any bots, I definitely thought "If I sat here for an hour killing skeevers I'd be rich".

Getting rubedo from critters is quite easy.

rotaugen454 · October 2016

I had a thread about an obvious bot in Wrothgar that stood in one place for hours a day, and that had people reporting obvious bots all over the place. When you see a character take the exact same route over and over for hours on end, always stopping at the farm spots even if nothing is there, it looks suspicious. The bot I reported used to stand attacking empty air until the monsters spawned, but then made their bot sophisticated enough to stand still and attack when they spawned. It stood in the same spot for over 9 months. Have to wonder how many leather it got from that.

Ch4mpTW · October 2016

Buffler wrote: »

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

BRUH! Please tell me in a PM where you're hustling at. Please! I beg you! I'm a crafter who has 9-traits learned in all: Blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking. And dude, having access to something like that would be game changing for me.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · October 2016

They are botting skeevers in Rivenspire.

Integral1900 · October 2016

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the solution to all your leather issues..... kill stuff, a LOT of it, for me it's mud crabs, once you know where to look those nippy little beggars are an absolute goldmine. I do have a few other sources but that's for you explorers to find for yourself. I'm not sure about 300 in ten minutes but 200 in fifteen minutes no problem baby

Victos · October 2016

Integral1900 wrote: »

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the solution to all your leather issues..... kill stuff, a LOT of it, for me it's mud crabs, once you know where to look those nippy little beggars are an absolute goldmine. I do have a few other sources but that's for you explorers to find for yourself. I'm not sure about 300 in ten minutes but 200 in fifteen minutes no problem baby

Sorry but even with 200 in 15 minutes you would have to grind for hours on a daily basis to put up such an amount of constant supply of scraps.

So lets see, they put up 14000 scraps each - per day.
If we assume they farm it at a rate of 200 per 15 they would need:

14000/200/4 = 17.5 hours a day of pure grind.

Even with a spot that's twice as good it would still be an absurd amount of grind.

I would guess for a farmer a good way would be:
- let a group of bots farm constantly
- let them mail their materials to "seller characters"
- let the "seller" put them up in the trader
- undercut everyone by a large margin and thereby monopolize the market
- ???
- profit

Skcarkden · October 2016

Farming Wayrest sewer first boss and resetting to get plunder skulls, hides are an extra bonus that they might be selling?

Buffler · October 2016

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Buffler wrote: »

There is a place where you can farm 300 hide in ten minutes, . I do it regular.

BRUH! Please tell me in a PM where you're hustling at. Please! I beg you! I'm a crafter who has 9-traits learned in all: Blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking. And dude, having access to something like that would be game changing for me.

And plaster it all over here so the spot gets filled....no chance! There are regularly bots there though

Thornen · October 2016

Scaled content means more rubedo scraps, means prices will drop.