Merchant Trade "Scamming" - How can we mitigate this?

Others are talking about it too, though it seems the general consensus is "We dont mind people taking advantage of others, you are the idiot for clicking!"

While i agree that in normal circumstances, you should always double and triple check to make sure you are buying the right item for the right price. It makes sense, its general life knowledge.

Though, in the case of buying fast moving/high competitive items, the pressure of being able to buy a reasonably priced item vs having to settle for twice or three times the cost is night and day.

You definitely still are ultimately at fault for clicking the 100ex heavy belt, that the other person strategicly placed within a group of 10ex belts, hoping one of the 15 people that spawn in at the same time and all rapidly click like hungry hungry hippos, will snatch it up.

Realistically, you are the end fault user.... but shame on them too! They also have done something wrong. Intentionally doing this shouldnt be so welcomed by the community... and as someone thats been flipping chancing whites i can tell you that this is not a minorly isolated instance. Approx 40% of people posting belts for the lower (honestly more reasonable prices) are trying to "scam" with this method.


What can we do? Ban them? Probably not. GGG doesnt like doing that and i believe they have stood by this opinion for ages. However... the difference between person to person trade where you have time to observe/consider your actions and the current atmosphere in the 0.3 player merchant trading for certain items is "spawn in and hope you click it first" with 15 people all clicking it at the same time. If you wait for the tooltip to actually render (a fraction of a second)... you miss getting that item.

So how can we fix this?

My suggestion would be to enhance the trade windows search/filter options or add an optionally togglable system that will warn you if you try and buy something that is a different price than what you came in to buy. For instance, instead of clicking on that Heavy Belt for 1xDiv it gives a popup that says "This item is higher priced than you searched for." or something like that, allowing you to decide if you want to buy it or not. This could be a way to do it.

Or, perhaps a persistent filter for the merchant window that hides or locks any item within a definable price by the player. So if you want to buy Stellar Amulets for 1-5ex, you can put in 1-5 ex... and then nothing over 5ex will be available for purchase. This not only would stop people from taking advantage of players and those too quick to snatch people that get "scammed", but also add a QoL feature that everyone can enjoy.

In direct p2p trade, theres no need for anything like this, but with open market situations, some ways to solve problems like this is logical.

What do you guys think?

Set a max you will pay for any one item, and the game shows a confirm dialogue if you try to buy something for more than that.

I think thats probably the most simple way to handle this, in the short term at the least. It doesnt seem too intrusive to code in, simple enough to use and a general QoL for everyone.

I'm generally very anti-scam, but this is a case where it is very much the buyers fault. When you teleport to their shop the item you clicked on is highlighted at exactly the price it was shown. If you decide to buy OTHER shit from their shop on the side, you gotta assume it could be a different price and double check. It's not really a scam to put a high price on something and someone accidently buys it.

If someone is selling an item in bulk at a price too-good-to-be-true, then you should be wary. Buy from sellers at an honest price if you want to avoid scrambling to buy against 100 other players.

How do you expect the the system to understand what an overpriced item is? Prices are subjective and determined organically by market interactions. What if the higher priced heavy belt is a higher iLvL and that has more value in the current economy? What if it has a different implicit roll? It may seem simple for a chance-base item, but things get very complicated if you try to apply a system like this to every possible item scenario.

If they wanted to they can solve it pretty effortlessly.
Just make an announcement that you will start banning people for it and make it reportable. Then the majority will stop doing it pretty much immediately.

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Kirana#3430 wrote:

I'm generally very anti-scam, but this is a case where it is very much the buyers fault. When you teleport to their shop the item you clicked on is highlighted at exactly the price it was shown. If you decide to buy OTHER shit from their shop on the side, you gotta assume it could be a different price and double check. It's not really a scam to put a high price on something and someone accidently buys it.

If someone is selling an item in bulk at a price too-good-to-be-true, then you should be wary. Buy from sellers at an honest price if you want to avoid scrambling to buy against 100 other players.

How do you expect the the system to understand what an overpriced item is? Prices are subjective and determined organically by market interactions. What if the higher priced heavy belt is a higher iLvL and that has more value in the current economy? What if it has a different implicit roll? It may seem simple for a chance-base item, but things get very complicated if you try to apply a system like this to every possible item scenario.

This is what i hear a lot from people that dont do market trading or buy a lot of white chancing items.

You should go and spend a few hundred ex trying to buy belts to craft a headhunters and see how long you retain your ideology. I mean, do you want to spend 100ex on 4 belts, or do you want to spend 100ex on 10 belts? What is a "too good to be true" price point? Cause it doesnt really matter what price point you are buying at, unless you are overpaying. Even then, i saw someone reselling for 25ex (current price 24ex at the time) and they had 250 ex/div prices mixed in.

You cant escape it really, the only way is to overpay so you dont have competition while buying.

Not only that, but you are victim blaming. While it IS an issue of buying to quickly to make sure 100% that you arnt buying a white belt for a mirror... you are glazing over and enabling people that to be absolutely scummy practices. Its every bit as much their bad for intentionally trying to scam people, as it is for the people getting scammed. Dont forget that they are the actual bad guy in the situation.

why dont you people just use the search bar and filter by currency type when you browse peoples shops and bulk buy?


the search bar is there for a reason people. . .

It's only gonna get worse if GGG doesn't do anything. not saying that it's not "buyer beware" but it would be nice to have a warning system in place.