Yes, I could convert it into a daily 5 minute task, or a weekly 30 minute task. This leads to some overhead, though. Most of the work is identifying how much I need of what—making 2 stacks instead of 8 just means I have to click a bit less.
… So I had an idea just now, there’s the ability to get a html table of all my items—I could probably parse this with some tool, which could help me with doing the work. I’d still have to do all the clicking, but some of the stock taking could be automated like that, and this could help me with structuring and organizing the task as such that it’s less uncertain.
It feels like there might be more benefit (if it’s possible) in separating the task into genuinely different subtasks rather than just “smaller” ones. It depends on whether the task is ugh-ish (1) just because there’s too much of it to feel (in anticipation) like fun or (2) because it produces that “aargh, I don’t even know where to start with this damn thing” feeling. If #1, just splitting it into smaller bits might suffice. If #2, it needs splitting into simpler bits.
(Yes, splitting it will probably make it less efficient. But it may be better to have something inefficient that you will actually do than something efficient that you won’t.)
But if you can automate part of it so that there’s just less to do, as your second paragraph suggests, that sounds really promising.
The task itself is annoying because everything takes too long. Because it’s a game, you have to walk over to storage and you have to walk over to auction and basically when you see something for cheap in the auction, answering the question “how much of that do I have already” takes 30 seconds. Then to get back to the auction and the listing you were looking at takes probably another 15 seconds. This makes the whole process feel like bleh because, well, it’s...
Here’s a link to a youtube video which explains how to use the auction—I don’t know of its quality, but point of interest is the gold/black list of stuff and the blue grid on the right. The gold/black list is the auction interface, the blue grid is your inventory. There’s another box somewhere else in that room he’s standing in, that’s your storage. It contains another blue-grid style inventory.
The sizes of items in the grid layout can change with updates (sometimes intended, sometimes unintended). The icons for items in the grid can change with updates (most of them unintended and thus undocumented). And lastly, I’m not sure bots are allowed. I know external information tools are allowed, like things that read game chat and filter it for you or read the game’s message log to display a map of waypoints, but I don’t think the actual input is allowed to be done by botting.
Yes, and I can probably include that in the automation. I already have a list of my own records, but updating it is a pain and as a result I tend to just head over to storage. Reducing the workload to keep the list updated should resolve some of those troubles as well.
Because automating the clicking is pretty hard and subject to needing maintenance every time the game updates (which is about every 2 months or so)… and automating the “what do I need” part is easy and can probably be done in 2-3 hours.
Can you turn the 45-minute task into a larger number of smaller less intimidating tasks?
Yes, I could convert it into a daily 5 minute task, or a weekly 30 minute task. This leads to some overhead, though. Most of the work is identifying how much I need of what—making 2 stacks instead of 8 just means I have to click a bit less.
… So I had an idea just now, there’s the ability to get a html table of all my items—I could probably parse this with some tool, which could help me with doing the work. I’d still have to do all the clicking, but some of the stock taking could be automated like that, and this could help me with structuring and organizing the task as such that it’s less uncertain.
It feels like there might be more benefit (if it’s possible) in separating the task into genuinely different subtasks rather than just “smaller” ones. It depends on whether the task is ugh-ish (1) just because there’s too much of it to feel (in anticipation) like fun or (2) because it produces that “aargh, I don’t even know where to start with this damn thing” feeling. If #1, just splitting it into smaller bits might suffice. If #2, it needs splitting into simpler bits.
(Yes, splitting it will probably make it less efficient. But it may be better to have something inefficient that you will actually do than something efficient that you won’t.)
But if you can automate part of it so that there’s just less to do, as your second paragraph suggests, that sounds really promising.
The task itself is annoying because everything takes too long. Because it’s a game, you have to walk over to storage and you have to walk over to auction and basically when you see something for cheap in the auction, answering the question “how much of that do I have already” takes 30 seconds. Then to get back to the auction and the listing you were looking at takes probably another 15 seconds. This makes the whole process feel like bleh because, well, it’s...
It’s like using a slow and unresponsive website.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtbYPITWiMg
Here’s a link to a youtube video which explains how to use the auction—I don’t know of its quality, but point of interest is the gold/black list of stuff and the blue grid on the right. The gold/black list is the auction interface, the blue grid is your inventory. There’s another box somewhere else in that room he’s standing in, that’s your storage. It contains another blue-grid style inventory.
The sizes of items in the grid layout can change with updates (sometimes intended, sometimes unintended). The icons for items in the grid can change with updates (most of them unintended and thus undocumented). And lastly, I’m not sure bots are allowed. I know external information tools are allowed, like things that read game chat and filter it for you or read the game’s message log to display a map of waypoints, but I don’t think the actual input is allowed to be done by botting.
Is there a way you can keep your own records of what stuff you have so that you don’t need to keep walking over to storage in-game to check?
Yes, and I can probably include that in the automation. I already have a list of my own records, but updating it is a pain and as a result I tend to just head over to storage. Reducing the workload to keep the list updated should resolve some of those troubles as well.
Why not automate the clicking as well? Replace yourself by a script, then go find another arbitrage to exploit.
Because automating the clicking is pretty hard and subject to needing maintenance every time the game updates (which is about every 2 months or so)… and automating the “what do I need” part is easy and can probably be done in 2-3 hours.