How is the Community Market feeling (7)
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I’m honestly confused about what I’m supposed to think at this point. I’ve done just fine flipping and making stubs. With bots operating in ways no human could ever mimic, investing now mostly comes down to figuring out where and when the bots are going to be most active. Flipping has become almost effortless, and honestly it’s not fun anymore. The human strategy and competition that made the market fun are basically gone.
The person working on the app seems perfectly capable of building filters that actually stop the bots. The problem seems to be that every time he gets the chance to do something about it, someone above him decides it’s time to move on to something else. And apparently he’s also told not to respond to the people asking why the problem still exists.
So I’m trying to figure out what the new investing strategy is supposed to be. Should I keep looking at supply, demand, collections, upcoming content, historical prices, liquidity and ROI? Or should I just try to figure out what the bots are doing?
I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason SDS is letting automated accounts operate around the clock while legitimate players are left wondering if anyone is actually paying attention. The bots are paying attention 24/7, yet this forum was offline for two days before being put back online. That pretty much sums up the whole situation. The bots are always watching, while the people responsible for dealing with the problem can’t even keep the forum available for players to raise concerns. I’d really like to hear what the reason is. These bots are stealing stubs from players and real money from your company, out in the open for everyone to see. I mean, if that doesn't prompt action to be taken.. shameless. -
How’s the market?
Lol f u k e d with bots moron. Just like every other day.
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The bots continue to evolve as the problem is ignored. Mike trout all star card is for sale at 160k and 2nd listing is 185k. But it’s irrelevant because humans can’t participate in the listing! I tried to bid at 184k but instantly there’s a bid for 183,999k. The bots are undercutting 2nd bids now as well. I feel silly trying to get a bid to stick as second listing a few times because I know that when bots are outbidding there is nothing that can be done. But I tried anyways. Obviously I have no idea why this continues to be totally ignored, is it something to do with people complaining about seeing errors in the app? They weee mildly frustrating but it’s really the only thing I’ve seen in 6 months that makes me think that maybe you guys give a f about not letting the players get taken advantage of and cheated in the marketplace. Do something already!
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@Oliver230230230_PSN
They don’t care, if you can’t flip they are Hopi g you buy Stubbs, so it is not in their best interest to stop the bots. The terrible part is if you earn a card through a pack, you cannot just leave it to sell because the bots will continue to undercut. It’s partly horrible developers at SDS and horrible service. Maybe 1 day another studio can make a decent baseball game so that we do not have to put up with this bullsh. It -
Hmm. I gotta disagree. I would NEVER buy stubs to use in this clearly corrupted economy. Surely they know many people feel similar and they are actually missing out on micro transactions because they dont value what they’re selling enough to even try and protect it. They should also care because those bots driving people away are hoarding stubs that get sold outside of the game. So it’s not only making some avoid buying stubs, it’s also creating an external source for players to buy stubs where they receive 16-25x more stubs then retail price. ChatGPT says a conservative estimate that 3rd party stub sellers have made $10-30 million usd this year from selling stubs harvested with bots. I’ve also asked if ai can think of any reason they would tolerate bots in the marketplace and the only scenario is because bots make the market appear more liquid by always placing buy and sell orders, increasing marketplace activity- but points out that surely SDS has people in charge that are smart enough to see that is a terrible idea if the bot become dominate and prevent humans from participating.
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We will not be hearing from yank for the next three days
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Howdy,
We are testing a completely new approach to reCaptcha - please stay tuned and thank you for your support!
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Manu how about you go after the ACTUAL third party companies? Let me help you guys identify them since you are struggling. Go to google type in mlb the show stubs for cheap and guess what it’s amazing a bunch of companies pop up. Crazy I know. Or you could continue to do what your doing using some sorry anti cheat that doesn’t work but wait there’s more next do another round of bans and further ban innocent players destroying your whole player base even more. The second option of banning people again, both guilty and innocent, sounds like the smarter decision because it’s cheaper and well let’s be honest you guys don’t really care about your consumers. But hey listen with the gameplay this year, the bans the straight lying to your consumers early in the year you guys might go down as the year that ruined the show games lol
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I appreciate the efforts that Manu has gone to to recode the market related code to try to defeat the bots.
That said, I note that less than one tenth the good old fashioned hard work that Manu has dedicated over these last several months to upgrade Stadium Creator would have added great depth and fidelity to the game overall.
I simply wonder when SDS will devote this kind of dedicated hard work to long neglected game modes.
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This is great news and an encouraging market update. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact once the fix is implemented.
A reminder: Manu works exclusively on the app. (I think). Other concerns and suggestions may be valid, but raising them in response to this post likely won’t accomplish much.
Since he took the time to update us about the bot fix, let’s give him credit and keep the discussion focused on the issue he’s addressing. Other feedback should go to the people who can act on it.
After all the frustration surrounding this issue, I’m glad to hear that progress is being made. Hopefully, this is the first step toward a more competitive and enjoyable market. -
@Oliver230230230_PSN I used to buy stubs weekly in past versions of this game, but seeing it’s just a botted, non-organic market, there is no chance I put real money into it anymore. Oh, and another issue for me is Sony no longer allows me to spend my currency (Russian Rubles) with them on the store.
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@J_Kidd1231_PSN Not much they can do. A lot of those 3rd party stub sellers are here in Russia where I live, although I never engage with the game outside of official means myself. SDS Studios has no jurisdiction anymore.
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Hmmm... I didn't stop to think about different laws governing what SDS can and can't do outside of the U.S.
I'm sure if these stub sites mostly ran inside of the U.S. we might see more severe bans and lawsuits. I'm sure most of these stub sites are run by criminals that would operate in countries a little more friendly to their criminal behavior to where SDS has very little power to do anything about.
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The only thing SDS can do is reCAPTHCHA or other means to slow these sites down.
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@Oliver230230230_PSN Could be a new game in itself! Manu vs the Russian Hordes!
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I don’t have anything to grind for at the moment, so I thought I’d do the draft conquest yesterday since mid and rare rounds doubled in price the last couple days. Did it, listed them at lowest price and called it a night. This morning they are still sitting near the lowest sell price and tons sold overnight for just under what mine were listed for. Whatever - that’s how it works these days. Next.
I went to check Bernie Williams. I bought a bunch around 40K a few days ago. The price is now around 49K, so I checked completed orders to see what happened overnight. I could only see the last two hours because there had already been 100+ sales this morning at around 180K. 100+ sales at 180k!
Bernie is a past Chase card, a legitimate investment and collection gatekeeper. Seeing that kind of activity at 180K makes the stub transferring and market manipulation pretty hard to ignore. Well, actually, impossible to ignore. Maybe it could be missed but since I’m pointing it out, hopefully it can’t be ignored.
At this point, the market is making a pretty strong case for itself being completely rigged and basically worthless.
Hopefully this new fix is coming soon. -
So I put a bunch of my Bernie Williams cards at 150 and 160k seeing how 100s went at 180k and not too surprised to see they all got bought up 30 minutes ago. But price is back down to 49k.
So to recap, last night I grinded for a mlb draft pack I intended to sell because the market price is up on those - but bots have been undercutting my selling attempts for 12+ hours. I observe market manipulation with Bernie Williams cards, decide I don’t want my Bernie Williams investments anymore since they’re being manipulated, I list them at stupid high prices, they are sold. So grinding is pointless? Following the bots pays off? -
Howdy,
locking this thread in anticipation of the new one
∆OX□
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M Manu__SDS_MLBTS locked this topic
