How is the Community Market feeling (8)
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I used to pray for times like these...
I just pulled Judge.
Felix "The King" Hernandez here I come.
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@SDS_JoeK_PSN I have not seen any obvious signs of bots or automated activity this morning and overnight. Thanks for getting on top of it.
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@Oliver230230230_PSN -- Great! Thanks for letting me know.
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@SDS_JoeK_PSN actually, I may have spoke a little too soon. I haven’t paid much attention the last day but wanted to reply that your prompt attention to the matter is appreciated and meaningful. Without getting into it (look at cards won in diamond quest, for starters), A little more tweaking might be helpful. Specifically tightening source/origin based filters. You guys are definitely making a huge difference. I’d even go as far as saying that currently what I’m seeing is tolerable. But thought I’d mention in case you guys are really trying to annihilate all unwanted connections. Thanks
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@SDS_JoeK @Manu__SDS @ manus favorite people at SDS
I know it’s the weekend and maybe the people running the bots are taking advantage of that… i haven’t seen the level of aggression the bots are displaying today for a couple weeks. Price fixing, undercutting, hoarding. Many items being used for stub transfers right now. You guys have the tools to deal with this… use them. -
@Oliver230230230_PSN @manu__sds_mlbts
Yes, bots are in full force on Mike Trout All-Star card right now for instance. -
Can’t totally confirm it’s bots, since I’ve really only been flipping September Topps Now packs since they are very fast movers. But I do see a lot of bids now being undercut in groups of 3. Not sure if bots have moved away from the 2 bid pattern they’ve done most of the year. And I completely understand this could be legitimate users, just seems to be the first weekend of seeing bids in this pattern all year. Just an observation at this point, unless others are also noticing this pattern of seeing 3.
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@ArcPrime126_XBL it’s the same pattern I’ve noticed. Groups of 3 and 4 undercutting my bids instantly. When I delete my bid those undercut bids also instantly disappear, so that shows me they are indeed bots.
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@SiberiaTigerCub_PSN Good to know. I just wasn’t 100% sure since I usually bulk order then check back after an hour or so. Sucks that bots are so aggressive again.
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@SDS_JoeK @Manu__SDS @ manus favorite people at SDS this is ridiculous… whenever you guys get around to looking at your internal numbers you’ll probably notice there’s 8x more market activity then just a few days ago. I think we’re at that place again where it’s pointless to use the marketplace until you guys do something.
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I would have to agrre with you. Today was rough. Last couple days were good. I was in the Moonshot all weekend. Margins were all but evaporated and patience was definitely a virtue today to wait out the constant outbidding. I did okay today. But not as good as Thursday, Friday or even yesterday but yesterday statred to get rough in the early evening hours.
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@Oliver230230230_PSN I can confirm almost all listings in the marketplace have bots again. Rampant bot activity, back to the levels seen in the early season. Looks like marketplace is unusable once again. If it was me, I would require a 2-factor authentication every 6 hours to users using the companion app. Sure it would be a bit of a hassle, but very much worth it to restore the market to fair selling.
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Hey everyone, greatly appreciate the updates here. We'll look into everything as soon as possible. Thanks!
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@SDS_JoeK @Manu__SDS @ manus favorite people at SDS
Do you guys even know how rigged the marketplace is right now? If I was a 3rd party stub seller I’d be laughing popping champagne. Prices are getting driven up. Players keep bidding until they reach their ceiling but still won’t be able to obtain cards they are chasing and the price sits right above their limit. Until the next person comes along and keeps bidding until they won’t anymore and the prices are just going up to manipulated highs. It’s exactly what they want because they sell the stubs at a fraction of the price. I just can’t wrap my head around why this is has been allowed to happen all season, with the exception of a couple weeks and a few days here and there. If you guys can’t get a handle on this maybe you should put a disclaimer that the market can’t be trusted or maybe just take it offline for maintenance until you have this under control.
*I feel like a total Karen about this and I’m just about done caring. Having enough stubs has never been the problem for me. I enjoy going through the market, buying and selling cards and following the prices. The bots are so severe right now that I’m not able to get any enjoyment from the marketplace and I WANT to enjoy that part of the game. I don’t think it’s too much to ask! -
I’m still finding some success in the market flipping/buying, but I’m also only doing new cards since there is way more traffic there so it’s at times easier to move even with bots. I’ve also changed how I do my orders on certain cards this year, where I’m not jumping by just a few stubs every time I’m outbid. For the few cards that aren’t fast movers, I’ve tried to find the sweet spot where the bots won’t react. Sure, some cards I’ll end up overpaying for or underselling, and sometimes the bots are so aggressive that they’ll keep climbing until the buy now and sell now price are nearly the same.
There are also a couple of other factors contributing to marketplace problems besides just the bots. A example would be boss packs. Boss packs get overinflated if you don’t buy both during their inning. So that All-Star Mike Trout card is an easy target for bots because there aren’t that many available since most players locked him in collections. It would be nice if boss packs had a rewind just like events and ranked. I know we get the “second” pack when they do the final inning, but I think it’s time for SDS to think about this.
Player retention I think has also hit really hard this year. So as we’ve lost players for whatever reason, we’ve lost more cards being moved and available. On the flip side of that, the amount of bots probably hasn’t changed much. So we end up with a higher percentage of bots active in the marketplace compared to actual humans.
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@SDS_JoeK @Manu__SDS @ manus favorite people at SDS Update?
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It is definitely a shame that bots keep worming their way into the market, especially as the player count declines as @arcprime126_xbl mentions. Don't let up, devs! Keep up the fight for those of us that are still here. Maybe as MLBTS 27 development ramps up, y'all can find a way to keep the bots out from the get go. Just don't abandon MLB 26. The market has gotten better but the bots need to be stopped for good.
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Just keep this work rolling into 27! I was annoyed at the market validation thing on the app at first, but now I see it is working
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@Oliver230230230_PSN -- we did do some banning yesterday, I'm told, so hopefully that helped some. As always though, keep us posted on how things are feeling.
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@sds_joek_psn and @manu__sds_mlbts I think you should know something.
ITSA SPOOKY MONTH!
does epic spooky dance
