How is the Community Market feeling?
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I'm getting that request verification failed. I mean how much louder can you all at SDS say we don't want you guys flipping for stubs, we want you guys to pay real world money for stubs
I think it's a glitch for everyone.
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Excellent for two days but today experienced the immediate one up or two up on buy price. Also, for everyone, the request verification error was addressed in the Companion App Forum section. The team is working on it per SDS.
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@Manu__SDS_MLBTS my account was restricted for no reason.
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@manu__sds_mlbts
You would think that SDS would be able to see very easily which accounts are bots due to the immediate undercutting of transactions. I’d be stunned if they weren’t able to flag transactions or accounts that spend an inordinate amount of time “in the lead” on certain cards, especially after losing the lead for less than a second just to regain it again.I understand the calls to remove the marketplace from the app, but I think that would greatly worsen the experience for users as well. Sure it would cut down on the bots, but for me and I would assume many others, using the app to sell duplicate cards, watch the market, or flip cards is a huge part of the fun. If they implemented a change getting rid of the marketplace in the app, that would be it for me because putting orders in on console is miserable, time consuming, and inefficient. Selling duplicates and flipping cards has been the only way I’ve been able to play for years because of how insanely expensive these cards are. If they get rid of the marketplace, safe to say I’m done for good.
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@RSALERMO_XBL -- submit a ticket to Support, and they can look into it for you.
Please be aware that they're working through a backlog of tickets, so it could take some time, but they will get back to you.
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I would be ok if they got rid of the app. if they would make the console market more usable.
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@Manu__SDS_MLBTS thanks for checking in. Couple of thoughts… don’t mean to sound like I’m telling you guys what to do, I’m just thinking out loud about what I’d maybe try to do… identify some accounts using bots, from incoming traffic data, find similarities and trends. Is that account focused on 1 item or is it spread across a few? Are they all or mostly using emulator software? Block access from emulators. Are they using vpn? Block vpns. Maybe you serve a captcha after every 10 bids or deleting bids. I know there’s times I can be using the market on the app for 30 min or maybe more, but maybe if an account is making however many transactions in an hour, the account gets restricted/time out for an hour.
Anyways, just typed out and posting while I had a minute.
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Regarding the original question, it's improved somewhat- but could do a lot better at avoiding false positives.
Bot undercutting on tracked cards is still landing in under 5 seconds of a new listing, but I (and plenty others) got flagged and restricted for manual batch flipping. Just placing 15-30 orders then walking away.
That's the core problem with the current filter, it looks like it's keying on raw order velocity/volume, which catches dedicated human flippers just as easily as bots, while the bots' actual signature (instant, repeated, exact one-stub undercuts reactive to one specific listing) goes basically untouched.
A concrete ask: don't flag on the first fast undercut. Wait for 3-5 repeated undercuts on the same listing within a tight window. That's a pattern only automation produces, so it should cut false positives on legit flippers while still catching the real bots. You've got order-book timestamps down to the millisecond, that data should support pattern detection, not just speed thresholds.
And honestly, some communication would go a long way. Nobody needs the exact parameters (that just tells bot devs how to dodge them), but even a general "here's the category of behavior we're targeting" would save a ton of ticket backlog and forum panic from players who did nothing wrong.
Thanks plenty, hope it gets easier.
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Humans try to undercut bots all the time. They'd get flagged that way also.
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Howdy,
thank you for the valuable feedback and the continued support!
I believe (actually, I can see the numbers...) the current API filters are doing an excellent job at reducing bad traffic, entire categories of bad actors have been progressively cut out. I also acknowledge the difficulty is increasing and we will continue to refine and harden the filters: we are on a bumpy but successful path...
API Rate limiting is a very good bet! The algorithm is often giving out "cooldown" responses to legitimate (heavy) users, we will refine the logic to make it smarter as @eshum_mlbts and others have suggested. "Cooldowns" for legit users are very short and now show a clear message on the app for clarity.
This is a "one VS one million" battle, thank you for being on the good side!
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Bots are out in full force. Had several bids bumped by 1 almost before I could hit the button
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Yep, bots were held back for a little bit. But they are very much back
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@Manu__SDS_MLBTS incredible work!
The bots are not back like people are saying above. Humans can 1 up also lol. Bots have a different, obvious behavior.App is incredible right now. Seriously, thank you!
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@JDHalfrack_PSN probably like me
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@Manu__SDS_MLBTS you should maybe remove all permanent restrictions then as you are not sure who is human or who is bot if legitimate users are being restricted, sorry to keep on harping on about this but a week later we are still where we are.
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@Bridge-Piece_XBL bots are definitely still present. Not as consistent. Not every card. But I am aware what bot behavior looks like versus human behavior. You can see in this video that bots are still present as of 8am CT this morning: https://drive.google.com/file/d/174rG8peFll0IJ8BWzaVJRHfqlh9fqGXM/view?usp=drivesdk.
I’m very very thankful SDS is attacking this problem and communicating. And the issue is better, but not completely resolved. @manu_sds_psn
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@Manu__SDS_MLBTS I can conduct market transactions on the Xbox just fine and I use my controller, that's it. It's annoying, it's clunky, sometimes I press the wrong button, but it works. I don't think it's fair to target users of one platform over others.
I don't want marketplace transactions on console to be flagged for fast user input. The only thing that should be done is perhaps a check to see if external hardware is connected to run bots?
But that world is beyond me, because I've always played fairly. Cheating is for losers.
Whatever you do SDS, please don't punish or slow down honest players for being skilled. And thank you for keeping us updated and communicating with us on this bot problem.
(I also saw that cards on the market took a massive dip overnight on July 1. So maybe the bots are back, boo hiss)
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The console does not have restrictions afaik.. at least I have not run into any.
You guys will do what you’re going to do, but before adding more restrictions on normal users, I’d love to see how the marketplace operates if the api refused connections coming from emulators and virtual machines. I’d think there’s more than a couple of ways to identify and block without negatively impacting any legit actors.
I think the initial results from the rate limiting have revealed how heavy the bot activity has been. I know I’m not the only one that appreciates the effort being put into combatting the problem and restoring the integrity of the marketplace.
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@Oliver230230230_PSN said:
I think the initial results from the rate limiting have revealed how heavy the bot activity has been. I know I’m not the only one that appreciates the effort being put into combatting the problem and restoring the integrity of the marketplace.I could tell something was wrong with the market from the get go. I've been engaging with the community market since 2019. You could just feel it was off compared to previous years, something was amiss. Like a disturbance in the Force.
Good to know that bots have indeed been screwing with the market and that there's data to back it up. It feels so much better than questioning whether or not I'm crazy, haha
But what about the software or whatever that allows this to happen? Like whatever is enabling these bots to do what they do needs to be shut down.
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the rate limiter can occasionally award a cooldown to a legitimate power user, however that only lasts a few seconds;
