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@manu__sds_mlbts The Companion App still shows my account as restricted, and at this point it’s getting pretty hard not to be frustrated.

First, credit where it’s due: the app itself is working great. This isn’t an app problem. This is an SDS problem. Something on the backend is restricting accounts without notice, explanation, or apparently any response to support tickets. Mine has been sitting for two days now.

I know one of the devs occasionally pops into these forums asking for information on issues, and that’s appreciated. Even if SDS as a company has been completely silent on these restrictions, it’s clear at least somebody is listening.

What makes this especially maddening is that while legitimate marketplace users are getting restricted, the activity everyone associates with bots appears to be happening in plain sight. Sponsorships suddenly selling 60 times a minute instead of 3 times an hour. Cards going from a handful of sales a day to dozens a minute. Orders changing so fast that listings barely appear before they’re undercut again.

Try to jump into one of those markets and it’s like you’re playing whack-a-mole against someone with a machine gun.

If the goal was stopping bots, banning active marketplace users doesn’t seem like it’s accomplishing that. The bots are apparently still drinking everyone’s milkshake.

At this rate, maybe SDS will start banning people for hitting too many home runs. “Congratulations, your account has been restricted for excessive engagement.”

Nobody expects an apology. Nobody expects SDS to suddenly acknowledge years of bot complaints. But it would be nice to see one of three things happen:

1. Reverse these restrictions if they’re catching legitimate players.
2. Respond to support tickets.
3. Clearly explain what marketplace or app behavior can trigger a restriction.

The only guidance I’ve ever seen is don’t use automated tools or third-party apps, which I’ve never done.

It’s wildly unfair to restrict people for trying to play the game, especially while the activity these restrictions are supposedly targeting appears to be continuing uninterrupted.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS the work that’s been done in the last week had undoubtably helped the integrity of the marketplace. I can appreciate that you’re fine tuning the filters so they don’t feel so restrictive. That being said, i think being able to place 3 or 4 bids a minute that have a 50% chance of going through is more important than being able to make 20 bids a minute that have a 2% chance of going through.
The past 2 days I have noticed bots on several items, but not like they were last week or before. I have only noticed a few bots that do the instant undercutting and deleting bids instantly - which is good. The bots I’m noticing now will wait 15-30 seconds after the last bid was placed and then will undercut by 1. When their bid wins, 15-30 seconds later it will make a new bid to remain the highest or lowest bidder… so instead of instant undercutting then deleting, this new behavior waits 15-30 seconds and makes a top bid. It they win or get outbid, wait 15-30 seconds and makes new top bid.
Obviously, humans need to be able to make their bids and move on to other items or play the game instead of babysit their bids. But this not behavior will win items around the clock. The last 2 nights I placed bids on some items I suspected having bots and my bids were still sitting the next day and looking at sale history I could see the items were won over and over with a bid slightly above mine.

Anyways, I don’t mean to ramble. TL;DR - the bot situation is much improved but there are still bots noticeable on some items, but not all items like they have been most of 2026. Instead of instant outbids and undercuts, bots are waiting for no bids to be made for 30 seconds(ish) and placing top bids or placing new top bids when they win the item. 24/7

Wow - this is definetly not the feeling of the player base. Yes, the game has caused many people a lot of frustration, but there’s nothing but gratitude for anyone trying to fix those problems and make the game better. Thanks again for the work you’re doing.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS It’s encouraging to see continued efforts to combat the bots dominating the marketplace, and I do appreciate the work being done to address the problem.
I haven’t been paying particularly close attention over the last few days, but after spending some time on the app tonight, the 1-stub-outbidding bots are very noticeable at the moment. Probably not coincidentally, the Spooky Program Vault Pack has driven prices on a lot of cards way down. If I were controlling bots, this is exactly the kind of market I’d be looking to take advantage of too.
I suppose bots and legitimate players have the same basic objective in the marketplace: buy low and sell high. The difference is that when prices are dropping, the bots’ advantage becomes painfully obvious. Players have to constantly adjust bids just to stay competitive. Even if you’re willing to play that game, you’re limited to managing one card at a time while bots can seemingly cover the entire marketplace simultaneously. That’s not exactly a level playing field.
On a separate but related note, the account restriction notices are becoming a problem of their own. Today, I’m getting restricted extremely quickly, with no indication of how long the restriction is supposed to last. Closing and reopening the app seems to temporarily lift it, only to have it happen again shortly afterward. With the sheer number of cards in the marketplace at this point, I can’t even scroll down to lower OVR cards on my watchlist before getting restricted again. At this rate, the restrictions are driving me to the forums rather than actually using the marketplace.
Putting today’s experience aside, I do think bot activity has been noticeably reduced over the past couple of weeks. And imo the few days when reCAPTCHA v3 was implemented were probably the best the marketplace has looked all year in terms of bot activity. That seems worth remembering when considering what measures are actually making a difference.
I appreciate the continued efforts, but the marketplace is still a long way from being where it should be. Hopefully, the progress we’ve seen recently is a sign that we’re moving in the right direction rather than just getting another temporary reprieve.

I also feel bad for the sds employees that I’ve seen pop their head up to communicate issues or respond to problems. I can’t imagine how embarrassing and downright humiliating it must be to work on a game that has so many unbelievable problems. New problems coming up daily! I agree, it’s upsetting when I hear my 11yo and his friends talking about all the problems this game has and saying it’s made by idiots and how they didn’t even know that something can be sold to consumers in such a broken state and remain broken all the time. I’ve tried to explain to them it’s not the people actually working on the game, it’s the people that they work for that decide what/when things get fixed and for reasons unknown, they just don’t want to fix the game. It is totally sad how great this game was and still could be and the way it’s letting so many loyal fans down. I agree. The way they dropped this pos on the community and ignore all the fans begging for them to fix things is a disgrace.

Last week’s changes got rid of a lot of bots activity but it is not enough. There should be ZERO bots active in the marketplace. Look at all the cards that are won on diamond quest in the marketplace. They all have bots. They have always all had bots.

Please give an update on what’s happening with anti bot measures. I think I’m getting the picture that it’s not a priority. Updates are good but action is better. I know that there is more that can be done and for whatever reasons sds dialed it back. Seems like sds gave up again or is fine with the amount of bots active atm. It’s really a disgrace how unprotected players are in this games marketplace. Some of them spend real money to get stubs that get spent in an ecosystem corrupted by bots operated by thieves.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN said:

I've been told these restrictions were due to a setting in the backend that has now been adjusted.

@manu__sds_mlbts
Legitimate human players are already at a pretty severe disadvantage in the marketplace, and these account freezes are just kneecapping us further. If the intention is to fix this, can we get it done ASAP? With new collections coming this weekend, this is when marketplace activity is at its peak. Between the app being unusable for most of the weekend and these ongoing interruptions, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for legitimate human players to unload cards they’ve invested in all season specifically with this collection window in mind. Thanks

Anyone still listening here? The market feels BAD. Really bad. Really, really bad. Not even sure how it’s possible but managing to get worse everyday. Today’s new twist has been thousands of sell bids posted for Dustin pedroia or whoever 2/3rds of what his cost was yesterday. Kind of exactly like what happened with Otani all star card but this has been going on for 9+ hours. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about that though.
In terms of the APP the app is working well. The only problem is it’s connected to the marketplace for the show 2026 and it’s an unmonitored disaster filled with bots that are impossible to compete with. I think it’s a problem but it feels like it’s not being treated as a problem.

@PapaRick68_XBL all of the above is correct. Flipping is definetly an important part of the game and these bots have spread to every card with profitable margins and they monitor everything 24/7. Whenever their position is outbid, they instantly outbid and undercut. When humans are actively using the app they are able to delete bids and rebid and be aggressive - which can be fun when going against other humans. But we can only be locked into 1, maybe 2 cards at the same time. Bots are monitoring and acting 24/7. It’s totally unfair, to say the least. On top of that, the funds gained this way are sold off to people using 3rd party websites to buy stubs for a fraction of the retail price and those stubs get transferred to those accounts through market manipulation - corrupting the market even further. For reasons unknown, it’s allowed to continue. So here we are, making noise, acting like Karens, repeating the obvious, in hopes that sds will see this outrage and realize it’s in their best interest and ours to activate filters they have in place to block bots and restore integrity to marketplace and the game.

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.

The problem with any new content being added is that it’s being added to the same broken game. Ok, so the game works, most of the time. But it is super F’d. The fact that all these broken things remain while new things get added speaks volumes. Not to mention there’s a 50/50 chance anything added will just add to the list of broken problems that will never be fixed. Arguing over programs needing online play or not just seems so besides the point when the core game needs so much fixing.

@NOWLTZKI_MLBTS How about giving all the people who have been out for the last 12 hours 100k free stubs!

made me lol FR

The market is usable right now. Lots of cards that have been controlled by bots are winnable at the moment. You can see the effect that bots have had on them. Night and day. Prices have been more or less locked on what the bots parameters are. IF and when the market is functioning this way, imo there is no need to feel like you need to buy and sell things in bulk. Real talk though, the thought to grab what you can while bots are disabled/slow is there.

The reality has been, the market is basically controlled by bots. If you want to flip cards, you’re going to be competing with bots. But if you try to compete with the bots, you will get restricted on the app. Lose/lose situation.

Lots of players, including myself have been caught up in account restrictions, which sucks. But if the bots can be sidelined more often like they are right now, I’d think players wouldn’t interact with the market in ways that resemble bots…

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS theres been some sort of restriction put on users making a lot of market transactions on the app. The message literally says “account is restricted”. Please fix this asap. If there are going to be limits to buy/sell orders volume wise or time wise you guys should make that clear so users playing by the rules don’t get punished. Without any kind of notice, the most active marketplace users are getting shadow banned on the app and that sucks. If you guys could act quickly on this it would be appreciated. At this point, many of your most engaged players are banned from using the app. Plz fix.

I’ll 2nd the credit where credit is due. Keep it up!

There’s definitely some bots back. They don’t react as quickly and are clearly slowed down to avoid restriction pauses. Same behavior with outbidding/undercutting then deleting their bids if you delete yours. I have only noticed them on a few items today. I have not noticed any items that had 100s of buy/sells a minute since Saturday. Clearly a result of limiting bids over time - bravo. Even the greediest of flippers should be able to still accomplish their goals with the limits now in place - as long as there is no competing with bots. This weekend definetly showed there is enough of everything on the marketplace to go around when the bots aren’t sucking everything up. The restriction timeout was a big blow to the bots but you gotta tighten the noose and keep up the fight! Perhaps the next step would be some kind of throttle for the amount of bids for specific items over time. Whatever the next step is, I’m going to get back to playing the game and leave that stuff to you. You can do it!

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS not sure if it’s more annoying for you or me to keep tagging you on posts asking for my account to be reviewed and unbanned from the app marketplace. My support ticket has gone unanswered 5 days.

First off, it’s F’d that pretty much every move you make in the marketplace triggers a bot to outbid you and that absolutely nothing is being done about it. Since you can’t do much without bots right now, those strange bids can be a number of things, but mainly people trying to see what kind of settings the bot has. Will it chase the buy price? Sell price? Since you are not able to place a bid and leave it, as intended, you have to get creative. If I’m trying to sell stuff but a bot keeps undercutting me - Maybe that bot or even some other bot is trying to buy everything. So I’ll check if it will outbid me if I make a stupid a price increase. And if it does, will it do it again if I make another stupid increase? What if I can erase the margin and have the bot outbid me all the way upto the current high bid - then I’ll sell now to the bot. Then I’ll do it again.
My point is tho, people are going to do what they can to try and get around the bots but they are ruining everything. So you can’t really blame other players. You can blame the people using the bots and sds for not doing anything about it. They were successfully blocking most bot traffic for a couple days but then they stopped all efforts. Probably some manager executive pos saw enough complaints on social media about the bots he directed someone to get rid of them and then probably got a call from some bigger pos exec manager type above him looking at their real margins about how some of those bots are theirs to control and regulate things and they can’t be blocked so they just went back to ignoring the players asking for help with the bots.

The restrictions at least level the playing field. It’s been great to see an offensive against the bots. I think restrictions must be kept in place until another method is found to prevent them. The aggressive campaign against them has been effective and should continue.

Please observe that bots are still active. Already had enough after trying a few times to place a bid to buy Ted Simmons and being instantly outbid.