Community Forum

@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

@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.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN @Manu__SDS @ manus favorite people at SDS
The marketplace is so active tonight! Lots of investment cards hitting record highs and bots aren’t even trying to blend in. Undercutting, deleting and re-listing, all the bot bs that’s been pointed out all year. Theres literally nothing I can say about it that I haven’t said 100x here already. I hope you do something about it soon. It’s so lame.

The most noticeable pull hitter I’ve come across is all star Ken Griffey card. The Ken Griffey in homerun derby has the same swing so you can test it out there.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS @ manus favorite people at SDS

It sounds like Manu had some next steps prepared for keeping bots out of the marketplace. It’s time to roll them out. I have bids sitting overnight for items that have one bid above them and the items sold many times overnight for 1 stub more then my bid. At the very least, in manu’s absence, can one of manu’s favorite people reply to this thread to let us know the market isn’t being left vulnerable and unmonitored like the first 6 months of this games release? The new verification efforts and decreased bot activity have had an overwhelmingly positive response from the player base across the internet. Please don’t go back to ignoring it. Better then a reply here would be to take action - that way everyone can see the recent bot corruption was a temporary hiccup and we can continue enjoying the game like the past 2 weeks. I didn’t start playing this game until the market had a 20x cap on items, so I don’t have an opinion on it but it doesn’t matter if you have 20x or 2000x any item if bots are active in the marketplace.

Attn: whoever is covering for Manu. Please tighten anti bot restrictions or whatever Manu mentioned above as phase III. Bots are back to holding highest/lowest positions on several marketplace items. Thanks

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS thanks for letting us know and enjoy your time off. Hopefully someone will be able to deploy “phase III” and continue monitoring this forum in your absence. I notice the verification token has gone back to being valid for 24 hours - besides that I don’t notice any other big changes. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing some bot activity on a few items and definite stub transfers on mostly diamond equipment cards - it’s only a few sales a minute but if you look at the item sale history there’s no doubt that is what’s happening. I’d ask that it be looked into and not to ban all accounts buying and selling during those windows because you have to keep in mind that anybody trying to flip in the market is looking for that kind of activity to get in on. Anyways, enjoy the time off and hello to anyone new watching this space. If I make another post it will probably be to urge the next phase be deployed.

Yep. I played 5 games last night without a homerun. I always play all star but tried one on veteran to see if I’d see a difference - but no. All year I’ve known the main thing keeping me back in this game is that I’m wired to swing at every pitch. I try to tell my self to expect balls and don’t swing by default unless the pitch changes my mind but it’s easier said then done. Even when I’m getting to 3-2 counts, that “good” pitch never comes. Whether I’m hitting the first pitch or 3-2 pitch I’m making lousy contact because I’m hitting a terrible pitch. Usually way outside the zone. I’ve seen people saying lately that cpu pitching is somehow tied to where you anchor your pci as the batter but I’m not sure I’m seeing that. I do anchor my pci to wherever the pitch release for the pitcher would be. I’m not sure how that would explain how I’m not getting thrown many hittable pitches. At least it shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Like many things in this game; I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but I play it enough to be able to point out when something is off. As for the events or online - I’m awful at it. I get thrown garbage the whole game and it’s not fun for me. It legit feels like every game I ever played online is moonshot event against me.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS yesterday (from my pov) was the most active day I’ve seen in the marketplace since I’ve started playing this game. The market had integrity all week, add a stub sale, a flash sale, new legend and collection needs provided a huge demand and all the ups and downs felt very organic. It was awesome. Last night I did start to notice light bot activity on cards earned via diamond quest. (Fred mcgriff vintage, Ozzie smith mural, Dave Parker cityscape, Bobby grich all star, etc). I just started to look through the market today and instantly see stub transferring on tatis23 El Niño diamond bat. I put a some buy and sell bids to see if it was moving quickly and my bids weee instantly filled and buying/selling resumed. It seems like the main sources of bots have been blocked in recent days so maybe looking into those transaction might reveal a new source of bots activity. Anyways, yesterday was one of the best days playing mlb the show in a long time for me. New content, no bots, lots of options for play. Even though I couldn’t hit a homerun in 5 games, I still had fun. Thanks.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS I think think the tweaks/tightening you did Sunday were very helpful and eliminated a tremendous amount of unwanted traffic. 4 days later and I have not come across any obvious signs of bots dominating the marketplace. No super speed, instant undercuts, rapidfire buy low sell high, etc. check Eddie Murray all star card activity last 24 hours - the stub transfers may have been done by a person instead of rapid fire bot - either way it was ill intended market activity. But just because someone sold a card or 2 at 100k+ doesn’t mean they were involved. Anyone can see the history and if it sold for 100k then people will think it can sell at 100k at list theirs for 100k. Anyways,
I am noticing some new behaviors that are sticking out to me as suspicious. I definetly think there are some bots back in the marketplace and they are more focused on keeping buy/sell prices at certain levels and not buying up and selling all like before. Possibly in preparation for upcoming legend collection. I think the next 72 hours in the marketplace are going to be busy and I know a lot of people have been strategically investing for a long time with the new legend collection coming out tomorrow in mind. The thought of playing the marketplace the next 72 hours without bots and bad actors is legit exciting.
In short - I want to ask if one more round of “tightening” could be made before the legends collection. The moving of weeks of investments has already started and a possible flash sale today will fully kick off a market frenzy through the weekend. Also, fwiw, I redeemed a code for free packs last night on my phone in the show website and got a captcha with pictures I had to solve. When I’ve been getting captcha challenge (on same website I think) for market related verification, I just check the box and submit and don’t have any kind of challenge. Is the way recapcha is set up for redeeming coupon codes stricter then how it’s set up for market verification? If so, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind clicking on a bus or mountain while doing the market verification if it gave peace of mind that more bots might be blocked…

There’s def something going on towards the end of games against cpu where no matter what/where pitch is thrown the cpu is making contact. I hadn’t considered that it’s fowling on purpose to wear you down. I assumed some hidden clutch type attribute was being activated or something to shake things up in the last few outs. I usually notice it on batters that are 7th or 8th in the order and have no business being clutch heros. Whatever the case - something for sure is going on there. I still have t quite figured out what the difference is with all the settings. I play all Star, that seems “normal” but there’s times I’ll choose veteran to see if I notice a difference and I end up losing.
I’ve never tinkered with the sliders before. I thought they didn’t effect diamond dynasty… they’ve added in so many variables on this old code that tweaking one thing throws off 10 other things and the slightest change to something makes very noticeable differences for other things.
Most recent most likely unintended change that seems way off is line drives and hard hit ground balls losing speed quickly. Not bouncing and rolling to the fence or even close. I’m hitting 114 exit velocity hits that stop rolling before getting to where the out fielder is. Like the ball is slamming on the brakes or something. I figure they tried to change something to keep play similar to how it’s been so all the higher power/contact cards don’t constantly hit it out of the park but ended up making exit velocity kind of meaningless. It’s like 50mph wind slowing the ball down after it’s hit.

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS said:

Howdy and Happy Sunday!

I have now tighten up the rules and we should probably see a significant impact...

I have no complaints since whatever was tightened up Sunday. I won’t be shy to mention anything that sticks out to me as abnormal

Much better!

Is there anyone that pays close attention to the market that tried to invest over the weekend that can provide feedback about the market? Does buying and selling feel “fair”? Do you feel like you are on an even playing field versus other humans? Do you feel like you can succeed in the market if you tried? Do you think there are bots? Some bots? Lots of bots? Do you know there how? Are there predictable patterns? Do you feel safe or protected using stubs in the marketplace? Do you resent having to spend any amount of stubs on anything because there’s no trust or integrity in the marketplace? Is it possible it’s just me and thousands of bots left I’m using the market?

There’s bots active on everything with the potential for profit. Some are more aggressive than others. I’ve had bids sitting for a few days now that aren’t getting filled. There’s stub transferring going on with multiple cards and past event reward cards have been made impossible to get unless paying 30k more then they should be. Bots are instantly outbidding to buy all inventory on market and anything listed below the price they’ve set is instantly bought up and added to their overpriced inventory. It’s total market manipulation. See egg series Colson Montgomery, negro league biz markey, vintage gleybor torez, mural mike moustakous.
It does not feel like there are less bots since last weeks update. If anything, the bots have a stronger influence over the price that items are at and keeping sell prices artificially high. I don’t know what this last update entails but there was mention of it being a long and bumpy process. Now that everyone has seamlessly updated the app and the new sign in process, etc seems to be working without issue - maybe the squeezing the bots out of the marketplace phase can begin.

CLOSEST THiNG IS TO GO TO MY INVENTORY AND FILTER BY DUPLICATE THEN HOLD A CARD INSTEAD OF TAP TO PULL UP MENU TO SELL.

I’m not sure how closely the market is being monitored or if it is being monitored at all. The only difference I notice since doing a captcha verification twice is that many cards are being kept at price points that don’t reflect recent completed orders and pending bids. As I’ve said before, I’m not an economist but I’ve been playing around in this marketplace to know when something is off. For example Yordan alveeez postseason card buy bids are at 67k, 65k the. 57k. Every few minutes one sells at 67k and instead of going down the list of bids and naturally going down to the 57k range, a new buy bid is made at 67k again. Is someone watching 24/7 to make a new bid 12k above the highest bid? Over and over and over again? Maybe. Probably not tho. Many cats are being artificially kept at bids way above were they should be according to market demand. I hope you keep squeezing so there can be more signs of prices reflecting market demand instead of bot demand. I am hopeful this method can be effective but since being put into action yesterday I’m not seeing it. I wanted to make sure that some response is recorded because I haven’t seen feedback from any other players this afternoon. I’m rooting for you

@Manu__SDS_MLBTS last night was giving the same feel the market has when there has been an app update forcing people to update before using the app again. I didn’t notice any dramatic drops or rises in prices, which is something I’d expect to see if the bots currently manipulating prices were gone. I made lots of bids last night to see how they played over night and I’m not seeing any difference between now and a day ago or a week ago.
I’m def not a recapcha expert, but it seems to me the way v2 is being used atm, is not even evaluating an accounts usage in the mlb companion app? It’s going off the app to a webpage which needs to be clicked on, then a token good for 24 hours is granted? From there a bot can make countless interactions on the app. Requiring a human for 5 seconds every 24 hours will not prevent bots. I have been aware of these bots lots enough to know 1000% that whoever is operating them is much faster to respond to any changes or situations needing human attention then sds is. Days or weeks faster… maybe this is the first layer of a multi layered approach and it’s just getting started? I’ll keep my eyes open for any changes and will give my honest feedback. I don’t think whatever is happening atm is helping much.
I thought the last test using v3 did a tremendous job of getting rid of bots. Yes, humans were running into blocks but there wasn’t enough time to tinker with those parameters to try and find a balance were humans weren’t getting caught up and bots were still being blocked. I’m not sure why more time wasn’t spent testing that? I know some people reported timeout issues, including myself, but there wasn’t even enough time given for my timeout to be over to see if I could avoid it again. I didn’t notice people asking for v3 to be removed though. I suggested that using v3 without timeout restrictions might be enough but I don’t think that was even tried. The proof will be in the numbers you collect and I believe v3 was blocking bots. I could see it on my end using the marketplace and your numbers supported that as well. Right now, I don’t see anything telling me bots are gone… I hope you are allowed to continue working on this.

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?

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.