The auction block the past week has been awful...I'm thinking EA is up to something

So I have gotten really good/really fast at sniping cards.  Instead of going for an entire section, I filter by (1) position, and constantly refresh so I'm usually always the first to see a card when it appears

This allows me to in the past to win about 3/4 of my snipe attempts

However, the past week, I'm lucky if i get one out of out every 20.  

Most times, I cant keep click on the card, it said the auction has already ended

No human user is that fast. I could understand losing some auctions after i click on the card and dont select buy now fast enough, or fuddle with the controller for a split second

But in recent, I'm not even getting a chance to even click on the card., even when I do the fastest scroll to click card as humanly possible

So my """theory""" is EA is putting cleaner bots on the auction house to instantly buy cards below certain price thresholds before any user can get a chance to snipe them

They started this last week after the Blitz program did not bring in as much money as they thought it would

They dont like that people can make good teams by sniping cards, they want you instead to buy pack and spend money

I’ve had that suspicion for years, but I don’t know. I get what you’re saying because it sounds like you and I do it the same way. I can see a card the second it goes up and it’s gone by the time the card options load. 
 

Maybe it’s latency on the server side or something weird. Maybe someone is always 2 seconds ahead of me. I have had some big wins on some crazy low listings this year, so I can’t say they do it all they time. 
 

I don’t know… but I do know what you mean lol

rackowfitness said:

I’ve had that suspicion for years, but I don’t know. I get what you’re saying because it sounds like you and I do it the same way. I can see a card the second it goes up and it’s gone by the time the card options load. 
 

Maybe it’s latency on the server side or something weird. Maybe someone is always 2 seconds ahead of me. I have had some big wins on some crazy low listings this year, so I can’t say they do it all they time. 
 

I don’t know… but I do know what you mean lol

I could understand clicking on a card, then having it say someone else has bought the card

But recently, I dont even get a chance to click on the card, its instantly gone, like every time a decent snipe appears

And I refresh constantly, so I doubt a human using a controller would be able to buy a card that quick, it takes at least 1-2 seconds to click on card, then select buy now

Also, I just noticed it a week ago, never had issues before with so many cards disappearing before I could even click on them

Is it hard to believe other's are working the AH for the same reason and its not Bots? lol  Just because you getting beat doesn't make it a bot.

DevaStayshuss said:

Is it hard to believe other's are working the AH for the same reason and its not Bots? lol  Just because you getting beat doesn't make it a bot.

This.  OP‘s auction house filtering to get below 100 cards to be first to see them is the same approach the most of us use.  We all see them first.

chefbulldog said:

This.  OP‘s auction house filtering to get below 100 cards to be first to see them is the same approach the most of us use.  We all see them first.

Yeah, I think you underestimate the time people are doing the exact same thing. 

You've maxed out XP and or it's a bad time to play H2H. Maybe you have a few spare minutes. You're sniping, right? 

So are a lot of people.

i'm not saying no bots exist on the auction house, it very well could be, but I think you are demonizing it so you can make it like they are against you getting cheap cards, it would actually help keep the value of all your cards up, I don't really see that as a negative for them to adjust cards and keep them in a certain price bracket.

you may be kinda new to MUT or something but everyone does that method and there are people who do nothing but sit on the auction house and companion app all day doing exactly what you just said, alot of people stream it and you can see it live, it's literally hundreds of people at any given time doing that daily.

and your exact message you just typed, i've seen people type up for years on forums in mut, they have said it the exact same way you just said it, every year that MUT existed and it had an auction house snipe situation.

Bots and com app

I mean, there must be a lot of people at the Auction House at any time to sustain prices above 200,000 coins for BJ Ojulari or 170,000 coins for Ja’Marr Chase, right?

Your experience is adequately explained by demand and probability.

I’m not saying it’s not possible, more likely more people are getting tapped out if they are money spent players the game is releasing lots of content and it is expensive to keep up. That would create a large influx of people sniping now that weren’t combined with the companion app which in my experience shaves seconds off the process. More people sniping combined with companion app vs console creates the perfect storm for more common sniping losses. The increased demand supply remains the same everything is too damn high. If there are bots it wouldnt surprise me but the cost of keeping up with all the new content particularly since blitz makes a perfect storm of suck if sniping and consistent wins are your goal.

I think it’s funny you assume it has to be bots and some huge ea conspiracy to hold cards from you.  I promise you the filter you use, thousands of us use the same at any given time.  And I promise you that some people are just faster at clicking on it sometimes then you are. There may be some bots but not like you’re saying there are

Law412 said:

I think it’s funny you assume it has to be bots and some huge ea conspiracy to hold cards from you.  I promise you the filter you use, thousands of us use the same at any given time.  And I promise you that some people are just faster at clicking on it sometimes then you are. There may be some bots but not like you’re saying there are

So why in the past week, can I not even click on cards...its not like im losing auctions by not being quick, cards are literally gone the instant they appear on the auction block

In the past, even with the most heavy traffic such as TOTW when they first come out, I can at least click on the card, but then I cant hit buy now fast enough so I lose the auction

Never have I not even been able to click on the card

Ive never seen this in my 3 years of playing madden

EA absolutely has their own bots. They started it around 3 years ago, I have indisputable video evidence. They've gotten better at hiding that it's their own bots, but I got them when they were first starting and PoC'ing their program.