2022 in review. positive and negatives
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well forever program dropped today, and since I got little else going on atm might as well make a post. this year has been another weird situation of the game being so good and so so bad at moments, like most games but still for a game/series thats been around for so long i feel some of the things that happen just are laughable. so feel free to read, comment, input or just browse on here are my thoughts on the good and the bad of this year
positives:
mini seasons: listen of course its making the bad as well, but on paper, this idea is wonderful. packs that are achievable in a variety of ways, felt less monotonous than conquest, easy to alter teams and playing a somewhat variable computer. great for grinding, offline play. was so much fun esp at launchmarket/content: of course overall the content has been consistent, am I saying its the best no, but getting players was so easy this year. I know the market was weird and I dont buy or sell like stocks, but I felt really with some grinding and some luck I could attain so many very good cards either for free or 100K or less.
throwback packs in events: aweome, tho ideally proabably will be moved to more wins but I love the ease of saying f this event and coming back next event. talking to you verlander
negatives: lol theres so many but for me big few ones:
mini seasons: essentially the quickets way to have a server crash or poor connection is to restart a mini season. oh and when you do enjoy your record being off. also computer pitchers dont get tired and pitch every game is brutal. also the longoria thing. finally offer some better rewards, this willy adames shouldve been 3 months ago
coop: anyone actually play this? offer rewards just like BR like total innings played etc. just make it fun like uniforms or equipment or packs
fielding: groundballs are a nightmare. its bad your first reaction is R2 or RT
misc: announcers are bad, bring back derosa ( who still cant hit a slider) or just make the commentary a smidge better.
events: make them more of an event please, HOF difficutly, actually only switch hitters, baby boomers vs under 23 squads, AL vs NL, certain eras or fields etc. get creative
soundtrack still meh.
finally introduce some new freaking packs. the shop is a joke. add some 80's or starting pitcher packs or something. 99% of the game is standard packs. loved the chase pack but why settle for literally one thing. add so much more there
also exchanges: like why does this exist? let alone ok let me swap my 19210103 commons then have to open the bronze pack then swap more -
Worst thing is the good swings being terrible. Just had an event game on 3 balls engulfed by the pci and they’re just flyouts. Glad it’s my last year playing this.
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I think mini seasons should be done with real teams with upgraded players on them, instead of players teams. Give us a Yankees team with the highest Yankees players in game at the time.
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First off, I'm grateful for this game.
I think the positives outweigh the negatives when all is said and done.
Mini-Seasons was a HR. It can be improved and I think will be. -
Co-op had so much potential, and I do think it could be a great mode with grindable rewards. I think I successfully played 3 Co-Op games with a friend this year. 3, lol.
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@BJDUBBYAH_PSN said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Co-op had so much potential, and I do think it could be a great mode with grindable rewards. I think I successfully played 3 Co-Op games with a friend this year. 3, lol.
I forgot about Co-op. I loved it early on even though I got owned by Awards David Price and Ohtani's Splitter. I play offline, so it was a delve into RS for me, which I didn't mind. I pitched pretty well at least.
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Directional hitting more OP than zone hitting. Perfect pitches missing down the middle.
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My biggest complaint with this years game is the superhuman fielders. SDS really needs to tone that back. From diving plays to running down everything hit. It's ridiculous. They've made this game so that it's either a HR or an out on most of the at bats.
I want to see non-power hitters be worthwhile again. We need more singles, doubles and triples. Yes, this means that the hitting engine needs to be better also.
Overall I was happy with this years game. The content was good.
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@TheGoaler_PSN said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
First off, I'm grateful for this game.
I think the positives outweigh the negatives when all is said and done.
Mini-Seasons was a HR. It can be improved and I think will be.amen to that mate
i played very little this year but enjoyed it the most - i think because of not overly doing collections / grinding etc. - less is more but maybe that is my age talking
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@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Directional hitting more OP than zone hitting. Perfect pitches missing down the middle.
I'm calling BS on this. If you use pinpoint and input is perfect, it will go somewhere within the par, not necessarily exactly where you aim it, i.e., the middle of the par. People need to understand this and modify their pitching to account for the sizes of different pars for different pitches with different pitchers. Compare the slider pars for 99 Maddux and 99 Chapman. Or any par between those two pitchers.
The par is an excellent game mechanic and you need to account for it when you pitch.
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I loved Mini Seasons as well as a way to grind offline PXP and accumulate mission points once I have a Conquest map done and dont feel like chewing through USA yet again. My gripe about it is the same players on multiple teams. It is fine to create a league with "haves" and "have nots" teams as that makes it more interesting. But there are so many high level cards in this game we do not need Milestone 700 HR Pujols on like three different teams. Seems weird. Make every player only be on one team. (Except mine, of course, though that would be a crazy dynamic).
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If Mini Seasons had a BR-style draft based on your binder, I'd love it. The cpu teams would be likewise constructed. It'd be like franchise-lite and people like me who loathe SDS for abandoning franchise mode would flock to it. It would give you more incentive to fill your binder and more opportunities to use players who don't make your god squad.
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@SuntLacrimae50_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Directional hitting more OP than zone hitting. Perfect pitches missing down the middle.
I'm calling BS on this. If you use pinpoint and input is perfect, it will go somewhere within the par, not necessarily exactly where you aim it, i.e., the middle of the par. People need to understand this and modify their pitching to account for the sizes of different pars for different pitches with different pitchers. Compare the slider pars for 99 Maddux and 99 Chapman. Or any par between those two pitchers.
The par is an excellent game mechanic and you need to account for it when you pitch.
Call BS all you like, it’s happened many times to me, go watch the content creators same thing. I realize there is an area a ball can go even on a perfect perfect. But down the middle or complete opposite side of the zone should not happen on a perfect perfect that I have aimed down and in
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Off the pci homeruns and good input not being rewarded enough drove me off the game, that should be their priority for future games. Make skill matter.
I’m so thankful for NBA 2K, when I lose it’s because of my own mistakes or because the opponent was better (I don’t play my team).
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@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@SuntLacrimae50_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Directional hitting more OP than zone hitting. Perfect pitches missing down the middle.
I'm calling BS on this. If you use pinpoint and input is perfect, it will go somewhere within the par, not necessarily exactly where you aim it, i.e., the middle of the par. People need to understand this and modify their pitching to account for the sizes of different pars for different pitches with different pitchers. Compare the slider pars for 99 Maddux and 99 Chapman. Or any par between those two pitchers.
The par is an excellent game mechanic and you need to account for it when you pitch.
Call BS all you like, it’s happened many times to me, go watch the content creators same thing. I realize there is an area a ball can go even on a perfect perfect. But down the middle or complete opposite side of the zone should not happen on a perfect perfect that I have aimed down and in
I will. BS.
And no disrespect meant. Forums are filled with emotional impressions of things going awry rather than facts. Provide a vid if you can. If your pitch was perfect, it's within the par.
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@SuntLacrimae50_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@SuntLacrimae50_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
@LIONED-33_XBL said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Directional hitting more OP than zone hitting. Perfect pitches missing down the middle.
I'm calling BS on this. If you use pinpoint and input is perfect, it will go somewhere within the par, not necessarily exactly where you aim it, i.e., the middle of the par. People need to understand this and modify their pitching to account for the sizes of different pars for different pitches with different pitchers. Compare the slider pars for 99 Maddux and 99 Chapman. Or any par between those two pitchers.
The par is an excellent game mechanic and you need to account for it when you pitch.
Call BS all you like, it’s happened many times to me, go watch the content creators same thing. I realize there is an area a ball can go even on a perfect perfect. But down the middle or complete opposite side of the zone should not happen on a perfect perfect that I have aimed down and in
I will. BS.
And no disrespect meant. Forums are filled with emotional impressions of things gone awry rather than facts. Provide a vid if you can. If your pitch was perfect, it's within the par.
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I think SDS needs to set a game plan and stick with it -- regardless of community reactions. This year we ended up with the worst of both worlds. They started the releases off very slowly. We were still using low and mid-tier diamonds much later than usual, and the 99s took longer to get here. Fine, if they wanted to scale back the attributes, then stick with that plan.
But the Twitter warriors were (as usual) always up in arms about "unusable" cards, and it felt like SDS responded by swinging the pendulum waaaaaay too far the other way. Now everyone who ever had a decent season has two or three or even four attributes over 120 on their Retro Finest. I love Paul Konerko, but in what universe does he have a better card than Frank Thomas? Very, very, very few cards should touch 125 on Contact L/R or Power L/R unless they are clearly legendary players with legendary careers. Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Rod Carew -- fine give them 125 contact. Ruth, Griffey, Aaron, Mays -- yes, give them 125 power. But the attribute creep was absolutely out of control this year. Mike Moustakas, Barry Larkin, and Geovany Soto deserved 125 power? Eric Hosmer, Joe Carter, and Jason Kendall deserved 125 contact? Come on, now. That's just silly.
EDIT:
I'll add some positives (that can continue to be refined)
It gets easier and easier every year to get all the cards in the game. Rewind packs kept the market a little bit more under control.
When Mini Seasons finally got the bugs ironed out, it was a really great addition. I also think we should be playing real teams (or all-time theme teams) rather than the London Teahuggers or whatever, so hopefully they change that next year.
The repeatable Mystery Map was a very cool idea, but I got so sick of playing the same three teams. I see no reason why SDS can't code the map so new teams randomly populate every time you load it. If they can't figure that out, then just manually go in and change the teams once a week. That should be a super simple fix.
Ultimately, I do prefer the old method of having the programs divided up into innings with 3 bosses each round. That said, I still think it's worth commending SDS for trying to switch things up and keep the format from getting stale. I just don't think that was the place to reinvent the wheel.
I haven't really thought about it much, but I don't think my players make errors in the field almost ever. If that was a purposeful improvement, then good work on that. It seemed like every year Ramone (or someone) would tell us that diamond level fielders would never make errors on routine plays, but without fail my Brooks Robinson would let an easy one pass right through the legs in a critical spot. I don't remember that happening at all this year, so that's cool.
I'm probably in the minority, but I continue to really enjoy the Future Stars series. It has me excited to see a lot of these kids make their debuts in the next couple years. And I know the common complaint is "X prospect has better stats than Y HOFer," but looking back it seems like they had a reasonable plan. Only about a dozen FS cards have an OVR above 96, and even the 99s of highly touted prospects can't compete with the Retro Finest of mediocre has-beens. So I hope they continue to do the same thing next year (and the Sox finally have a couple guys on the Top 100 again, so I have something to look forward to!)
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@SchnauzerFace_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
I think SDS needs to set a game plan and stick with it -- regardless of community reactions. This year we ended up with the worst of both worlds. They started the releases off very slowly. We were still using low and mid-tier diamonds much later than usual, and the 99s took longer to get here. Fine, if they wanted to scale back the attributes, then stick with that plan.
But the Twitter warriors were (as usual) always up in arms about "unusable" cards, and it felt like SDS responded by swinging the pendulum waaaaaay too far the other way. Now everyone who ever had a decent season has two or three or even four attributes over 120 on their Retro Finest. I love Paul Konerko, but in what universe does he have a better card than Frank Thomas? Very, very, very few cards should touch 125 on Contact L/R or Power L/R unless they are clearly legendary players with legendary careers. Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Rod Carew -- fine give them 125 contact. Ruth, Griffey, Aaron, Mays -- yes, give them 125 power. But the attribute creep was absolutely out of control this year. Mike Moustakas, Barry Larkin, and Geovany Soto deserved 125 power? Eric Hosmer, Joe Carter, and Jason Kendall deserved 125 contact? Come on, now. That's just silly.
i hear you mate - also the concept of 125 is just "arcade" - give everyone up to 100 max, and make 99% of everyone never hit 100 in certain areas - lower everything to make it less juiced i say
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@iBonafideScrub_ said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
Off the pci homeruns and good input not being rewarded enough drove me off the game, that should be their priority for future games. Make skill matter.
I’m so thankful for NBA 2K, when I lose it’s because of my own mistakes or because the opponent was better (I don’t play my team).
This 100%.
My hat is off to those of you who can still enjoy this game.
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@SixPackStl_MLBTS said in 2022 in review. positive and negatives:
My biggest complaint with this years game is the superhuman fielders. SDS really needs to tone that back. From diving plays to running down everything hit. It's ridiculous. They've made this game so that it's either a HR or an out on most of the at bats.
I want to see non-power hitters be worthwhile again. We need more singles, doubles and triples. Yes, this means that the hitting engine needs to be better also.
Overall I was happy with this years game. The content was good.
Yeah when you can't distinguish Kevin Kiermaier from Nelson Cruz that is a serious balance issue and the worst I have ever seen it