99 OVR complaints and undeserved/snubbed 99s
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I agree that, with how the game was organized, too many undeserving players got multiple 99s and some very deserving players were left off the 99 list. Personally, I feel it was the mistaken idea of "grind for 99." Starting and ending with 99 made 99 not such a big deal.
First off, I don't see SDS doing sets/seasons like this again. We all like using our favorite players, but the pooch was a little sore when we lost our ability to use our best cards after two or fewer months of building up our P5s that were better than the new ones given. The pooch started limping when it started to seem more like pay 99 instead of grind 99. The pooch, finally, had a [censored] brown star when "below Mendoza Schwarber" got his 80th 99 over card. By the end, if the card wasn't a 99 it was just collection filler and theme team bench players.
I feel that if the card progression started much lower then ended with 99, after the world series, player selection wouldn't have been such an issue. In previous years, top tier AS cards often can stay in the lineup for months. I think it was two years ago I used AS Jackie at second as a year end card. Imagine if Schwarber, not including LS got an 88 to start the year, then a 93 in July, 96 in Sept, 98 in Nov, then finally a 99 with Finest. Still more cards than a .197 hitter deserves, but it's more palatable than 11,492 99 OVRs.
It seems to me that MLBTS23 is predominantly about current players playing in 2023. With that, I believe current players are the center pieces with legends and flashbacks being fillers to give homage and depth to previous seasons and eras. I'm not saying to get rid of a lot of legend players, I actually mean the opposite, but to use them more sparingly and on multiple teams. Elly and Corbin Carrol, had fun years to watch and it made sense that they both had several cards. They should. But does Nolan Ryan really need 2 99 cards of him on the Astros when his most accomplished years was as an Angel, he retired as a Ranger, and was also part of the Miracle Mets. None of which gave him a 99 OVR. Just a 92 "Grizzled Veteran" Captain card on the Rangers. I use Ryan in this context because of him not being truly utilized on either the Angels or Rangers and loved watching him pitch and using him in The Show. I'm sure you have your own examples that bugged you.
As an Angels fan I'm going to focus on problems with poor releases because I know my team better than I know yours. Every team knows these issues. The elephant in the room on the Angels is the overuse of the same players. Trout is a future first ballot Hall of Famer. Best franchise player in team history. But did we really need a 23 Finest player that didn't play a whole lot in 23, when players like Mickey Moniak have a breakout year and can't do better than his LS card. Nolan Schanuel plays a month and gets two diamonds, but a former number one overall draft pick can't get a gimmee card. Once again, I love Trout, but do we need a 99 Finest card two weeks after getting the single best Trout card ever released in The Show? Add that the Finest card is only his third best card in this years game. That Finest card should have gone to Moniak, but if not him then it could've gone to Joyce, Griffen, O'Hoppe, or Neto. Heck, Moose would have been more preferable to me than Trout. From June through the end of the year you could hear the crowd yelling MOOOOOOSE at all the home games.
Same goes with Ohtani. The only silver lining I see that Shohei is now a Dodger, is that there will not be twelve iterations of his cards next year. I think we'll still see two or three, but nowhere near as many.
I think we see some of these problems with most sports games. As every year is a different version of the same game, 24 will take the advantage of the successes of this year and, hopefully, deter them away from 23s faults. SDS puts out a good product. I hope in the future they will do some more planning with future editions. To me, it seemed like the major takeaway was poor planning. Then, when what was planned didn't work, they went straight for pandering rather than a cognizant secondary plan.
Still, tons better than EA! At least SDS listens. Man, I'm even more long winded than normal.
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@broken_toy1 said in 99 OVR complaints and undeserved/snubbed 99s:
Man, I'm even more long winded than normal.
Perhaps but an excellent post all the same. I enjoyed it and certainly can relate. Who knows how they’ll correct it next season but I sure hope they do. I’ve been having some fun with this latest batch of finest players including some from the FK collection. That Finley Card is dynamite
Great post Toy
