MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content
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100% agree. 21 was the peak and it has declined ever since with the last couple years being especially egregious. It’s trending in the wrong direction really fast and it’s sad as a dedicated player since 2020 to see something I really enjoyed in its current state. I know a lot of players agree with my take and a few others will defend SDS no matter what.
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Jeez is there anything people won't complain about? It's every little thing these days
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@sbchamps17_NSW said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
Jeez is there anything people won't complain about? It's every little thing these days
Excellent, thoughtful response!
I'll add one complaint, if you don't mind: inane complaints about so-called "complaints" that actually take time to outline some issues.
Jeez, people these days.
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Excellent OP. I agree entirely. SDS has lost focus on the game of baseball and instead went way too far down to commercial advertising tie-in's.
As a result, it isn't just the items about basic gameplay that has gone without correction, but also the customer customization options. Instead, SDS coders focused on adding new fielding mechanics, which are nice, but as you wrote, if the first baseman fails to field his bag properly, it doesn't matter much if the shortstop features a new diving stop model to catch the ball!
There is the perception that because DD gets the bulk of the post traffic here that it's the big daddy. However, what DD reflects is that the online gamers, while not the majority of the gamers, do form the majority of the screams and whispers!
In short, as a community, they are never happy, and so they never stop posting complaints, anger, hostility, and often in a manner of wording that lacks all perspective. However, the people who play RTTS (and Franchise) tend not to complain all the time, and when they do they tend to comments from a foundation of facts, not extreme emotion.
SDS did a really nice job ditching the previous avatar attribute model and going to one that is far more realistic. SDS also did tweak minor improvements to how the grass is rendered, and added new fielder modeling. All that is nice, but the game of baseball is the draw, or at least it should be. For some though, it is merely a platform to "grind for rewards," and I've often seen people complain of burnout because they never really had the inherent love of baseball, hitting the ball, fielding the ball, making the plays, running the bases.
For me, the single most rewarding part of the game is stealing a base, because it's a pure challenge, and at my age, I'm sure as heck not able to get on a real diamond and start trying to steal second! The catcher could eat a sandwich and still throw me out! LOL!!
So, I settle for the virtual replication and find it fun. It reminds me of being on the field but never being good enough to advance past high school, certainly not playing major Div-1 college ball where I went to school.
To conclude, SDS in my view is missing the forest for the trees. Baseball is a game of simplicity with the nuance of complexity, making it a beautiful game to play and watch. Getting the basic gameplay concepts correct is the top priority, and allowing customers to customize their individual game modes versus the CPU should be the second priority. All the other stuff should come after those two.
Linked to Joe at SDS to ensure he sees this.
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@Loyal-Wiglaf_XBL said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
@sbchamps17_NSW said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
Jeez is there anything people won't complain about? It's every little thing these days
Excellent, thoughtful response!
I'll add one complaint, if you don't mind: inane complaints about so-called "complaints" that actually take time to outline some issues.
Jeez, people these days.
Just block the account for folks who write cheap insults like that one. That way, what they write just disappears as if they are not there, making the community forums a better place to be!
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Love this feedback and I'm adding it to my list. Keep it coming.
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@c_lawson3_MLBTS To be fair: Last year there was an outrage about content … Now they do content …
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@YOSHI24_XBL said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
@c_lawson3_MLBTS To be fair: Last year there was an outrage about content … Now they do content …
Fair! I think a mode like DD is doomed to frustration after a certain number of years. There will always be a small core of diehards, though.
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@SDS_JoeK_PSN said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
Love this feedback and I'm adding it to my list. Keep it coming.
I don't mean to condescend, but what else have you been reading. Most complaints have been about lousy gameplay. Hitting is awful, the new fielding is worse than before, and now we can't even steal bases to make up for bad hitting mechanics. This can't be new to you.
You fixed content, thank you for that, but did you have to screw up gameplay to do it.
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@broken_toy1_PSN said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
You fixed content, thank you for that, but did you have to screw up gameplay to do it.
I couldn't disagree more with this.
By far the biggest problem with SDS is the need to take something away for every thing they add. Because DQ exists, which was specifically for people who dont like conquest/miniseasons, doesnt mean they had to make the other modes less rewarding.
I actually loved the first content drop, but once I started earning the Jolt cards and finished the mini seasons things soured. Redoing a mini season for the championship awards only when we are used to so much more is a major buzzkill. Now we dont even get the new TA miniseason/refresh with each inning/season drop because the TA works differently.
And spotlight program just sucks. 3 card program when you are leaving so many Topps Now cards out of the game and a ratio of pack cards to program cards far worse than 1:1.
And bring back weekly wonders
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@Teak2112_MLBTS said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
@broken_toy1_PSN said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
You fixed content, thank you for that, but did you have to screw up gameplay to do it.
I couldn't disagree more with this.
By far the biggest problem with SDS is the need to take something away for every thing they add. Because DQ exists, which was specifically for people who dont like conquest/miniseasons, doesnt mean they had to make the other modes less rewarding.
I actually loved the first content drop, but once I started earning the Jolt cards and finished the mini seasons things soured. Redoing a mini season for the championship awards only when we are used to so much more is a major buzzkill. Now we dont even get the new TA miniseason/refresh with each inning/season drop because the TA works differently.
And spotlight program just sucks. 3 card program when you are leaving so many Topps Now cards out of the game and a ratio of pack cards to program cards far worse than 1:1.
And bring back weekly wonders
I've been holding up on judging TA. We don't know what TA2 will be yet. It should come soon and we will probably get a total of 3 updates to it. I agree spotlight has been iffy, but when it was just topps now all of the cards wouldn't make most lineups. Even the monthly rewards only had one or two useful cards at the end of the month. At least we get one free, useful card a week from the program.
I was more thinking on how the power creep makes team building more interesting. Changing players on a regular basis is one of my favorite parts of the game. I have learned more about Honus Wagner because of this game. Those things make baseball history come alive. Same to be said about NBL. The power creep introduces us to these players,
All that being said, it's the poor gameplay that is holding back all the things I've loved about this game. Frustration from several innings of nothing but lazy fly balls is boring. Winning a game even when I don't get a single hit over four of five innings, Missing easy ground balls because of new mechanics added and not asked for. Running being nerfed, I'm assuming, because we turn to smallball when we finally get a baserunner.
For me, content works and I'm grateful. But what good is content when the game itself is almost unplayable.
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@c_lawson3_MLBTS said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
Year after year since MLB The Show 21, it’s become increasingly clear that the series has taken a step backward — not forward — in core gameplay. While content drops, card art, and modes like Diamond Dynasty continue to expand, the fundamentals of baseball — hitting, fielding, and reliable game mechanics — have taken a back seat.
Gameplay inconsistencies are impossible to ignore. Hitting outputs, especially on higher difficulties like Goat, often make no sense. Perfect swings result in weak contact, while poorly timed hits become homers. Fielding? I have multiple clips where the first baseman simply doesn't cover the bag on a routine ground ball to short. These aren't edge cases — they're basic gameplay failures.
There’s no shortage of feedback. Reddit threads, forums, and top streamers have repeatedly pointed out these issues, offering specific examples and detailed breakdowns. Yet SDS seems unresponsive — or worse, unaware.
So what’s going on? Either:
- SDS isn’t analyzing community feedback,
- They don’t have the resources to fix core gameplay,
- Or they’ve already shifted focus to MLB The Show 26.
Whatever the case, the current product suffers for it. Gameplay should be the foundation — not a secondary concern behind monetization and cosmetic content. SDS, the community that’s supported your game for years deserves better. It’s time to revisit the previous engine, tighten up core mechanics, and bring the series back to its roots.
Fix the fundamentals. Then build on top of that.
They can't even patch the game without introducing multiple new bugs, soft locks, and game crashes. I think it's time for Sony to fully step in and see what is taking place in San Diego before the game becomes a colossal mess like EA Madden NFL, which is unfixable and fundamentally broken across the board.
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@Jacob151167_XBL said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
They can't even patch the game without introducing multiple new bugs, soft locks, and game crashes. I think it's time for Sony to fully step in and see what is taking place in San Diego before the game becomes a colossal mess like EA Madden NFL, which is unfixable and fundamentally broken across the board.
Its extremely likely that Sony is to blame in the first place. Madden is also the wrong example to use as its a shining example of profits above all else.
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@broken_toy1_PSN -- I never said any of the feedback was "new" to me, only that I appreciate it, find it valuable, and will share it will the team.
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@Teak2112_MLBTS i think what hes saying is that is what they are turning into. Theyre already halfway there with the profits above all else, and now the gameplay is getting worse and so are the bugs. IE: they are following down maddens (and 2ks, all sports games really, the show was the last holdout) path.
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Money always talks. Agree with your take that monetization is now the driving force and that’s clear as day.
People like to excuse the current direction of MLBTS as better than Madden or 2K but that’s not a fair comparison. The real comparison is to compare the Show to what it was just 4 or 5 years ago.
If you were there then you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you weren’t then you truly missed out. Those times are long gone and they aren’t coming back.
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@SDS_JoeK_PSN said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
@broken_toy1_PSN -- I never said any of the feedback was "new" to me, only that I appreciate it, find it valuable, and will share it will the team.
That's fair. I think it was the "keep it coming" part that seemed to annoy me. We haven't heard anything from SDS--at all--about the problems with all aspects of gameplay. I do appreciate your acknowledgement, it just feels like we should be getting more updates and it should have been sooner than over two months into a 9 month game.
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@Teak2112_MLBTS said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
@Jacob151167_XBL said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
They can't even patch the game without introducing multiple new bugs, soft locks, and game crashes. I think it's time for Sony to fully step in and see what is taking place in San Diego before the game becomes a colossal mess like EA Madden NFL, which is unfixable and fundamentally broken across the board.
Its extremely likely that Sony is to blame in the first place. Madden is also the wrong example to use as its a shining example of profits above all else.
True, but at leat they overhauled franchise a few years ago. If SDS would do that, I might come back. Played 3 conquest games yesterday and couldn't wait to turn the game off. DD is very stale, and franchise is the same old mess (with some new messiness added).
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@dbub_PSN said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:
Great, well thought out post.
However, selfishly as an offline grinder, I'm the opposite. I care more about content than gameplay.
But again, nice post and it already caught the attention of SDS.
Both are important, but 'content' means different people to different things
I think content is better than 2024, but easily worse than 2023. But I separate the removal of sets/seasons from content and look at the reduced number of earnable cards (especially the horrendous spotlight programs) as well as the reduced mini seasons and rewards for repeating them.
I will call out the Egg Hunt program and the Donaldson collection as high points of inning 2 though. Donaldson was a bit of work to earn, but doable without stubs after the storyline drop.
And while its nice to have good cards in MS, if choosing between this and the repeatable rewards and at least a refresh with each season, if not a brand new ms, I would take the prior model in a heartbeat. I just ask why we cant have both? Would it break the game to bring the classic repeatables back to what they used to be? Would a return of the Jazz map really hurt stub sales, especially since DQ would still be more efficient anyway?
Logging on to a new inning and seeing only city connect for new offline content is just awful, and reusing the existing content sucks when you know what was taken away.
