The Show is Still Bad, BUT... / Realizations / Strike Zone
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After a few days of the game playing a little more consistently and feeling more fun in general, I just got done with one of those absolutely egregious games that needs to be talked about. I could talk about the excessive home runs, him using lower end diamonds + some golds and making my 96 pitcher look like a common free agent, the inconsistency with check swings benefitting him on offense and defense and doing the opposite for me etc.... but let's just chalk this one up to him being far better. And no doubt a user of Strikezone. My opinions on this are well known at this point, so I don't need to revisit previous thoughts, but rather add on to the growing argument that it needs to be addressed.
I could talk about the matchmaking, but I don't think I need to go too deep into that. He was averaging .320 something for batting and averaged a HR every 10 at bats. Lopsided matchups like that are only fun for 1 person and angers the other. I still maintain, he wouldn't have had that level of success if he was using the default catcher view. He might not regress a lot, but I don't think he'd continue his .320 BA and 10 HR/AB clip.
Then yesterday, I realized something. I was at a friend's house having a drink and we decided to play The Show. I logged into my account on his PS5 and we were hoping to play Co-Op Diamond Dynasty online. Long story short, we never got to play anything because the couch co-op for this game seems to be non-existent or at the very least too complicated (another issue for another day). We both did Google searches, played around with different solutions and nothing. Our final attempt, we decided we were just going to play exhibition with the real teams. When I logged into The Show, I was asked if I was a beginner, simulation gamer or competitive. On my PS5, I went with simulation. On his PS5, I chose competitive, not thinking anything of it. We get into the exhibition game and my batting view was set to Strikezone without me making that adjustment, and my friend had pinpoint as his pitching method. Neither of us play this way, and it appeared the game was not going to let either of us adjust... so we just said 'F' it and turned off the PS5.
My realization: Choosing "simulation" at the very beginning made my default settings "catcher view" and "meter pitching" when I selected "competitive" the defaults became "strikezone" and "pinpoint." I don't know what Casual is set to, but I can imagine it's "directional" and probably still the meter. Now, it can be concluded that competitive and ranked matches go hand in hand. Maybe the intention for simulation was to stick to franchise and other offline modes. Either way, I enjoy putting my skills to the test against people online with a lineup of players I like. I get the game wants to give people options on how to play it. I still maintain that casual players should play with casual players, simulation with simulation and competitive with competitive. I also believe the competitive category is set up as it is because SDS is telling us without telling us that these are the optimal settings, if you want to be able to compete with the best players. Master pinpoint and you'll have much more control over your pitches (instead of the random hangers that cost you a game when using meter) Master Strikezone and you can see pitches much better, whether it's balls and strikes or getting the bat on the ball. I don't believe I'm on equal footing with players using these settings. It's always obvious to me when I'm playing someone using Strikezone (and to a lesser degree, pinpoint)
This leads me to two things:
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Just like turning off cross-play is an option, Players need the option to play people who are using the same settings. That's the only real way to know that the competitive balance is intact.
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Much of the problems with this game are things I believe are under SDS's control. What I dislike most about this game is the inconsistency. That's because I've seen it be fun. I've had games that were and absolute blast... but inevitably I have a stretch of games that are the polar opposite. I feel like I'm being nerfed and my opponent's buffed. The ways in which I'm losing don't make a lot of sense. "Dotted" pitches being taken yard with early swing timing and below average contact, my poor contact is more successful than my good contact etc. Then I get those lopsided matchups against someone I know I can't compete with. My option is to either stick it out for 9 innings, if I'm not mercied before then or quit. Quitting is obviously punished. Less XP to advance in the game and your pitchers don't really recover their stamina. I'll be rewarded by the game if I stay and get thrashed and angry. And of course the difference in settings which I believe creates inconsistent outcomes. For example, how does the game decide when someone using "timing" based swinging gets a hit, home run, pop fly, whiff etc? Just time it up on a pitch that's somewhat in the zone and you can get a home run? To be fair, I haven't seen timed swinging be a huge problem for me, though I did get slaughtered by a timed batter in a previous Show. Regardless, having this many options is great for accessibility and giving you an option of how you want to play the game BUT it's horrible for a ranked / competitive environment. We need an option to play people using our settings.
All I want is to be able to say "The Show IS fun" and not "The Show CAN BE fun."
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DD ranked is automatically set to Competitive so your personal settings don’t come into play at all. Every other setting you control and you see and they control and they see.
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I play SZ high and analog; every year when I first boot the game, I always pick competitive and the defaults are views from a wide angle (fisheye?) and pinpoint. Never seen strikezone as default.
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Like the other guy said, online is set to competitive.
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Matchmaking by settings would make it worse since the combinations are almost endless. Some people would wait minutes to be matched, and with potential huge skill gaps.
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Matchmaking will never be perfect because of human element: people tanking their records to stay at lower levels.
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You and lots of people never consider human element when struggling (fatigue, slump, emotions). We’re not playing the same every hour of every day, the pool of players grows or shrinks depending on time of day. You can absolutely lose your way and have to go back to basics and feel like you lost it, or be on a heater. We’re not robots and with all the type of setups people use for connections, and the human element, it’s not the game all of a sudden plays a different way.
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I'm not sure I understand. How does competitive play different? Are there gameplay differences? The way I understand it, casual, simulation and competitive just switch things ups like timed or directional hitting instead of zone and meter pitching instead of pinpoint.
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All I know is when I selected "competitive" on my friend's console, the exhibition game we tried to play had the batter using the ultra zoom / crotch view camera and the defender using pinpoint pitching.
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Seeking clarification on this, not sure I'm wrapping my head around it yet.
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I can see the potential pitfalls, but if the forum is representative of the community as a whole, then plenty of people don't see the issues I'm seeing and would not take advantage of the proposed filtering. I also turned off cross-play as I don't trust there will be no difference between playing a PS5 opponent and a Switch / XBOX opponent. That's not necessarily filtering as specifically as having the same settings, but regardless it hasn't made finding games slower.
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True. This one is a bit trickier, but I'm sure there's ways to troubleshoot certain things. In MLB 25 I haven't even sniffed Championship Series let alone World Series (Though I used to be a CS, fringe WS level player) so don't know why I'm being matched with someone who has the "World Series" profile icon.
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I do consider these things. More so than other games, The Show can hinge on how you feel that day. Kinda similar to say playing basketball IRL. Somedays my body is relaxed, loose and I have sweet shooting stroke... then somedays I'm sluggish, stiff, overthinking etc. and you'd think I rarely shot a basketball. However, I don't think this always explains the issues I experience. I could just talk about my last few games where I was pitching and hitting extremely well, only to fall apart in the 7th inning. I put a fresh reliever in the game and I'm virtually not allowed to get a ball in the strike zone unless it's hung. It's like clockwork. It really feels like it's a game mechanic to see your pitcher fall to pieces once you're in the 5th-7th inning range or at the very least a fresh reliever will come in but its already been pre-determined that today is going to be an off day for that player. It's happened so many times I can't chalk it up to any kind of coincidence or human element.
Thank you for the replies, gave me some different perspectives to consider.
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I play on classic, with the PCI, Strike Zone 2, and on simulation. I don't needed anybody that is not SDS becoming a dictator and telling everybody else that they have play his way. That's what great about this game and America: WE HAVE A CHOICE!
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@xsdert34_PSN
And the great thing about what I'm proposing is, it doesn't take your choice away! Reading comprehension is huge. A lot of the heat I have coming my way is from people who fundamentally misunderstand what I'm saying. -
@Squid_Adams_PSN until you know the percentages of who plays with which settings; it would be hard on the player, and SDS, if they made each mode of play have different settings.
IE: SDS would have to spend more to pay coders to develop these settings in each mode of H2H. And if it's only a small percentage that plays a certain way; then it wouldn't be financially reasonable for them to spend that money.
IE: if, say, only 5 % of the current player base plays with the settings that you want utilized; then that means they'll only pull 5% of the available players online, at that given time, thus making match making take longer.
Then you could have these 5% of players complaining that they can't find a matchup.
I still don't understand how you think a certain camera view for batting/pitching and a certain hitting/pitching interface gives someone an advantage?
If it gave players and advantage; EVERYONE would use those settings/interfaces.
People need to stop worrying about how others play the game and start concentrating on having fun.
If someone is out hitting/pitching you; maybe you're just in a slump.
If it's happening every game, then no offense meant, this game isn't for you.
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I got the impression that you thought you were playing people online who were using lower difficultly level than you. I was letting you know online DD is automatically set at competitive. As far as the setting used like type batting and pitching that is solely up to each individual person. You and I can play each other and have completely different set up and we would never know it. I’d see mine and you see yours but we would be playing on competitive.
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I was thinking an option similar to turning off cross play. There would also be the option to play anyone with any setting, but for anyone who is like me, I would be able to select "catcher batter view and pitching meter." There might be more to this such as research and finances, but what I have in mind seems fairly simple. I wouldn't necessarily have to be paired up with someone who chose to filter out players with different settings, but someone who just happens to use the settings I do. But it does give me more to consider overall, so thank you for the examples.
It might not be a clear advantage like your power attributes become inflated, but I believe it makes it easier to distinguish balls and strikes and get the bat on the ball. I used it for a few innings and was fouling off pitches I previously would miss and was having an easier time seeing balls and strikes. Did I change my settings and instantly hit loads of home runs? No... but I did notice a slight difference in my success and imagine if I would have continued and worked at it, I'd only get better. However, I just don't enjoy the aesthetic of it. For me, the best analogy I can come up with was the argument Mark McGwire used to justify his juicing. His stance was essentially that while steroids made him stronger, they don't affect the timing of his swings, the placement of his bat, reading pitches and so on. I wouldn't say that these two things are completely related, but I think the comparison sticks. I personally haven't seen a point made yet that would have me reconsider my stance, but I'm open to it.
The majority of YouTubers and top players do use it. I think the fact that people use it is a Freudian admission that it makes hitting easier. Why would anyone switch to a less aesthetically pleasing view? I don't use it for that very reason. I like the batting stances and stadiums so I stick with the default view which for me was Catcher.
I'll admit, I have been having a bit more fun recently... albeit 2 out of my last 3 games have been ugly examples of why I've been calling out The Show. These games are a reminder that The Show still has lots of problems keeping it from being consistently fun. The problems aren't consistent (nothing with this game is consistent). I can play 10 games and sometimes 7 of them will be quite fun... other times I'm lucky if I get 1 or 2 fun games. Anyway...
First game I'm pitching, there's 1 out and Pete Crow-Armstrong on third. Opponent hits a hard grounder to Third and I make sure to look the runner back. He stays on third, I throw to first and get the man out. Thinking this guy is going to be stupid and try to run home, I input for Freddie Freeman to throw home almost instantly. Low and behold, the idiot takes off and I see Freddie Freeman stand there looking dumb. After about a second or two, Freddie Freeman finally throws home... but obviously it's too late and the guy scores the run. That basically decided the game. An unresponsive, wonky animation cost me the game. Yes, we're playing to have fun, but at a certain point late in the game, you're invested in winning. To see something like that throw out all the good things you did in the 30-60 minutes it takes to finish a game, it's a tough pill to swallow.
Second game was just nerfing me the whole time. I had 1 home run.... which to be honest wasn't a well hit ball... but that was the last thing I was given. Three perfect-perfect line outs to the short stop, Good contact hits being lazy pop flys. Hard hit balls that are "just late" are going way foul, so on and so forth. On the flip side, I'm pitching really well. High strikeout numbers, low pitch count. He can't seem to get contact for a good 5-6 innings. Then randomly, I give up a home run to someone who doesn't have great power numbers on a pitch that wasn't in a juicy location in the slightest. That ended up happening yet again a few innings later. It's one of those games where I don't know what I did to lose. I was seeing the ball well, working the count etc... just wasn't allowed to get a hit.
The second game to me is where SDS takes the "well, that's real baseball" thing too far. This is ultimately a video game and when people do things well they want to be rewarded as such and when they mess up, then they'll understand why something went wrong. I've been playing the game quite a bit recently, for better or worse. A lot of times I get the feeling the game is buffing me or nerfing me. The way I was seeing the ball/swinging the bat in the second game, would have lead me to having 3 to 5 runs in a different game, but as it went, I only had 2 hits.
Truth be told, I've noticed this big time in NBA 2K. I bought that game every single year. Now, much like The Show, I take breaks from it for years at a time. NBA 2K was one game I was POSITIVE I was good at. Keeping a cool head, taking smart shots, making smart passes, playing hard and controlled defense etc. I played every year and A LOT. I don't recall what my record was, but I was definitely winning 3/4's of my games. That started changing around 2k17 or 2k18. All of a sudden I'm a .500 player. It started feeling like the game was more in control than me. Smart shots with good releases are not falling, my opponent hitting shots he shouldn't be hitting with the level of defense I'm playing and so on. Then I'd play a few games where things felt the way they used to again, but it would always revert back. Call this RNG, game scripting or whatever. I just know there's something to that. I want to be in total control of my wins and my losses even if it sacrifices a little of those "that happens in real baseball" things.
The best way for me to handle The Show when it's more Hyde than Jekyll is to use those games to rest my relievers. Even if my SP is getting jacked up... I have some level of control in my loss and maybe a mercy gets it over with sooner. I also have to remind myself The Show is a bad game. This is not to troll, it just that works for me. I can't call it game a good game until it is that way consistently. Even if some of my reasonings didn't work for you, I'm sure we can all agree that being cost a game with unresponsive animations is not acceptable. I don't care if it has something to do with Freddie Freeman not being as strong a defender or something... I as the player anticipated and saw the runner going home and would have thrown him out if Freddie didn't take that 2 second pause. I don't believe I'm bad at this game and that it's not meant to be. Then again I wouldn't say I'm good at this game and that it is meant for me. I don't know what I am. My methods for winning also lose me games.
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I get it, but I don't get it lol. I Googled "competitive mode mlb the show" and the AI response sounded a lot like how a Developer would talk up a game before release. However, some things felt contradictory and there was subtle admission the people who see random nonsense or skill not being taken into account were correct. Such as:
Benefits of Competitive Mode:
More realistic outcomes: Offers a more authentic baseball experience, with fewer lucky hits and more emphasis on skill.Fairer online experience: Ensures that player skill is the primary factor in determining success in online modes.
What that says to me is they're going to dial back the randomness, but it's still in the game and can still determine the outcome. If skill is the "primary factor" but my opponent and I are of a similar skillset, does this mean there are other factors that will determine the winner? On paper it sounds like they're giving the players more control, but they're also retaining some control and reserve the right to give me a random costly error that costs me a game.
It also said that competitive is the mode that gives players most control and puts their skill to the test. Simulation and Casual were using the ratings of players to determine success. So would that explain my struggles in Road to the Show? I'm an 80 or so and feel like I'm being nerfed with a sub .200 average after hitting like .240 the year prior. Is my rating what's costing me hits? If I switch to competitive, will the pitches I barrel up become hits and not line outs? Like I said, I kind of understand the difference in modes, but really, I don't. I feel The Show is one big inconsistent contradiction.
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@Squid_Adams_PSN I’m not in the same age range but perhaps some inside from my father could help. He is about to turn 79. He also plays this game. He plays on competitive and hits around 20-30 points lower this year than last year per his text messages. When he plays offline he said had to dial down the level from All Star to Veteran hitting to be able to hit. Online he’s stuck on whatever they have which I believe is All Star.
