State of the Show 9/20/25
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Haven't made one of these posts in a while, probably because I've been minimizing the time I'm on this disaster of a game. It was playing well enough, not perfect, but not alarmingly bad...until today.
Once again, this game's inconsistencies are glaring. My thoughts are well known on the downfalls of this game, so let me give you a quick checklist of the sins that occurred during my first game of the day:
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Opponent might have had perfect check swing success in this game. I don't recall a check swing of his ever being called for a strike. On the flip side, I don't recall a single one of my check swings not being called a strike. That level of randomness probably played a huge role in the result of this game.
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I had one hit the entire game. Perfect perfect line outs to the second baseman, loud fly outs directly to outfield, etc. In other games I've played, those are gappers or home runs.
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My opponent had 10 hits, 4 of which were home runs. His home runs came off late timing, early timing, early timing and I didn't see the fourth one, but judging by the crack of the bat, it was average contact at best. Saw him getting hits on very early timing and so on.
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Diamond fielder error. I don't remember if this cost me or not, but when I'm being nerfed in so many ways, this definitely stuck out like a sore thumb.
Basically, it felt like I was meant to lose that game, no matter what. Video games shouldn't feel that way. That's why so many people hate Madden. There are plays where you get sacked immediately. Not because you're bad at the game, but because the game decided you were going to get sacked. No good. No good at all.
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@Squid_Adams_PSN said in State of the Show 9/20/25:
Haven't made one of these posts in a while, probably because I've been minimizing the time I'm on this disaster of a game. It was playing well enough, not perfect, but not alarmingly bad...until today.
Once again, this game's inconsistencies are glaring. My thoughts are well known on the downfalls of this game, so let me give you a quick checklist of the sins that occurred during my first game of the day:
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Opponent might have had perfect check swing success in this game. I don't recall a check swing of his ever being called for a strike. On the flip side, I don't recall a single one of my check swings not being called a strike. That level of randomness probably played a huge role in the result of this game.
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I had one hit the entire game. Perfect perfect line outs to the second baseman, loud fly outs directly to outfield, etc. In other games I've played, those are gappers or home runs.
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My opponent had 10 hits, 4 of which were home runs. His home runs came off late timing, early timing, early timing and I didn't see the fourth one, but judging by the crack of the bat, it was average contact at best. Saw him getting hits on very early timing and so on.
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Diamond fielder error. I don't remember if this cost me or not, but when I'm being nerfed in so many ways, this definitely stuck out like a sore thumb.
Basically, it felt like I was meant to lose that game, no matter what. Video games shouldn't feel that way. That's why so many people hate Madden. There are plays where you get sacked immediately. Not because you're bad at the game, but because the game decided you were going to get sacked. No good. No good at all.
Just out of curiosity; do you, or have you, ever posted a State of the Show update when youre winning/doing good?
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There’s no way he actually never gets anything to go his way. Sometimes stuff like that happens in real life. Just because you lost doesn’t mean the game “decided the outcome beforehand” or “ my opponent is a cheater.” Accept you lost and move on
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@Talkingben9558_XBL I understand what you’re saying, but I also feel OP’s frustrations. There are games where the winner is already decided before the first pitch of the game. This coming from a 38 year old dad who could care less about a win or loss in a virtual baseball game.
I’ll play a game where my opponent is swinging out of his shoes at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. You could throw the ball into the concession stands and my opponent would still try and yeet it 476 feet dead center.
Then here I am with an above average eye at the plate, with a sound approach, and literally every ball squared up is a line out, deep fly to the warning track, a perfect perfect missile to an infielder, or that insane animation where a line drive hovers 4 feet off the ground for 376 feet just to find the center fielders glove.
Only for the inevitable to happen; 9th inning, my diamond defense second baseman boots a routine grounder just for him to walk it off next at bat with a bloop hit on a cutter 4 feet out of the zone.
Again, at the end of the day I could care less. But come on guys, you cant deny that it doesn’t happen, and that it also happens way too often…?
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Absolutely agree with everything said
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This is a gaming concept that somehow has gained traction in many sports games. It is the philosophy that regardless of the selected difficulty level, repeated success must be punished. Somehow, game managers think the software must implement such a strategy to keep the game appealing.
The foolishness of such a concept should be easy to grasp. It makes one wonder then why so many games feature it. Is it really an effort to retain interest by making some games particularly challenging? Or, instead, is it some other motivation?
Speculation is that game studios do this because they don't want anyone to pull off a run of success. It's like an ego thing. The game must be challenging and if you become so good as to reduce the challenge, then the game code will implement some foolish contrivances to make defeat inevitable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes was a famous American jurist, an early sitter on the US Supreme Court. He wrote a treatise on the basis of what constitutes good laws. In it he essentially says that even a dog can tell the difference between being tripped over vice kicked!
How does that apply here?
Customers can accept losing a game (versus CPU or human) if the game conditions meet reasonable standards of behavior. But, when the game code so totally messes with common sense to impose a loss then the customer is left with more than just an empty feeling. In truth, the experience harms the quality of the gaming experience, and for many people it results in less game play.
In MLB The Show, in RTTS (which is exclusively versus the CPU), I call it the ten-game rule. If your team wins ten games in a row, the game code implements the punishment. Suddenly, pitchers with a 3.00 ERA for the season vomit 8 runs in two innings, or surrenders a string of five runs in a single inning to lose the game.
The problem isn't losing the game. The problem is the clumsy way that the game code decides how that loss will play out. If the game code does it in a way that preserves the integrity of the game, then the experience doesn't feel poisoned.
I'll provide two of the more infamous examples and likely the single most condemned part of the Madden NFL genre -- the infamous snow games and monsoon games. It is the game where during the "snow globe" game you literally cannot as the QB see more than ten yards in front. Receivers running a route disappear into the snow. That's not how a real NFL game in snowy conditions looks. The closest was one game in Chicago that was singularly infamous, but even then players on the field could see 30 yards downfield. It was the TV coverage that suffered because they could not see what took place on the field from the sideline and endzone cameras that were 50 yards from the field.
The monsoon game in Madden is about as bad, with receivers on your human team constantly running routes and falling to the ground from slipping, and fumbles happening constantly with your otherwise sure handed running backs (same in the snow games). However, as in the snow games, the CPU team just cruises along normally, scoring and defending as they normally do like they are playing in the sunshine!
This is criticized because the game coders write the code in such a clumsy manner as to make the game more an in-your-face experience than a sports themed game. It is the coder telling the paying customer, "I'll put your arrogant *** back in its place and you'll like it buddy!"
In real life, you treat a customer like that one-on-one, you'll get fired every single time. But, game coders and their managers somehow think they have a presumed right to carry out vengeance against their customers. It results from too much time spent in an office cubicle and not nearly enough time spent in the real world interacting with people!
I wouldn't hire a coder without seeing on his resume an extensive amount of time spent working in settings that required daily interaction with paying customers, demonstrating the ability to empathize with a customer and deliver on promises made without bankrupting the company, without ever treating a customer disrespectfully.
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That's one heck of a post, and really words how I feel about The Show (along with NBA 2K and Madden too) in a way that I couldn't seem to articulate.
Actually, yes I have.
I've always been incredibly fair and even. I'm constantly calling this game out when I have things go wrong AND when I have things go right. I have games where I come out cracking, like 4 hits and 5 runs in the first 2 innings which more often than not results in my opponent quitting / cutting off the fun I'm having. So I don't like the game to play poorly for me or my opponent. I can accept a loss, but like @PriorFir4383355_XBL said, it depends how the loss plays out. If I legitimately mess up on the pitch meter and hang a curveball in the middle of the zone and get blasted...that's one thing. If I pitch the ball inside, out of the strike zone, and get blasted on an early timed swing? Well then...I might just have to talk to the forum about it.
@Talkingben9558_XBL
The people that supported me were able to articulate their points, yet you just came in with the weak arguments I've heard time and again. Do you have anything better for me?This goes back to arcade / simulation. MLB The Show wants to be both and therefore is neither. Excessive homeruns makes it arcade-y. Errors, randomness and things that happen in real life makes it simulation. I'd honestly prefer the game just ditch the simulation, real life baseball BS. In real life, I can accept a home run I see someone hitting...because it literally happened in front of your eyes and you can't argue with the physics or result. A video game doesn't have those same graces. It needs to be consistent to a degree... because a lot of the random stuff that happens doesn't feel like "real baseball" but rather some nonsense coding to make you lose the game. I've had enough success in this game to know what it looks like. When that formula results in me losing the game decidedly, of course I'm going to call it into question.
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I have a tendency to agree with the OP. Last night I was playing ranked and I am no way the best or good, average at best at this game but dang when up by 3 runs going into the 8th inning and my opponent started hitting homeruns when innings 1-7 it seemed he couldn't hit a watermelon and to make it worse it didn't matter how far out of the strikezone the ball was. It seems more games I play are becoming like that. Mean while I have good timing it's like my bat turns into a wet noodle. Usually a line out, or what seems I got hold of a pitch to watch it die at the warning track. Yes, I know it's just baseball but this feels like it's forces out there more than just baseball.
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Now that he’s started one of these again I will be taking bets on how long till the thread is locked o/u 2.5 business days
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@Talkingben9558_XBL
Ngl it won't be his fault if the thread is locked -
I have a tendency to agree with the OP, even when I'm going well
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@TheBigPapa55_PSN said in State of the Show 9/20/25:
I have a tendency to agree with the OP, even when I'm going well
Its not the fact that people dont disagree with him. Its the fact that he knows that the game plays weird. Yet he still plays it and still "complains" about it.
As Einstein quoted; "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
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And another word diarrhea from PriorFir.
I understand him and that Squid guy’s frustrations with the game even if I don’t share them, but if I were that mad or frustrated about a game as they are, I wouldn’t be playing anymore and sure as heck not roaming the game’s forums either.
It’s really unhealthy.
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@yankblan_PSN , @x-814-x-MAFIA-x_PSN
Unhealthy, sure. Should probably put my time elsewhere, but I've always enjoyed sports games and I really wish more people would speak up. People know Madden has been bad for over 10 years, but the desire to play a football game is real. Imagine the frustration knowing there's no alternative and getting a horrible product year after year. I thought 2K was different, then they sold out. I really thought SDS was different, then they sold out too. There's 100% something to it. All 3 games thrive off the ultimate team model. I'm sure they've figured out methods to keep people coming back. I'm sure I'm not far away from the game where I'm getting 15 hits and 8 runs, to get me re-invested and forgetting why I ever disliked this game in the first place. Just like "bar science" for anyone familiar with Bar Rescue. There's a calculated approach and different tricks to get people to spend more money at the bar.
P.S. Did you read anything @PriorFir4383355_XBL wrote? He hit the nail on the head with his post.
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I have heard that it is more satisfying in the short term to blame failures on factors outside of your control but unhealthy in the long term because it makes you not want to do that thing anymore. A big difference I have noticed in this community versus real baseball is that irl if you hit a line drive a someone or strikeout looking on a borderline pitch, the reaction is not “this game is rigged, I am being robbed,” it is “go up next time and do a good job” Just my thoughts
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@Squid_Adams_PSN said in State of the Show 9/20/25:
@yankblan_PSN , @x-814-x-MAFIA-x_PSN
Unhealthy, sure. Should probably put my time elsewhere, but I've always enjoyed sports games and I really wish more people would speak up. People know Madden has been bad for over 10 years, but the desire to play a football game is real. Imagine the frustration knowing there's no alternative and getting a horrible product year after year. I thought 2K was different, then they sold out. I really thought SDS was different, then they sold out too. There's 100% something to it. All 3 games thrive off the ultimate team model. I'm sure they've figured out methods to keep people coming back. I'm sure I'm not far away from the game where I'm getting 15 hits and 8 runs, to get me re-invested and forgetting why I ever disliked this game in the first place. Just like "bar science" for anyone familiar with Bar Rescue. There's a calculated approach and different tricks to get people to spend more money at the bar.
P.S. Did you read anything @PriorFir4383355_XBL wrote? He hit the nail on the head with his post.
I LOVE football. And I LOVED playing Madden.
But I haven't touched that game in years. Because I didnt like the way it played.
Did I complain about it on the game's forum?
No. I just stopped buying/playing it.
That's the difference.
Also, ever thought thst maybe if tou didn't dwell on why, or how you lost, and just moved on to the next game; tou wouldn't feel as frustrated?
SDS adding the pitch/hit feedback had to be the dumbest thing they've ever done. And thats including adding Immortals and Bobbleheads to the game.
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Every year they announce Madden is still broken, it's really disheartening. I would have 100% bought this year...but the simulation stats in franchise mode are out of whack and that is enough to ruin my experience for what I'm looking for in the game.
That said, I can usually go 3-5 years without getting a new iteration of a game...but then I always get the itch. I have those conversations withy myself, but at the end of the day, I like sports games. It's the same thing with Burger King. I go once in a blue moon, whereas it used to be one of my favorite things when I was younger. Every time I'm done eating there now, I have a horrible stomach ache. Same thing goes for Ramen. Yes, I'd be running at peak efficiency if I could stay disciplined and avoid those things no matter how tasty I find them in the moment. Same goes for sports games. My love of sports games goes all the way back to the Super Nintendo era. I could be like you and just vote with my wallet...but there's simply not enough people doing that, so NBA 2K, Madden and MLB The Show have a monopoly on their respective sport. Giving up something you love isn't exactly easy. Even if it has turned into something you don't like / recognize anymore.
