Once you see the system under MLB The Show’s engine, there is no going back
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I’m going to call it what it is: this game has comeback logic, outcome steering, and hidden engine pressure, and it shows up in DD, Mini Seasons, and Franchise.
I am not saying this because I lost one game. I am not saying this because I want the CPU to be easy. I play on high difficulties. I have played Ranked Seasons, DD, Online Rated, Mini Seasons, Franchise, and offline CPU games for years. I know the difference between getting beat and the game deciding it is time for nonsense.
And right now, too many games feel like I am not playing baseball. I am fighting the engine.
I stress-tested this across multiple modes, multiple difficulties, and multiple slider setups. I tested Simulation. I tested GOAT. I tested Legend. I tested DD modes. I tested Franchise. I changed CPU contact, timing, foul frequency, solid hits, power, pitching control, pitching consistency, stamina, fielding, human hitting, human pitching, everything.
I even turned CPU contact, timing, and foul frequency all the way down to zero just to see what would happen.
And the CPU still fouled off pitches it had no business touching.
Pitches way off the plate still got fouled off. Low junk still got protected. Bad timing still turned into contact. Weak contact still found grass. Balls with 58 to 80 mph exit velocity still floated into gaps or barely over infielders’ heads. That is not real baseball. That is the engine protecting the at-bat.
The biggest problem is the foul-ball system. The CPU does not always feel like it is trying to beat you with baseball. It feels like the game turns on foul survival to drain your pitcher.
The loop is obvious once you see it:
CPU fouls off everything
pitch count goes up
energy drops
confidence drops
perfect input starts mattering less
pitcher misses worse
pitcher hangs something
CPU gets the hit, double, or homer
That is not smart baseball. That is the game using foul balls as a weapon against pitcher confidence and stamina.
And confidence is one of the biggest hidden problems in this game. Pitcher confidence has too much power. Once it swings one way, it starts overriding ratings, input, and common sense. CPU pitchers turn into Greg Maddux no matter who is on the mound. They throw dots, dots, and balls barely off the plate. Meanwhile my pitcher can have good energy, good confidence, and perfect input, and suddenly the ball still misses, hangs, or gets fouled off until the CPU gets what it wants.
There needs to be a Pitcher Confidence Effect slider. Period.
Because right now confidence feels like a hidden momentum system.
I have also seen what looks like predetermined outcome tendency. I am not saying every pitch is scripted. I am saying some games clearly have a strong outcome pull. I have played games into the 5th, 6th, or 7th inning while testing this. Different pitchers. Different locations. Different strategies. Different sliders. Same pattern.
The other team is going to get its moment no matter what.
You can pitch smart. You can mix speeds. You can throw chase pitches. You can hit perfect input. It does not matter. The game says no, no, no, foul, foul, weak hit, gapper, error, tie game.
Then the same thing can flip the other way. I have had games where the CPU gets nonsense early, then later the game gives me nonsense. The CPU suddenly makes errors. Outfielders take stupid routes. A center fielder jumps straight up on a routine play. Infielders miss balls they should field. I get hits I know I should not be getting. Then I hit a walk-off homer.
And no, that does not make it better.
A walk-off should feel earned. It should feel like I won. Instead it feels like the engine decided it was time for a movie ending.
That is the problem. Even when I win, I can see the strings.
This is not just DD either. People love to say “that is just Diamond Dynasty.” No. I have seen the same engine behavior in Franchise. I have seen it in Mini Seasons. I have seen it with sliders changed hard against the CPU. I have seen it with CPU hitting sliders almost buried. I have seen it when the CPU is using almost the same cards I am using.
That tells me this is deeper than one mode.
The game has hidden systems under the hood that the sliders do not fully control.
These are the systems that need to be exposed or toned down:
Pitcher Confidence Effect
Two-Strike Foul Protection
Foul Ball Pitcher Drain
Comeback / Momentum Logic
Late-Inning Outcome Pressure
Fielding Animation Override
CPU Contact Floor
Mode-Specific DD Tuning Bleeding Into Offline
Simulation should not feel like Ranked Seasons World Series pressure. Franchise should not feel like offline DD sweat mode. Mini Seasons should not feel like I am playing against the engine instead of the CPU.
Hard baseball is fine.
A good CPU is fine.
Losing is fine.
But I should not have to fight like I am playing a World Series Ranked player when I am offline against the CPU. Every hitter should not turn into prime Pete Rose with two strikes. Every CPUThe confidence and energy system is one of the biggest giveaways.
My pitchers lose confidence and energy faster than the CPU does. The CPU can foul off pitch after pitch, and every foul still helps drain my pitcher. Then a strike, a foul, or a strikeout seems to give the CPU pitcher confidence bumps, but my pitcher does not get the same kind of reward back.
It feels uneven.
The CPU pitcher can throw a strike, get a foul, get a strikeout, and the confidence bar starts getting stronger fast. Then that pitcher starts dotting corners, getting weak contact, and living just off the plate.
But when I do the same thing, it does not feel like my pitcher gets the same protection. My pitcher can have more energy, more confidence, better input, and still suddenly lose command, hang pitches, or get hit around like none of it matters.
And the relievers make it even worse.
The CPU can leave a starter or reliever in with almost no energy and half confidence, and I still can’t buy a hit. The pitcher still paints corners. Still gets foul balls. Still gets weak contact. Still survives.
But if I leave my pitcher in with the same low energy and half confidence, the CPU starts getting hits, doubles, and home runs like the engine already decided that pitcher is done.
Even when my pitcher has more energy and more confidence than the CPU pitcher, the outcome can still feel the same. The CPU still gets its foul balls. The CPU still gets its hit. The CPU still gets the rally.
That tells me the confidence and energy meters are not being applied evenly between the player and CPU.
If confidence and stamina are going to control command, PCI results, weak contact, strikeouts, foul balls, and pitcher survival, then we need sliders for them.
Pitcher Confidence Effect
Human Pitcher Confidence Gain
CPU Pitcher Confidence Gain
Human Pitcher Confidence Drain
CPU Pitcher Confidence Drain
Foul Ball Energy Drain
Foul Ball Confidence Drain
Fatigue Penalty Strength
CPU Fatigue Penalty
Human Fatigue Penalty
Because right now it feels like the CPU gets confidence armor, and the player gets confidence punishment.
The visible bars are lying by omission.
Energy and confidence do not feel equal for both sides. A tired CPU pitcher can still pitch like Greg Maddux. A tired user pitcher gets treated like batting practice. A CPU pitcher with low confidence can still survive. A user pitcher with higher confidence can still get hit around because the engine wants the other team to have its moment.
That is not baseball. That is hidden engine pressure.
That is the part that makes your argument sharper, KC. You’re not just saying “CPU fouls too much.” You’re saying:
The CPU uses fouls to drain my pitcher.
The CPU gains confidence faster.
My pitcher loses confidence faster.
CPU fatigue does not punish them the same way.
Human fatigue gets punished hard.
The outcome still happens even when my pitcher has the better meter.
That’s the real callout. Not “make CPU easier.”
Make the [censored] systems apply evenly. -
Be quiet
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I ain't reading all that.
I'm happy for you though, or sorry that happened. -
.......?
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Once you see the system under the MLB The Show's engine, you will be in violation of Terms of Service.
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@SaveFarris_PSN
I'm waiting for the FBI SDS agents to show up as we speak -
Once you see the system under the MLB The Show's engine, you will be in violation of Terms of Service.
And nah nah nah hey hey hey goodbye....
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I dont understand posts like this. Im sure the "system" is full of problems and glitches. But, why are we complaining about cpu games? If youre an experienced player, cpu is pretty easy to beat on any difficulty. So, are you angry you're not beating them by more, or more easily?
I take the opposite argument- cpu needs to have real AI. You should be able to tell cpu that you want it to emulate an 800 player - and it should be able to really closely emulate how a real 800 player plays.
I think we dont have that because every sports game prefers you play online - people dont spend money to beat cpu....but they will spend money to beat some guy in Puerto Rico that they've never met. Game companies want you online - thats where the microtransaction money is. Every sports game has terrible cpu intelligence - they do not play like real people in any way.
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All this against the CPU? I think if this game has caused you to completely lose it while playing the CPU then you need to shut off your video game system and do other things with your life. You have completely lost the plot.
You may have already have a giant chart in your room trying to figure out who Pepe Slivia is.
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I agree with you, I don't play multi-player at all but this dude's rant make zero sense. Can it be frustrating at times playing the cpu, yes it can but to me playing the cpu is all about grinding and blowing off steam after a long day of work. So no it's not meant to be like real life.
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It is absolutely hilarious to see how an OP with a few paragraphs is enough on its face to send the trolls into the stratosphere of personal insults, taunts, and utterly foolish replies. To those whose prime beef is the length of the OP, there are things in this world called books!
Yeah, I realize for the trolls that might be an epiphany. But, they really do exist, and they write pages of words on papers, literally (gasp) thousands of words! It takes time to read them, but it's worth the effort. This OP was worth that effort. It is detailed and provides many examples of how the game engine employs dirty tricks to makes things artificially challenging.
Challenge isn't the OP's issue. Artificiality is. Big difference, but I guess it takes nuance to figure that out, and that seems well beyond the intellectual grasp of the trolls here.
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And the CPU still fouled off pitches it had no business touching.
So this I have seen. I've thrown pitches that the CPU fouls off...and I've immediately paused and gone into not the in-game replay, but the console screen recording and watched in slow-mo, and the bat was nowhere near the ball. Go and watch the in-game replay and it will show actual contact. This is not every time, just enough to make me scratch my head at the under-the-hood stuff
And I will say that yeah, the visible bars on the opposing CPU pitcher mostly feel like they're useless window dressing, I'll agree to that. I do also feel at times if you're "cruising" too well, CPU batters will just artificially inflate your pitch count with the aforementioned questionable foul balls.
Other than that though, I don't feel like there's a grander conspiracy theory at play. Showdowns, and certain points in crucial MS games feel a little underhanded but everything else feels fine
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Foul balls are a problem everywhere - except maybe on legend difficulty online.
This happened because they didn't want strikeouts to be through the roof. Most players cant lay off the low change ups...so they let them foul it off. Half of the foulballs should be "weak in play contact" to stop the foul ball merchants. Also half of the homers should be doubles and triples. This would get us a lot closer to reality.
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Foul balls are a problem everywhere - except maybe on legend difficulty online.
This happened because they didn't want strikeouts to be through the roof. Most players cant lay off the low change ups...so they let them foul it off. Half of the foulballs should be "weak in play contact" to stop the foul ball merchants. Also half of the homers should be doubles and triples. This would get us a lot closer to reality.
One of the basic problems that's been pointed out to SDS years back is that the outfield is too small. If you go by scale it's too small by a factor of about 30%. If this was corrected, a great many of the issues reported with the basic game would be solved without anything else needing to be done.
This is why the game lacks the realistic number of "dying quails" that drop for hits, as well as too often seeing fielders able to make laser like throws to the infield to nail runners when in a real game such a play would be impossible.
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Unless you are Bo Jackson gunning down Harold Reynolds at the plate in the old Kingdome.
Otherwise yes the field is too small allowing fielders to cover way too much ground and make unrealistic catches and throws. This makes it very much HR or bust.
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The game is definitely 'anti-triple,' for sure. The kangaroo bounces over fences are ridiculous.
I agree that this game has a 'catch-up' logic. It's even in racing games, and called: 'Rubberbanding.'
Most of these sports games simulate difficulty terribly. 'All-Madden' difficulty is a perfect example. I quit playing that in '19, but was sickened at how cheap that difficulty was. -
The problem is the outfields are scaled too small, and that's been an issue for years. Triples are almost impossible because the OF cover too much ground on a field improperly scaled. Combine that with the fact the CPU always takes the perfect route to the ball, makes the perfect read off a carom...and here we are.
Balls also carry too much on weak contact, there should be way more "Texas-leaguers" that drop in.
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100% agree
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If they made the outfield realistic and dropped HR by 50 percent this game would play better, plus turn down fouls by 60 percent.
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There’s def something going on towards the end of games against cpu where no matter what/where pitch is thrown the cpu is making contact. I hadn’t considered that it’s fowling on purpose to wear you down. I assumed some hidden clutch type attribute was being activated or something to shake things up in the last few outs. I usually notice it on batters that are 7th or 8th in the order and have no business being clutch heros. Whatever the case - something for sure is going on there. I still have t quite figured out what the difference is with all the settings. I play all Star, that seems “normal” but there’s times I’ll choose veteran to see if I notice a difference and I end up losing.
I’ve never tinkered with the sliders before. I thought they didn’t effect diamond dynasty… they’ve added in so many variables on this old code that tweaking one thing throws off 10 other things and the slightest change to something makes very noticeable differences for other things.
Most recent most likely unintended change that seems way off is line drives and hard hit ground balls losing speed quickly. Not bouncing and rolling to the fence or even close. I’m hitting 114 exit velocity hits that stop rolling before getting to where the out fielder is. Like the ball is slamming on the brakes or something. I figure they tried to change something to keep play similar to how it’s been so all the higher power/contact cards don’t constantly hit it out of the park but ended up making exit velocity kind of meaningless. It’s like 50mph wind slowing the ball down after it’s hit.
