Why I'm Finally Walking Away from MLB The Show (And Why You Should Consider It Too)
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There are lots of reasons you could put on a list like this. I think we all agree with #1. Your other reasons wouldn't be anywhere on my list, but whatever, its your list.
The only issue I disagree with is saying this game is a "mind-numbing grind." They've taken almost every grind out of this game. No team affinity, programs are short, innings and multiplayer paths are short and quickly done, etc. This community has a problem where it complains about any grind - or maybe its the young people in general who always yell "just let me play the game the way I want!". On top of sports games, Im an old school rpg player - grinding is kinda the point of games.
If you rephrased the complaint as - "offline modes should be more entertaining for all types of players" - then I'd agree.
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I agree with your assessment with the exception of moments, they have become rather ridiculous and tedious, require some of them but not all of them is probably good middle ground, which they have done before.
I like the grind, I wish there was more content to grind for like TA. That Neon TA last year was on point I loved it and the Spooky grind I liked that too. I wish we had more of that kind of content. The Neon TA had a lot of usable end game cards like Berkman and Gehrig amongst others I can't think of. -
@rubicante23_PSN the grind is still there disguised as CPU pitching. Back in the day they would throw meatballs on veteran and you could get your stat grind finished in a decent amount of time. If you wanna play a more intense cpu game that’s what HOF and legend are for. Now the pitching on veteran is absolutely horrific.
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@DrBear100_PSN I wont fight you there.
But, anytime SDS tries something interesting where you have to jump through a lot of hoops and challenges to get to a reward - a million people yell and they take it back.
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If the reward is worth the grind or if I know I'll need that reward for a future collection I'll be all over it.
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I agree with you about the events 100%. Every year people are hoping for more online modes and every year, we are disappointed. In fact, not only have they NOT added any new online modes (minus COOP), but they have modified the only two modes they had to make them worse. Events now being sporadic and only there half the time is crazy. And BR has had its rewards gutted so badly that it is pointless to play.
Which leads me to the real true problem with this year's model. Money. This game is the first game that has been all about money. In their case, stubs. In the past, there were many ways to make stubs.. You could flip the market, Grind BR (if you were good enough) or Invest in players....
But this year all of that has been taken away.. Can you still flip the market? Yes, but it was extremely difficult in the earlier parts of the year, especially with the amount of bots. BR rewards could be an Ohtani.. but more likely would be an 88 Bryce Harper.. and Investing was cut down to a stack of 20 cards per player.... What this means is to obtain stubs, all roads lead through them. And wouldn't you know it. almost every amazing player is put behind a Chase pack this year, with no other way to obtain them then to pay them to receive it.It truly is a great model though because it isn't Pay to Play... This is something else...
Keep prices for most of these cards ridiculously high, and push players to either play hours a day, or buy stubs from them. And if anyone or anything threatens that model (3rd party sites), then they pounce....
I don't know what there profit looks like with this year's game, but even though we are all saying how bad it is, I can almost guarantee this was their most lucrative year to date.. Because of that, you will see definitely see more of this next year. I would bet anything on it.
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Sorry to see you go. If a game feels like a job, it's not worth it. For me, flipping cards and grinding offline are an escape, though Ranked can definitely get stressful.
With two small kids, I'm always "on call," so committing to nine innings is tough. I got my Championship banner this year and haven't had much chance to push past it. That'll have to wait until next year.
But I agree 100% on Events. They should always be available. They're perfect for relaxing, playing online, and progressing the multiplayer program. If the kids need me and my pause timer runs out, losing an Event game is no big deal. That's harder to swallow in Ranked. Offline fits my life better right now, but when I can play online, Events are exactly what I want.
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As a business owner, I truly appreciate the detailed constructive criticism. This is how a good business should evaluate feedback. Personally, my SOLE deciding factor to buy next year’s game is re-instating early legends (Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove (especially as a reliever again), etc.) and new ones like Joe DiMaggio, Grover Alexander, and plenty of worthy pitchers. Without it, I will replay earlier versions I have. I banged the drum for Roy Campanella and was happy to see Red , Albert Pujols, and Phil Rizzuto added, and it brought me back this year. We’ll see for next year, as my free time will unfortunately be even more limited, but I am hopeful.
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Not buying next year for the first year since inception. Hope more people join. The lack of improvement… frankly, the game was worse this year than the last few. I’m done.
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To the OP ... BRAVO!!!
All the points you raised were detailed and on spec.
I'll add another that personally spoiled it for me ... the wholesale malicious and petty neglect of all three of the remaining customer content creation modes -- Stadium Creator, Uniform Creator, and Logo Editor.
But, this does center of one of your critical and entirely fair repudiations of SDS ... obsession about hypercontrol of the game. When Stadium Creator was first released, no one considered it a fully finished game mode, but we all expected that over time SDS would continue to upgrade it and make it what it could be. Then, years went by without those upgrades and then last year we learn the code to support one of those desired options was there all along and turned off by SDS!
Then, when the newly unlocked option was discovered, and an option to use it badly was also discovered, the designer community handed to SDS on a platter the easy option to keep the option from harming the game and SDS sat on their hands and let it harm the game!
