How are we doing compared to last year?

Specifically, how is content compared to last year? In MLB The Show, we have short memories. That’s just the way it is. We forget quickly and it’s just as well we do, for the most part. There is also the “rose tinted glasses” effect, where most people believe that a title from a couple of years ago was the best the game ever played and we will never get a game that good again. Trouble is when you revisit it, while it may have been good in some aspects, it undoubtedly also had multiple flaws that would really annoy you as well.
Anyway, that’s not the point of this thread. The point is comparing content. With the super disappointing Brian Roberts/Shane Victorino boss announcements, I did exactly what I alluded to in my opening paragraph. I said “Bah, content was so much better last year!” But was it? Or am I wearing my rose tinted spectacles again? Only one way to find out, I suppose.

‘19 1st inning: 91 Andruw Jones, 95 Goose Gossage, 96 Cy Young.
This year: 91 Helton, 91 Snider, 93 Oswalt

‘19 2nd inning: 92 Miggy, 94 Vladdy and 98 MadBum
This year; 93 Carter, 92 HanRam, 93 Feller

‘19 3rd inning: 99 Alomar, 99 Verlander, 99 Rickey Henderson

Also we received diamond flashbacks at 200 stars from the second inning onwards last year. You could argue that the first inning was pretty comparable from last year to this year. All things considered it’s not far off, in terms of quality. The second inning starts to show the separation. In no way is 93 Feller comparable to 98 MadBum. He’s just not. He sucks. The other two cards, again, not far off. Miggy and Vlad, slightly higher overalls, but you can prestige the HanRam and Carter.

The third inning is where things have started to really diverge from the standard set previously with last years programs. At the time of writing, I don’t know who the third boss is. I lost the will to keep track after the Shane Victorino reveal. But whoever it is, based on Roberts and Victorino, 99 Rickey, Verlander And Alomar have nothing to fear.

Inning programs and the bosses apparently aren’t going to be end game cards this year. At least not for a while. Alomar never left my team from the 3rd inning program onwards last year. I doubt Brian Roberts will be out there come November. That’s fine, but a concern for me already, is the amount of repeats. It’s barely May and we have two Madrigals, two Bohms, two Brian Roberts and two diamond Shane Victorino cards. Yeah, we get repeat cards every year, better versions of players that supersede the old version, but not this close together and not this prominent. They’re being pushed out as headliners, bosses and so on. That’s the premium content designed to get people playing DD and keep people playing DD, so to release a lot of repeated cards so close together with nerfed overalls is disappointing to see. We’ve had a lot of worthless content so far this year from inning programs, events and headliner packs, which is acceptable early in the season, it’s the only time these cards will be useful after all, but we are coming up to 25-30% of the year gone so far. The best content is still all in the team affinity programs, hopefully we get some legends and flashbacks for stage 3 and 4 because they look like the best programs by a mile this year.
Overall, I don’t hate the content this year so far, but If it wasn’t for the team affinity programs and rewards within, I probably would hate the content. We have to wait too long every year for useable versions of popular cards like Griffey, while seeing multiple versions of irrelevant cards like Nick Madrigal ushered out. They should really try to release a big name legend every couple of weeks throughout the year in my opinion. It’s roughly an eight to nine month game. To release a couple of big names per month would take up sixteen to eighteen legends. It’s not asking a lot really to have useable diamond versions of Chipper, Griffey, Babe or whoever by summer. It’s the same every year, by the time you get to access the legends, you’re sick of the whole thing already.

I really hope we get a Awards choice pack or something this program and see some of those cards come out. They don’t need to be a 99, I’m sure Babe and Chipper had a year worthy of a 90-93 that can compete with Sir De’Bryan and all 5 Tony Gwynn Jrs we just got.

Im fairly certain we didn’t get diamonds at 200 stars until the 4th inning last year. You also got to consider the time frames of these releases. Last year the second inning program was released at the end of April and the 3rd inning at the end of May. I think them releasing the game roughly 10 days earlier has people convinced we are behind schedule from last year which is really not the case

So your concern really isn't the number of repeat cards it's who they have decided to repeat early. It's clear this year they have set up 4 major tiers of players to be released and given us the timeline for their release. We are currently in tier two of their release cycle.

We still have minimum 30 more diamonds to be released 95-97 and then another 30 97-99 in the TA cycle alone. Then add another probable 3 x 8 for innings programs + another 40 headliners +20 monthly and you are looking at 144 diamonds left minimum. That is a lot of diamonds yet to be released and a lot of top players that are going to be duplicated. To add those top players in at a lower rating this early in the cycle would result in them having 6/7 cards throughout the year.

With that you are just talking about the difference in design decisions. Do you want 7 versions of Frank Thomas that all play the same just with some +1s or maybe play for a couple weeks with a lesser name that has a higher variation in attributes and performance.

They are clearly following the overwhelming feedback from last year that the 99s hit too early and have chosen to space it out with some different names.

@dogslax41 Thats not what I said though. I basically meant, it’s a bit crappy having two diamond Alex Bohm cards, two diamond Nick Madrigal cards and yet there’s not a diamond Griffey, Chipper, babe Ruth or similar household name to be found. That kinda sucks when they’re repeating cards nobody wants after only a few short weeks. We also got a FOTF Posey with an XP reward path Posey, rendering the FoTF card pretty obsolete. Things like this confuse me, it’s a genuine head scratcher. We’re about a quarter of the way into the games lifecycle already. Anyway.......

I compared the first 9 bosses from last year to this year and said “Bosses won’t be end game cards this year.” It’s quite possible that the team affinity cards will be the primary source of end game players for a lot of teams this year, complemented by high diamonds from the innings bosses, XP reward path, player programs and things like headliners and so on. Pound for pound, however the bosses this year aren’t as good as last year so far. We do have better cards in team affinity, prestige XP and the like which we didn’t have last year though. Personally, I just think the innings bosses have been pretty weak to this point, although they’re free and relatively easy to obtain by playing regularly, so again, not a criticism, more a comparison to last year.

I expect the likes of a 99 Alomar and a 99 Henderson will be locked behind the final stage of Team Affinity.

Just a guess but with the second stage giving us low to mid 90 cards and the expectation that each stage will improve on the previous stage SDS has kind of painted themselves into a corner.

@ComebackLogic said in How are we doing compared to last year?:

@dogslax41 Thats not what I said though. I basically meant, it’s a bit crappy having two diamond Alex Bohm cards, two diamond Nick Madrigal cards and yet there’s not a diamond Griffey, Chipper, babe Ruth or similar household name to be found. That kinda sucks when they’re repeating cards nobody wants after only a few short weeks. We also got a FOTF Posey with an XP reward path Posey, rendering the FoTF card pretty obsolete. Things like this confuse me, it’s a genuine head scratcher. We’re about a quarter of the way into the games lifecycle already. Anyway.......

I compared the first 9 bosses from last year to this year and said “Bosses won’t be end game cards this year.” It’s quite possible that the team affinity cards will be the primary source of end game players for a lot of teams this year, complemented by high diamonds from the innings bosses, XP reward path, player programs and things like headliners and so on. Pound for pound, however the bosses this year aren’t as good as last year so far. We do have better cards in team affinity, prestige XP and the like which we didn’t have last year though. Personally, I just think the innings bosses have been pretty weak to this point, although they’re free and relatively easy to obtain by playing regularly, so again, not a criticism, more a comparison to last year.

It's a good comparison and you did touch on the fact that we have TA cards that are 100% usable in competitive lineups this year, which we didn't last year.
IMO I find the added benefit of prestiging some of these early inning bosses for whoever it interests (fans of those players/teams) and having the Fotf cards actually be competitive from day 1, offsets the weak showing of Inning bosses compared to last year.

Anyway, here’s a diamond Chipper, now STFU ComebackLogic!!! But nah, obviously they don’t release the exact same content each year, they have to mix it up. Just that none of the bosses really make my line up this year so far except Oswalt. I may take Chipper just for the fact he’s Chipper and start him when I use a theme team of legends. I still throw gold Griffey out there sometimes, just because he’s Griffey and I want to use his card, but when you only play RS, it’s kind of asking for trouble when you’re facing 99 Mantle and friends the majority of the time.

Team Affinities will have the best cards this year, no need to buy stubs, no need to rip packs, just grind the game modes you want to complete. I can dig that.