New stuff for ‘21

[ComebackLogic]

I’m bored today, so I came up with three ideas for new modes and content for next years game, bearing in mind we’ll be using upgraded hardware, I’m sure we can expand DD without damaging anything. Feel free to tell me how horrible this all sounds or add any ideas of your own you may have.

Leaderboards

I’d like to see random leaderboard contests each week, inclusive to all players who play online H2H. By random I mean the target changes. So one week it might be “Most saves in H2H” or “Most XBH” with scaled prizes for the top 50 or 100 players. To prevent it constantly being won by the players who have the most time to spend playing, we could mix it up with “Longest HR of the week” or “Most TB in a single game with one player” and so on. Exclusive banner for the winners and stub prizes etc. It’s just something for the entire community to invested in, without having to change the way they play or enter a specific mode to take part.

The Every Card concept

This one is pretty simple. Every single card in the game has at least one mission attached to it. When you obtain a card in your inventory, you can press triangle or whatever button to view the reverse of the card. Here you will find at least one mission to complete with that card, with a hidden reward.
Now, for crappy common free agent cards that nobody will ever care to use it might be something like “pitch one inning” or “tally one hit” with an irrelevant reward like 25 stubs or 50XP. But it’s something. As you move up the tiers and the cards become more desirable and more likely to be used in game, you can expand the mission further and increase the reward value. LS Trout might have a mission to “tally 150 hits” or “hit 75 home runs”, because people are more likely to use that card. The reward could be scaled up to a BIAH pack or 10 pack bundle in the bigger milestones for higher profile cards. The basic concept is that using any card in the game would be worthwhile in some way, even if you only got that 50XP or whatever. Additionally, with roster updates, as cards move up the tiers, we could see longer missions added, so by the years end there maybe multiple missions for each card, which would give latecomers a chance to catch up.

The Shark Challenge

“Are you a shark or a fish? Become the Shark by swimming through three pools, eating the fish as you go (your opponents, obviously) for the chance to be the shark.”

This would work by allowing you to select your best team from all the cards you currently own, much like RS. You would select, or “draft” a squad, if you prefer, from your own inventory. You pay an entry fee, lock in your selected team for that attempt and play with that squad for the duration of your run, until success or elimination. All games would be 9 innings on HoF.

The first pool is comprised of everyone starting out their run and requires winning 2 of 3 games to progress to the next pool. Should you fail to progress you’ll receive a standard pack and be eliminated. Should you succeed, you move to the second pool.

This is now comprised only of players who successfully navigated pool one. The object here is to win 3 of 5 to progress to the third pool. Success should award a gold legend/FB or similar and you advance.

Pool three is the final pool, again comprised of only players that successfully navigated the first two pool and requires winning 5 of 7 to earn a low diamond reward.

At this stage, you have a standard pack, a gold flashback or legend towards whatever collection they have next year and a low diamond. You’ve won 10 games from a maximum of 15 played. You can quit here and take your rewards or gamble them in the final challenge. The final challenge, should you wish to proceed, is to risk everything you’ve earned so far in a winner takes all game against another player who has also conquered the three pools, for the chance to obtain the main reward of the mode. It may be any high diamond, but for arguments sake, let’s say 98 Gagne. And of course the obligatory Shark universal profile icon and nameplate. If you lose you get nothing. Sorry about that. That’s designed to help keep the main reward rare and the market stable.

Bottom line is, I’d just like some new modes and things to do that aren’t heavily derivative of moments and don’t involve facing CPU controlled opponents with their superman dives, endless pitches in the dirt and throws over to first base. I’d sooner play H2H, I’d rather play HoF than AS difficulty and I’d much rather play 9 innings than 3 with nerfed pitching. We’ve not had a new online mode for years, it’s time.

[PennStateFencer]

I like your leaderboard idea, except for the fact that this year proved that people will just beg for stats and boost them. There would be even more "give me x and I quit" team names. I'm not sure there is a way to implement that without people acting like morons.

I also like your every card idea if the rewards/requirements are small enough that people don't bother boosting and just accrue them naturally. It would just be a nice little bonus you don't really have to think about that pops up from regular gameplay with trying out new cards. Reminds me of the career missions from 17 on a much smaller scale.

The shark idea seems like a more complicated BR with 9 inning games. I do like the risking it all aspect of the final round, but based on the amount of RNG in this game it would probably just [censored] me off if I was far in a run and lost due to nonsense. That's a lot of wasted time with 9 inning games. I would likely avoid that mode.