Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game

So this is a theory I've had for a few years. Typically at launch the gameplay mechanics, with regard to hitting and batted balls, plays pretty well. The game is fun, there's a lot of variety in batted ball and hit types, and there tends to be more non-HR XBH and runners on. As the year progresses, it seems that batted balls and hitting outcomes are more stingy and the game feels "off". The game becomes increasingly devoid of offense, with HRs being the main source of offence sprinkled in between a lot of flyballs that used to be XBH. My belief is that this is due to the influence of high diamonds and in particular the effect of high H/9 and HR/9 stats needed to balance the hitting attributes of high diamond position players.

I'm consistently a NMS player, and I'm still using cards that I used from launch including TN Yermin Mercedes and LS Muncy. These cards who once hit very well for me are not generating a whole lot. This is understandable in the sense these cards are "obsolete", but there remains one big issue: with the same timing and PCI positioning, batted ball outcomes are drastically different. That is to say for the same batter, I can hit the same sinker down and away, pretty much dead center of the PCI, and with good timing, and watch what used to be a no doubt home run be consistently a routine fly-ball out. Similarily, POTM Byron Buxton when released was routinely hitting HRs on anything even with poor PCI placement, but now is playing like a normal card.

That makes no sense.

In addition to the batted ball outcomes, I suspect that the overall increase in fielding stats of players that get released throughout the season only help to contribute to diminished BABIP as groundballs and gappers turn into outs, and increased range shortens ABs by way of foul outs.

Curious what you guys think of this. In years past it was blamed on patches, but I'm starting to believe it's the effect of unusually high attributes causing the game mechanics to play differently.

Oddly I've actually noticed this to an extent too.

I firmly believe that when you start introducing +100 attributes, like 125 power, the game gets all wonky.

This isn’t new; attributes are there to balance the game; 125 scale breaks that

You have to remember that the pitcher attributes also in crease so when a hitter and a pitcher meets and the both have 100+ in the counter acting attribute the dice roll that occurs in the back ground or what other like to cry about as RNG will only come out on more of a yes or no scale that is why you get out or home run.

As a money spent player this is fine I'll get the next big card and mash some more bombs and blow away guys with the next flame thrower I love it!!!

Yeah I made so many threads last year where I explained from my point of view why they should abolish the 125 scale and go back to 99 and actually quite a few people agreed with my arguments. I'm curious if the actual decision making devs even read what's going on here. Doubt it honestly.

@raesone_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

Yeah I made so many threads last year where I explained from my point of view why they should abolish the 125 scale and go back to 99 and actually quite a few people agreed with my arguments. I'm curious if the actual decision making devs even read what's going on here. Doubt it honestly.

The problem with that is mixing legends with LS; the 125 does that but it breaks the balance; no easy fix. You can’t have the Babe at 99 power but Gallo at 65 to balance it out. Tough one

@raesone_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

Yeah I made so many threads last year where I explained from my point of view why they should abolish the 125 scale and go back to 99 and actually quite a few people agreed with my arguments. I'm curious if the actual decision making devs even read what's going on here. Doubt it honestly.

More and more each year I'm starting to believe H/9 and K/9 do much more than advertised. Hell I wouldn't Be surprised at all if after 19 HR/9's effect was incorporated into H/9 somehow instead. As of now, it doesn't seem to me like H/9 and K/9 only effect the size of inner and outer PCI

@the_dragon1912 said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

@raesone_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

Yeah I made so many threads last year where I explained from my point of view why they should abolish the 125 scale and go back to 99 and actually quite a few people agreed with my arguments. I'm curious if the actual decision making devs even read what's going on here. Doubt it honestly.

More and more each year I'm starting to believe H/9 and K/9 do much more than advertised. Hell I wouldn't Be surprised at all if after 19 HR/9's effect was incorporated into H/9 somehow instead. As of now, it doesn't seem to me like H/9 and K/9 only effect the size of inner and outer PCI

H/9 definitely deadens the ball and/or reduce the % of good contact finding a hole

@the_dragon1912 said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

@raesone_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

Yeah I made so many threads last year where I explained from my point of view why they should abolish the 125 scale and go back to 99 and actually quite a few people agreed with my arguments. I'm curious if the actual decision making devs even read what's going on here. Doubt it honestly.

More and more each year I'm starting to believe H/9 and K/9 do much more than advertised. Hell I wouldn't Be surprised at all if after 19 HR/9's effect was incorporated into H/9 somehow instead. As of now, it doesn't seem to me like H/9 and K/9 only effect the size of inner and outer PCI

H/9 dont make any sense anyway. They release no-hitter cards without maxed out H/9. How can a Vida Blue card based on a game he didnt allow a hit, not have 125 H/9? This company completely makes up attributes however they want, absent of reason.

IMO as the season goes on and week to week the little updates they provide, the game changes, this has been going on since I've been playing for the last 5 years from what I've noticed. I will agree with what your saying. As the game progresses the cards you use need to also. Meaning your high gold, low diamond at the beginning becomes irrelevant as the game goes on. Which many will argue and continue to say whatever card still mashes for them, maybe so but no. A ton of my grinding is done through team affinity and one week these cards were hitting every thing the next nothing. The game plays so differently week to week its so odd, there's no consistency.

It’s like this in every sports game.

Even worse I see more and more people saying in sports games if they build a new team of base cards, particularly vs the AI, your team plays better.

If there is any truth to this think about how that makes every ultimate team type mode highly suspect/shady.

@jmcdonald1817 said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

IMO as the season goes on and week to week the little updates they provide, the game changes, this has been going on since I've been playing for the last 5 years from what I've noticed. I will agree with what your saying. As the game progresses the cards you use need to also. Meaning your high gold, low diamond at the beginning becomes irrelevant as the game goes on. Which many will argue and continue to say whatever card still mashes for them, maybe so but no. A ton of my grinding is done through team affinity and one week these cards were hitting every thing the next nothing. The game plays so differently week to week its so odd, there's no consistency.

KB used to be my stud at 3rd, was a beast but now I can barely hit with him and had to replace him with Torre

No terrible coding makes the game terrible lol.

If you’ve ever been a online franchise or custom leagues (live series roster) player, you know exactly how different and balanced the gameplay is with standard MLB players. You see all of baseball, singles, doubles, power hitting teams, contact and speed teams, deep pitching teams, there is no META with live series players, you can’t build a team better or equal to everyone that you play, you have to play to your style and build a team around it as best you can.

It’s when you enter DD and see Monstars vs Tune Squads that starts to mess things up.

I would agree with this post. I remember (when being able to play) at the beginning of the game hitting balls over players heads and routinely getting doubles. The game felt fresh and exciting. Now it's all flyouts or HRs. I don't play online, but against the CPU, hitting feels a little stagnant unless you have power

High attribute cards definitely make the gameplay worse. Real baseball has weak spots and dangerous spots in the lineup, you have to choose between hitting and defense, aces and 5 starters, closers and mop up guys. In DD, you can have a cy young or star closer pitch every inning with 8 gold glovers and silver sluggers in the lineup. Unfortunately this leads to an extreme version of baseball that doesn't make sense.

All that being said, the team building aspect of it plus having standings and consequences on the line in RS and BR is enough for me to take the gameplay hit. I would much rather a slow moving content game that starts low in OVRs with high end cards being rare and having many tradeoffs (hitting/defense, control/velocity, etc). Most players prefer the rapid fire content and high end cards so that won't happen any time soon, but it seems like most people in this thread think along these lines

Pitcher stats matter, the hits/9, hr/9 and walks/9 effect your result as a hitter. You were facing easier competition before and now your hitting against the elite.

@duiaintez_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

So this is a theory I've had for a few years. Typically at launch the gameplay mechanics, with regard to hitting and batted balls, plays pretty well. The game is fun, there's a lot of variety in batted ball and hit types, and there tends to be more non-HR XBH and runners on. As the year progresses, it seems that batted balls and hitting outcomes are more stingy and the game feels "off". The game becomes increasingly devoid of offense, with HRs being the main source of offence sprinkled in between a lot of flyballs that used to be XBH. My belief is that this is due to the influence of high diamonds and in particular the effect of high H/9 and HR/9 stats needed to balance the hitting attributes of high diamond position players.

I'm consistently a NMS player, and I'm still using cards that I used from launch including TN Yermin Mercedes and LS Muncy. These cards who once hit very well for me are not generating a whole lot. This is understandable in the sense these cards are "obsolete", but there remains one big issue: with the same timing and PCI positioning, batted ball outcomes are drastically different. That is to say for the same batter, I can hit the same sinker down and away, pretty much dead center of the PCI, and with good timing, and watch what used to be a no doubt home run be consistently a routine fly-ball out. Similarily, POTM Byron Buxton when released was routinely hitting HRs on anything even with poor PCI placement, but now is playing like a normal card.

That makes no sense.

In addition to the batted ball outcomes, I suspect that the overall increase in fielding stats of players that get released throughout the season only help to contribute to diminished BABIP as groundballs and gappers turn into outs, and increased range shortens ABs by way of foul outs.

Curious what you guys think of this. In years past it was blamed on patches, but I'm starting to believe it's the effect of unusually high attributes causing the game mechanics to play differently.

Yeah, you’re pretty spot on with this. I’ve noticed the opposite a lot with events too. Like this live series event everyone can hit because it’s against the crappy live series pitchers.

But if you took that same live series batting lineup to ranked seasons, you’d probably suck even tho you’re making the same quality contact you mentioned.

They 100% tweak sliders here and there.

@c32231112_psn said in Theory: High Diamonds Break the Game:

Pitcher stats matter, the hits/9, hr/9 and walks/9 effect your result as a hitter. You were facing easier competition before and now your hitting against the elite.

This is my point exactly. The idea you can square up and time a ball the exact same, on the exact same pitch, with the exact same hitter, under the exact same conditions, and have one go for a no-doubter and the other a lazy flyball because of who's on the mound is absurd.

Pitchers have no ability to affect the outcome after a pitch has left their hand. The /9 attributes, especially the ones which impact batted ball outcomes, are non-sense. They're simply ways to manufacture outcomes to make pitchers tougher, without actually making them tougher to hit. This is why the game feels janky, because the outcomes don't jive with the process that produces them.