Let’s be honest
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2024 3.14 HR/G 5.9 R/G .304 AVG .706 W%
2025 2.55 HR/G 4.8 RG .339 AVG .727 W%You’re hitting less HR and scoring less runs per game this year compared to last year, but a higher average and better win percentage. I for one am happy they toned down home runs. It’s still pretty unrealistic, but it was way over the top last year.
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I feel like gameplay and hitting is better this year. I like that every game is not just a home run derby and plays more like actual baseball than it used to.
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@GoozeFn_PSN and here is where you, the data guy is going to be COMPLETELY wrong. 2024 was over some 90-100ish games. This year in ranked 11. Made it to like silver 1 or 2 before the first weekend classic and have only played in weekend classic since for ranked. So you are comparing apples to oranges here. Nearly all my online games are not captured in the data here because the way data is recorded this year.
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@Pergo_MLBTS I don’t like how user input isn’t rewarded the way that it should be. This year, I have had far too many instances of where I square it up on a good swing and it just dies in the field of play. I don’t find that to be fun or enjoyable. I’m not elite at the game. I can make WS and have for the past few years that I have competitively played online. I want to play a baseball video game, not a baseball sim.
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@GoozeFn_PSN Oh and also for the data, last year the VAST majority of the games I played were on HOF. The 11 games played this year that you analyzed, on All Star and veteran. All of them. I lost my first two games this year so even more on veteran before even reaching All Star. The data you are utilizing is worthless because of how data is recorded this year because of WC.
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@creeder21_MLBTS Nerfing exit velo, especially this crazy shield woods, was the best move SDS did to gameplay in the last 5 years … made it much more realistic (there are still too many HRs) … In other words: On this I do not agree with
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@creeder21_MLBTS said in Let’s be honest:
@Pergo_MLBTS ... I want to play a baseball video game, not a baseball sim.
You know that this game is called MLB the Show? It resembles the actual game of MLB … and imo they are doing a pretty good job with it … We had those games you are looking for in the past. They were called MLB Slugfest etc. …
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@YOSHI24_XBL and we can disagree, BUT why do you think people played there? Do you think maybe people enjoyed it?
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@YOSHI24_XBL last year was not slugfest. IMHO, this game has typically been incredible about balancing good to “perfect” user input and rewarding it. This year, not so much. It had a really excellent balance between sim and arcade, but it has been pushed more towards sim. I like the middle, in what I like to call baseball video game. Not cartoonish arcade or total baseball sim, but just an enjoyable video game where the user gets rewarded for their input.
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@creeder21_MLBTS said in Let’s be honest:
I have given the game time and got to the point where I feel like I could accurately compare hitting last year to this year, as for most of the year last year we were using high overall diamonds almost immediately.
This year’s game is just not as fun as last years when it comes to game play. I find myself playing online way less because I just don’t have as much fun as I did last year. Nuking stadium elevations and whatever they did to hitting (exit velos or balls dying at the warning track, etc. whatever IT is.) has just made it so much less rewarding. I hardly play ranked outside of weekend classic anymore, I don’t play BR at all, and play events a bit to make it through the MP program. Last year and the years before, I played them often. The thing is, I still win the same amount, which is often, I just don’t have as much fun.
Next year I hope they reverse course and give us back high elevation stadiums and revert back whatever they changed this year with hitting. People played in these stadiums because they found them fun. Like I said, this year I am winning at probably a higher rate, but without having as much fun.
I know some in here will disagree and that’s ok, but I think many more out there agree that if this year played like last year, with the cards and content that we have gotten this year, the community as a whole would have been pretty happy. And just for good measure, they should get rid of PCI shrinkage. It’s dumb and one of the reasons why we see so many switch hitters.
And for everyone's sake, fix. CPU. PITCHING.
My 9 at bats with Griffey so far, 2 hard singles, 4 HBP, 3 outs because I swung at pitches inside.
The CPU pitching is just getting worse, it's August.
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Its funny, I griped about the CPU pitching earlier in the year but I've come around to live with it for games. Yes, its unrealistic that common Seth Halvorsen perfectly places his outlier fastball right on the black on the bottom of the zone right after throwing a splitter or two just below it. But I dont want it too easy either. My bigger issue is that timing is coded to give FAR too many double plays. Its gotten to the point where Ill sometimes purposefully take strike 3 if its low in the zone.
Moment pitching is tedious though.
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@samguenther1987_PSN I agree with you. They somehow made playing versus the CPU even more boring. Every time I play against the CPU on rookie or veteran, I think back to when I started playing the game and I probably wouldn’t have continued to play it. Getting absolutely dotted on the lowest difficulties is either impossible for a new player or boring for a good player as you wait for something decent to come in.
What they did with CPU pitching was intentional. Its design was to slow people down in the grind and keep them in the game longer. Its design is to make people buy stubs to get the cards versus playing to earn the cards. Short term, it’s probably successful, but long term, new players are just not going to play and buy the game.
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Bingo. I said it months ago that the CPU pitching is by design. On lower difficulties players just want to relax and mash after a long day. Not hunt your pitch every at bat only to get dotted up by a bronze or common pitcher repeatedly.
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@TripleH-4481_PSN I know they listen to the community. They nerfed high elevation stadiums because a vocal minority called them “shameful” over and over again. If the community actually wanted that, players wouldn’t have been choosing to utilize those stadiums.
With CPU pitching, I also hope they listen and pivot. I want the player base to grow and for people to have fun playing the game. It is a video game after all and is supposed to be FUN.
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@GoozeFn_PSN have you heard enough its now every where bro. Everyone is virtually stating the same things or close to the same things about the game man. You are just neglecting to see it. Game play man. Needs to be better. Most are now saying it. Everytime you come on here and show stats but Stats mean nothing compared to actual gameplay. I have consistently told you I agree with you on the lies and exaggerating. But the reason people are exaggerating is because the hitting engine is so hard and unrewarding it feels like everything we hit is an out. Something is off this year. We armt all crazy. Most of us have played for several years to know.
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@creeder21_MLBTS said in Let’s be honest:
@TripleH-4481_PSN I know they listen to the community. They nerfed high elevation stadiums because a vocal minority called them “shameful” over and over again. If the community actually wanted that, players wouldn’t have been choosing to utilize those stadiums.
With CPU pitching, I also hope they listen and pivot. I want the player base to grow and for people to have fun playing the game. It is a video game after all and is supposed to be FUN.
The problem is, most of us are in some minority or the other.
They pick one or two groups to listen to, and then make changes at the expense of the others.
I hate the changes they made in 2024 and 2025 to appease the people that didn't like card quantity in programs and just wanted low effort content. 2024 at least kept a TA grind, but 2025 we have stretches like the recent one where there hasnt really been a real grind since color storm/AS vouchers. And that was well over a month ago.
I think the online game is significantly improved with a nerfed Shield Woods. I quit most ranked games where I saw Shield Woods last year, its just dumb. But then they went and made the ranked track require heavy offense so...what exactly were they trying to do?
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Being over rewarded as opposed to under rewarded, especially on lower difficulties should be the priority to maximize the player base.
As it stands now the learning curve is way too steep. Hitting is made difficult either to prolong the grind or to appease that very vocal minority that lives on the game.
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@creeder21_MLBTS Yeah, good point. It’s not a perfect comparison. My results are very similar with the same caveat, although, my recorded games played between the 2 years is a lot closer than yours.
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@Ditka06_MLBTS I’m not even convinced a majority agree with you. I think the argument is more that some people liked the previous years of home run derby more than a closer to real form of baseball. I can at least understand that argument. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it’s understandable. We’re not going to see a change in the middle of the year regardless. I’d bet they tune it back because several of the streamers are crying about it and they are the only people SDS listens too.
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@GoozeFn_PSN I just played a ranked game where I had 12 hits my oppenent had 6. And he won 5 to 3. 5 out of his 6 hits were home runs. Go check it out was my last ranked game. So no. Home runs are still very much a big thing. What are the odds of having 6 hits in a 9 inning game and five out of the six hits being home runs?
