Let’s be honest
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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?
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@GoozeFn_PSN said in Let’s be honest:
@Ditka06_MLBTS 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.
Skeptical of this; it’s the same argument as people saying they only listen to the elite players.
They’re trying to have as wide a base as possible; listening to 4-5 losers on YT is not doing that.
If anything, the way they give out online rewards like candy in MP compared to previous years accomplishes that.
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@Ditka06_MLBTS That’s why I said closer to real baseball. HR are definitely down. Go look at any of the big streamers HR/game compared to last year. Sometimes the team with more hits loses. That’s baseball. While it’s not common, it does happen.
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@yankblan_PSN It sure seems that way to me historically. A couple of streamers last year hated captains and now they are irrelevant. I didn’t see that many people from the community disliking captains aside from the switch hitting captain. Just one example.
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@GoozeFn_PSN yeah, I don’t like that the basically got rid of captains this year. It was a fun way to team build last year and I really enjoy team building and trying out new cards.
I get it how some people hated shield woods and laughing mountain (I personally loved them) as I felt when I had good user input, I was rewarded for it. This year I have had WAY too many examples of good user input with unrewarding results. To me, the video game is hard enough as it so I want my god inputs to be rewarded as much as possible. I felt it was a really good balance last year whereas this year, I don’t feel that.
And as far as only listening to the streamer/Youtube community, I don’t think that is the case at all. I never once heard any of them talk about wanting high elevation stadiums to get nuked. I only hear or saw that here in this forum. Trust and believe that this video game is my main hobby, even with my critiques of the game I still enjoy playing it. I am having fun and enjoying it. I’m still going to keep purchasing the game, but my hope is that the game play goes back to what it was last year, they bring back max elevation stadiums, they keep the power creep, and put out tons of great content throughout the year.
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@GoozeFn_PSN we dont want closer to real baseball. Its a video game. I play people all the time that have 400 plus batting averages. Thats not even close to real baseball. Is madden close to real football? No its not.
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@GoozeFn_PSN well, I do agree with captains being restricted to MLB theme builds.
I fill every survey they send, so hard to say what they weigh more or how big the sample is.
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@Ditka06_MLBTS well here lies the conundrum; some people want arcade numbers, other realistic numbers. If you want realistic/sim, it means more RNG, yet you have superhuman cards. If you want arcade, it means more stick skills at the expense of driving away casual or lower skilled players.
It is impossible to nail that balancing act no matter what they do.
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@yankblan_PSN that's true but like you said the game is hard enough. If the hitting engine was the same as last year or the year prior the game would be fantastic. Not saying to change much.
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@yankblan_PSN said in Let’s be honest:
@GoozeFn_PSN said in Let’s be honest:
@Ditka06_MLBTS 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.
Skeptical of this; it’s the same argument as people saying they only listen to the elite players.
They’re trying to have as wide a base as possible; listening to 4-5 losers on YT is not doing that.
If anything, the way they give out online rewards like candy in MP compared to previous years accomplishes that.
If they are trying to appeal to as wide of a base as possible they are failing in their approach.
For example, offline grinders are definitely a presence in Diamond Dynasty, regardless of the people that think archaically and want to say its a PvP mode. Some of us even spend! Not as much as online players (but realistically even most online players are NMS, or close to it), but its still more $$
But the people that prefer online play often don't want to grind offline for long periods of time...thats fair. The last two years the trend has been to make programs trivial to complete. The recent lightning program took me 5 conquest games, and I was using timing (not even directional) to do so. If I used zone I bet I would have had it done in 3.
So a portion of the playerbase is happy, and thats good. But they didnt even try to balance it. they left grinders with nothing to grind for.
There are plenty of solutions: why not have some kind of time consuming offline track for optional rewards, like premier/ultra packs (NOT those crappy deluxes) and a 50 bundle like they do for online? Why not give some grind heavy, but sellable cards that are on the same level as Ranked/BR cards? that would add to overall spending, not reduce it, as online players might want to spend stubs on those cards if they made them actually valuable.
TA used to fill the void for large chunks of time, but they tinkered with that and it hasnt worked out
As a result I am strongly considering sitting out 26 until the game is given away for free for PS Plus late in the year and just playing 23 for my baseball fix. I expect they will start catering to offline grinders less and less each year, which is the trend for DD/UT/MT modes.
