My Review So Far of MLB The Show 25
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So, it's that time where we can give a pretty accurate review of the game. First, let's start with what SDS is doing wrong.
Team Affinity is a Catastrophe
We have gotten 3 diamonds from each team from TA all year so far. 3. The Jolt 85-86, the Color Storm 91-92, and the 2025 All-Star Game 96. Team Affinity used to be great. It would pump out plenty of cards that are usable for god squads and theme teams. Now, just look at some teams like the Rockies, Marlins, and Diamondbacks. And that's just to name a few. Our next drop will be Finest and that's probably it for the year. Not only that, to get each All-Star in TA, you need 285,000 XP for EACH TEAM. Now, I understand that you don't need to get EVERY single card from TA, but you need most. 285k is a lot of XP for one team. Personally, I think they should've done maybe 205k, get the Jolt player, use the Color Storm card, and boom, you're done. That's just my opinion. I get that these cards were part of a huge collection and it should be difficult, but I think, overall, that drop was a little lackluster and time consuming.
TOO MANY COLLECTIONS
Need I say more? DOES EVERY [censored] GREAT CARD HAVE TO BE IN A COLLECTION!? Jose Bautista is insane - behind the hardest collection in the game, costs about 6 million total. Ted Williams - another insane card - behind another collection. Carlos Beltran - still the best card in the game in my opinion - behind the Live Series collection, which makes sense, he should be VERY hard to get. Judge, Raleigh, Ohtani, Rolen, Griffey, Posada, Correa, all of these insane cards are behind collections. It's the meta these days. Not saying you can't build a good team without collections, but goddamn, can't we get one good card that's hard to get BUT FREE. Give us a long program, make us feel rewarded for playing the game instead of mindlessly flipping or playing the draft conquest over and over again for one [censored] card.
Programs Are Lackluster
Programs this year just suck. We get no more than 4 cards per program and the cards just aren't that good. We got a pretty mid 99 Ronald Acuna Jr. and a solid CC Sabathia, but that's it. SDS seems to have lost its creativity. Take the Outfield Assist program, for example. THE PROGRAM AND THE CARDS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH OUTFIELD ASSISTS. As a matter of fact, the cards were based on HITTING milestones. That's a nice 5 IQ move there, SDS. And always, if a program correlates with a pack or collection, like Pipeline Past or Prime, the pack cards will ALWAYS outshine the program rewards. I remember back in MLB 23 we got like 10 cards in the Great Race of '98 program, and the 99 Mark McGwire outshined everyone. It was a long program, but it was rewarding. That's more of what we all would like to see. I'm NOT saying that every card should be free, but, can't we get at least one 99 in a themed program that's maxed out? Next, the Spotlight Drops are a calamity. 3 cards in the program. Nice, and of course, the pack cards are usually better than program rewards. Personally, I hate this new Topps Now and Monthly Awards model. I wish we went back to the old model with the Topps Now cards having their own separate program and the Monthly Award cards having theirs as well. It would be more organized and more fun. However, I'll give SDS props for the player programs. I do like the way they execute those.
Chase Packs and Packs in General are the Meta, again.
Jimmy Rollins, George Brett, Babe Ruth, Ketel Marte, Leodalis De Vries, Mark McGwire, Bernie Williams, Jake Arrieta, Jhoan Duran, all in packs. Need I say more?
So far, this game is not a fan appreciation if you ask me. -
Honestly my problem with the TA All Star drop was that if you played the game regularly (~1 hour per day), and cycled through cards habitually, you had the vouchers already so the All Star Drop was just 'here, cards. No missions to use them though!'
And there is another TA drop on the calendar, but at this point its probably too little too late
Agree with everything else though and would add just how terrible innings are. The reward paths have junk besides the bosses and they launch without miniseasons, conquests, etc. This all was handled far better in 23
Still better than 2024 though, for what little that's worth
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@TheBigPapa55_PSN I think that’s why they changed to the sets and seasons. This is what it was before then. I didn’t care for putting cards aside for a few months but I like baseball enough to fill my roster with players I liked and enjoyed playing so it never bothered me and was completing those divisions within a week. I didn’t get far with the Dodgers TA before I got bored going back to this system and went back to franchise.
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I appreciated you took the time to list all of this, BigPapa55!
I got to say I respectfully beg to differ on the Team Affinity point.
I am new to the franchise. The Show is the first baseball video game I play since Ken Griffey, in 1994.
I bought the game several weeks after his release.
Needless to say, when I start to play, I was like a dog on a bowling alley. I just did not know what to do, where to put my time and energy or what to achieve.
I even pull a Judge Live Series and sell it because I did not thought I will be doing the Live Series Collection. Let's just say I have seller's remorse today, as all my time in the game these days is dedicated to get the necessary stubs to buy Ohtani AND Judge...
Anyway. That gives you a portrait of who I was at the beginning of June, when I started playing.
But beside all of this, when the 2025 All-Star Vouchers could be redeemed, I got the 30 free cards.
I had to grind a lot. I kept track of my progress in a notebook. I worked very hard to put together a line-up that will get me the PXP I need to get to the next objective. And I played, and I played, and I played (against CPU).
If a disorganized and not very talented newcomer like me could get to 285 000 XP for EVERY team in less than two months, I think every one can do it.
I am not posting this to brag. Like I said, I am not a very good player. I just got Rolen 99 and I am still 16 Diamond Cards away for the Live Series Collection.
I just think that anyone who put the time and effort on the Team Affinity program can get to the vouchers quite easily.
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@pacadie09_NSW said in My Review So Far of MLB The Show 25:
I just think that anyone who put the time and effort on the Team Affinity program can get to the vouchers quite easily.
Thats actually a large part of the issue. For 2021-2023, TA was in a divisional format with 5 drops per year. You got to choose which player you wanted first in each division, so could grab your favorite team easy, and then had many ways to progress the program. PxP missions, vouchers through various modes of play, etc.
While some people powered through it early, it was usually the fall back if you were done with other content. And when you finished you knew another big drop wasn't far away. This year the only content drop was color storm, All Star wasnt really a drop, just collect your vouchers and have nothing to earn anynore. There is a void for offline grinders because of this.
And people's perspective on the game absolutely changes with the first year they really got into DD.
For me, my first year was 2023 which is easily the most content rich year the game has seen in the last 5 years (and I assume ever). Programs used to have 10-20 cards in them. Granted a lot of those cards were the lesser cards you see in the packs today but those are still great for offline and lower tiers of ranked. Its more fun for some people to use cards with strengths and weaknesses vs everyone has a big PCI and hits bombs.
2023 had its own issues, but I always think of how much every single program they have dropped completely sucks compared to 2023. And they absolutely do, but they aren't bad if you don't have that comparison point.
2023 introduced the concept of expiring cards which people absolutely hated so 2023 gets dumped on by longer term players. (in todays terms, cards you earned in the 3rd inning would be good for the 4th and 5th inning too but would be unavailable for usage in online modes and some offline modes in innings 6-9 before everything was fair game again in inning 10...innings were called seasons then, but seasons were just basically longer innings)
