**Feature Suggestion: Bring Back Year-to-Year Saves — and Take Them Further**
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Feature Suggestion: Bring Back Year-to-Year Saves — and Take Them Further
To the MLB The Show / San Diego Studio team,
I wanted to suggest bringing back one of my favorite features MLB The Show has ever had: Year-to-Year Saves.
I’m not asking for this because I vaguely remember the feature. I actually used it.
I kept one of my MLB The Show saves going for roughly five real-world years, carrying the same baseball universe forward instead of starting over every year. That kind of continuity completely changed the way I played the game.
I became invested in my player, my team, the roster I built, the prospects I developed, the seasons I played, and the history that accumulated along the way.
The biggest problem was keeping the rest of the league current.
After several real-world seasons, I would have to manually make roster moves if I wanted the rest of my baseball universe to somewhat resemble what was actually happening in MLB.
That is where I think a modern version of Year-to-Year Saves could become something much bigger.
Imagine being able to import a long-running Franchise or Road to the Show universe into the newest MLB The Show and then being given an option:
SYNC WITH CURRENT MLB
From there, allow us to protect our team and created player while updating the rest of Major League Baseball.
For example:
Protected Organization: New York Yankees
Keep my Yankees roster, created player, prospects, transactions, statistics, championships, and franchise history intact.
Then update the other 29 organizations using the newest real-world MLB data.
New players and prospects could be added. Real-world roster moves could be applied. Ratings could be updated. Managers, uniforms, equipment, stadium changes, presentation, and other current content could come from the newest game.
Where conflicts exist, give the player control over how they are resolved.
Most importantly, do not erase the history of the save.
If I won the 2028 World Series in my universe, that still happened. If I drafted a prospect in 2027 who became an All-Star, he still exists. If my created player has accumulated eight seasons of statistics, those numbers remain part of his career.
Update the present without erasing the past.
I also want to make one thing clear from a business standpoint:
I would pay for this.
I would gladly pay full game price for the newest MLB The Show every year if it meant I could bring my existing baseball universe with me and take advantage of the newest gameplay, graphics, presentation, stadiums, equipment, commentary, face scans, uniforms, and other improvements.
If maintaining Year-to-Year Saves and real-world league synchronization requires additional resources, make it a premium feature. Charge for an annual League Sync. Include it with a premium edition. There are different ways it could be monetized.
I believe there is a segment of longtime Franchise and Road to the Show players who would happily pay a premium to protect hundreds—or potentially thousands—of hours invested into their sports universe.
Sports games are unique because a save can become more valuable to the player the longer it exists. After five years, I didn’t want a new baseball universe. I wanted the newest version of MLB The Show around the universe I had already created.
San Diego Studio already demonstrated years ago that continuity between annual releases was possible with Year-to-Year Saves.
I would love to see that idea return and evolve into something even better: a true persistent baseball universe that could potentially follow a player for an entire career.
That would give players like me a reason to buy the newest MLB The Show every year without having to sacrifice the thing that keeps us playing in the first place.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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So, first, not only do very few people wish to continue a save into the next year, most people rarely get through a few seasons with their current saves because they are constantly restarting their franchise.
They're doing this because SDS can not even find a way to update the (new) face scans of players in an already started franchise. Almost everyone wants the most updated stats/scans.
The other big thing, is drafting is absolute garbage in this game. Within roughly 8-10 seasons, the rosters are junk. All the true superstars have either retired or had their ratings drop off a cliff. The young prospects never seem to pan out and the half dozen 'decent' draftees, just aren't enough to replace the ones who are gone.
What you're asking for isn't a bad idea and I would hope that it could come to fruition. However there are a dozen or two other more pressing issues with franchise that are far more important to the player base that need to be addressed first.
