“Skill matters more than ever”

Rant warning

I find that hard to believe when I get matched up against a .500 player yet end up losing. A game in which I get a total of 14 hits that are considered hard hit balls by the batter analysis. Yet end up having 6 of those hard hit balls result in an out. Yet my opponent gets 11 hard hit balls and 9 of them end up as hits. I had 2 good/good balls end up as a double play and one perfect/perfect that resulted in a double play. I outplayed him in every aspect, I struck him out twice as much as he struck me out, had more hard hit balls put in play, worked the count and drove his pitch count up higher, forced him to walk my batters, and swung at good pitches to hit, I pretty much did everything right, yet I lost.

I know I can’t win every game and I’m not entitled to a win but it’s really frustrating when you are in a division that plays on HOF difficulty and 2/3 games end up being played on all star and you lose both because they are home run derby’s and it really just boils down to chance because anyone can hit on all star. This game, feels like it’s nothing more than a [censored] shoot (especially on all star difficulty, when anyone who has eyes and two hands can compete with good players because All star difficulty is an absolute joke.

You should try moving to England. I regularly have the pleasure of seeing warping 200mph sinkers on all star, seemingly due to being geographically distant from the majority of my opponents. HoF is currently unplayable for me, despite the fact I’ve played for five years, use a monitor and have made WS every season for the past couple of years. I couldn’t even get to CS last season and I’ve given up playing past 700 now because it’s just garbage. Speaking to other players in the USA, they share your opinion that HoF is still the best setting, as I too believed last year, not much has changed. Speaking to a European friend who is much better than me, goes 12-0 multiple times a year and generally competes with good players on HoF and legend and he agrees it’s impossible to hit a sinker or even straight fastball in some games due to the crazy timing windows.
TLDR; SDS problem

@ComebackLogic said in “Skill matters more than ever”:

You should try moving to England. I regularly have the pleasure of seeing warping 200mph sinkers on all star, seemingly due to being geographically distant from the majority of my opponents. HoF is currently unplayable for me, despite the fact I’ve played for five years, use a monitor and have made WS every season for the past couple of years. I couldn’t even get to CS last season and I’ve given up playing past 700 now because it’s just garbage. Speaking to other players in the USA, they share your opinion that HoF is still the best setting, as I too believed last year, not much has changed. Speaking to a European friend who is much better than me, goes 12-0 multiple times a year and generally competes with good players on HoF and legend and he agrees it’s impossible to hit a sinker or even straight fastball in some games due to the crazy timing windows.
TLDR; SDS problem

Sinkers are for sure tough to hit especially Klubers. It comes in a lot quicker then what it says it comes in at.

@REDSMAN09 said in “Skill matters more than ever”:

Rant warning

I find that hard to believe when I get matched up against a .500 player yet end up losing. A game in which I get a total of 14 hits that are considered hard hit balls by the batter analysis. Yet end up having 6 of those hard hit balls result in an out. Yet my opponent gets 11 hard hit balls and 9 of them end up as hits. I had 2 good/good balls end up as a double play and one perfect/perfect that resulted in a double play. I outplayed him in every aspect, I struck him out twice as much as he struck me out, had more hard hit balls put in play, worked the count and drove his pitch count up higher, forced him to walk my batters, and swung at good pitches to hit, I pretty much did everything right, yet I lost.

I know I can’t win every game and I’m not entitled to a win but it’s really frustrating when you are in a division that plays on HOF difficulty and 2/3 games end up being played on all star and you lose both because they are home run derby’s and it really just boils down to chance because anyone can hit on all star. This game, feels like it’s nothing more than a [censored] shoot (especially on all star difficulty, when anyone who has eyes and two hands can compete with good players because All star difficulty is an absolute joke.

You are absolutely correct and all your points are valid. Skill does NOT matter and I’m tired of it. They fooled me again this year and it’s pretty sad. I feel deceived and straight up lied to.

@ComebackLogic said in “Skill matters more than ever”:

You should try moving to England. I regularly have the pleasure of seeing warping 200mph sinkers on all star, seemingly due to being geographically distant from the majority of my opponents. HoF is currently unplayable for me, despite the fact I’ve played for five years, use a monitor and have made WS every season for the past couple of years. I couldn’t even get to CS last season and I’ve given up playing past 700 now because it’s just garbage. Speaking to other players in the USA, they share your opinion that HoF is still the best setting, as I too believed last year, not much has changed. Speaking to a European friend who is much better than me, goes 12-0 multiple times a year and generally competes with good players on HoF and legend and he agrees it’s impossible to hit a sinker or even straight fastball in some games due to the crazy timing windows.
TLDR; SDS problem

Playing from Finland, I can confirm all of the above.

Thing is, I've played since 15 and I can't recall it ever being this bad with respect to how much of a handicap non-Americans give to Americans.

@Captain_Chegster said in “Skill matters more than ever”:

@REDSMAN09 said in “Skill matters more than ever”:

Rant warning

I find that hard to believe when I get matched up against a .500 player yet end up losing. A game in which I get a total of 14 hits that are considered hard hit balls by the batter analysis. Yet end up having 6 of those hard hit balls result in an out. Yet my opponent gets 11 hard hit balls and 9 of them end up as hits. I had 2 good/good balls end up as a double play and one perfect/perfect that resulted in a double play. I outplayed him in every aspect, I struck him out twice as much as he struck me out, had more hard hit balls put in play, worked the count and drove his pitch count up higher, forced him to walk my batters, and swung at good pitches to hit, I pretty much did everything right, yet I lost.

I know I can’t win every game and I’m not entitled to a win but it’s really frustrating when you are in a division that plays on HOF difficulty and 2/3 games end up being played on all star and you lose both because they are home run derby’s and it really just boils down to chance because anyone can hit on all star. This game, feels like it’s nothing more than a [censored] shoot (especially on all star difficulty, when anyone who has eyes and two hands can compete with good players because All star difficulty is an absolute joke.

You are absolutely correct and all your points are valid. Skill does NOT matter and I’m tired of it. They fooled me again this year and it’s pretty sad. I feel deceived and straight up lied to.

It’s frustrating because it was supposed to be a big selling point. But I find it super hard to believe that skill matters when I end up losing to guys that are just barely over the .500 record. I’m not the best but I feel pretty like I’m in the above average/good group. Last year i made WS a few times and never finished below CS but this year I’m struggling just to make it out of wild card because all star is a mess and feels like a crapshoot on who wins. My record right now is the worst it’s ever been. I’m only like 15 or so games above .500. At this stage of last year I was like 40 games over .500. I’ve been playing this game competitively since 2015 and have always had a record well over .500 now I’m just 15 or so games over. That doesn’t just happen. I didn’t just start playing bad. I still play well on HOF when I actually get to play a match on HOF. And I still play offline on legend with success.

What’s really funny is when I see guys who have WS banners yet by looking at their record you would wonder how they got there because it doesn’t look all that great. But it’s evident those losses are coming from all star difficulty lol.