There’s just nothing fun about it any longer. The grinding is all tedious and constantly repeated. The conquest is brutally repetitive. The programs are all the same thing over and over.

The pitching is far too easy to control, making virtually anyone capable of giving up only a fluke homer here and there but otherwise dominating most offenses, especially at mid levels of RS.

And the hitting is next to impossible when guys can constantly dot corners and edges with ridiculous breaking balls and impossibly quick fastballs, and I’m on a 1ms response monitor.

And when you do get a good contact, the fielders can now make ridiculous diving plays consistently.

Addiction is a hard thing to break, we come back again and again to play a game that drives us crazy and largely wastes our time, we have become insane because of it.

This game is the only thing I complain about in life. It makes me a worse person. I’ve been playing for so many years that it’s a tough thing to break, I want to so badly. The past two years especially have truly sucked for the show franchise. It has never felt worse.

The full extent of my addiction became recognizable when the realization hit me that I may not be able to play MLB tonight because of PSN's server and I became a bit irritated for a hot second there...

And of all nights, the one night where baseball was to be the escape from all the political garbage going down.

Seriously, what am I going to do for the next 5 hours now? I may have to read a book... holy cow.

I didn't even know what it was called until I started searching on here, but it has happened to all of us, and we have all be robbed of legitimate counting stats which are used to measure our skill and ability, and when this happens, stats become inaccurate.

The solution is simple... 8 hour ban first time offense, 24 hour ban for each successive offense. Problem solved permanently. SDS, please implement a solution and put an end to this absurd immature behavior.

Real men know how to win and lose graciously.

Only stone-cold losers quit (while a ball is mid-flight) when their weak ego is bruised in a meaningless video game.

When I play Conquest, I generally jump from one team stronghold to the next, then once I’ve defeated them all, I have to go back and capture all the other hexes, including simming every other hex occupied by a stronghold-less team. This can consume 15-30 minutes of my allotted gaming time, which I consider wasted because I’m not able to play or be in the market. Considering this is a foregone conclusion, can there be an option added that once all strongholds are defeated, the entire board is cleared, any hidden packs rewarded, and just be done with it?

(excerpted from CBS Sports Matt Snyder story)

When Allen was on the field, his peak was as good as anyone in baseball. That's not an overstatement. Allen's prime was 1964-74, a span during which he hit .299/.386/.554, good for a 165 OPS+. Those trailing Allen include Willie McCovey, Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Carl Yastrzemski and we'll just stop there. You get the idea.

Allen's 162-game averages in those 11 seasons were 31 doubles, nine triples, 35 homers, 107 RBI, 106 runs and 12 steals.

Allen wasn't just all over the leaderboards, he topped them. He led the league in runs once, triples once, home runs twice, RBI once, walks once, on-base percentage twice, slugging percentage three times, OPS four times, OPS+ three times, extra-base hits three times, times on base once and position-player WAR once.

Injuries and personal issues are the culprits [for cutting into his playing time], but there's necessary context behind the personal issues -- which led to Allen being labeled a malcontent or worse -- and that would be his enduring of horrible racism (some of which is outlined pretty well by Jay Jaffe in "The Cooperstown Casebook," pages 212-222).

Oh, and by the way, OPS+ adjusts for ballpark and era and Allen sits 19th all-time, tied with Frank Thomas and Willie Mays. He's ahead of Joe DiMaggio, Mel Ott, Aaron, Robinson and a litany of some of the very best hitters ever (the top five is Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig and Mike Trout, for those curious).

This is absolutely a peak Hall of Famer.

Baseball is all about patience and how well you deal with failure. Since you're playing the role of every player on the team, there's a lot of failure to go around between pitching and hitting. You are guaranteed to make an out 27 times in a game, and you will probably be lit up for at least 4-6 runs a game on average. Accepting this is the first step. You must be able to hit off-speed pitches and the only way this happens outside of luck hits is with patience and practice. You have to start your swing later. I like to hit off the slider, in other words, I look for the slider (or mid-range speed pitch if the guy doesn't have a slider) on nearly every pitch. When it comes and it's in my hitting zone, I'm ready. When I get a fastball, I can speed up my swing, and when it's a slower offspeed, I can delay longer. If I'm in a fastball count, 2-0 or 3-1, I look for it. Players who stink can usually only hit fastballs with any consistency because they are swinging for a fastball on every pitch, so the adjustment to delay the swing is very difficult when you're starting your swing so early. Also, if you're not using a monitor with a 1 ms response time, the game is extremely difficult and virtually impossible to ever become an above-average player. Nearly every other game you can get away with much higher response time, but baseball requires precision. Not a fan of directional hitting and I cannot do PCI. I'm consistently capped around 700 in DD, I think the PCI swing is a necessity to get to WS level and I'll never be able to do it but I still play good baseball. I like pure analog using the flick of the right stick. This allows you to focus entirely on getting a good pitch to hit and your swing timing. Best way to get better is to practice hitting off-speed pitches by trying to only hit them and taking the heaters and sinkers. Watch the pitcher, not the strike zone, and try to pick up the pitch out of their hand by watching their arm action.

I did not mean anything I said in an offensive way, it was entirely about truth, however, point taken, I do not know anyone's financial matters and that could very well have something to do with it, and if it is indeed the case that someone could not play online because of financial constraints, I understand and my comment was insensitive. If it's not the case, however, and someone is too scared of putting themselves out there, so to speak, and fearful of the possibility of suffering a loss (and I am certain this is the case with many on here, I see the frequency of plug pulling that goes on, often mid-flight of a home run), all the more reason to play online and figure out how to overcome adversity. Baseball is a game that subtly teaches many of life's most important lessons, but the only way to learn them is to experience all elements of the game, and one can only get that experience playing against other humans.

I just finished, 25-24 was my final record... it was actually an excellent challenge, extraordinarily difficult, and there are very few weak players attempting it, most opponents had winning records in RS around .600 or better. I'll bet my batting average was around .200 for the 49 games, probably hit 30 HR. Highest scoring game was a 5-3 loss after leading 3-0.

One thing this event did is revealed to me who the best pitchers in this game are. Lamet is extremely good. Degrom is sick but I'd rather face him than Lamet. And Gibson might be the best of them all. Fingers is a fantastic and tricky reliever, as well as Devin Williams, his change is filthy.

My best suggestion: Put out the best defense possible at every position, throw mostly strikes and a healthy dose of high FB's with all pitchers. I also recommend stealing 2nd almost every opportunity you get when you have 85 or higher speed except with Mays, who is terrible at baserunning, and I would attempt to steal 3rd with no outs if you can get the jump on the pitcher.

As for batting... if you're just flailing away, you have no plan, it's going to be hard to luck into hits, you must have a plan. You're never going to catch up to a FB if you're not looking for it. And you're going to be early on every off-speed if you're looking for a FB on every pitch. I think it's better to sit on off-speed and hope to foul off the FB's. Unless your opponent is jamming heaters down the middle of the plate on every first pitch, I think the 0-0 should always be a take. Let's you see a pitch and slow down the AB a little. Don't let a guy quick pitch you, especially with a runner on, slow them down with R1. The games go quickly even if you drag them out an extra couple minutes to allow yourself that extra couple seconds before every high-leverage pitch to get set.

This is the year of the pitcher like never before it seems like. It is far too easy to paint corners and edges consistently, and there are so many players who can’t hit a lick as a result of this. Walk rates are at all time lows. Control needs to be reduced. As does velocity… no pitcher fires off 70 fastballs at 101-102 a game. Pitching needs to be more realistic, as does hitting.

The other thing that SDS should fix is the ability to balk repeatedly. The solution is simple, once a pitch is selected, the pitcher comes to the set, then the player executes the pitch. This gives the base runners time to get set. Right now, I can only slow them down by holding R2. I do it religiously, it’s annoying for sure, but it’s the only way to stop pitchers from balking.

@busta-21_xbl said in The game is stale, I hate myself for playing:

@mm9niner_psn said in The game is stale, I hate myself for playing:

My biggest gripe is the moments flooding into all the programs. I can't do it. They are so mind numbing and frustrating. I just want to play regular games and compile stats. I'd rather go back to the old style of those player arcs or whatever. Do we really need 7000 moments to do?

I have so many player missions to do, that I never even use my main/best players anymore. No idea why I even grind for them. I complete their XP and never use them again.

This is the insanity I’m talking about.

You feel a compulsion to complete some useless aspect of the program, so you’re not spending your gaming time optimally by doing whatever it is you prefer to do, RS, BR, etc and in the manner that puts you in the best position to be competitive by using your best players. You’re subservient to the program and it’s not even remotely worth it.

There’s just nothing fun about it any longer. The grinding is all tedious and constantly repeated. The conquest is brutally repetitive. The programs are all the same thing over and over.

The pitching is far too easy to control, making virtually anyone capable of giving up only a fluke homer here and there but otherwise dominating most offenses, especially at mid levels of RS.

And the hitting is next to impossible when guys can constantly dot corners and edges with ridiculous breaking balls and impossibly quick fastballs, and I’m on a 1ms response monitor.

And when you do get a good contact, the fielders can now make ridiculous diving plays consistently.

Addiction is a hard thing to break, we come back again and again to play a game that drives us crazy and largely wastes our time, we have become insane because of it.

This game is the only thing I complain about in life. It makes me a worse person. I’ve been playing for so many years that it’s a tough thing to break, I want to so badly. The past two years especially have truly sucked for the show franchise. It has never felt worse.

I think the only reason you have Trout on your team at this moment is if you are completing the live series collection today. If not for that, there’s no other good reason because the price is undoubtedly going to drop once they run a sale, probably soon, and then keep dropping the rest of the season. There are 9 other 93+ CF cards which can be had for a fraction of the cost and you can cash out your Trout at the highest it’s ever going to be. Sell, sell, sell.

It has done that in every previous show. That’s how sales work in any business. You pay full price at release while the demand is highest, as time passes, demand reduces (because who needs two of them?) and each stub sale creates supply at a lower cost, and when there are more sellers than there are buyers, the price will drop until the ratio levels out. This will happen with each stub sale. The price will also drop when a better CF card is added to the game, be it a 99 Mantle or Mays, as now there is a far superior option. This is exactly what is going to happen to it over the course of the season.

Of course his price will drop. Precipitously over the course of the season. Live series cards are the highest prices they are ever going to be right now. It won’t be long until there’s a sale, then another sale, and with each sale, the price drops. And then the 99’s come and proliferate. It’s a certainty the price will drop. The only reason to buy him now is to make the complete player collection, but you’d probably have to spend real money on that still at this point. If you’re not completing the player collection immediately, find a different CF until his price drops significantly.

It is a mental illness actually. It’s a form of bullying, I can’t have something so neither can you. The fear of failure is not relieved from it, as it does not deny the failure itself, rather it is a coping mechanism. Anyone who does anything in a rage is taking things way too seriously. It’s just a game. Every single game will have a winner and a loser, no one wins them all, and everyone gets whipped some games, it’s fine to quit, but lose like a man, not a bully, who is inherently a wimp deep down.

Wait it out. None of the guys available now are must-haves. You can easily build a highly competitive team without spending a cent right now. Hang onto your stubs, as the 99’s begin to come out, the prices on the live series will plummet, this happens every season.

I want to be able to play the game with only the sounds of the game itself, however, even if I reduce every slider to zero aside from sounds of the game, I still have to listen to airplanes flying over Shea every half inning, subways in Wrigley and wailing home run sirens in a bunch of parks… can those sounds of the environment be separated from sounds of the game? I can already shut off the PA and the fans, why must I hear these other noises when I only want to hear the pitches come in, the glove pops and the bat hitting the ball? Please address this, it’s a reasonable ask.

I’d say it’s being used enough now that it should be an option within this game. I’d really like to see how that goes within the simulation. Please add that option into the game.

I don’t understand this. Pitchers aren’t taking AB’s in MLB, the universal DH was introduced for a good reason, why is the game not following the same game being played in MLB?