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I think he’s busy shooting Beverly Hills Cop 4. Hope it’s good. 3 was terrible.

I like the change. The way it was before, there was no value in the reward cards. I think the ws rewards last season were going for about 40k. There should be some incentive and reward for doing something good in the game. Not everyone should get a trophy.

Either way it will be exciting. If they drop great all star 99 cards for the TA program those will be fun to use. If the 97 overall cards shown are the top cards in the TA program, this entire forum will explode which could be nearly as entertaining.

Personally, I like the game this year and think it's by far the best version since 17. Hitting is certainly not perfect but much improved over the past few years and for the most part at least in a 9-inning game the better player is going to win. The sad thing about this post is that it's the same post that's on the forum every year. Someone will post this is the worst version ever. Someone else will chime in that the game was perfect before whatever patch we are on and then others will jump in that it's the worst sports game ever. Haven't read enough of the responses to see if there is the inevitable just wait until ea brings back MVP baseball and then sds will be out of business but usually falls somewhere in this thread too.

Yea I don’t get too hung up on content but I don’t understand this one. Seems like at this point in the year team affinity should have been all juiced up 99s.

Was it just that coach puppet and a few interns?

This season seems like it should have been so easy. These cards don’t go away. They will be around for the rest of the game cycle.
This years content has been controversial for many. They could have released all of the ta cards they did but just made them over juiced 99 versions and most people would have been happy. People would have played out the game cycle mixing in and out of a bunch of juiced up cards until team affinity came out. I do think most of the collection cards are great but the cards leading up could have been great too. I’m not one of those people who is installing the game in protest and vow to never buy again but this just seems like such an easy win they let slip away.
On the other hand in fairness I have no idea what SDS has access to or is seeing. Maybe they are seeing usage numbers or revenue way above previous years and this is working for them.

Over the years he is always one of my favorite cards but last year his best card was definitely underwhelming. This new card looks solid but clutch is 84 and this year that matters. How exactly are they measuring clutch on a guy who played 70 years ago? Would it hurt to give him maybe 110 clutch so his card is a no brainer to use?

Agreed. Prior to this game I knew the name Jimmie Foxx but never had much interest in learning about him. Since he has been in the game he has been one of my favorite cards to use each year. Same with many other legend players. Also prior to this game I didn’t pay much attention to prospects. Now by the time they come up I already know a lot about them.

Thanks for keeping the post short.

@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Who was in the meeting when season 4 was discussed.:

You know it’s bad when some of the biggest supporters are sounding like those of us that unfortunately saw this trend coming months ago. That is not a knock on anybody as we all just love baseball and want a game to be at its best.

Honestly I still don’t think the sets were a terrible idea, just the execution. In previous years I didn’t necessarily like waiting months for the really good cards. I think this would have been good if set one TAs were 96 with maybe a dozen or so 99s in other places in the game. Then set two TAs were 97s set 3 98s and now set 4 juiced up 99s. Then you roll into finest with tons of 99s. This way would have given some popular 99s early in the cycle but the 96 TAs would have still been usable and then as the cycles progressed the Team affinity cards get better.

I checked the age on the Willie mays cards thinking based on the ratings it must have been very late in his career. He is 26 on the card. That year was 4th in mvp voting, had 35 home runs, led the league in triples and stolen bases, and slugged 626. SDS please at least change his age on the card to 41 and change the team to the Mets. Then the card actually would make sense.

@darkblue1876_PSN said in Ranked and BR Change Explanation:

@baseball229056_XBL said in Ranked and BR Change Explanation:

I like the change. The way it was before, there was no value in the reward cards. I think the ws rewards last season were going for about 40k. There should be some incentive and reward for doing something good in the game. Not everyone should get a trophy.

So in other words, this game should be for the "get gud" bullies and everyone else can just shut up and take it.

No that’s kind of a dumb take on what I wrote. What they have done is a good compromise. In the past you could only get the reward by going 12-0 or making ws or buying off the market. A few years back almost no one could get chipper because there were thousands of million stub orders. They created the reward path so everyone could get the reward. That hurt good players by devaluing the rewards. This new system is better because good players still get rewarded but everyone can get a free card.

@BrikMahorn_XBL said in Ranked and BR Change Explanation:

@baseball229056_XBL said in Ranked and BR Change Explanation:

@BrikMahorn_XBL said in Ranked and BR Change Explanation:

Follow the $$$...

They are going to continue to make moves that not only increase the need for players to buy Stubs...but also the need to buy Stubs later in the game cycle...ie when a new Season starts and an entire Set of cards becomes UNUSABLE in the most competitive game modes (Ranked).

They are also going to continue to favor STREAMERS over casuals.

Streamers make them money. Streamers are some of their BEST customers when it comes to buying Stubs. A Streamer can drop $200 on Stubs without even thinking about it, knowing they will make it back in YT ad revenue. Some of them might even be able to write it off as a "business expense". (I'm not a lawyer or accountant...so there's that)

You think it's just a coincidence that there's 73 Set 1 cards that are 99s...and 4 Core cards that are 99s?

What's going to be really funny is when they PULL all these Set 1 cards for Season 3...and then start releasing different versions of all the SAME PLAYERS!

Griffey Jr, Chipper, Ohtani, Trout, Tatis, Lindor, etc, etc...

They will all get "Set 3" cards that you'll either have to grind again for or BUY Stubs to get.

All of this was pretty OBVIOUS from Day 1...the fact that some of you just refused to believe doesn't mean it wasn't.

Why is everyone so against SDS turning a profit? People always seem to go nuts if there is even the idea of SDS doing anything that could cause people to choose to spend a few dollars.

Where did I say im against SDS making a profit???

What I’m against is being told by everyone that this was NOT the reason they’ve made the changes they have. It’s been clear as day this is the direction things were going, yet here and on Reddit those of us who saw this coming were told we were WRONG.

I actually have zero issue with it. I’m a weirdo who actually prefers when these team modes are HARD. When not everyone has the ability to get EVERY single card with relative ease.

And if people want to spend real money to get what they want, I have no problem with that either.

My “beef” is with the hordes of people who told people like me not even two months ago that we were wrong…and that SDS would never go down the path that EA and 2K have.

Seriously…I made a post asking why there was no uproar over SDS taking this path, when if EA or 2K did…there would be hate and vitriol everywhere.

I have no issues with it.

However, I will say it’s kind of CRINGE how many of these addictive tactics taken from the playbooks of casinos are directed at those under the age of 18.

I just don’t understand where the confusion is here. I don’t know that anyone has ever posted that sds is against people spending real dollars to get a player they want quicker. What company wouldn’t want consumers to spend additional money on their product. People who defend sds against other companies are simply stating that with ea or others it is near impossible to build a god squad or endgame team without spending additional money. With sds you can get that great card day one by spending money or play the game and get it a few weeks later. I have not spent any money beyond buying the game, don’t have the desire to flip cards, and have every card I want with about 700k stubs leftover. If you start a new account today within a week you could easily put an extremely competitive team on the field without spending a dime on stubs. If anything this years version of the game is easier than ever to get good cards quickly.

@Dolenz_PSN said in I don’t want no stubs…:

@baseball229056_XBL said in I don’t want no stubs…:

Yes, these horrible for-profit companies need to be stopped. It is ridiculous that they actually want to turn a profit on something they produce. I can't understand why they don't just release all of the cards for the year on day one and just give them out to everyone.

That is an oversimplification of the argument.

I have not seen anyone say that they are against SDS or Sony making a profit. I have not even seen anyone say that the ability to buy stubs is bad. Nor have I seen anyone say that they expect the cards to be free.

We are simply stating a fact that SDS is being more aggressive on the monetization front this year by reducing the amount of stubs you earn simply by playing and doing the content. I am not sure how anyone can deny that is happening.

For those who play a lot of hours or spend time flipping cards it may not be that big of a deal. For those of us who play fewer hours the squeeze is more noticeable. It's a fine line that companies need to walk between trying to entice people to spend extra money while not making progression so slow that those who are not interested in buying stubs simply give up and stop playing.

That’s exactly why the numerous posts each year about this topic are so silly. This is pretty standard practice. A company has a product and will test things out to see how they can increase profitability especially as that product ages. At the end of the game cycle SDS will analyze everything, They will look at revenue, they will look at profitability, they will look for trends. If things are moving in the right direction they may push the envelope more next year. If the market pushes back they may reverse. The really silly part is nobody on the forums has really any idea what the revenue looks like, has never seen any kind of profit and loss statement from sds. Has no idea of any internal communications between sds and Sony about financial expectations. The general theme of most of the posts are I can’t get the card I want for free so sds is greedy.

I’m generally a fan of sds but if this is true I think it really is pretty dumb. I can see if they want people to do the moments but why not just add more moments now to upgrade these cards to a playable version. Why make such a big deal out of getting these rights and then put out cards that are not usable after the first week?

The great thing about these posts is how many people will say the game is trash or has been trash since 20 or 21 or whatever year. How dumb do you have to be to keep coming back? I could see coming back after 1 year hoping you would have more fun, but if the game hasn't been working out for you since 20 you are now on your 4th year. I think there is a quote about insanity that could be inserted here.

It did it in previous years especially when I was slumping. The pci used to distract me. This year I use the bat only pci which if you like no pci and haven’t tried the bat only you may like it.

@arvcpa_MLBTS said in Who was in the meeting when season 4 was discussed.:

@Pennstatefencer_MLBTS said in Who was in the meeting when season 4 was discussed.:

Wife: What are you doing?
PennStateFencer: Flipping on the market to get 99 Trout.
Wife: We have 99 Trout at home.

My wife said last night "I thought you were supposed to be starting a new series or something on your stupid game".

I said "I'm not even interested. And yes, now I consider it to be a "stupid game" too".

For one of the few times in the 25 years we've been married, I left her speechless. So, we just sat quietly with Netflix's "Quarterback" in the background and worked on a puzzle. That was way more satisfying than TA4.

BTW - if you haven't watched it, "Quarterback" is good. Even my wife likes it, so...

P.S. I'm sure someone at SDS is monitoring the game activity right now, and a red alert went up. "Why isn't arvcpa playing TA4? He always jumps right into the new content". They're probably using my MLBTS app to listen in on my conversations with my wife. "He's working on a JIGSAW PUZZLE??? Good Lord, what have we done with this "sets" thing?!?!".

Probably not. But I like to think that's what's happening.

Havent watched quarterback yet but just started watching the Florida Gators Untold on Netflix. 2 Episodes in and its really good.

With each team also getting a Flashback Finest there is a chance they finally put out some cards for all time legends who have gotten shafted for some reason over the past few years. Lou Gehrig possibly the best first baseman of all time hasn't had a truly dominant card since probably 20 or 21. Same for Willie Mays who should be in the argument for top 5 players of all time. Let's see these as finest flashbacks this time around.

If our opponent quits out after an inning or less we shouldnt lose starting pitcher stamina. Pitcher energy should be at least tied to pitch count. I have started using openers almost exclusively to combat my starters being wasted with people quitting out. You can have a started throw 2/3s of an inning and then need 4 games rest the way it is right now. Tying it to pitch count just makes more sense. If I only throw nine or ten pitches with a starter I should be able to bring him back after no more than a game.