Background: My first baseball game was MLB 99 on PS1, then MLB The Show 15 which I played a lot since it was like the most realistic thing ever (compared to 99), then The Show 19 which I just played a little bit (20-25 games) and this year for well-known reasons I have played a lot The Show 20. I play offline, franchise.
This year I decided to push it and play in Legend mode. As expected I've been crushed in every way possible: 5-39 season (one of the 3 seasons I've started), games of 21-0 with almost 30 hits allowed, ERA's of 15.00 to 18.00 for some pitchers and all the ridicule stats you could imagine. Still, in some way I still see this normal because of all the aforementioned.
Thread: I know that AI is a tricky subject in the video games business (been reading about it on the web), but because of the many hours I've spent playing this game I have realized certain things about AI. It has become clear to me that AI "forces" outcomes in the game, constantly. I have no issues on been crushed constantly despite the efforts to get better, but I do have issues when no matter how good I play a game everything favors the CPU, batters hit HR's out of everything, pitches landed everywhere but where expected, etc., and THEN after losing 8-9 games in a row I win a game with half the efforts on my pitching and hitting (still in Legend mode), throwing strikes in the middle of the plate that are fouled most of the times, hitting easily fastballs, etc.
In one game today (the reason of the existence of this post) I was doing pretty decently until 3rd inning (0-0), and in the following two innings I received 10 runs, very forced most of them, and then magically, still with the same pitcher I regain control while being effortless. Like if AI thought I had received enough punishment. It felt VERY unrealistic. And I'm not even going into the ratings issues (most of the time I have harder games against the Orioles than the Dodgers).
So, I've started feeling like it doesn't matter how good I want to be at this game, that I invest a ridiculous amount of time, is just forced to lose every time as AI "dictates", and win once every 10 -12 loses when AI "dictates", no matter what I do as a player, no matter how good or bad I do. That definitely kills the fun and everything else, that sort of weird "predestination".
I know no game is perfect. I know this is a pretty good sports game. I'm in love with the graphics, the old timers cards, and a lot of the stuff they put into it. Also there is a lot of things to improve. But the fundamental reason of the existence of this game and us buying it is the gameplay. And if I had to choose, I will start improving the game by working on the AI making sense.
I am very eager to read everybody else opinion, if this is just me, If I'm completely wrong, if there are things I need to understand better to really enjoy this game, if it's absurd to spent a lot of hours trying to get better against the CPU, I don't know.