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Dude... It's February. If you haven't come to grips with the fact that MLBTS plays like a glorified mobile game, I don't know what to tell you.

Nothing is going to change as long as DD is separating fools from their money. It's clear that SDS/Sony has determined the whales suck at this game which is why the game plays like it does, and why people are becoming increasingly frustrated with these DD/Ultimate Team modes.

Gameplay is no longer developed to simulate the physical act of playing baseball - this game's sole purpose is to keep the 2% of the player base that spend gobs of money engaged and continuing to open their wallets. So unless those players magically get better, fretting over whether you're being proportionately rewarded is an act of insanity.

I just don't understand why they purposefully make hitting, and by extension the game itself, significantly worse after the first week. They did the exact same thing last year.

I understand balancing DD later in the year to account for all-99 squads (though I don't agree with it), but why change it literally days after the full release? It was so good most people were able to look past the significant problems with pitching and fielding.

Could it be that the game was simply playing too well and they were afraid people wouldn't get frustrated enough with their current cards to purchase stubs/upgrade cards?

They continually increase the randomness to offset the power/effectiveness creep of the new cards. It's why by the end of every game cycle, all the cards start feeling like they play the same regardless of attributes. Really hoping they go in another direction for next-gen because it barely feels like you're in control at times, which isn't great for a video game.

The big difference I've noticed this year is that timing now appears to be somewhat random. If you pay attention to the bat swing feedback animation, there's some really wonky disconnects (ie. feedback saying you were very early and the animation showing almost neutral). The perfect foul balls also seem to further confirm this as in your input was actually "perfect" but the game's outcome dice-roll landed on foul ball.

Pitcher confidence may be the worst mechanic in all of sports gaming.

Nah, it's not being cancelled. It would set a crazy precedent.

If it was, logically, they'd have to cancel every season once a player tested positive for the flu since the flu is much more dangerous to this population than COVID.

Sports are going to be fine, the leagues are just in this crazy position where they have to overreact due to the hyperbolic, politically-driven, science-denying crazies that infest social media. Why they care about what these creatures think, most of whom aren't even real people... there will be case studies written.

@KyleS779 said in Why the hitting engine turned into a cash grab:

Pretty sure we are just looking at a group of developers, along with decision makers at the top, who have forgotten, or became too lazy, though it could be incompetence, to put out a solid game.

JMO - the initial release of the game the last 2 years shows the developers are doing a fantastic job and, if allowed, are more than capable of releasing a great game.

Developers aren't deciding to make these changes, it's 100% coming from the top. As backwards as it sounds, management determined users were having too much fun the first week, which was costing them stub sales (ie. if you're happy with the game, and by extension your cards, you're less likely to spend additional $$). So they essentially ordered the devs to mess up the game and frustrate people into pulling out the credit card.

We're going to continue to see this cycle until legislation is passed that outlaws these exploitative pay2win practices. Once the MTX go cosmetic-only, they'll have no incentive to manipulate gameplay in this manner.

JMO, they need to be careful with increasing speeds any more. I get that fastballs were useless in '18 but currently there are games, I'm assuming due to lag, where I literally have to start my swing the instant it leaves the pitcher's hand. I take BP on Legend with the pitch speed all the way up and still can't replicate what I sometimes see online on AS difficulty.

@omegaminus_sk said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

I only caught a tiny part of the stream, but I did see them talking about the prestige diamonds and how they were using them to respond to the requests for the return of some of the stat grinds. Except that in my experience, 95+% of the people asking for stat grinds were offline players looking for more to do than just play Conquest over and over.

As someone looking for better things to do with my DD collection without having to play H2H, was there anything new in this stream?

Nope. DD has a Destiny problem for offline players: "Lots of content and none of it matters."

The game plays like dogshvt online and SDS continually trying to push folks towards the borderline broken H2H modes, at least in relation to the offline portion, is going to catch up to them eventually.

@cvogsfashow said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@DriveByTrucker17 said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@cvogsfashow said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@LankyRyan said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

Bonus: this gives offline only folks less to complain about when it comes to DD content.

Agreed! Tired of seeing guys who online play offline complain about DD not having enough offline options meanwhile it is suppose to be an ONLINE mode.

Imagine complaining about people wanting more content that you can also play.

I am all for more ways to play but not when I have to complete an insane Offline grind for cards that then can be utilized ONLINE. DD is literally an online mode. Hover over DD on the menu screen, Create, Customize, and Compete ONLINE. IMO, the game mode should have a small portion offline that the user needs to do. In 18, someone could make the argument that they spent more time grinding Immortals than playing online.

The problem wasn't necessarily the grind, it was that SDS didn't offer any alternative for folks that don't enjoy beating up the CPU ad nausea.

Your gripe is with SDS, not offline players.

Sadly, it's now only a game of skill in the same way poker is a game of skill. Outside of the 1% of 1% of players, one's skill is really only apparent in the aggregate which is super frustrating and, IMO, kind of defeats the purpose of an action-oriented video game, especially H2H. But whatever.

In their defense (kinda), I get why SDS does it - the skill gap in this game is so large that if it played straight up, top players might be hitting .600+ while bad players would struggle to hit .100.

IMO, it would be a lot of fun but I'm sure they have backend data that tells them a large portion of the folks that spend $$ on stubs would fit into that latter category and, I assume, would quit out of frustration once they figured out they couldn't buy themselves wins anymore.

@Matt_42187 said in Update 1.13 Discussion:

@Scarletgospel said in Update 1.13 Discussion:

Lol... apparently this is a good/good homerun by the cpu on legend now. Lol.

https://imgur.com/a/Krb2Rmi

I guess we just get to see the bad hits in more detail now. I hope this is an outlier and not the norm.

Where did the ball land, because the wind was blowing out 10MPH? I noticed the PCI & bat/ball placement doesn't look to be in the same spot, which sucks.

Interesting observation. He was behind it with bad PCI placement... and it went out of the park? With 54 power?

Also, I understand the PCI /= the barrel of the bat but JFC. PCI is way to the right of the ball but the ball makes contact towards the end of the bat?

Like I said before, this enhanced feedback is likely to bring more questions than answers.

@GradektheBard said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

@Furious_Boogers said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

@GradektheBard said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

@skepple15 said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

The only reason you can’t exchange or quick sell is to make people buy more cards nothing more nothing less, I don’t even really care about the quick sell thing, to me not being able to exchange locked in cards is a huge L. Basically what you have now is 40 dormant cards that you can’t do anything with, quash said people were abusing the system by locking in and exchanging, my question is how is that abusing the system? You don’t get to keep the cards after exchanging, you’re only abusing the system if the system is you have to buy more cards

I mean, sure it’s an obvious money grab, but considering the quantity of free content they give out (assuming similar to 19), I’ll let this one slide.

MUT/FUT/HUT folks rationalize it the exact same way...

Please never compare the content of the show to those other games.

They're going down the EXACT same path, MLBTS just started a couple years behind.

@ImDFC said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

If you're playing offline, you don't really need the evolution version of a card. You do after all get to select the difficulty you want to play most of the time.

That's the point most are trying to make. The way DD is set up, your cards essentially don't matter offline. Virtually all the incentives are for H2H play which is probably the weakest portion of the game, at least from a gameplay standpoint.

Folks want a reason to collect cards outside of using them H2H.

@maskedgrappler said in Sds wtf are you waiting for? Revert the hitting back!:

@lucas8181 said in Sds wtf are you waiting for? Revert the hitting back!:

Correct, averages where too high in ranked seasons, when 90% of the community was still playing on Veteran and all-star. That data analysis was just a bit shy of genius level....

I mean, I'm not defending them, but to say they made hitting way harder to help bad players is pretty tin foil hattish.

It's pretty logical, actually. They didn't just make it harder, they made outcomes a lot more random as well. End result is lower scoring games where the lesser player stays competitive longer and will win more games they shouldn't due to late-game shenanigans, bugs, RNG, etc.

@raesONE said in Pitch speeds and swing timing:

Yes, unfortunately it's all latency related. And since we don't have a ping indicator in our line up screen, it's impossible to know how the game will play until you're actually playing. There's also no difference in being the home/away team which many people still seem to think is a significant difference. It's really not. Not much to do about it other than just ride it out.

I'm also pretty sure the game is dropping frames, causing the pitch to teleport. I think it's part of the reason sinkers look so fast. The break is so exaggerated that a dropped frame here and there causing the ball to teleport both vertically and horizontally.

'18 also had an issue with this, causing breaking balls to seem just as fast as fastballs.

@hoboadam said in Free affinity packs are amazing:

Instead of buying headliners, he finished TA. With TA packs, he pulled Trout.

Homeschooling my kids has helped with my comprehension. I can invite you to a zoom meeting if you need it.

Prayers sent for your kids.

@SaveFarris said in Doesn’t look good guys:

This isn't helping: https://inewsource.org/2021/01/14/new-data-shows-san-diego-among-worst-cities-in-us-for-covid-1/

Eh. I work in software and this whole 'COVID causing delays' is extremely overblown and, IME, largely just being used as an excuse by s****y companies. If a tech company hadn't efficiently transitioned to remote work by May or June, they had issues far beyond covid restrictions.

This isn't steel manufacturing. In a lot of ways, working remotely should actually increase their output, especially in the software industry.

Getting consistent soft contact on good input doesn't make hitting "hard", it's just s***y programming.

SDS should simply remove the ability to take an extra step in H2H. It adds nothing but frustration to the experience.

@iLurk84 said in Why the hitting engine turned into a cash grab:

@HoffsDrawlar said in Why the hitting engine turned into a cash grab:

While I somewhat agree with what you are saying and it may be the case, I am still seeing poor feedback (good/okay) for diamonds on balls in the center of the pci. Results just are not making any sense, where they were during the first week.

Yeah hence making you think a guy with a little more vision or contact that’ll turn to good/good. So pull out the credit card.

I'm really glad folks are starting to catch on. They've been compromising gameplay to push stubs ever since '17, though this latest change is by far the most blatant.