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I fear this is just gonna be a problem the rest of the year. It’s the year of the Pack. They don’t want you grinding for good rewards this year. Bottomline.

Sorry but XP caps are dumb in any game. Why keep playing if you’re not earning XP in a game that rewards earning XP? I understand why they want to slow things down, but people sometimes have to binge a game when they have time. We aren’t all content creators that play all day long to unlock cards. It’s a childish punishment.

There’s so little XP earned for games now, I don’t see how any offline grinders can even hit a cap. I played for 5 hours one day this weekend against CPU and a few moments and barely hit 20k XP. Couple that with CPU pitchers that barely throw strikes and the games is gonna get old fast this year. Sure hope changes are coming. I have a full time job and lots of responsibilities so hitting a million xp is not gonna be easy or fun.

It’s annoying but I’m finding that it is training me to be a little better at seeing pitches headed out of zone. It definitely needs to be changed though. CPU games are so slow and not worth it with such minuscule XP earned each game. It will take Double XP days in order to get the same XP per game that we’ve gotten in past years. It goes well beyond just walks. I’ve had my batters hit with pitches more than the last few years combined already. I swing at pitches to prolong at bats, just to give my players a chance to accumulate stats. One thing I will also mention is that I’m seeing way more well struck baseballs dying at the wall, even when playing at short created stadiums. I do think part of that is due to glitchy wind patterns. Maybe I’m different than many players, but sometimes I just prefer a more arcade feel to the game. If I’m playing on Rookie, I want to enjoy the experience of a lot of offense. Simulation should be for higher levels of play. This year’s gameplay is not living up to their own definitions of what the lower level experience should be. They are just too hung up on not wanting fast progression in the game. That should be the decision of each player. We should be able to progress as quickly as we want if we are putting legitimate hours into it. Nobody should be cut off from XP gains after just a few hours, especially with such minuscule gameplay XP being awarded now. I can understand that it may take time for an update, but this team heightens negativity with such poor communication about issues. And I do expect them at some point to give a statement saying that they have been gathering data before making changes. It’s just the wrong way to go about things in a social media world and in games that have forums monitored by the development teams and studios. This year is disappointing so far and needs a turnaround quickly before it’s too late to save it.

Love it or hate it, I really think SDS is using this year as a test of the tolerance of the player base. It’s a bit of a titration of what people will pay to play the game and at what point the player base declines. I’m curious if it was a one-person decision at SDS. I’ve played for quite a few years, paying a lot of money because I have OCD tendencies, but the only thing positive I can really say about the game this year is that servers seem more stable. Other than the first few hours of early release, I haven’t noticed many hiccups. Unfortunately that’s my only positive so far. The low XP cap, little content, expensive packs with low odds, no sell rewards, continued seasonal sets that will require you to pay to get all 3 reward cards, etc are all just very disappointing. I hope it changes but I’m not sure that the whole year hasn’t already been predetermined and locked in. We may be down to zero major sports games that aren’t using this model. It needs to be give and take and not take take.

We grind this game by accumulating stats. Those stats don’t include walks. Tone down the balls way out of the zone. Also, either get rid of wind altogether or fix the direction glitch when you start a game.

I really think SDS did some things to slow down early release players to keep them from progressing very far before the general release. Lowering xp, xp caps, pitches out of the zone, etc. I would imagine the first patch will include a slight increase in xp things and fixing the cpu pitching, among some other tweaks. If that’s indeed what they did, it wasn’t well thought out. I think making things easier that first weekend would’ve generated more buzz and perhaps created a bigger desire to play the game on release. I also feel like they used the early release as a soft opening beta test. Not the best. I still enjoy the game and will continue grinding most of the year.

Would be nice if they could somehow be assigned to one of the MLB teams to get TA xp and credit. Could go by city or other affiliations. I want to use them since I have all of them (from the packs), but it’s difficult to make that decision while grinding so long for TA and the other programs. I think it’s a big oversight. Surely there’s a creative way to make it work.

@Pergo Yep, I wish I had waited a week or 2 longer to complete the Live Series. Way cheaper the last few days.

If those are the packs, it’s not a good program. Sorry. Boring players.

Acuna was only one I would’ve been excited for. Knew it would be Chapman, because that’s the disappointment I’m used to with POTM.

Several times I’ve had rewards from the wheel appear in my inventory without actually going through the process. When I login the next session the wheel graphics come up, I start it up, and the reward is what I received the session before. That makes me think the rewards are just predetermined without it mattering where I stop it. Seems a bit sketchy. Sorry.

@Dankmaymays I kinda think it’s working as they intended at the start of the season. They seem to have done everything possible to slow down the grind early in the cycle this year. If XP gains for CPU games (etc) aren’t increased soon, I’m gonna be OUT early and unfortunately I’ve already paid good money on the game for digital deluxe and quite a few stubs.

I’ve heard from others that you can collect them and still exchange, meaning you should technically be able collect each of them. Haven’t tried it myself yet.

You’re not wrong, but communication from developers could manage a lot of those complaints. Usually just saying they are evaluating situations is all it would take. That being said, some of the problems this week are making the experience not very enjoyable (xp gains, caps, pitching, etc). Ultimately none of these problems will affect players that grind hours and hours per day as much. It will affect players that don’t have that kind of time. I think some would feel differently if one of the bosses could be earned a little sooner than a million XP. Frankly, I think people wouldn’t complain so much about changes if the game itself didn’t always just look and play pretty much the same. If you put me in a game without seeing start up graphics or programs and asked me what year I was playing, I’d have a hard time telling you and I’ve played many years and spent bunches of money. I’m gonna keep playing, but I’m not gonna play as much if my time isn’t being rewarded.

Remember a few years ago when you actually needed to get some walks when grinding towards certain player missions? It was nearly impossible against the CPU. It’s not fun in offline grinding now when you are trying to accumulate other offensive stats.

If this had been announced pre-release, over half the return customers would’ve opted to skip 2024. They’ll be losing a bunch of gamers next year if they keep the same philosophy. It’s not like this is actually a competitive online game. Players should be able to play the way they want while earning XP. Unless they had a couple programs per week with XP rewards, offline-only players are toast. I knew something was up during the release stream. It was so scripted and cheesy with few questions about gameplay answered. I heard the one developer mention xp gains during gameplay would be lower but could be altered along the way. I just suspected a disaster to start. Servers have been better this year after the first couple hours of early release, but everything else has been a letdown.

The problem I see with SDS is that they are changing too much about the mechanics of the game (like XP gains, etc) without changing much about the actual game itself. They could sell the concepts better if it was more than just a copy and paste game for the last 6 or so years. Don’t see how they could’ve expected anything other than outrage. My mind still goes back to that early game release stream they had that Thursday night. They turned it over to a scripted presentation with Ashley and a couple other non-developers doing most of the talking. Nobody on the back row looked like they wanted to be there. There were just hints at what was coming with XP (etc) and then we couldn’t even play the first couple hours because of server resets. In hindsight, it really all explains why there were no tech tests or pre-release trial plays. I was sucked in this year because they were talking about new animations and gameplay ideas. Honestly, a lot of those animations are broken and frustrating (like diving and having to get up and run the opposite direction before throwing to a base, etc). I say it every year, but I’m definitely not buying the game again until the game is changed up graphically and mechanically some. We are 4 years into next gen gaming and the game looks the same as it did 7 years ago. Now they take away freedom of gameplay. Joke.

@Doctor-Fauci910 He must’ve just watched “Shawshank”. He said OBTUSE.

It would all be more accepted if they had actually made some changes to the gameplay and graphics. Instead it feels like punishment and we are still playing the same game we’ve played for years. I still just feel like they are testing business boundaries and titrating dollars. As much as I like Gamepass, I think it may have ruined this franchise.