Community Forum

@Busta-21_XBL Ok Skippy …

I’m a little over halfway, but I stopped caring a few days ago. I’m not gonna be able to play enough to earn enough XP playing offline CPU games to get to the bosses. Playing for 20-30 minutes and only earning 1.5k-2.5k just isn’t rewarding enough. Frankly, the bosses aren’t even worth playing for until they are 99s. Tired of all the problems, the slow reward path, and SDS claiming one thing and not delivering a better player experience. I plan on returning sporadically to play through programs, playing other games when I want to, and also reading and relaxing. This game isn’t what it used to be.

It’s truly just a joke now that you get between 2K - 2.5k for about 30 minutes of your time playing the CPU (if you have a good offensive game). These game developers are doing everything they can to milk money out of you, while at the same time running away their most loyal players. I’ve literally spent thousands of dollars on this game over the years, but I refuse to spend another dime. I went against my better judgement the last couple years when I was saying I’d never fall for it again, but I definitely won’t do it again going forward. SDS has completely flipped their scripts. I feel like it’s because of the mobile game. The people calling the shots are ridiculous now apparently.

I’m halfway. I’m to point now that I just don’t care. I may pop on and complete programs the rest of the year, but I’m done caring about this game. Bungie ran Destiny into the ground, and now SDS is running MLB into the ground. It’s obvious they are monetizing this game more and more and seemingly just care about the launch of the mobile game. I’ve downloaded Forza 6 and the LEGO Batman game, and will shift focus towards those and Black Flag when it comes out. Also time to address more of the games in my backlog on XBox and Switch. MLB has become a timesink that’s just not worth it.

Their attention is on their Mobile game release, not this one.

Even the bigger programs are only giving 10k xp. They dropped the inning xp required to finish by 100k and have proceeded to give us even less xp along the way. We don’t have team affinity or things like that left for XP. I’m playing full productive 9 inning offline games and only earning 1500-2000 xp. I’m getting to point where I’m either just gonna quit the game altogether or just play programs and nothing else. I’m not interested at all in the mobile game and you can guarantee that this year is bad because the mobile game is coming out. They are hoping it will be a huge moneymaker so they aren’t putting any time into the regular console game. Alienating most of their player base along the way. Hope it’s worth it to them. Look how Bungie is failing by doing essentially the same thing to their Destiny base.

@LuvMyXBOX_XBL Rookie mode throws fewer strikes than ever this year …

Nothing is gonna change with this game until people just stop buying stubs or purchasing the game altogether. I’m getting tired of playing 30 minutes and only getting 1.5-2.5k XP. My job is stressful enough every day for long hours to keep playing this game without having fun and not getting my time compensated for enough. Other than money, I just don’t understand why SDS is trying so hard to alienate their player base. They used not to be like this. Someone different is calling the shots and pointing them in a different direction.

Agree with that for sure, but they also need to award more XP for repeat runs through mini-seasons. Pretty sure I got just a little more than 5k total xp for doing a season (3-inning games) with a team completely made up of Mural players and not losing a game. It may have been more like 4K. They lowered the inning xp for bosses, but now I don’t have TA XP to earn and they’ll likely be even stingier with program XP. They truly just don’t want offline or online players to have fun playing the game this year.

They claim that cards like the Corbin Burnes is actually a “Boss” card that everybody “earns” in the reward path without having to select it. That’s what Ashley said during the SDS stream Friday.

@rubicante23_PSN I’ll pass 500 stolen bases tonight. I know to steal bases. I also want the shark unis. My team name is Sharks.

@Teak2112_MLBTS It’s a video game. It’s not a real game of baseball. It’s not a fun experience to play 30 minutes and win 3-0.

It just kinda stinks that you can score over 20 runs in a game against the CPU and still earn less than 3k XP. I used to have games where I’d get 8K in a single CPU rookie game, 15k+ when it was double XP. That being said, there are also times like since the 3rd inning started for me that it seems like the sliders for exit velocities and hitting in general have been nerfed. When I do it perfects, it mostly gets caught by the superhuman CPU. I’m grinding stolen bases right now, so at least I’m staying out of double plays for the most part.

@GoozeFn_PSN That’s still just 90k or so. Seems fishy to get 400k in less than 2 days. The ways things were a couple years ago, I understand large amounts of xp quickly but not this year.

Can someone explain how people are already finishing the entire XP path? I played for a couple hours last night and maybe got 10k XP. I saved a couple programs for Inning 3 to get the chunks of XP and I’m sitting at around 90k.

It’s also silly that a 90+ speed player gets thrown out at the plate with a single and can’t score from second base or gets thrown out on a sac fly. Triples are nearly impossible this year unless you just take a chance and they have a bad throw.

They already have. They punted the regular game to get the mobile game ready this year.

To me it’s feels different today. I was scoring 15-20 runs per game and now all of a sudden I scored 1 runs against the Rookie CPU after the rollover in content today.

These cards being mostly 90s is an L …

It’s amazing how our opinions of the game shifts a little bit when our pack pulls improve and we feel like our time is being rewarded no matter what mode we choose to play. I also did the survey and it was not very favorable. However, last night after playing some CPU games, I opened up 16 show packs and 6 ballin’ packs. I got pretty much nothing in the show packs, but in one of my last ballin’ packs I hit 2 diamonds in the same pack. It was Skubal and Corbin Carroll. I got a couple more packs collecting some cards soon after and pulled Cal Raleigh, who I sold. My pack pulls have been downright terrible the last 3 years and the game has just been tedious with all the store packs and nerfs to XP. For the first time in many months I walked away from MLB with a good feeling. SDS, as well as the other sports game developers, need to understand that sometimes your player engagement goes up more when you are rewarding players for their time. Morale goes down, and you lose your player base, if you are constantly monetizing your game and nerfing everything else to force players into playing modes they don’t want to and spending money they don’t have or shouldn’t be spending. Take note SDS. I spent way more money on this game when I was be rewarded more for just playing. I also played for more months in those years.