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Cpu is still getting to the ball no matter if it a common, broze,gold or diamond cards. And they are still doing super man dives and running the ball down in the outfield like nothing. So much for making defense matter this year. And hitting feels way off to. And offline grind feels like a slug. And this is coming from someone who doesn't mind grinding for stuff but man the offline grind is crazy.

agreed with everything you said. Grinding this year is a big problem and slow. They nerf the hell out of mini seasons. Pitching is a mess you either getting dotting to death or walk to death. Hitting is randomly as hell to. Rookie plays like all star, veteran plays like rookie, hall of fame plays like all star, legend play like Goat, and Goat plays like legend this is all offline playing. And cpu can go from hitting like a toddler and the next minute plays like a top 10 player with eyes of a eagle.

I'm the type of person who doesn't give a sh!@ if a person plays 24/7 for xp or for pxp on his sh!@ bucket to get the best cards or be the first one to get the card to parallel V. If you do the hard work and hours you deserve the rewards that comes with it.

@GoozeFn_PSN This isn't real life its a dam video game. Input should matter. You and everyone on this forum needs to stop using Get better or that is real life excuse. ITS A VIDEO GAME. The hitting in this year game is so dam random and like a dice roll. Don't get me started on the cpu difficulty either. And he is right this year game hitting engine is the worst it has ever been in years.

I’m going to call it what it is: this game has comeback logic, outcome steering, and hidden engine pressure, and it shows up in DD, Mini Seasons, and Franchise.
I am not saying this because I lost one game. I am not saying this because I want the CPU to be easy. I play on high difficulties. I have played Ranked Seasons, DD, Online Rated, Mini Seasons, Franchise, and offline CPU games for years. I know the difference between getting beat and the game deciding it is time for nonsense.
And right now, too many games feel like I am not playing baseball. I am fighting the engine.
I stress-tested this across multiple modes, multiple difficulties, and multiple slider setups. I tested Simulation. I tested GOAT. I tested Legend. I tested DD modes. I tested Franchise. I changed CPU contact, timing, foul frequency, solid hits, power, pitching control, pitching consistency, stamina, fielding, human hitting, human pitching, everything.
I even turned CPU contact, timing, and foul frequency all the way down to zero just to see what would happen.
And the CPU still fouled off pitches it had no business touching.
Pitches way off the plate still got fouled off. Low junk still got protected. Bad timing still turned into contact. Weak contact still found grass. Balls with 58 to 80 mph exit velocity still floated into gaps or barely over infielders’ heads. That is not real baseball. That is the engine protecting the at-bat.
The biggest problem is the foul-ball system. The CPU does not always feel like it is trying to beat you with baseball. It feels like the game turns on foul survival to drain your pitcher.
The loop is obvious once you see it:
CPU fouls off everything
pitch count goes up
energy drops
confidence drops
perfect input starts mattering less
pitcher misses worse
pitcher hangs something
CPU gets the hit, double, or homer
That is not smart baseball. That is the game using foul balls as a weapon against pitcher confidence and stamina.
And confidence is one of the biggest hidden problems in this game. Pitcher confidence has too much power. Once it swings one way, it starts overriding ratings, input, and common sense. CPU pitchers turn into Greg Maddux no matter who is on the mound. They throw dots, dots, and balls barely off the plate. Meanwhile my pitcher can have good energy, good confidence, and perfect input, and suddenly the ball still misses, hangs, or gets fouled off until the CPU gets what it wants.
There needs to be a Pitcher Confidence Effect slider. Period.
Because right now confidence feels like a hidden momentum system.
I have also seen what looks like predetermined outcome tendency. I am not saying every pitch is scripted. I am saying some games clearly have a strong outcome pull. I have played games into the 5th, 6th, or 7th inning while testing this. Different pitchers. Different locations. Different strategies. Different sliders. Same pattern.
The other team is going to get its moment no matter what.
You can pitch smart. You can mix speeds. You can throw chase pitches. You can hit perfect input. It does not matter. The game says no, no, no, foul, foul, weak hit, gapper, error, tie game.
Then the same thing can flip the other way. I have had games where the CPU gets nonsense early, then later the game gives me nonsense. The CPU suddenly makes errors. Outfielders take stupid routes. A center fielder jumps straight up on a routine play. Infielders miss balls they should field. I get hits I know I should not be getting. Then I hit a walk-off homer.
And no, that does not make it better.
A walk-off should feel earned. It should feel like I won. Instead it feels like the engine decided it was time for a movie ending.
That is the problem. Even when I win, I can see the strings.
This is not just DD either. People love to say “that is just Diamond Dynasty.” No. I have seen the same engine behavior in Franchise. I have seen it in Mini Seasons. I have seen it with sliders changed hard against the CPU. I have seen it with CPU hitting sliders almost buried. I have seen it when the CPU is using almost the same cards I am using.
That tells me this is deeper than one mode.
The game has hidden systems under the hood that the sliders do not fully control.
These are the systems that need to be exposed or toned down:
Pitcher Confidence Effect
Two-Strike Foul Protection
Foul Ball Pitcher Drain
Comeback / Momentum Logic
Late-Inning Outcome Pressure
Fielding Animation Override
CPU Contact Floor
Mode-Specific DD Tuning Bleeding Into Offline
Simulation should not feel like Ranked Seasons World Series pressure. Franchise should not feel like offline DD sweat mode. Mini Seasons should not feel like I am playing against the engine instead of the CPU.
Hard baseball is fine.
A good CPU is fine.
Losing is fine.
But I should not have to fight like I am playing a World Series Ranked player when I am offline against the CPU. Every hitter should not turn into prime Pete Rose with two strikes. Every CPU

The confidence and energy system is one of the biggest giveaways.
My pitchers lose confidence and energy faster than the CPU does. The CPU can foul off pitch after pitch, and every foul still helps drain my pitcher. Then a strike, a foul, or a strikeout seems to give the CPU pitcher confidence bumps, but my pitcher does not get the same kind of reward back.
It feels uneven.
The CPU pitcher can throw a strike, get a foul, get a strikeout, and the confidence bar starts getting stronger fast. Then that pitcher starts dotting corners, getting weak contact, and living just off the plate.
But when I do the same thing, it does not feel like my pitcher gets the same protection. My pitcher can have more energy, more confidence, better input, and still suddenly lose command, hang pitches, or get hit around like none of it matters.
And the relievers make it even worse.
The CPU can leave a starter or reliever in with almost no energy and half confidence, and I still can’t buy a hit. The pitcher still paints corners. Still gets foul balls. Still gets weak contact. Still survives.
But if I leave my pitcher in with the same low energy and half confidence, the CPU starts getting hits, doubles, and home runs like the engine already decided that pitcher is done.
Even when my pitcher has more energy and more confidence than the CPU pitcher, the outcome can still feel the same. The CPU still gets its foul balls. The CPU still gets its hit. The CPU still gets the rally.
That tells me the confidence and energy meters are not being applied evenly between the player and CPU.
If confidence and stamina are going to control command, PCI results, weak contact, strikeouts, foul balls, and pitcher survival, then we need sliders for them.
Pitcher Confidence Effect
Human Pitcher Confidence Gain
CPU Pitcher Confidence Gain
Human Pitcher Confidence Drain
CPU Pitcher Confidence Drain
Foul Ball Energy Drain
Foul Ball Confidence Drain
Fatigue Penalty Strength
CPU Fatigue Penalty
Human Fatigue Penalty
Because right now it feels like the CPU gets confidence armor, and the player gets confidence punishment.
The visible bars are lying by omission.
Energy and confidence do not feel equal for both sides. A tired CPU pitcher can still pitch like Greg Maddux. A tired user pitcher gets treated like batting practice. A CPU pitcher with low confidence can still survive. A user pitcher with higher confidence can still get hit around because the engine wants the other team to have its moment.
That is not baseball. That is hidden engine pressure.
That is the part that makes your argument sharper, KC. You’re not just saying “CPU fouls too much.” You’re saying:
The CPU uses fouls to drain my pitcher.
The CPU gains confidence faster.
My pitcher loses confidence faster.
CPU fatigue does not punish them the same way.
Human fatigue gets punished hard.
The outcome still happens even when my pitcher has the better meter.
That’s the real callout. Not “make CPU easier.”
Make the [censored] systems apply evenly.

UPDATE / CLARIFICATION:

Since some people are grabbing only the CPU part and missing the bigger point, I want to explain why I used the CPU so much for stress-testing.

The reason I used the CPU so much to stress-test the game’s engine is because against the CPU, I have full control over more variables.

I can control the difficulty, sliders, modes, players, player attributes, rosters, umpire settings, PCI settings, pitch speeds, fielding, stamina, confidence, animations, and everything else around the test. That is how you stress-test a system. You control as many variables as possible, push certain systems hard, and then watch what keeps happening.

And yes, I can beat the CPU on GOAT difficulty with pitch speeds all the way up. This is not about me not being able to beat the CPU.

I also messed with my own sliders. I changed CPU sliders. I changed human sliders. I changed player attributes. I mixed up rosters. I tested different modes and different difficulties. I tested games where I let the CPU jump ahead on purpose to see how the engine reacted. I tested games where I got ahead on purpose to see how the engine reacted. I even quit out or simmed parts of games to see if the game had predetermined win tendencies and outcome pulls, and yes, at times, it did.

That is my point.

This is not just one CPU game. I tested this in DD, Mini Seasons, Franchise, Online Rated, and Ranked Seasons. Some of those are against the CPU. Some are against real players. The same kind of engine behavior shows up across the game.

In Ranked Seasons and Online Rated, the game still feels like it changes gears around the 5th or 6th inning. All of a sudden, both sides start getting runs, foul balls, weak hits, bad animations, pitcher confidence swings, and nonsense outcomes no matter what you throw or do. It stops feeling like clean baseball and starts feeling like the engine is trying to create a game moment.

The biggest problem is that there is so much going on under the engine and under the coding that I don’t think SDS themselves know what is even going on anymore, how to explain it, or how to actually fix the problems.

That is why we keep getting band-aid fixes.

The foul-ball problem has been around forever. Instead of fixing the foul-ball logic, they put PCI shrinkage in the game because they didn’t know how to fix the foul-ball problem. Then to counter PCI shrinkage, they started throwing switch hitters all over the game because same-side matchups became worse. Then to counter the switch hitter problem, they started giving pitchers reverse splits. Then they added more modifiers, quirks, captain boosts, and attribute nerfs. That is why you have 98 overall cards looking and playing more like 93s.

It feels like every fix creates another problem because the engine itself is the problem.

The defense makes it worse too. Player defensive attributes and fielding animations do not always line up. A 90+ defender should not suddenly move like the game picked the wrong animation at the worst possible time. Catchers should not randomly forget how to throw runners out. Outfielders should not take broken routes or jump straight up on routine plays just because the game needs a rally.

That is why I keep saying it feels like I am fighting the engine more than I am playing baseball.

The game has foul-ball survival, confidence swings, stamina drain, weak-contact hits, fielding animation problems, PCI weirdness, late-game outcome pressure, and predetermined tendencies stacked on top of each other. And when all of those systems start firing together, it does not feel organic. It feels artificial.

Hard baseball is fine. Losing is fine. The CPU beating me is fine. A real player beating me is fine.

The problem is when the game stops feeling like baseball and starts feeling like the engine is steering the outcome.

SDS needs to rebuild this game engine from the ground up. Not add another band-aid. Not add another modifier. Not add another hidden tuning layer. Rebuild it so ratings, timing, PCI, stamina, confidence, defense, and animations all make sense again.

Because once you see the system under the engine, there is no going back.

They should make the parallels go to 10. And maybe even higher for live series cards. So the live series card can be usable all year long.

Offline grind hell. Sds really went backwards imo. I don't mind grinding for stuff but this is crazy.

The cpu throws to many balls and they dot you to death. It doesn't matter if it's a common or diamond cards. And you need to fix the energy in 3 inning games. How is my pichter throws 3 to 4 pitches and he is already in the yellow or red. And the cpu is fouling off 10+ pitches at bats. I had two back to back 20 pitch at bats against the cpu because they foul it off so much. And hitting feels way off still.

Rookie and veteran difficulty hitting Is all random and I can barely beat the cpu just scoring 1 or 2 runs. So I tried hall of fame and legend and guess what I can score 5-10 runs on those difficulty against the cpu . Hell I can beat the cpu on Goat difficulty easier than on Rookie or veteran.

SDS communication is through youtubers just like there marketing skills

@PAinPA_PSN I was one of those people asking to make mini seasons 3,7,9 inning games and make it to where people who play on the hardest difficulty to get better rewards. I love playing mini seasons because I gotta tired playing ranked and all the bs that happen in ranked and sometimes I don't have time to play.

When I play on legend difficulty I treat it as a regular season and I trade players like halfway through the season based on their performances.

I haven't played in a couple of weeks. It probably because almost everyone has 125 attributes and the game engine can't handle it. I think the game engine is built for 99 attributes and it plays a lot better to when it tops out at 99 attributes. Plus it can be a hundred either things to. Im not trying to defend sds either. That is why sds desperate needs dedicated server.

I'm playing on the switch because I'm on vacation. If i turn off crossplay it take forever to find a game. But if I leave crossplay on I find game really fast but then I feel like I'm at a disadvantage playing against Xbox and Playstation players

SDS made offline a grind slug and unrewarded the something for online. For mini seasons you have to play through 2 to 3 full mini seasons to not only get some of the repeatable rewards but to get all of them. Conquest is basically beat it and done thing now and there is no repeatable conquests at all. Diamond Quest is so so and SDS seem to be trying to nerf everything and push offline players to that new game mode. team affinity is a little bit a grid slug. And I'm a person who doesn't mind griding for stuff in games. But this feel like a slug grind to me.

Online: SDS kill events, BR and somewhat ranked seasons with adding on that stupid new online program. Events is basically a pxp boost now. Why should I pay 1500 to play BR now and it full of sweaty games and the best of the best is playing that mode now. Ranked Is still somewhat the same. And it seem you have to wait for sds to add more missions to the new online program. What happened to play your way SDS. They should of keep the old program and try to build onto it. What is that old saying if it's ain't broken don't fixes

I don't mind getting my a$$ beat by a good player. But when almost every team online is all switch hitters or it L, switch hitter L, etc or R switch hitter R switch hitter and all their bench players are all switch hitters to it suck the fun out of the game. And when you go to put a reliever in to face the same side it like what the hell does it even matter. It sucks. And it doesn't help matters when the other player plays like a complete 5 year old and jumping around when you hit fly balls and replay home runs and just try everything to win. I understand that is a new meta. But who what to face a all switch hitting team almost every game.

Diamond Dynasty is fantasy baseball, not a true simulation. Attributes are inflated, legends are overpowered, and outcomes are tuned for short games and card balance. That’s fine. But the game needs to be honest about that.

If the feedback says Perfect/Perfect, it should be rewarded most of the time not always a home run, but hits, doubles, hard contact. Otherwise the feedback itself loses meaning.

The bigger problem is that attributes don’t consistently matter:

Common and bronze fielders routinely make diamond-level diving plays

Low-tier pitchers can dot corners like elite control arms

Defensive and pitching ratings often feel cosmetic instead of functional

You can’t argue “that’s baseball” while ignoring that Diamond Dynasty cards are explicitly tiered by attributes. Either attributes matter, or they don’t.

If realism is the goal, Franchise and RTTS already exist. Diamond Dynasty is a fantasy mode, and that’s okay but it should respect player input and card differences.

This isn’t about wanting everything to go my way. It’s about clear, consistent systems where feedback and ratings actually mean something.

How is this game still this broken even after updates, or somehow worse?

Mini Seasons pitching stamina is still a mess. Before the update, starting pitchers in a 9-inning game could barely make it 3 innings and relievers about 2–3. Now it feels even worse. Starters are struggling to get through 2 innings and relievers sometimes barely last 1–2.

Menus are still lagging and slow to load at times.

Hitting feels off again too. I’m getting more non-PCI home runs and hits than perfect-perfect contact, which makes no sense and isn’t rewarding at all.

Servers are still shaky, the 20-card max issue , and balls and strikes are inconsistent. Pitches clearly in the zone get called balls, and SDS still promotes this as a “perfect strike zone” when it doesn’t play like one.

Freeze-offs are still in the game and should’ve been fixed years ago. PCI shrinking still feels like a problem even after being “fixed.”

There are so many issues I could keep going, but the point is this game needed more time. It feels like it should’ve been delayed and properly tested before release.

This is exactly why sports games shouldn’t come out every single year. Give it more time and actually fix things instead of pushing it out broken. Honestly, it shows sports games as a whole should be released every two years.

My dream crad is Barry Zito. And I didn't get it. If SDS can't get there rights why don't they created the players like they did with barry bonds as Reggie Stocker. I will be totally fine with that.