Community Forum

I envisage them all having the old Spinal Tap mentality when it comes to creating stats, “Dude this goes to 11, that’s like 10% more exciting than 10!” Next year, you’ll probably get stats that go to 160 or 200, “to separate the real legends from the regular superstars.” Just like when they implemented the 125 scale then immediately consigned the concept to irrelevancy by making every other card have stats over 100. Now we need that 200 scale to show how much better Prime Mickey Mantle was than 2020 PS Corey Seager or Topps Now someone-who-has-only-played-23-games-in the-MLB-but-has-a-better-card-than-Babe-Ruth.

Is it worth $9? I’m unsure

As someone who didn’t buy this years game primarily because I was so put off by the progressively more unrealistic batted ball outcomes in previous editions, I had to log in and post. I totally get the gist of what some people are saying about top players being bot like and able to hit anything if there’s no randomness, but that’s kind of the point here. If my pitches go where I want them to go with good input and an opponent is skilled enough to make good contact regardless of difficulty settings then he’s done his job. He deserves to get that hit. However - And this is what drove me away from this franchise in the end, despite the fact it was my only game for years - it has to cut both ways. If I locate a perfect two strike slider down and away to a same handed batter, there’s absolutely no chance on this planet that with accurate ball physics, I give up a pulled home run or a floating moon shot over the opposite field wall at Shippet. That is not “RNG” or balancing, that’s just absolute garbage and totally unrealistic. Give him a sliced XBH down the line, have it loop over my 1B for a single, have a selection of batted ball outcomes that are selected from randomly, in order to keep the game fresh and unpredictable for sure…… But at least make them realistic options FFS. Spotting a pitch as described only to see it yanked over the wall pull side at some crazy exit velo after I’ve been lining out on perfect/perfect fastballs all game? Yeah, I just stopped buying the game entirely. The fact they now release multiple diamond versions of the same player is a huge turn off for me as well, as is the market cap on items that allows SDS to dictate stub flow. Overall, the game regressed in a lot of areas and remained static in others, but I’ve seen very little improvement in my time and I grew sick of it. Not getting my $$$$ on the back of another low effort, recycled, unrealistic product.

I don’t like EA very much at all, they are pay to compete and don’t always succeed, but it’s clear SDS has been totally lost in terms of progressing this franchise for a while now. Outside of moments and game modes based on moments, there’s been absolutely nothing new of note introduced into DD. SDS lack initiative and are happy to keep rehashing the same game incessantly, churning out juiced cards with new artwork and faking enthusiasm on live streams about the same cards year after year. It got tiresome and maybe it is time to let someone else have a crack at making a baseball game, because beyond making 99 overall versions of everyone, or releasing a 95, 97, 98 and then two 99 overall versions of a single player in a single season, SDS don’t have a clue how to capture the imagination of the player base. Next year we’ll probably get cards that go to 100 overall and have individual stats that can go to 150 “to separate the real standout cards from all the crummy 99 overalls”.
Get some new material already and make a realistic game with simulated bat and ball physics. Stop appealing to the lowest common denominator with shiny fake juiced cards and toss me a cookie home runs that aren’t even in the PCI. We’ve all been saying it for years, we just want to play baseball.

@jonblaze2424_psn said in I won't be Pre-ordering next year's game.:

@og_sweedy_psn said in I won't be Pre-ordering next year's game.:

I didn’t buy ‘21 at all. I usually preorder every year and spend at least a few hundred if not 1-2k on stubs each year. I came to the exact same conclusion after the shambolic state of last years game. SDS do not seek to improve the quality of gameplay, nor do they give weight to the opinions and requests of players who invest hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in to their product. With all due respect, a player such as myself who would play 2000+ games a year, would realistically be able to offer more valid input than the guys who are forced to play test the game at work as a part of their job. The same guys who let the same bugs make it to release year after year, apparently don’t notice game breaking issues such as outfielders not making plays near walls, or beating able to throw to second base with your catcher when a steal occurs, those guys.

Anyway, as well as the stupid gameplay that doesn’t get worked out until summer, if at all, SDS went absolutely nuts with the cards and the content is now terrible every year as well. Time was, you’d be excited as a kid at Christmas when you finally managed to obtain one of your favourite legends for your DD squad. Huge grinds were not always fun, but the feeling of obtaining a card that was rare and elite like Ken Griffey Jr in ‘17, or that 99 Joe Mauer in ‘16 were always fun.

Obviously, as we saw in ‘18, when this concept is taken to it’s absolute extreme and the grind becomes too long and the elite rewards too few and far between, it stops being fun. This is where SDS lost the plot completely following the entirely justified criticism of the content structure in ‘18 and ruined DD forever. Now it doesn’t matter in the slightest little bit if you grind away and obtain your favourite legend. Cards like Griffey or Miggy aren’t even worth grinding for outside of the name and artwork on the card, because there are multiple fake versions of modern day players that play equally well or better than any legendary hall of famer. While there is an argument that all cards should be usable and not consigned to irrelevancy, that’s more an indictment of SDS inability to make a realistic game, where all types of player are viable, but have tangibly different skill sets with unique strengths and weaknesses. Instead of looking at that issue, they instead opted to unload a dearth of juiced versions of every single card in the game.

The reason why this is such a problem and caused me to quit the game after last year, is because there is no longer any incentive to play the game at all, much less buy stubs or invest time grinding. I used to play to unlock the cards I wanted, even when the gameplay left more than a little to be desired, because that was the entire point. To get that elite team. 6 billion 99 overalls in the marketplace all available for quick sell value has made that entirely obsolete. The fact that you can go all out to obtain 99 overall johnny whoever, investing time and stubs, only to be handed yet another 99 johnny overall whoever for free with slightly different stats, has ruined the point of grinding. The fact that the HOF level players they want you to grind for are made obsolete by free versions of modern day players who’ve yet to even play in the majors, has ruined the concept of spending time and money to obtain an elite team of valuable cards forever. DD is ruined. It’s now a case of loading up on juiced fake cards that have no relevance to actual baseball and playing the game. The problem with that is, the gameplay is not good. Never has been. The grind was what drew me in personally, watching streams to see who the latest new legend was and so on. Now it’s like who cares, every card has 125 everything anyway, none of them standout or play any differently, so they’re not worth the time and effort to obtain or even care about.

They tried offering me flash sales on MLB ‘21, gave it away free with XB game pass, I just don’t care about the game any more. I thought I’d really miss it given the thousands of hours I invested between ‘16 and ‘20, but it’s just become an absolutely garbage franchise and the reason is because they diluted the content so badly that nothing feels unique and failed to improve on the substandard gameplay experience, despite rereleasing the exact same game year after year. They couldn’t even iron out issues that had been recurrent for three consecutive years. Disgraceful and I can’t see myself coming back again for ‘22. SDS aren’t capable of making a high quality baseball game, they rely on spewing out fake juiced 99 overall versions of players that don’t deserve them to wow little kids and keep them playing. See ya.

You have to look at the flip side of this, not everyone can grind out dozens and dozens of hours to obtain specific cards. If it is something extremely rare like the Griffey or Mauer cards then fine, but I'm going to have to play devils advocate and say that I think the fact they put out SO much good content plays well for the overall client base. I remember up until 2018 after a few months online was literally the same exact lineup, give or take one or two guys. While it essentially is that way in todays game, they give you far more options to have a diverse lineup and still be competitive. All you see is people complain about DeGrom, the only way they can counter that is by putting new guys in the game who are just as good.

The problem is that with so many 99 overalls given out, the gameplay feels very very generic. None of the players feel unique and it’s certainly not worth investing time or money into the game to obtain elite cards for your DD squad when they hand out free weekly cards which are equal or better than the best cards you can earn from completing tasks or collections. I just don’t want to play that kind of game, IMO they may as well get rid of all the licensing, have nine CAPs or Joe Randoms and start everyone out with a team of 99 overalls with 125 everything, because that’s how it will end up regardless. Even when gameplay sucked, the content would still keep me playing, keep me grinding because I wanted to obtain my team of favoured legends or whatever. Now the pool of cards is so diluted, that aspect is no longer relevant. There are too many juiced cards and too many players with multiple high diamond cards. Yes we always wanted line up diversity, but now it’s hyperbole. It’s made the collecting and grinding aspect of the game much less relevant, which then in turn puts the spotlight on gameplay, which has always been the weakest part of the MLBTS franchise. It was more fun grinding and collecting than actually playing baseball for me. Now they killed that and made it irrelevant, the game is much less attractive to play long term. If they had decent gameplay, this may not be the case, but they just rehash the same game every year with new content.

@jaycruise21_psn said in I won't be Pre-ordering next year's game.:

Ditto to the above. Agree on all fronts.

Cheers Jay, I can be a little long winded, so most people don’t bother to read what I put on the forums. In a nutshell, why do we need multiple versions of every player anyway? There was only one Ken Griffey Jr, or Orel Hershiser and they were good. So good, they’d probably warrant a 99 overall card in MLB The Show. People would want that card and happily grind or pay real money as an alternative to grinding to obtain it. Then they’d have it.

I never had a problem with them having a rookie card that was only a 79 silver or a gold veteran card or whatever, as well as a 99 prime to encapsulate the greatness of their career as a whole, because it in no way changed the fact that you’d want the 99 prime because it was significantly different to any other version. I can’t really explain why we’d need a 98 overall and then two or three 99 overalls of the same player. It’s just stupid. Then you’ll get some ridiculous Topps now, POTM or finest card for a single season rookie at that same position that absolutely shits all over the best card of a legitimate legend like Larry Walker. And it’s probably 5k in the marketplace. I just can’t with this game any more, it’s beyond ridiculous.

I didn’t buy ‘21 at all. I usually preorder every year and spend at least a few hundred if not 1-2k on stubs each year. I came to the exact same conclusion after the shambolic state of last years game. SDS do not seek to improve the quality of gameplay, nor do they give weight to the opinions and requests of players who invest hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in to their product. With all due respect, a player such as myself who would play 2000+ games a year, would realistically be able to offer more valid input than the guys who are forced to play test the game at work as a part of their job. The same guys who let the same bugs make it to release year after year, apparently don’t notice game breaking issues such as outfielders not making plays near walls, or beating able to throw to second base with your catcher when a steal occurs, those guys.

Anyway, as well as the stupid gameplay that doesn’t get worked out until summer, if at all, SDS went absolutely nuts with the cards and the content is now terrible every year as well. Time was, you’d be excited as a kid at Christmas when you finally managed to obtain one of your favourite legends for your DD squad. Huge grinds were not always fun, but the feeling of obtaining a card that was rare and elite like Ken Griffey Jr in ‘17, or that 99 Joe Mauer in ‘16 were always fun.

Obviously, as we saw in ‘18, when this concept is taken to it’s absolute extreme and the grind becomes too long and the elite rewards too few and far between, it stops being fun. This is where SDS lost the plot completely following the entirely justified criticism of the content structure in ‘18 and ruined DD forever. Now it doesn’t matter in the slightest little bit if you grind away and obtain your favourite legend. Cards like Griffey or Miggy aren’t even worth grinding for outside of the name and artwork on the card, because there are multiple fake versions of modern day players that play equally well or better than any legendary hall of famer. While there is an argument that all cards should be usable and not consigned to irrelevancy, that’s more an indictment of SDS inability to make a realistic game, where all types of player are viable, but have tangibly different skill sets with unique strengths and weaknesses. Instead of looking at that issue, they instead opted to unload a dearth of juiced versions of every single card in the game.

The reason why this is such a problem and caused me to quit the game after last year, is because there is no longer any incentive to play the game at all, much less buy stubs or invest time grinding. I used to play to unlock the cards I wanted, even when the gameplay left more than a little to be desired, because that was the entire point. To get that elite team. 6 billion 99 overalls in the marketplace all available for quick sell value has made that entirely obsolete. The fact that you can go all out to obtain 99 overall johnny whoever, investing time and stubs, only to be handed yet another 99 johnny overall whoever for free with slightly different stats, has ruined the point of grinding. The fact that the HOF level players they want you to grind for are made obsolete by free versions of modern day players who’ve yet to even play in the majors, has ruined the concept of spending time and money to obtain an elite team of valuable cards forever. DD is ruined. It’s now a case of loading up on juiced fake cards that have no relevance to actual baseball and playing the game. The problem with that is, the gameplay is not good. Never has been. The grind was what drew me in personally, watching streams to see who the latest new legend was and so on. Now it’s like who cares, every card has 125 everything anyway, none of them standout or play any differently, so they’re not worth the time and effort to obtain or even care about.

They tried offering me flash sales on MLB ‘21, gave it away free with XB game pass, I just don’t care about the game any more. I thought I’d really miss it given the thousands of hours I invested between ‘16 and ‘20, but it’s just become an absolutely garbage franchise and the reason is because they diluted the content so badly that nothing feels unique and failed to improve on the substandard gameplay experience, despite rereleasing the exact same game year after year. They couldn’t even iron out issues that had been recurrent for three consecutive years. Disgraceful and I can’t see myself coming back again for ‘22. SDS aren’t capable of making a high quality baseball game, they rely on spewing out fake juiced 99 overall versions of players that don’t deserve them to wow little kids and keep them playing. See ya.