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I really wish they'd fix AI pitching. I get what they were trying to do...AI picks up on your tendencies and exploits them. Swing at 1 slider outside the zone and you will see 90% sliders the rest of the game. However this is not realistic in a baseball sense. Batter A swings at a slider outside the zone, maybe the AI gets a K or a weak hit. In real life you don't slider spam the rest of the game, each batter is supposed to be different. I mean I understand the concept of "when a pitch is working" but I've literally seen bronze AI pitchers get one swing and miss with their 4th pitch slider and literally throw nothing else the rest of the inning.

Sliders are stupid OP anyways you need to perfect/perfect them to get any sort of solid hit. Reminds me of splitters last year.

Since the DD content seems pretty much over, my thoughts/frustrations for the year.

FIrst what I thought was great:
Mini-seasons! I loved having so many types. Rewards felt worth it as well, maybe a little more "repeatable" ones (to be fair the last one has very good repeatables).

Team Affinity. I loved the content mix of short term/long term grinding goals. I bit too sporadic, and it would have been nice to have more tie-ins with other programs or mini-seasons instead of "500exp" for every player.

The bad:
Conquest mode. Number of maps was great, the mode itself played like dog excrement. I know the tryhards out there would say Conquest games are easy, but you guys have your Veteran and over difficulties for that. Rookie games were just stupid grindy. WAY too many "Line drive-Caught" or "No problem here" after solid hits. Too many hard hit balls dying at the warning track. Lower the RNG for Rookie games or introduce a lower difficulty like you have for other modes. And get rid of the pitching where its constant nibbling. Just rage-quit inducing when it seems like every 2 out of 3 games comes down to the 4th inning hoping for 2 sac flies to win it. If the hitting was like Mini-seasons it would be so much better. I can take the same team that had to 4th Sac fly fest to win against a 96 OVR Mini-season team and get multiple HRs.

The Ugly - March to October. Get a few packs if you play it, yay! It was my favorite mode last few seasons, I didn't even touch it this year. Please tie it back into Team Affinity.

Errors are unavoidable unless you are really good at the "Simon says" minigame. I've played both an IF and OF and it seems OF gets those a lot more...however OF seems to get more points playing defense. If you want to level up fast play as a contact hitter (my "power" 3B took 3 seasons to get to the pros). Don't ignore defensive stats, especially fielding/arm strength/arm acc because those really pump up your Overall and that controls your chance to get called up. Also it's agonizing but I've read in other threads never sim your Spring Training games.

@KnightRaider574_XBL honestly feel like Conquest got nerfed a year or two ago. It seems to me like it is set to Simulation mode (or whatever it's called) and you rarely seem to get rewarded for good hits. Mini-seasons however seems to be set on Casual mode, so you can really get in some hitting streaks in a 3 inning game. The Left Hander and the newest Mini Season pretty much feel like Home Run derby. For grinding stats I recommend Mini-Seasons...yeah the games get lopsided quick but it makes grinding more time efficient. Conquest games are good for a realistic to nerfy feel, yeah you might get some 8+ hit games but usually you are winning by one or going into the 4th trying to get two Sac flies. I'll do Conquest games when working on pitching stats or SB numbers, or for the rewards, but for stat grinds I really think Mini-Seasons is the way to go.

Since I'm still finishing out the 25 HRs for each team I've been playing a lot of the Mini-Seasons, either the Left Hander one or the new one. Pick teams for Pitcher bosses (usually the ones without a power hitter boss) and load up the AS/CS bosses in the field. I think I'm down to 3 Neons left.

To preface, I am on Xbox Series S. Been playing the Show for about 10 years, and this is in reference to offline games in Diamond Dynasty and occasionally RttS. I use a PCI setting with fishbowl on the outside and bat in the center, pitcher feedback on, and play mostly Rookie games.

I've got this feeling over the last week or so my PCI is visually not correct. I've been hitting poorly, everything is a lazy pop up. I can see the bat image on the PCI hitting the ball squarely, but when I get the after swing image after the out it shows my PCI placement is much lower. I didn't think this was even possible, but I've recorded the game and looked at it frame by frame and it is happening. Is there a setting I messed up somewhere, or is this a controller issue (I use the standard Xbox controller)? Is anyone else having this issue or am I just going crazy here.

The RNG is really wacky this season even for the offline modes. I can take a team in mini-seasons and get 4 HR / 10 hit games against a team of 90+ players, but I play against the White Sox in Conquest using the same exact team and I am lucky to get a win with 2 sac flies in the 4th. I don't know why they made the bat a wet noodle for Conquest games, this started last year I used to love Conquest.

@Slyravaniste_XBL In a way I am glad I don't get them often. I have had them happen on my 3rd baseman and I am always caught off-guard. In addition to having old-man reactions I usually miss them, and IMO it's stupid that if you dont react fast enough or are able to hit A B X Y Y B fast enough you get NEGATIVE exp. The only one you don't get punished for is the rob HR minigame, and ironically that's the one I succede at the most.

@Slyravaniste_XBL I have Impact Plays set (I never messed with it so I assume it's default). I thought the issue was for the fielding xp. It's nice to have a bad day at the plate and still get 1 or 2 tokens. As far as the impact plays, I guess I mostly get the routine ones then, the simon says throws or relay off the wall, or run to the catch. I think I've only had 1 or 2 diving catch events, but I do seem to get the rob HR chances at least once a series.

So I know that March to October was basically forgotten this year (you can win some basic packs, yay!) and Road to the Show is pretty stale, but I was thinking wouldn't it be cool to have a combined mode of the two?

So you would start like RttS with high school/college/draft stuff. Once you are drafted you then would take control of the franchise that drafted you. Unrealistic but it would be fun to play both modes at the same time. You could chose to play your minor league games but every couple of days you would also get the MtO events. You could control all the rosters, set up trades (including your own character) and get call-up opportunities (again, including your own character, which you could refuse if you wanted to pad stats). Once you get to the MLB with the character you would then have the option to play the whole team in MtO events or play the created character only. Mix it up how you feel.

I enjoy both modes and think it would be cool to play them both concurrently. It's a bit of a bummer to constant come up for your first AB in RttS and see your team down 9 runs already (realistic for the Angels but come on!). It also would be fun to be building the franchise around the stud character you created.

@CHIKENHAWK1239_XBL Yeah..I gotta say for the RPG element of having your own character Madden is light years ahead of the Show in that department. I can remember a mode in Madden (not sure if it still does it) where you could actually chose one of the top real life rookies and play them through their career. Another year had a full blown story mode for your "rookie" although the only customizable thing was their position I believe, but it had cutscenes and voice acting. I keep seeing youtube videos of the NBA games where you can go and play jokes on your teammates. Here you get an occasional phone call from an extremely wooden agent, with pretty much the same default options of 1. I'm good 2. Trade me 3. Change positions. Just no real flavor, although I did like the minor league announcer's comments.

The franchise really seems to be phasing out some of the modes, like RttS and especially MtO. I'm guessing there won't be MtO next year since it's a complete afterthought here, and RttS seems to have the same trajectory.

So I'm in spring training after getting called up in my 2nd year in Aug. Led the team in BA and OPS by the end of the season. So in my 4th spring training game in the following year the announcers introduce me as the American League Rookie of the Year. I was? My coach never said anything. My agent never said anything. The game didn't even say anything!

You'd think there would be something in the game for this...your agent, your coach, some training tokens, a package, a little pop-up with fireworks saying congrats, Mike Trout saying we bros...something.

Making a note of this when I have steals missions in the future...

@sbchamps17_NSW I know in the past there have been Conquest goals that had a turn requirement, usually 1 or 2 turns to conquer a specific territory. It was a bit confusing on this one because of the wording, but apparently 3 turns is sufficient, if there is any requirement at all.

So I am playing a CF and currently in AAA. I am getting 2 - 3 events a game in the field, usually the simon says mini-game for throws or the catch the bounce throw to cutoff (LB) events, but sometimes rob homeruns also. Also plenty of routine catches, that still award XP. I play on Xbox Series S. So this problem seems a bit random.

Is Atl and SD on the conquest timed? I'm confused what "before the leaderboard resets" means.

Edit: Well I did it in 3 turns and it counted. I guess it's just flavor text and not really a requirement?

@Jimmystick111_PSN So I used to call pitch location low and sit high, but I reversed that last season and I feel it's better for HRs. I call the fastest pitch in the high zone, sit high during the windup then slowly move the pci down during the pitch. My worst pitch is right down the middle because I tend to pull down too far and get a pop up. I'll punish any pitch low in the zone (I'll watch the speed and try to "catch" it in the pci) but I also tend to swing too much on in the dirt pitches.

So I started up a CF and I'm thinking of making him a defensive monster first while in AA. I know some stats are useless in RTTS, like Base Running Aggressiveness and Discipline. I figure Catching controls whether you get drops on those almost out of reach balls, but what about Throwing Power, Throwing Accuracy, and Reaction? Do they help slow down the throwing mini-game at all (which I can get maybe 30% of the time before it times out)?

@Jimmystick111_PSN 0 - 2 you are 90% of the time going to get a ball. It's even worse once you hit MLB, I've got more walks after going 0-2 in the MLB than I did in both AA and AAA.

@GreenEydBndt_XBL It was...just about 1 month.