Community Forum

This below I just sent to SDS in the form of a suggestion ticket:

"Suggestion for Stadium Creator ...

First off, I'm not some teenager locked up in his parent's basement with nothing better to do than write this. Instead, I'm a 61 year old Air Force retiree who is also retired from his post-military civilian employment. In short, I own my home and I'm typing this from my office.

I've also owned and operated an aviation company and so know a thing or two about customer service and balancing the books and meeting payroll. So, let's get honest here.

Four years ago you released Stadium Creator and it was widely praised, rightfully so. But, since then you have largely ignored it. Yes, you added the night lighting option and last year the standing fans, and in the course of time various additional props of different appeal levels.

But, what you have not done is listen to your customers who are actually spending the time designing custom stadiums. And that choice to ignore customers is what I fail to understand.

We want the ability to create realistic stadiums that not only replicate modern ballparks, but can also reach back into history to the 1970's, 1950's, 1920's, and even the original days of baseball where games were played in municipal fairgrounds, polo grounds, and public parks.

To provide that we need a relative few but profound changes to how SC functions, and it's long overdue given the detailed feedback hundreds of good customers have provided to you.

1. Give us the ability to modify the baseline walls in the exact same manner that we can currently modify the outfield walls.

2. Get the bullpens off the baselines, or at the very least, finally give us the ability to place bullpens by making them a prop that can be placed on the field of play or outside it.

3. Make the batters eye props workable in terms of placing standing fans on their concourse decks, and allow us to nudge the stand and concourse props tightly against the edges of them.

4. Allow for home plate distance marks to be added to the wall props so that we can select a wall panel and designate it to show the distance tally to that panel. Also, give us the option to add the standard yellow lines to the top of the outfield walls and extended down from the foul poles.

5. Adopt what are best described as building block props for a straight and curved stand prop that is small, no more than six rows across at the front and six rows deep, but that can snap and group with other stand props to build up stand sections as the customer desires. The curved stand prop should be no more than six seats at front row and eight or nine at rear row, six rows deep.

6. To those two building block props add a simple concrete walkway prop that matches the stair stepped concrete base of the aforementioned stand props, and with that add a simple railing prop that matches the incline and also snaps and groups so that these can be added as needed to finish off a grouped section of seats.

7. Create a new type of prop named "team branding" where the home team's cap logo, team logo, and team nickname can be added to props that can be placed on the backstop, baseline, outfield walls plus on the grass in chosen parts of the park's field of play.

8. Increase the variation and number of concourse props. Create a straight and inclined concourse prop type that is thin and can be used to create realistic entryways integrated with the stands. Add additional texture options for the kinds of stonework used in today's and yesterday's ballparks. Add those additional texture types to the other concourse prop types.

9. Change the current code to allow a roof style prop to be placed over the field of play provided it is above a set height to avoid interference with play. Obviously, this to allow design of retractable roof and domed stadiums.

10. Add numbers to all the existing letter props and design new ones that are smaller to allow more realistic naming within stadiums.

11. Add to the wall prop options a set of advertisements that can be placed on the backstop, baseline, and outfield walls.

You do these simple things, and we your customers will create custom stadiums that will greatly increase the appeal of your game, sell more units, and allow customers to create their own private leagues playing in stadiums from all sorts of historic and current eras, including their own custom teams.

It's time. Listen to your customers and do this!"

I'm 62 and still play this game. So, yes, I can still hit the ball in the game. Do I play on the hardest settings? No, not even close. But, the point is that this video game has a myriad of options where you can strike the right balance of difficulty to ease to have the experience that you desire.

I don't get this "whoa is me" philosophy. This plus other people chronically complaining about how and why they cannot get every reward the game offers. I am totally convinced that if one cares only about getting all the rewards, there are ways outside of Diamond Dynasty (which is after all a contest format) where you can earn them all if you are willing to set the easiest difficulty settings.

As I wrote elsewhere, MLB 25 is the first time that I did not touch the default sliders in order to achieve what I think is a properly accurate stealing environment. I focused my tokens in RTTS on basestealing and speed initially and was able to steal at around an 85 to 90% success rate with the sliders in their default settings.

That's just one example of many.

Losing it at 40? No man, you're not losing anything. Just investigate the sliders and overall difficulty levels and find the balance that makes the game enjoyable for you.

Based on what SDS has written, there was the intent to retain backward compatibility. However, something has corrupted the seating capacity and elevation figures for all the stadiums in the vault ported over from MLB 24 and 23. Worse, many people are reporting that they cannot even locate stadiums in the vault uploaded from MLB 23.

Until these bugs are fixed, the MLB 24 and 23 stadiums cannot be downloaded into MLB 25.

In addition to fixing this issue, there is an ongoing effort to convince SDS to upgrade Stadium Creator with the changes the designers have been asking for since SC's inception with MLB 21. As of now, we have been told there are people working on the issues, but there is no timeline given to us.

I think the Bonds craze is mostly a matter of anti-establishment type people who want to see folks who cheat baseball put into this video game. Bonds cheated his way to the most revered career record in baseball and perhaps all of sports -- the home run title.

I have a personal level of hostility when it comes to Barry Bonds. This player was well on his way to the Hall of Fame before he started using steroids. However, this wasn't enough for him. He wanted that homer record. Henry Aaron desperately wanted to see his record broken before he died, but it hurt him badly to see it broken by someone who cheated the game to do it.

I believe Ken Griffey Jr. was on his way to breaking Aaron's record when injuries shortened his career. Griffey was the sort of honest player whom Aaron would have been honored to see break his record, and most baseball fans wish that had been the case.

So, no, I don't want Bonds in this video game anymore than I want him in the hall of fame.

Some families who retained the licensing for their forefather baseball greats decided not to sell those rights to the MLBPA offshoot that wanted to buy up all those rights. Cobb's family was one that refused to sell. The Cobb family still has to deal with the horrible lies that Al Stump told of their grandfather and now great-grandfather, and so they have a very jaundiced view of people wanting to use Ty's likeness for profit.

To this day a lot of the lies Stump told remain as considered fact, including making it almost without question in the script of the horribly bad Cobb movie. Perhaps the worst lie of them all is the one that Ty Cobb was a virulent racist, when in fact, he was among the most egalitarian people of his generation, who openly worked with AL Commissioner Happy Chandler to integrate baseball. This effort was blocked by MLB Commissioner Kennesaw Landis and it wasn't until Landis died and Chandler became the MLB Commissioner that Jackie Robinson was allowed to break the color line.

Cobb went out of his way to endorse Robinson in baseball.

The list of songs for MLB 25 was posted in the News section. I'm totally unfamiliar with every song on that list!

I guess SDS doesn't think anything from the rock and roll era will be played in an MLB park anymore. I'm pretty sure that's way off base!

@Capt_Morgan__PSN said in Can we fix the issue, this is the same problem we had last year:

@Victor_SDS_PSN said in Can we fix the issue, this is the same problem we had last year:

Appreciate the detailed reports. We are investigating.

Just wondering why you cannot reply To comments about things people are looking for in Stadium creator like movable bullpens. Editing foul territory, etc. All us stadium creators. Just want an explanation, good or bad news thank you

AMEN!

Even if SDS has the policy of never wanting to allow these options in SC, clearly telling us that is far better than keeping us all in the dark as has been done for four years now.

NO!

It is shocking how so many of you fail to comprehend the magnitude of what Pete Rose did to destroy his legacy. Rose not only broke the most cardinal law in baseball hundreds of times, he lied about it hundreds of times. Moreover, when the then MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti suspended Rose for life, based on a mountain of phone call records with bookies, dozens of detailed affidavits from bookies, and a ton of additional evidence, Rose continued to lie.

Giamatti didn't want to ban Rose. He repeatedly offered Rose sweetheart deals that would have allowed him to be reinstated after a year or so, but Rose stiff armed Giamatti and denied the veracity of MLB's evidence. This collectively and literally broke Giamatti's heart. Most everyone who knew him said it literally killed him as he died at age 51 just weeks after suspending Rose for life because Rose bulldog stubbornly refused any contrition, apology, or cooperation.

When Fay Vincent took over as MLB Commissioner when Giamatti died, it was very personal with Vincent, who was Giamatti's deputy. Vincent blamed Rose for the death, and despite that extended additional opportunities for Rose to come clean and help restore his legacy enough to earn a second chance. But, again, Rose refused all offers, going on a public relations campaign to say he was totally innocent and that MLB had unfairly attacked him.

Even for Rose's closest friends, this was too much. This is why Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan both went public and stated that as long as they had anything to say about it, Pete Rose would never be in the Hall of Fame. In short, it wasn't merely the betting on baseball, including Reds games while he was player-manager, it was his outrageous refusal to own up to it and forcing Giamatti to do something he desperately wanted to avoid doing and dying young because of having done it.

By the time Rose finally got around to admitting what everyone knew, it was far too late. He had already left a path of personal destruction behind him. Giamatti loved baseball, loved Pete Rose, and begged Rose to help him keep Rose a meaningful part of baseball after a reasonable suspension. Rose's action barred all that. Giamatti was in office as commissioner for only five months to the day before he died.

That's Rose's legacy, and it has left scars and anger that are very visceral. He got what he deserved, and he will never be in the Hall of Fame because of his actions.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN I will merely add this. It isn't too late to fix this and do so in time to preserve sufficient goodwill to keep custom stadium creation vibrant and a valuable part of the MLB The Show line. However, I do firmly believe the goodwill is running dry.

For example, I have decided I will not create any custom stadiums within MLB 25 because I simply do not have the creative desire to do so due to the needless constraints placed on my creative options, plus the ongoing horrible bugs that have rendered SC largely unusable.

I cannot say how many other designers with impressive resumes have reached the same conclusion, but I think it is significant. There is time, but I don't think there is a lot of time.

Curt isn't controversial. He's just been turned into a false monster by the media, because the media's agenda is more important to them than being fair with people. Everyone who has played with him says he's a great person and teammate.

I'm 61 and I think I play the game fairly well.

@trfatboy22_PSN said in I THOUGHT they were listening to us...:

This may shock you...Stadium creator is not what the majority of the player base buys the game for. Same with Franchise. That's why they don't get the updates as much as other things and always will be. But that doesn't make the game bad

Are you truly unable to embrace nuance at any level? All of us dedicated stadium creators are old enough to add and subtract. We can accept the relative customer sizes for the various game modes. However, I wonder if you can?

It may certainly not be a majority of people whose initial focus is on SC, but it is equally true that based on the vault downloads of custom stadiums, the works put on the vault are a big draw for the game.

Folks, I'm happy to cooperate with this "one thread to rule them all" approach. But, with that in mind, let me proffer what I think is the single most salient issue:

1. Will SDS publicly state that they give a [censored] about Stadium Creator?

And now we learn after five full years of utter frustration, that the ability to manually edit and move the individual wall panels of the entire stadium including the baseline and backstop walls, has been an integral part of the Stadium Creator code. The only reason we designers have been blocked from employing this option is that SDS decided to write a section of code with the deliberate design of barring us from doing so!

SDS spent the coding time and money to deny us paying customers a treasured and highly desired custom stadium design option, even though employing this option would render the stadium ineligible for use in any Diamond Dynasty option same as has been the known case for editing outfield walls since Stadium Creator was first released.

In short, it is a choice we can make for ourselves. Leave the wall locations "as is" and play the custom stadium in all game modes, or choose to edit the location of the wall panels and accept creating a more customized stadium in return for having it blocked from play in all DD game modes.

That is the kind of choice we can accept and even support. Just be honest with us SDS! For God's sake, stop treating us like children and deceiving us! The truth is you don't want us to have these options. It has nothing to do with spending time and money on coding. That deception is now rendered fully known! You spent extra code and money to keep that option locked away from us and this has now been outed because some "glitch" happened where a one-in-a-million sequence of actions and game pad inputs caused the block code you implemented to be bypassed and suddenly the baseline and backstop walls were moveable.

Your internal SDS team can do this and can use their version of SC to create stadiums with the full range of options and props. No, we don't expect you to give us access to copyrighted logos and props. We understand there are tort laws that prevent that. But, generic non-copyrighted versions of signs, buildings, and other props that do not violate copyright can be given to us.

Again, treat us like adults and stop the bait and switch actions. Give us what we are asking for and stop acting like it cannot be done!

Hey, why did you ignore the Padres!?!?

@Bi99O_Walnutz88_PSN

So, SDS is somehow responsible for the reliability of everyone's internet connections, and if unable to secure a computer code solution to ensure online internet freezes never happen, then they are a "garbage" company in your view?

I will say it plain. There are a great number of people in these many online sub-forums who need to do some serious growing up!

For the record, it is absolutely impossible for any video game company to prevent internet connections from experiencing glitches, and when data is transferred at such a baud rate as to allow near simultaneous exchange of megabytes of video, audio, and dynamic data, then any degree of glitch presents an impossible situation where recovery is made impossible.

If you don't think it's beyond rational option, then you are welcome to earn your own degree in computer science, and write a new code to control the internet data exchanges and tie it in with a baseball video game code to achieve your version of utopia!

I don't even work for SDS, and yet your OP here just rankles me. Of course, if you remain convinced it's all so very easy, then best of luck creating your own solution!

For me, this is a decision point. Without very significant upgrades to SC, I won't be buying another MLB The Show title. Improvements to game play and graphics while nice just aren't enough to really get me enthused. I'd prefer to keep playing MLB 24 in my Franchise mode.

We will learn the reality in the next few weeks or sooner. If nothing is said in the promos about Stadium Creator, then we know it wasn't improved.

@Loyal-Wiglaf_XBL said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:

@sbchamps17_NSW said in MLB The Show Has Regressed — It’s Time to Prioritize Gameplay Over Content:

Jeez is there anything people won't complain about? It's every little thing these days

Excellent, thoughtful response!

I'll add one complaint, if you don't mind: inane complaints about so-called "complaints" that actually take time to outline some issues.

Jeez, people these days.

Just block the account for folks who write cheap insults like that one. That way, what they write just disappears as if they are not there, making the community forums a better place to be!

Consider that MLB The Show goes all the way back over 20 years. For well over half the title's history, the game was all about playing the CPU in baseball games, either individual exhibition style games or replicating a season as a specific team.

Then, along came innovations like RTTS where you would create a player and let it serve as an avatar for you as the player. Other modes started to morph allowing you to replicate the role of the GM (Franchise). These modes served the title well.

Later on, the online options started to expand into competition modes, and unfortunately they combined with a money-making intent to get people to compete for or pay for stubs. This caused 90% of the game's code changes to focus on online play.

The game needs to get back to its roots -- exhibition, RTTS, and Franchise. And while online competition is fine, it cannot become the prime focus. Doing so causes frustration. These have set in with the advent of seasonal card rosters and the requirement to rebuild all or most of your team throughout the year.

Get the pay to play aspect out of the title once and for all. You pay once and upfront and then you play for as long as you desire to. RTTS should be based on your avatar earning promotion and recognition strictly by quality of your on-the-field play, not some paid for (stubs or cash) method via equipment-based attributes. The idea that minor league players today are unable to get outfitted with the latest equipment is utterly ridiculous. The teams at all levels today provide this stuff.

Beyond this, one of the ways to keep the game original is via custom created stadiums, and despite this, Stadium Creator has been almost totally stagnant since it's inception with MLB 21. Those who have used it extensively have repeatedly advocated good changes to the basic code operation to make that mode far better at building realistic looking stadiums from all periods of baseball. It is way past time for SDS to listen to those details and implement them.

Folks, my natural personality is decidedly not negative. But, after beating my head against the wall giving SDS professional feedback (all constructive) having it all ignored over the years, I'm done giving these guys any benefit of the doubt.

SC is the way it is because SDS wants it that way. They don't care to make it work better.