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.

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.

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.

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.

Get a grip. Seriously, you falsely conflate his alleged conduct with that of a criminal. Your mentality is as foolish as someone saying that a real life baseball player cheated because he sees the infield shifted toward first base and so he slaps a grounder down the third base line for a double.

That isn't cheating, and it sure as heck isn't criminal! I mean it is foolish to call it cheating and it is more foolish to call it criminal.

He didn't steal a single thing from you. He just went out and used the game code as SDS released it to achieve something. You are just filled with envy and are unable to think straight.

Shoplifting and walking out on a check are both criminal acts. I can cite the laws that make the conduct criminal.

Just like that real baseball example, all he did was recognize an opportunity to exploit a weakness and within the rules of the game (in this case the existing software written by SDS) was able to achieve success.

BTW: Before someone else here says it violates the TOS to exploit the game code. That is NOT what that part of the TOS means. The context of exploit in that portion of the TOS relates to exploiting a weakness in the security of the game code so as to create cheat code. It is another way to describe the act of hacking computer software.

Again, this person hacked nothing, did not use cheat code, and did not in any way alter how the game code operates. These people saw an opportunity in the game code to maximize the numbers of card packs they could obtain through playing the game exactly how SDS coded the game to operate.

Your anger, if there should really be any, should be directed at SDS for writing the game code in such a manner as to allow this option to exist in the first place.

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!

The online custom stadium cheating has now unloaded and the vault is flooded with stadiums that placed wall sections all throughout the field of play, precisely as we dedicated and honest stadium designers warned you privately three months ago.

We handed you the roadmap to keep this from happening, and begged you to implement that solution soonest while custom stadiums were removed from online play due to the head-to-head bug issue.

But, SDS, you chose to do it your own way and that way did not prevent the malicious abuse of custom stadiums. If you had listened to the community, and implemented the strategy we urged, then this abuse would not be happening.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN

Joe, when is SDS going to actually start listening to us? I don't mean pay boiler plate lip service to, but actually listen and treat us like intelligent adults who only want what is best for this game we have paid for?

Firmly, I don't believe anything that is legal according to the official rules of MLB should be declared illegal within MLB The Show games. There is no ceiling to how many switch hitters a team can put on its roster.

So, yes, I guess I will start the disagreement line!

@BiigD008_XBL said in I've had ENOUGH SDS! Fix your servers!:

99% of players have no issue, so what is the fix? Have you tried reinstalling the game.

Why is it the first thing people urge customers to do is nuke their game and start over with a reinstallation? You have no idea what percentage of people have good or bad experiences. You have no idea what the root of his problem is, but you still serve up unsolicited suggestions to him.

For the record, he's in the SDS community forums asking SDS to fix an issue. The fact that SDS won't answer him doesn't mean the rest of us should feel free to serve up our own independent solutions for him!

@flyarrhea_MLBTS said:

@IZZY243Cuh_PSN with all due respect, you are 17 years old. you aren't old enough to have the right to an opinion yet. most of us on here were playing the game before you were even thought of. and we all enjoy the game.

I don't often reply to trolls, but this one was so far over the top that it earned a rebuke. You sir, are a [censored], and immediately after I send this reply, I am blocking your account because you are no one worth knowing!

Regardless of the censored language, the core truth is that this is another example of SDS prioritizing hyper control above and beyond customer satisfaction. This is what happens when a small group of people get into a committee meeting and focus on how to make the game harder vice how to make it more accepting of customer freedom of play.

What would be wrong with setting up different difficulty leagues within online play? The answer of course is nothing. It's easy to establish the selected difficulty level of the various players and ensure they are operating within the league setting that matches that choice.

SDS has lost its way. The game used to be noted for customer customization, from menus themed on your favorite team, to fully supported game modes that allowed customization of many items. Now, the theme is focused on centralized SDS control.

SDS must enjoy angering paying customers, but last I checked angry paying customers rarely continue to be paying customers!

@ApolloZ_99_MLBTS said:

@KoaSouljah_PSN you are asking the world for a game that releases yearly to cater to your every wish. It’s just not plausible. Game isn’t as bad as some of yall let on

Asking for a significant technological upgrade to the game so that it matches multiple sports games on the market already is, in your words, "asking for the world?" Do you really believe that?

If you do, then allow me to ask you this. Precisely when -- if ever -- would you expect SDS to significantly upgrade the game?

MLB The Show desperately needs to replace RNG engine based play outcomes with physics based play outcomes. It needs to upgrade the graphics, with significant improvements needed in body object modeling and how objects interact with weather (wind and rain), and also how the ground interacts with rain. If you don't think SDS is lagging behind other game titles, then take a look at NCAA College Football 26. I own that game and believe me the quality of graphics in all those areas I discussed are significantly better than what SDS continues to put out.

Just like golf, baseball is a game of physics. The way balls are thrown, hit, react to a pitch, are all deeply ingrained into the psyche of not only players but also fans who have spent years watching the game played. Savvy baseball fans can watch a hitter contact a baseball and know within a second whether that contact is going to be an out, a single, an extra base hit, or a homer with about 90% certainty. That other 10% of the time is the case of a hit being snagged by an outstanding defensive play.

There are essentially five data points for the game to calculate to use nothing but the physics of bat to ball contact to perfectly play out in graphics how that hit performs: exit velocity, launch angle, contact angle, temperature, and wind. Of these, the temperature at game time plus the wind is known before the pitch is thrown. The other three are therefore the data inputs that must be calculated within a split fraction of a second, but modern consoles can crunch those numbers quickly enough.

By contact angle, what I mean is the angle formed by the bat, upon contact, relative to the front side of home plate. Is the bat, at contact, perfectly parallel to the front edge of the plate, or is it canted acutely or obtusely to the front edge of the plate? This contact angle not only determines the initial angular direction of the hit, but also when combined with the launch angle and exit velo, able to calculate the spin that the contact imparts on the ball. Combining this angular measure with the exit velocity and launch angle, and then measuring the influence of wind and temperature, and a nearly perfect replication of every hit can be calculated and fed to the game engine to drive how the graphics of the ball in flight are presented.

Difficulty levels can be implemented by changing the virtual size of the bat's sweet spot, with the largest area assigned to the least difficult level, and shrinking until at the highest difficulty level the sweet spot replicates the size it would be in real baseball games.

If this concept of the physics based baseball video game can be explained in a few paragraphs, don't tell me it cannot be implemented in any of today's generation of baseball video games played on today's generation of gaming consoles. It can and SDS should have done it years ago. And yet, even in MLB 26, we see example after example where it is clear that some RNG calculation is what determines the play, not hard physics. This is where SDS has failed and it is reasonable to call them out for it.

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.

@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.

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.

Agree with every single word you wrote. I strongly suspect there are many within SDS who agree with every word you wrote also. But, they are ordered to keep their opinions to themselves. SDS reports to SIE, and when Sony took over they implemented a raft of layoffs, and repeated the same cycle several more times over the years. Sony sees SDS and in turn MLB The Show as nothing more than a cash cow, and when they bleed it white they will sell off the pieces and keep the profits and never look back.

SDS stopped being a company that runs a unique baseball video game out of passion and desire to be the best. They are now a wholly owned corporate subsidiary. I think it's a lousy time for a truly talented video game coder to try to make a living. The industry is in a horrible state as big corporations have bought up the once independent studios and call the shots for profit maximization vice quality.

@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.

How was the stadium configured to facilitate this cheating? This is an issue that really angers me -- nefarious people abusing the created stadiums to put cheap cheat options in the vault.

Update: I found the stadium. It was easy enough to find as the most recent uploads in the vault were flooded by stadiums set up to deliberately cheat.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN

Joe, I warned you in private nearly three months ago about this possibility and like other dedicated and honest stadium designers like Sarge, we provided SDS on a silver platter the pathway to prevent this kind of cheating, and also allow honest stadium designers (who form the vast majority of the community) to continue to enjoy the option to amend the baseine and backstop wall panels.

SDS chose to go its own way and now the exact mess I warned you about has happened.

When is SDS going to earnestly listen to the community and work with us in harmony to keep the game enjoyable, maximize customer satisfaction, and tamp down on the cheating and the vulgar logos inundating the online play? You guys have no one to blame for this except yourselves!

This is an overreaction. SDS actually did something positive here. GIven their overall performance, it is hard for me to write that, but I have to be honest about things. They reformed their strike zone to conform with the rules that have been in the MLB rulebook for over 100 years.

They did this by shrinking the dimensions of their depicted zone slightly, so that any ball that nips any portion of the zone is a strike. The same pitch that was a borderline strike before the change remains a borderline strike now. It's a minor change and certainly not capable of "ruining the game."