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SDS appears to operate on a flawed presumption that GM's keep their deal making secret, especially when shopping players. This is totally wrong. Most of the time, GM's make public among the other GM's any willingness to trade a veteran player, or consequently advertising a desire to trade prospects for a veteran.

@doobiebross66-72_PSN said:

@jcassaro44_PSN Cobb had an incredible 99 card one year

125 contact and vision. 90ish power? Max speed and elite in the field

I loved using him

Ty Cobb had excellent power, which he used to hit line drives. To understand Cobb's approach, one has to understand how ballparks were constructed during his era, as well as the lack of reactivity in the baseball itself. You see, most all stadiums of the Cobb era featured huge outfield dimensions. It was common for the foul pole distances to be well over 370 feet, the power alleys at 400, and centerfield at 420 or longer. When you combine this with the relative dead quality of the baseball, it meant that efforts to hit a homer would most likely end up as a long fly ball caught for an out.

On the other hand, a line drive that split the fielders often resulted in a triple, and many times as an inside-the-park homer. For the record, Ty Cobb set a career mark of 46 inside-the-park homers, an American League record that stands to this day, as well as an AL single season record of nine! In contrast, he hit a grand total of 117 homers total, which when he retired in 1928 placed Cobb among the top career homer hitters in the game. In fact, Cobb led the AL in homers in 1909. The reason why Cobb famously was derisive about Babe Ruth was rooted in Ruth's strike out or homer philosophy. It was anathema in Cobb's era for any hitter to strike out as often as Ruth did.

There is a rare video of Cobb hitting for practice, and he deliberately hit the first pitch for a long distance homer over the wall. It was his way of proving late in his career that if he wanted to, he could have hit homers as often as Ruth did, but he considered it a better offensive approach to hit like he did.

@SavageSteve74_PSN said:

He was in a few years ago, nobody really used him. I’m guessing they dropped him for 1 of 2 reasons, either he got too costly or they’re virtue signaling with his mixed past.

In fairness, Cobb's "mixed past" was about 100% the false creation of Al Stump, who wrote a falsified hit piece after Cobb died. The worst thing that can be said about Cobb is that he would fight someone at the drop of a hat. During his era, that was about how all men were.

SDS_Joe,

Everyone who has the skill set to do what I described, much less the basic amorality to do it, is well aware of the method basics. Though I do not participate on what is called the "dark web" these cheat codes are frequently discussed in detail and anyone who desires to cheat can easily find them.

Nothing in this thread remotely makes it easier to do. What I wrote itself is so elementary that it would provide no assistance to anyone not already well aware of the details and willing to exploit it. BTW: This is precisely why Sarge and I privately provided SDS a roadmap to kill Lagrassa long before it reared its ugly head, and that was done in private.

I would be far more sympathetic to your reply IF SDS had taken our concerns seriously and implemented the ideal solution, which was very doable. Instead, SDS's actions almost seemed to desire the rise of Lagrassa so it could be exploited as an excuse to do what ended up happening several months later.

Folks, gaming consoles connected to the internet can be hacked the exact same as can a PC. Consoles are in fact PC's. The only reason why they got developed is it gave the creators of games a uniform system configuration. Game code can be downloaded, decompiled, and either changed or at least exploited in the creation of cheats that allow gamers advantages that cheat the setup.

It's not just MLB The Show that has this problem. I play 2K PGA Tour 25, and all the time I see folks play a round where they hit balls into a sand trap, the rough, or even water, and their next shot is magically on the green or in the fairway! They also routinely nail putts over 30 feet, and hole chips from off the green from 50 yards away. They are obviously using cheats to manually amend the starting point of a shot without penalty being applied, and also use cheat codes that provide feedback on the "perfect" shot that they can then replicate.

With MLB The Show, the obvious avenues of cheat code is to reveal the precise location where a pitch will cross the strike zone, as well as artificially enlarge the PCI for the bat.

Just more junk code by SDS that not only has harmed the integrity of play, but also increases the likelihood of follow on bugs resulting from corrupted code execution. We've all seen it, where runners seem to step into mud on the field and lose speed, even though there is no rain taking place.

The game should come down to the skill level of the man holding the control pad, and nothing else. You get a good jump with a fast runner, then the play should render so that only an excellent throw can get the runner out. But, that's not what is happening. Instead, there is another code execution taking place that seeks to get a predetermined outcome.

SDS is a company chasing its own tail.

That's exactly right. It was never MLB that worked with SDS to create a sole baseball video game. In fact, the only case I am aware of where a major sports league deliberately worked to create a monopoly was with the NFL and EA Sports and the Madden title. The NFL extracted a truly monumental scale of money for that exclusive contract.

In response, it seems the other rather limited number of software companies decided on their own to specialize by choosing one or perhaps two major sports to focus on and self-eliminating all others. For the longest period of time, these companies sought to release a title for all the major sports.

@genopolanco_PSN said:

@XxSoLiSxX_PSN

It wouldn’t make everyone happy long term but at bare minimum they could at least let us have secondaries where the perks wouldn’t need adjustments. It would be better than nothing.

Well, there is just so much ground truth to this post. I mean, if the reason why SDS refused to support secondary fielding positions for primary lineup players, is that SDS was concerned that their perks won't work ideally, then it strikes me that SDS has truly lost their way.

I mean RTTS is an offline game mode. There is no one to be cheated here. Who cares if the perk works perfectly! I mean just because a player works at a secondary position doesn't mean he's just as good playing that position. The reason why most MLB players work at secondary positions isn't to be the best at those second positions, but to increase their values to the team to cope with injuries and to reduce fatigue in veteran players.

Like I wrote before, SDS used to be a company run by people whose passion in life was to create the best video game simulation of the game of baseball -- a game each of them loved. Those were the old days when SDS created the best baseball game on the market. Those days are long gone now!

Today, SDS is squeezing every drop of profit out of a game that has languished with trivial changes over the last five years, with those few changes made having far more to do with post-sales revenue stream hunting than making the game more faithful to actual baseball.

I think the ability to form coherent sentences, using proper grammar, is becoming a lost art. Sadly, the ability to easily read what is written is accentuated by proper structure, spelling, and punctuation. It isn't difficult, but does require a sincere effort to study the English language. So many reject this because they wish to, not because they are forced to, much less denied from.

Frankly, we would love nothing more than some good old-fashioned honest discussion -- something called direct customer interaction. It isn't unheard of. In fact, corporations often spend considerable time and money sponsoring customer focus groups, where select customers are asked to participate in online discussions, back and forth discussions.

The ideal time for that was a couple of years ago, back when we had hundreds of noteworthy stadium designers who had each lovingly created hundreds of custom stadiums and placed them on the vault. But, given the clear mistreatment we have experienced over these last few years, those hundreds have withered away to just a few. And, given the wholesale lack of interaction, it seems this was SDS's goal the whole time, though for the life of me, I cannot find any good rationale for such a goal.

Well, they lost me! For what that's worth, and I had purchased every title in a row since MLB 21 as my first game on an X-Box console my son bought for me as a birthday gift.

Prior to that, I had purchased several titles on the Playstation series and consoles before even that.

I repeat that I find it noteworthy that the last time SDS cared to publicly release their sales data was for MLB 21, and that showed about a 15% slide from the all-time high water mark with MLB 19. SDS released information to the media that initial sales of MLB 25 were excellent, but then all sales data dried up, which tells me the sales fell into sharp decline.

I am more than confident that if SDS had good news to report on sales data, it wouldn't keep it a secret.

Nice reply, but if you look at the backlash SDS got over their years long mishandling, some would say outright malicious handling, of Stadium Creator and how that backlash did nothing to make SC better, then I would frankly say 10 million people telling SDS they are wrong isn't going to make them budge one inch. They have proven how incalcitrant they can be.

Folks, I hope you can appreciate this. Joe @ SDS just provided the most clear cut and honest answer to any customer related concern that I have read at this community forum in years. Some may see that as a backhanded compliment, but that is due more to the checkered history we have had here, with most all similar issues ignored or replied to in vague forms.

All that said, let's look at this deeper.

This isn't a simple upgrade. To implement properly in the game, SDS would have to code the game so that in RTTS there would be a mechanism in place to assign your avatar RTTS player to his primary or secondary position. There is a mechanism already coded in the game for two-way players since the alternate fielding position is not played a day before, during, or after being starting pitcher. For other types of players there would need to be a code sequence to track how many days a player played his primary position before playing the alternate position, or even better an option that did it based on injury to other teammates.

This isn't of course an impossible hurdle, not by any means, but it means there is likely no chance of this being done this year. Should it be? Of course, given that the majority of players in MLB do train at secondary fielding positions. Moreover, there should also be a career RTTS option for someone to be a utility player and be a generic outfielder/infielder.

This is the sort of stuff that SDS should have worked on vice create new marketing options. Some will view that as a second backhanded comment, but truth is it is the best advice SDS can get about where they need to focus their attention on. Less marketing and more good old-fashioned coding that makes the game play more faithfully to the real sport.

@The412Smoke_XBL said:

@LuvMyXBOX_XBL said:

that's baseball

Except it’s not. As I already stated - Happens on average twice per game in MLB. That should be reflected in it’s official simulation game.

This presumes that SDS's primary goal with MLB The Show is to create a video game that as accurately as possible simulates actual baseball. I think that used to be SDS's motivation, but I think that stopped being their motivation several years back when they morphed MLB The Show into a role-playing shooter game using baseballs and bats!

I knew that SDS just couldn't resist the urge to complicate the simple and straightforward. SDS got the most critical part of RTTS just right in MLB 25 when they ditched all the convoluted methods of earning attribute gains, and went with a straightforward and simple process of earning points for tokens and then using those tokens to essentially purchase attributes and perk updates. The perks had to be initially earned through the same on-the-field performance skills as one would use to earn the points for tokens.

Soon as I saw the new layers of goals and other stuff that SDS would introduce more problems than they would create new interest.

The basic game code is just layered with too much competing junk now, so that any changes made end up causing more bugs than actual updates. The solution to this problem is simple, rewrite the code from the ground up. But, that requires either SDS hires a large enough staff of top flight sports video game coders, or employs a smaller staff and has them work for four years or so.

My guess is that Sony, seeing SDS as a cash cow they suck money from, would reject either option. At some point the house of cards is going to collapse, but my guess is Sony has plans for that eventuality -- sell off the pieces of SDS for their final cash draw and end SDS as it is known today.

@Barfy-Bad-Gas_XBL said:

@mhenry23_PSN what would you prefer to see for more realism?

Read a few threads, it will be clearly explained!

I created an accurate version but you cannot play it in MLB 26 because SDS did not want it to be played in MLB 26. You have to play it in MLB 25 and earlier. Moreover, because SDS wants Stadium Creator degraded, no one can create an accurate layout of any historic ballpark. Designers are forced to use the default jewelbox squared layout, because again, that's how SDS wants it to be.

There is zero copyright on a baseball stadium engineering design. The copyrights exist with respect to branding -- trademarks.

You can freely create a virtual copy of any baseball park with precisely matched wall layout and dimensions.

That said, SDS went to extra effort to ensure you cannot do that in Stadium Creator -- hence the anger within the stadium designer community, which SDS seems they couldn't care less about creating.

Hard to argue. The game code seems really off. It makes unrealistic plays normal and safe leads suspect. Yeah, it's baseball and of course people can point to isolated examples of the epic comeback, but that doesn't mean that it's a norm.

My explanation for it happening? The marketing types want excitement; they want drama. So, how do you do that in a baseball game? Well, you have centerfielders make miraculous throws of nearly 300 feet distance from the wall to nail the hitter digging for a routine standup double. You have teams blow nine run leads with one to two innings left in the game.

It isn't real baseball. It's arcade junk! And I know some out there think I'm just motivated by my beef with SDS over Stadium Creator, but I can think objectively. This criticism is independent of what has been done to SC. This is the same junk where even in MLB 21-25, my RTTS team would sign free agents with a track record of hitting .300 with 30-40 homers and slot them batting fourth behind my avatar player, and suddenly the dude simply cannot advance me on the basepaths and his overall average is .220 and his BA with RISP is .120!

Nothing but total warping of baseball reality to heighten drama.

Yeah, they were at least in MLB 25 able to display stats, game scores, and team names and logos. Since I am boycotting SDS due to their malicious actions toward Stadium Creator, I cannot test this out. But, I trust your description is accurate. Therefore, this appears to be another mind-numbing blunder in the code.

This is just like how for reasons never explained, the strike out meter prob went from functional to disabled.

These guys cannot carry out even minor code changes to the game without causing seemingly unrelated adverse issues. This is clear evidence of game code poorly written, lacking in proper documentation, as well as inadequate modularity to allow intended code items to be amended without harming other code actions.