This is the biggest reason I've avoided online a lot this year. Only recently did I say screw it and start playing again. Mostly because this Event, while terrible, is hilarious fun running out common lineups to grind innings while working towards Prestige with pitchers. The past couple nights I've played have been pretty stable for the most part. During my run in events today I was seeing the ball well, my timing was very good and it was a pretty fun experience.

Then came the three games in a row where Orel's Sinker looked like 150 and I had to sell out to try and time it. If it was an offspeed pitch I was so far out in front I could have swung twice if the game let me.

There's really no way to combat this, either. Like you said, there are still games as the home team where there is so much latency that pitch speeds are just nonsensical. In the Event I literally don't care since I just want to grind Prestige and I'm using common hitters for the most part. But it definitely affects pitching too, so unless I get a super laggy menu check I still play anyway.

My two biggest complaints this year are latency/pitch speeds and pitch accuracy (which was my complaint last year). I don't think it's a stretch to think these two issues might be related too.

Part of me is holding out hope that the game will play better on Xbox. Even on a wired connection my PS4 just doesn't get anywhere close to the speeds or ping I should get with my internet. My ports are forwarded and I've done all the utility stuff I can on my end. It's usually literally half what my Xbox pulls. I'm sure this is just a pipedream, but I'm still hoping there's a noticeable change.

If this game had a stable online experience and we weren't forced to adjust to pitch speeds due to latency or the nonsensical difficulty change in RS, I feel like it would be a much better experience and the frustration would minimize to a degree.

Will it be different next year? I kinda doubt it. But we'll see.

In the two years I've played DD, Moments are by far the least enjoyable time I spend in the game. Everything about them creates negative associations with the game for me and I never find myself really feeling like I spent worthwhile time playing them.

I feel like I could write a novel about how much I hate them.

Starting with the fact that Moments aren't REALLY playing the game. I'm not really interested in recreating something that happened 37 years ago with a slapdick version of a card I'm never going to use. I love baseball. I love the history of the game. I appreciate the historical aspect of Moments and what they're doing. But they are executed so terribly and to see them be such a huge component of the DD experience is beyond annoying and frustrating. With the crazy specific completion goals, ending up playing the Moments that take more than 30 minutes is such a dreadful way to experience this game.

The moments themselves? From the jacked around sliders nerfing every aspect of the game, to the CPU pitchers either blindly throwing the ball into the stands when you need hits or throwing literal dots that you can't even do anything with while never throwing hittable pitches, to the player-lock design that nerfs your ability to actually complete the moment, to CPU runners always on base in front of you (seriously it's awesome that the pitchers are always 5-5 when hitting in front of you) and preventing you from getting XBH....I mean there's just so much to hate. I enjoy a good grind. I don't even feel like moments qualify as a grind anymore. They're just garbage time sinks that pad the DD playtime stats for them to brag about how much people play DD to justify not touching any other aspect of the game.

I don't play DD for this. I want to build my team, acquire new cards and PLAY THE GAME. I don't want to hit 3 XBH with some journeyman catcher that had a random good game in order to earn progress in anything. I don't want to pitch 7 shutout innings at Coors Field with jacked up sliders that make the CPU PCI the size of the goddamn moon.

I wanna pitch with Greg Maddux. I wanna hit Chipper third and hit moonshots with Babe Ruth. In a real game. I don't want to sit and press Square for an hour with Tomas Nido.

They COULD make these more palatable. Why are some moments given the "reach base X amount of times" treatment but most aren't? You know the CPU doesn't throw strikes. Why can't the at-bat reset if we get walked or HBP? Why can't we control the baserunners? Why do kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

To end this giant wall of run-on sentences I'll say this: Last month's Monthly Program was some of the most fun I've had with the game. I started playing last year so the years of stat grinds were before my time. I had a ton of fun loading up my team with players to grind team innings, unlocking a new card, adding that to the lineup and trying to grind stats while trying to figure out the most efficient way to knock out as many as possible. And guess what? I was PLAYING THE GAME. Baseball. That game. Moments are the worst iteration of Pin the Tail on the Donkey ever conceived. I hate them. Showdowns were annoying enough, but having to slog through moments just to get to the slider circus was such an abysmal experience for me personally. I don't have unlimited time to play games. The thought of spending 90 minutes doing lame moments just to get to a mini-mode where my hitting is nerfed and Jesus Christ himself possesses the body of every fielder and makes miraculous catches on every play does not excite me.

If Moments existed in some other form they might be ok. But I'd much rather load my team, grind stats (especially in a "season" format where stats against and for the CPU are tracked and just is a continuous track like RS) and have fun playing the game.

Primary Sinker.
Secondary Sinker.
Sinker.
Sinker.
Sinker.

@ComebackLogic said in Compared my pitching statistics from 19 to 20...:

I’ve felt the declination since ‘17. I used to love pitching, especially as a poor hitter. I could reliably induce weak contact, ground balls and set up pitches to get strikeouts. Last year pitching wasn’t good either, especially towards the end of the game cycle after patches.

I started playing last year and my biggest complaint was the pitching. As someone that was learning zone from the ground up, obviously I wasn't a consistent hitter. Plus I was on a tv and didn't realize it's an entirely different game with a monitor.

But even with pitching being suspect, it's still what kept me in most games. I pitched my entire baseball life so I know how to sequence and it showed most of the time. The games where I was hitting I tended to win easily. Games I struggled offensively I wasn't getting blown out.

But I would have zero issue getting beat by elite hitters if my pitches went where I aimed on good input. Because either I made a mistake that was taken advantage of or the hitter just beat me. I can live with that.

But this year, I have zero confidence that my pitches will go where intended. The black not being called whatsoever and forcing the ball into the zone for hitters to crush, amplified by the magnetized pitches and early HRs/bombs on swings where the PCI doesn't touch the ball and it just feels so bad.

On both sides of the ball, I never really have an idea on what I need to do better to be better. The game has a feedback system that you would think would help me improve, but often times it leaves me feeling clueless. I'll nail a pitching input only for it to go middle middle and get launched. Then when batting I'll square up two balls in a row that are hit right at people. Then on the next swing I'll completely miss with my PCI and hit a bomb.

This year feels so heavily balanced to appease hitters. Maybe most people just want to mash buttons while pitching and then try to play HR Derby. But not me. I'd rather queue into a HoF playlist and grind that to get tangibly better as opposed to being run through the All-Star mulcher and taking breaks from the game because I can't stand it. If they made pitching more balanced it might make things sting less.

I think they definitely need to clean up some of the positional assignments in general. Seeing Adam Duvall play 3B for the Braves in Conquest is both hilarious and immersion breaking. There's plenty of examples like this.

But for the guys that actually play multiple positions, wouldn't it be fairly easy to just add a new perk? I don't know the optimal configuration. No penalty? Reduced penalty? But slap a "Mr. Utility" quirk in there and maybe it would be a little more efficient?

The ball not touching the bat is probably some form of desynch.

In terms of the swing and result, I actually don't see an issue. Pitches on the outer part of the plate require "later" timing to be "good" in the game. To put it in baseball terms, the hitter let the ball travel through the zone before getting the barrel to the ball and driving it to RF. In MLB: The Show terms, they swung later. From an objective point-of-view this doesn't appear to be a bad result and not as bad as some swing outcomes can be in the game.

@bhall09 said in Theme teams:

What are some theme teams you like to use? Conquest is getting rather boring and I’ve still got 3-4 teams I want to finish. I’ve done all the other maps and still about half the team ones to go. Looking for ways to change it up, maybe freshen it up so I can at least finish off these last few without beating my head against a wall.

Do you have all the Affinity stuff maxed out? If you still have missions available to grind that's what I've been doing. Just mixing and matching to grind affinity missions combined with dailies when I have them.

I know some people have been constructing "Rival" teams for the Conquest maps. Like if you play the Braves, only use players that are rivals of that team. That sounds like a fun way to add variety without stretching too far.

I think as an idea it's great. I also think they implemented it in the literal worst way they could have.

Having some form of Power-Up/Prestige program is perfectly fine with me. But limiting it to online only is a terrible call. The generic +3 that was featured this year wasn't really that amazing for most cards. Some crossed certain thresholds or had various effects like that, but overall it just wasn't enough to really move the needle that much. It was more of a "badge of honor" type thing for those that grinded online a lot. Which, fair play, as rewarding people for playing the game is sensible.

But I still see no reason why it can't be a combined effort between online and offline. As Chuck mentioned above, the way they developed the various programs with a mix of online and offline missions is the way to go. I didn't really touch Ranked all year because I just didn't enjoy how the game played online this year. I spent a fair amount in Events, though, and usually got annoyed by people trying to boost before the gameplay annoyed me. These types of things shouldn't really affect the way people play.

So if people can earn them offline, that's even better. For those that don't want to play online at all, they can still earn something new and it will keep them engaged with the game. Even if there IS an online requirement for ABs or IP or something, with a loose requirement like that it should deter a lot of people from boosting. Instead of being able to go in and attempt to boost for Hits or XBH or K's or whatever, if you just need x Plate Appearances then you're much more likely to play. If you need 211 IP with a pitcher, you're much more likely to actually play.

The CPU is beatable in this game 99.8% of the time. But when the CPU wants to win it will win and you can't do anything about it. Being able to see the CPU PCI is almost cruel when you see outcomes like this.

If it makes you feel better, I was walked off last night by the Padres by Trent Grisham, Left on Left, on a Very Early swing on a fastball that was an absolute dot up and away. I didn't check the PCI rating because I didn't want to take up a bed in the psych ward but 4 sounds about right for that one, too.

I just got Chipper today. I don't remember the timestamp but I believe my order was placed on 10/29. Just passing along for those still waiting.

I think as an idea it's great. I also think they implemented it in the literal worst way they could have.

Having some form of Power-Up/Prestige program is perfectly fine with me. But limiting it to online only is a terrible call. The generic +3 that was featured this year wasn't really that amazing for most cards. Some crossed certain thresholds or had various effects like that, but overall it just wasn't enough to really move the needle that much. It was more of a "badge of honor" type thing for those that grinded online a lot. Which, fair play, as rewarding people for playing the game is sensible.

But I still see no reason why it can't be a combined effort between online and offline. As Chuck mentioned above, the way they developed the various programs with a mix of online and offline missions is the way to go. I didn't really touch Ranked all year because I just didn't enjoy how the game played online this year. I spent a fair amount in Events, though, and usually got annoyed by people trying to boost before the gameplay annoyed me. These types of things shouldn't really affect the way people play.

So if people can earn them offline, that's even better. For those that don't want to play online at all, they can still earn something new and it will keep them engaged with the game. Even if there IS an online requirement for ABs or IP or something, with a loose requirement like that it should deter a lot of people from boosting. Instead of being able to go in and attempt to boost for Hits or XBH or K's or whatever, if you just need x Plate Appearances then you're much more likely to play. If you need 211 IP with a pitcher, you're much more likely to actually play.

My galaxy brain theory was that something like this was being introduced in 2021 with how the strike zone played in 2020. But now I'm not so sure.

It would add some variance to roster construction, but exactly how much? If Piazza was more readily available and had terrible framing attributes, would everyone still use him because he mashes? With how the game plays I don't know that it would actually end up mattering all that much and would probably create added frustration since it literally would just be added RNG. Everyone was using Foxx even though he had less than stellar defensive ratings. Power/offense reigns supreme.

They'd really have to overhaul defense significantly for the defense to matter more in general. If they added in a pitch framing mechanic it could open a whole new can of worms. Plus, with the eventual Rise of the RoboUmps, I'm not sure it would even be worth the devtime to innovate, test and implement.

If they aren't going to use dedicated servers or have some way of seeing what the connection will be like then having some way of backing out of a laggy game is necessary.

I don't care if I'm the away team. I like the variety and the occasional stadium that isn't Shippett. I do care if I'm going to be in an absurdly laggy game that eats up the relatively minimal time I have to play the game.

This is on SDS to fix the server and latency situation. I know what everyone is saying in regards to home hunting but there will always be people on each side of an extreme. Before I realized you could test the connection last year, I ended up in games that were so laggy and terrible that it made me want to stop playing the game entirely. And within the confines of Ranked, deciding to just ditch a game due to latency and have to work twice as hard to climb isn't a great experience.

They either need to make pitch speeds universal with PCI size decreasing as you go, or introduce a difficulty-specific set of playlists for people to choose from.

I understand not wanting to alienate people that can't handle HoF or above. But I also avoided RS most of the year because I just don't want to play this game on All-Star in a "competitive environment." So it works both ways in a sense.

Have an AS playlist, HoF playlist and Legend playlist. AS can be for casual players or folks that just want to avoid too many sweaty games or to even try out cards. HoF can be for people like me that want competitive games where strategy and skill/input need to matter more. And Legend can be there for the highest level players to play each other without having to grind through lower levels "just because" and just open up the freedom to play.

I'd happily jump into a Legend game not expecting to win but expecting the game to be more tense and assume I'm gonna struggle against great players. I'd play almost exclusively on HoF. I would never play AS.

This is one of the only games I can remember playing online where I couldn't actually choose what I was playing and get forced to just go through the motions.

@bhall09 said in Theme teams:

What are some theme teams you like to use? Conquest is getting rather boring and I’ve still got 3-4 teams I want to finish. I’ve done all the other maps and still about half the team ones to go. Looking for ways to change it up, maybe freshen it up so I can at least finish off these last few without beating my head against a wall.

Do you have all the Affinity stuff maxed out? If you still have missions available to grind that's what I've been doing. Just mixing and matching to grind affinity missions combined with dailies when I have them.

I know some people have been constructing "Rival" teams for the Conquest maps. Like if you play the Braves, only use players that are rivals of that team. That sounds like a fun way to add variety without stretching too far.

I'd love something like this. If it was expanded to be able to adjust line-ups or possibly even do exchanges through the app that would be amazing. Not sure how viable that stuff is but just a basic market application would be appreciated.

I just got Chipper today. I don't remember the timestamp but I believe my order was placed on 10/29. Just passing along for those still waiting.

@ComebackLogic said in Analysis of an opposite field home run:

@thepapadell said in Analysis of an opposite field home run:

@ComebackLogic said in Analysis of an opposite field home run:

“To combat inflated offense, certain hitting mechanics are slightly harder in DD games and certain penalties for mistakes are also higher. Most of these result in making it slightly harder to put the ball in play (fouls and misses), with flexible hitting and waiting for a better pitch being key. As another example, even though Babe Ruth can hit occasional home runs while jammed, in DD the jammed penalty ramps up slightly faster and these kind of opposite field home runs should be less frequent than normal. Similar rules exist for chasing pitches out of the strike zone etc.”

1. What the hell is a “jammed penalty” and where do I find that explanation?!?

2. Once I’ve incurred a penalty for being jammed or chasing pitches out of the zone, how do I become unpenalized? When do I lose this invisible black mark against my name? Or is that not how it works? Where can I find this explanation?

This your RNG right here. Unexplained invisible penalties that nerf you based on strange factors like trying to hit too many jammed home runs with Babe Ruth.

I would assume the "Jammed penalty" is simply a reduction in your chances for a positive outcome on a result that reads "jammed." I don't think it's something that carries over. Or if it does, I would assume the more "jammed" results you end up with the less likely you are able to get hits with that result.

If it does carry over, if - That’s where the problems start for me. You can’t have hidden cumulative penalties that you don’t know you’re racking up and don’t know how to get rid of, or if they expire. That’s then into the realms of nerfing good swings because the game says “I don’t think you’ve taken enough pitches, or you’ve been jammed too often.” That would indeed be the much maligned “RNG trumping user input” we hear so often with no proof.

Agreed 100%. The game does a better job confusing the player than helping them potentially improve. I've had to dumb myself down so much to continue playing the game without quitting again and accepting that the game is what it is. I remember seeing that big patch they put out that added the new swing feedback info and laughed because I don't think it made anything clearer - I think it just added more variables that lead to confusion.

@ComebackLogic said in Analysis of an opposite field home run:

“To combat inflated offense, certain hitting mechanics are slightly harder in DD games and certain penalties for mistakes are also higher. Most of these result in making it slightly harder to put the ball in play (fouls and misses), with flexible hitting and waiting for a better pitch being key. As another example, even though Babe Ruth can hit occasional home runs while jammed, in DD the jammed penalty ramps up slightly faster and these kind of opposite field home runs should be less frequent than normal. Similar rules exist for chasing pitches out of the strike zone etc.”

1. What the hell is a “jammed penalty” and where do I find that explanation?!?

2. Once I’ve incurred a penalty for being jammed or chasing pitches out of the zone, how do I become unpenalized? When do I lose this invisible black mark against my name? Or is that not how it works? Where can I find this explanation?

This your RNG right here. Unexplained invisible penalties that nerf you based on strange factors like trying to hit too many jammed home runs with Babe Ruth.

I would assume the "Jammed penalty" is simply a reduction in your chances for a positive outcome on a result that reads "jammed." I don't think it's something that carries over. Or if it does, I would assume the more "jammed" results you end up with the less likely you are able to get hits with that result.

Primary Sinker.
Secondary Sinker.
Sinker.
Sinker.
Sinker.