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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'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 was also predominantly a meter pitcher last year but switched to analog this year for the same reason. Overall it does feel like analog is more accurate for whatever reason. With meter, I can hit perfect consistently and the number of pitches that go 10 inches away from location on perfect is crazy this year. A couple days ago I hit perfect 3 times in a row, all primary pitch fastballs with a fresh pitcher, and each one sailed above the strike zone and put me behind 3-0. I was trying meter again just for fun. Switched to analog and threw three straight strikes.

Pitching is just worse this year in general. So whether it's a slider or two adjusted or what, meter is noticably worse than last year to me. But I see the same stuff with analog. In event games with Maddux last night, using analog, I was nailing my inputs pretty well only to watch every single offspeed pitch get sucked into the middle of the zone. And later in that game or the next, I had Rodney in and the analog meter showed my stick going a completely different direction than I was pushing it. Missing by a little on either side of the ring I can understand. But when the game randomly, visually shows my stick press in the opposite direction I do not understand as I know which way I'm pressing it.

But again, overall analog feels way more accurate. And misses on analog don't always go middle middle. You'll throw accidental dots on some of your worst pitches. Whereas meter, anything goes on any pitch.

But overall, pitching sucks this year so this late in the year I would recommend using what you're comfortable with. No matter what you're going to get negative outcomes on your good inputs at some point each game. It didn't take me long to adjust to analog so it's worth a shot trying to see for yourself. I do think it's quite a bit better than analog.

But I always have the yearning to go back to meter because I just prefer it.

I just can't figure out the timing while hitting now. I'm early on 97 MPH fastballs but late on breaking balls. And the timing feels different almost pitch to pitch, location to location in the zone and it's just...inconsistent? Balls dead center in the PCI that FEEL good are registering as Early/Rolled Over or some variant of that. I'm getting Good/Weak on placements that aren't quite dead center, but they definitely look like they're firmly in the PCI sweet spot and not on the outer edge or outside the PCI.

In fact, a lot of the outs that feel good just register as lazy Good/Okay outs where solid contact is riding a comet directly to fielders. It's very reminiscent of last year. Maybe the more I play I'll figure out the timing window but it really does feel like it's different at-bat to at-bat and game-to-game.

As for pitching, if I'm still hanging perfect release pitches and watching them sail out past Mars then it still isn't fixed. Meatballs are one thing, but when I'm using Greg Maddux and nailing the meter and the ball freezes mid-air while running towards the location and then zips away missing by 5 inches it's still not satisfying.

shrug

@skepple15 said in Why is there no DH:

a DH means no need for a bench, play Alonso at first

I'm ready for the full roster having energy we need to manage. That would allow the DH to be viable plus make benches matter way more. I'm sure a lot of people would hate it but it adds more strategy to roster construction which is the best part of DD.

Or at least add a Hardcore Mode that's higher pitch speeds and full stamina management. I would love it, personally.

They just need to tweak energy better. I thought coming into the year energy would deplete too fast or something but its the opposite. I love the energy management feature and being able to choose starters. Nothing irritated me more last year than getting a new boss or dropping 100k on a starter and not being able to actually use the card until the game let me.

It's all very ironic since I feel like they made it a mission to release better RP in the year so far. But there's no real incentive for someone to do so when they can piggyback starters each game. There's definitely a workable fix here if they work on it.

@ImDFC said in Quality of Life thread:

1. Quickly put the player at the last reward in any given program, rather than scrolling all the way to the right to see what you get at diamond 45
2. Starting the conquest session on your most populated tile/last tile used, rather than a seemingly arbitrary place (Seattle on the big map)
3. Expand the pause menu mission box (or whatever that's called) to include missions that involve players in the squad (XBH with White Sox RF, C, and 3B for example) with the accompanying in game popup (like how the dailies pop up mid game)
4. Option to see stats of players in your showdown squad when drafting new players(Right now you can only see the squad, but not their stats while in that menu)
5. More sorting and filtering functionality in the community market. things like "players not owned" and divisional filters, maybe even things like "power >80" and the like
6. A way to back out of choice packs without making your choice right away that doesn't involve dashboarding(and that doesn't even reroll your pack)

Echoing most of these as a couple of yours were the first to come to mind when I saw the thread:

-Adding to your first point, maybe even make it a drop down menu. I think a lot of menus in the game would benefit from a drop down that shows the entirety of the level tier we're in. For example, if you're in Gold and hit the drop down it will show you the increments since it moves in 5's. So you can easily tab over to the level closest to where you are. This on top of just starting us where we're at would be amazing. Easy access to what we're looking for.

-Not only starting us on our most recent tile, but even making it a little clearer which tile we're attacking. Maybe it's just me but sometimes I can't really tell which tile I'm actually trying to lock onto. Maybe differentiate the color to show the tile in red or something to make it a bit easier to see.

-An expanded look at all of our current missions of that kind would be amazing. Just some kind of in-game tracker that shows the innings you're accumulating and how close you are. Like if I'm using 3 Braves, 2 Yankees or whatever, being able to see an active tally of the teams we're actually using would be great. Obviously tracking innings and everything can be somewhat easy if you do it yourself but if the game did it with our active squad it would just feel better and give instant feedback.

-Being able to view your Showdown team stats needs to be added now. This feels like a bad oversight considering the attributes are a huge aspect of team building.

-Again, a dropdown box in the Market or Inventory would be amazing. Being able to sort by position or card tier (diamond etc) would be smooth. Sort by quantity owned would help us clear out and get our stubs quicker as opposed to finding whatever cards by scrolling aimlessly. Really, just enhanced sorting would be good in general. Like all they have to do is copy every online marketplace you can order from. Sort by A-Z, Z-A, Low to High, High to Low and then game specific options.

-Display the active pitcher's velocities with R2. Something like that should be readily available and with R2 basically being the active menu, the pitcher velocity should be there too beside the pitches and confidence. That way there's no pausing or clunky menus. It's tangible, real-time data that is useful to the players.

-Add ability to transfer pitchers in the Bullpen to "ready and waiting" from the quick menu. Unless I'm missing something you can't do that. You can basically perform every function but that from the quick menu. Really, avoiding the clunky menus should be a priority in all situations. When my pitchers are warmed, I don't want to have to pause just to make sure they don't blow out their elbows until I'm ready for them. Additionally, and again unless they changed this and I didn't see, stop making us "ready and waiting" our pitchers every inning online. Why it undoes itself is beyond me and turns this into Menu Simulator instead of a baseball game. If RP got up and kept throwing after getting warm and told to settle down they would not only be demoted but punched in the face by the bullpen coach.

That's all I got for now. This is the type of stuff I think about a lot so I'm sure I'll remember stuff as soon as I submit the post. But I hope they do see this stuff and consider some of it.

@nymets1987 said in How do we feel about moments?:

@thepapadell said in How do we feel about moments?:

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.

I have to say the grind for Tatis was one of the most fun things I did this year

Agreed. I enjoyed everything about it. The stat grinds, the fact that they didn't make us buy a ton of packs by giving us a ton during the grind...perfect. I still had to buy like 5 cards or something because, as I just ranted, I hate moments and completely ignore all Topps Now stuff. So I didn't have any of the free ones.

Zero complaints about having to buy a handful. It was the perfect balance of playing the game and earning towards the program and spending some stubs to finish. I didn't do a single Monthly Program last year. If they were like this last one I'd do them every month.

My crazy idea is to stop locking content and program stars behind Moments/Showdown and come up with ways to let me use the team I've spent time and money on to do it instead.

Is the card worth a million stubs? No. Would I happily pay a million stubs to use my favorite player's best available card? Absolutely.

But I literally can't. Which is I think the big glitch with the decision to make him Flawless.

But at least they did provide the Boss version that can hit Prestige. It makes the sting a little less but it still sucks when Chipper's final card was one of the few things I was looking forward to this late in the year.

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

You guys remember the pitching from the Beta? Truly made me believe pitching would matter this year too.

But it also made me realize there is too large of a skill gap for any of us to get the competitive game we want. Nobody wants to strikeout 10-15 times a game and that’s exactly what’ll happen if they just decided to flip the “input matters” switch, especially on pitching.

They figured out what sells a million copies, and it’s definitely not what the hardcore, 3-5 thousand of us want. Kind of gotta get used to it.

This is a fair assessment and I would assume the ultimate answer. But why not give the rest of us options? I would play exclusively on HoF where input mattered more even if it meant getting killed every game. I said before I would even love a "hardcore" mode where position players have stamina that needs managed too because it would mean you need to manage your bench as well.

If a majority of people want things the way they are ok. But give the rest of us an option too. I've avoided RS for so long because I just don't want to play on All-Star. I can handle event games for 3 innings on AS but the idea of Ranked just makes me want to uninstall the game. Between the pitch speeds/latency issue and the stuff being discussed in here it just sounds like the most unappealing way to spend 45 minutes.

I'll be waiting for the Xbox version next year either way but I feel like I'll look back on this year and regret not playing with guys like Mantle and Walker because they'll be harder to get next year. But the way the game plays and feels has just kept me away all year.