Community Forum

@LIONED-33

There’s the guy I remember from last year. Flexing his 9-5 and dad of the year award along with his insane work ethic that gets him what he deserves in life. I got news for you my man. Hard work doesn’t pay off as much or as often as you think. This is a video game and being good at it or feeling you are entitled to this or that because you are good or “work harder” at it is laughable. I too work full time, in healthcare, which is more than a typical 9-5 gig. I’m married with kids and get up every single day to hit the gym before 99% of people even wake up. Then I go help people get better and recover from illness, injury, or both. That’s not me flexing to stroke my own ego. It’s just making a point that even with all that going on I don’t feel like working longer or harder at this game makes people special in any way, shape, or form. If flaunting your achievements in this game makes you feel better about your life while putting down lesser skilled or casual players in the process then that says a lot about you. At the end of the day this is a game, not real life, so please stop acting like the same rules actually apply.

You guys nailed this 100%. Exactly how I feel and so sick of all the sweats and try hards denying it. The game isn’t fun or rewarding and it stinks. The potential is there but they intentionally slowed the grind to a halt and if I’m not having fun what is the point. I have a full time job and family with children and sports. I don’t need this game to feel like a part time job I don’t get paid to do to creep along at a snails pace.

I said the CPU pitches like a combo of Ricky Vaughn from Major League and Greg Maddux rolled into one.

How does making low difficulty offline play tedious as heck with nerfed results and CPU rarely throwing a hittable pitch support the power creep? Their release of cards should support the creep plain and simple. This year is far worse than the previous 5 and I just don’t get it. Maybe it motivates others to play more but it makes me want to play less and the fun factor is diminished 10 fold.

As an offline player no one cares what card I do and don’t have. All this does is make the game less fun and rewarding for me which is ridiculous. I play to chill and unwind from life. If players want to be challenged let them do so online at higher difficulties.

Make rookie play like rookie plain and simple. Rookie mode in most other games has this figured out but in the show rookie is just slower pitch speeds and bigger PCIs. Otherwise there is almost no advantage to playing on Rookie or Veteran because the CPU will still super dot and drive up your pitch count by taking pitches just off the black and fouling off 10 pitches if the inning is going just a bit too fast. Makes no sense.

Totally agree on all of the above. I’ve actually logged on multiple times, stared at my screen, and logged off a few minutes later. That’s never happened in April for me before this year. I know all the SDS flag bearers will say it’s early and things will get better. I sure hope they do but time will tell.

I can only describe the content this year as lazy and disorganized cut and paste bs. It’s sad because there is so much potential to be great but instead things just feel thrown together with little forward thinking.

The CPU pitching and fielding is beyond annoying. The amount of super dotting, nibbling just off the edges, perfect perfect line outs, running down fly balls, and super dives are completely out of control even on lower difficulties. Grinding has become a drawn out tedious process. Not looking for meatballs down the middle or a handout but the game is not designed to just hop on and play. It’s become a slog just to knock out basic missions within a reasonable time frame.

Yep in years past I was motivated to play and get all the cards to play with in the game. It gave me something to strive for as an average player that will never be elite. Now that deal is long gone with the new direction, high end packs, and non sellable rewards. I can’t be the only one in this boat, was nice while it lasted.

The tribalism on these forums is ridiculous. Anytime anyone brings up a valid negative point on the game the same 5 guys or so come to SDS’s defense. If you don’t like what they have to say then ignore it or move on. You don’t need to jump in like the avengers to save the day for SDS.

3 inning games are not and should not be moments.

It seems to be the popular opinion on this forum that 22 is a significant downgrade from 21. I tend to agree as I feel like 21 was a more enjoyable and rewarding experience by a good margin thus far. Do we think the vast majority of the player base feels this way or just the vocal minority on the forum? Just curious.

@Shauwn

The stub rewards are laughable when you take into account all the 30-40K packs already flooding the mlb shop. Like you mentioned, 7K stubs buys you nothing in this game. The rewards are basically just enough so people can’t complain about getting zero stub rewards. Pretty sure they aren’t fooling anybody with this approach. Yes, great players can win with subpar cards but average players sure can’t. The best players usually have the best cards which only widens that gap. As OhChev said there are 3 ways to unlock cards in this game, skill, grinding or money. Skill is something most players plateau at, grinding is all but dead, so the only thing left for the non elite player to remain competitive is to spend money. There is your answer in a nutshell and why all the average/casual players are frustrated with the direction SDS has decided to take.

@SteelyMacBeam

I guess the Mother’s Day portion of this skipped your mind. If it wasn’t for that, I would agree that double xp and ta drop makes sense. I know families are complicated but a lot of us will be spending extra time with the women in our lives, moms, gmas, sisters, wives, so for that portion this choice by SDS is garbage. If Mother’s Day means nothing to you then part of me feels sorry for you and anybody else in that same boat.

@Ledfoot_19

Don’t listen to these clowns. Play how you want. The game is much different in conquest or mini seasons compared to vs CPU. It’s extremely obvious but a lot of people choose to turn a blind eye and gaslight you.

@iBonafideScrub__PSN

The difficulty is arbitrary. Most of these are tedious as heck and much more than a hit. They include multiple innings, little to no margin for error, and are in stadiums not conducive to accumulating the stats being asked. All in all if the goal was to make people hate moments and grinding this program I think they nailed it.

@TubaTim90_PSN

Agree on they shouldn’t have raised the ceiling and the floor. If anything raise the ceiling but drop the floor to make the game appealing to everyone. Especially if you are trying to attract new or younger players that is simply not the way to go.

As for realistic, DD is not realistic. It should play mostly like arcade. Juiced up players along side Babe Ruth is all I need to say. It’s fantasy baseball and should play that way. If players want a simulation then they should play franchise on the hardest difficulty and enjoy hitting .200 with role players, just like real baseball.

Whenever anyone tries to make the argument DD is trying to be realistic that’s simply not possible. Trying to do so only ruins the game for a majority of the player base that doesn’t want to take this game super seriously.

Make the Show fun again. Let the kids play and the sweats do their thing. Both can happen simultaneously.

This year is especially tough with terrible pack odds made worse by the inclusion of all special series low diamonds and the prices are ridiculous.

My advice, that I’m following myself as a working man with obligations and a family, is that I’m not pushing to get anything done. This is tough because I’ve completed all 4 of the previous versions after starting late in 2020 and beginning fresh with 2021.

If the prices eventually come down great, and if not I’m fine with simply walking away. Fairly confident this is my last year as the game is no longer adding to my enjoyment of baseball. It’s a bummer but is what it is.

This year is likely going to drive away a lot of long term players of the game in favor of newbies and the hardcore players that dominate the game. It’s sad but true.

@AdeptOfMemory_PSN

I think it’s become clearer by the day that the game this year is a mailed in effort. Being handled by a skeleton crew where a good chunk of the old guard that used to work on the game was either reassigned or laid off. So what we get is a rushed effort where drops are few and far between and the game just feels hollow and an absolute shell of what it used to be. Come July it’s going to be a ghost town and it’s truly sad that this has become the reality of this once great franchise.

It’s by design to slow down grinding and maximize time in the game to see if you will break down and buy stubs to speed up the process. If you want to see how it should be, play March to October on beginner or amateur difficulty. Tons of meatballs, great exit velocity, and you can actuallly dot with your pitchers. Basically it’s more like how rookie difficulty should be playing.

As it plays now, rookie is not actually rookie at all. It’s basically mid level, almost like all-star, just with slightly smaller PCIs and slower pitch speeds. The CPU will dot, nibble off corners, have an eagle eye at the plate, and play platinum defense while your exit velocity is nerfed to boot.

If grinding wasn’t such a huge part of this game I wouldn’t mind so much but with the way the game plays now grinding can be extremely time consuming, unrewarding, and feel like a part time job. It seems like another massive over correction by SDS because a vocal minority claimed it was too easy and devaluing their cards.

Yep, it’s gonna be nothing but the elite players sooner than later. Simply not worth the time investment for the majority of the player base. I feel like quite a few people have already packed it on on this year’s game burned out by the crazy long grinds, expensive gluttony of premium packs, and non sellable rewards.