Dude... It's February. If you haven't come to grips with the fact that MLBTS plays like a glorified mobile game, I don't know what to tell you.

Nothing is going to change as long as DD is separating fools from their money. It's clear that SDS/Sony has determined the whales suck at this game which is why the game plays like it does, and why people are becoming increasingly frustrated with these DD/Ultimate Team modes.

Gameplay is no longer developed to simulate the physical act of playing baseball - this game's sole purpose is to keep the 2% of the player base that spend gobs of money engaged and continuing to open their wallets. So unless those players magically get better, fretting over whether you're being proportionately rewarded is an act of insanity.

I just don't understand why they purposefully make hitting, and by extension the game itself, significantly worse after the first week. They did the exact same thing last year.

I understand balancing DD later in the year to account for all-99 squads (though I don't agree with it), but why change it literally days after the full release? It was so good most people were able to look past the significant problems with pitching and fielding.

Could it be that the game was simply playing too well and they were afraid people wouldn't get frustrated enough with their current cards to purchase stubs/upgrade cards?

They continually increase the randomness to offset the power/effectiveness creep of the new cards. It's why by the end of every game cycle, all the cards start feeling like they play the same regardless of attributes. Really hoping they go in another direction for next-gen because it barely feels like you're in control at times, which isn't great for a video game.

The big difference I've noticed this year is that timing now appears to be somewhat random. If you pay attention to the bat swing feedback animation, there's some really wonky disconnects (ie. feedback saying you were very early and the animation showing almost neutral). The perfect foul balls also seem to further confirm this as in your input was actually "perfect" but the game's outcome dice-roll landed on foul ball.

Pitcher confidence may be the worst mechanic in all of sports gaming.

Nah, it's not being cancelled. It would set a crazy precedent.

If it was, logically, they'd have to cancel every season once a player tested positive for the flu since the flu is much more dangerous to this population than COVID.

Sports are going to be fine, the leagues are just in this crazy position where they have to overreact due to the hyperbolic, politically-driven, science-denying crazies that infest social media. Why they care about what these creatures think, most of whom aren't even real people... there will be case studies written.

@KyleS779 said in Why the hitting engine turned into a cash grab:

Pretty sure we are just looking at a group of developers, along with decision makers at the top, who have forgotten, or became too lazy, though it could be incompetence, to put out a solid game.

JMO - the initial release of the game the last 2 years shows the developers are doing a fantastic job and, if allowed, are more than capable of releasing a great game.

Developers aren't deciding to make these changes, it's 100% coming from the top. As backwards as it sounds, management determined users were having too much fun the first week, which was costing them stub sales (ie. if you're happy with the game, and by extension your cards, you're less likely to spend additional $$). So they essentially ordered the devs to mess up the game and frustrate people into pulling out the credit card.

We're going to continue to see this cycle until legislation is passed that outlaws these exploitative pay2win practices. Once the MTX go cosmetic-only, they'll have no incentive to manipulate gameplay in this manner.

JMO, they need to be careful with increasing speeds any more. I get that fastballs were useless in '18 but currently there are games, I'm assuming due to lag, where I literally have to start my swing the instant it leaves the pitcher's hand. I take BP on Legend with the pitch speed all the way up and still can't replicate what I sometimes see online on AS difficulty.

@omegaminus_sk said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

I only caught a tiny part of the stream, but I did see them talking about the prestige diamonds and how they were using them to respond to the requests for the return of some of the stat grinds. Except that in my experience, 95+% of the people asking for stat grinds were offline players looking for more to do than just play Conquest over and over.

As someone looking for better things to do with my DD collection without having to play H2H, was there anything new in this stream?

Nope. DD has a Destiny problem for offline players: "Lots of content and none of it matters."

The game plays like dogshvt online and SDS continually trying to push folks towards the borderline broken H2H modes, at least in relation to the offline portion, is going to catch up to them eventually.

@cvogsfashow said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@DriveByTrucker17 said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@cvogsfashow said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

@LankyRyan said in NEW Video on Twitter for Custom Leagues:

Bonus: this gives offline only folks less to complain about when it comes to DD content.

Agreed! Tired of seeing guys who online play offline complain about DD not having enough offline options meanwhile it is suppose to be an ONLINE mode.

Imagine complaining about people wanting more content that you can also play.

I am all for more ways to play but not when I have to complete an insane Offline grind for cards that then can be utilized ONLINE. DD is literally an online mode. Hover over DD on the menu screen, Create, Customize, and Compete ONLINE. IMO, the game mode should have a small portion offline that the user needs to do. In 18, someone could make the argument that they spent more time grinding Immortals than playing online.

The problem wasn't necessarily the grind, it was that SDS didn't offer any alternative for folks that don't enjoy beating up the CPU ad nausea.

Your gripe is with SDS, not offline players.

Sadly, it's now only a game of skill in the same way poker is a game of skill. Outside of the 1% of 1% of players, one's skill is really only apparent in the aggregate which is super frustrating and, IMO, kind of defeats the purpose of an action-oriented video game, especially H2H. But whatever.

In their defense (kinda), I get why SDS does it - the skill gap in this game is so large that if it played straight up, top players might be hitting .600+ while bad players would struggle to hit .100.

IMO, it would be a lot of fun but I'm sure they have backend data that tells them a large portion of the folks that spend $$ on stubs would fit into that latter category and, I assume, would quit out of frustration once they figured out they couldn't buy themselves wins anymore.

I mean... if they were making big changes/improvements, wouldn't they be marketing the hell out of it?

I can't recall a single case of a developer marketing a game less because they felt it was going to be better than expected.

@SaveFarris said in Doesn’t look good guys:

This isn't helping: https://inewsource.org/2021/01/14/new-data-shows-san-diego-among-worst-cities-in-us-for-covid-1/

Eh. I work in software and this whole 'COVID causing delays' is extremely overblown and, IME, largely just being used as an excuse by s****y companies. If a tech company hadn't efficiently transitioned to remote work by May or June, they had issues far beyond covid restrictions.

This isn't steel manufacturing. In a lot of ways, working remotely should actually increase their output, especially in the software industry.

@beanball0571 said in Doesn’t look good guys:

I’m thinking it’s gonna be a sh@t show because they don’t know how to fix a broken product

I'm optimistic that they won't even try. Like another poster said, this seems to be setting up for a copy/paste update at a reduced price this year so they can rework the game for '22.

The mechanics feel archaic and the animations are more than a decade old in a lot of cases. At a certain point, you just need to start over.

@ComebackLogic said in Doesn’t look good guys:

I’m thinking that ‘21 may be an update DLC for owners of ‘20 that brings new card art, rosters and content via a patch that costs around half of the base game. If released as a standalone title on PS4 and on other platforms, you’ll get ‘20 with the ‘21 updates preinstalled over the base game of ‘20 and pay full price. This will save a lot of work, allow for improvements to be made to the existing product and give them an extra year to think about a full rebuild. Plus it’s an entirely new game for non PS4 owners. Digital delivery is the future of gaming, music and any downloadable product (well, it’s the present, but you get my drift), with physical discs and so on rapidly being phased out of existence, so to make a base game at AAA price and keep it current with yearly updates makes sense, particularly when they blatantly sell us the same game with updated rosters etc every year anyway. Why not admit that, own it and utilise it?

PES did a version of this. I would think SDS is in a position where they have to do this. If not, a lot of the animations and mechanics will have been ported over FOUR console generations.

It needs to be re-imagined from the ground up, especially hitting, and I don't think anyone would falt them in the least for making '21 a continuation in exchange for something significantly improved the following year.

They continually increase the randomness to offset the power/effectiveness creep of the new cards. It's why by the end of every game cycle, all the cards start feeling like they play the same regardless of attributes. Really hoping they go in another direction for next-gen because it barely feels like you're in control at times, which isn't great for a video game.

The big difference I've noticed this year is that timing now appears to be somewhat random. If you pay attention to the bat swing feedback animation, there's some really wonky disconnects (ie. feedback saying you were very early and the animation showing almost neutral). The perfect foul balls also seem to further confirm this as in your input was actually "perfect" but the game's outcome dice-roll landed on foul ball.

At the end of the day, all these games are running on PS2-era engines.

Just from what I've observed over the years, it's not that these companies don't want the game to be infinitely better YoY, it's just that the engine they keep building on is so limited and frankensteined together that even minor additions are gigantic undertakings with branching, potentially game-breaking effects. It's why you're seeing games like Madden and MLBTS seemingly get buggier every year, despite them appearing to be largely interchangeable with the previous year(s?) game.

They need to essentially tear them all down and build them back up from scratch, which isn't going to happen until they're absolutely forced to (ie. people stop buying packs/stubs).

Nah, it's not being cancelled. It would set a crazy precedent.

If it was, logically, they'd have to cancel every season once a player tested positive for the flu since the flu is much more dangerous to this population than COVID.

Sports are going to be fine, the leagues are just in this crazy position where they have to overreact due to the hyperbolic, politically-driven, science-denying crazies that infest social media. Why they care about what these creatures think, most of whom aren't even real people... there will be case studies written.

They're both crappy in their own way, though I give Madden more of a pass because there's a crazy amount the variables at any given moment and plays well offline if you aren't aware of the cheese plays. Baseball is relatively binary when it comes to outcomes so should be 100x easier to program, especially since SDS doesn't even incorporate physics, which is absolutely crazy in 2020. You can almost see the 'if-then' statements firing off in the background.

I think the problem with both is that they're continuing to use legacy assets/code from the PS2 era, SDS especially (look at the field, batter's box "dirt", mid-swing animation, etc.). A total teardown is in order.

Nah, the stage 3 cards are primarily for offline collectors. Anyone who is still playing at this point, and has the resources (time or money) to get to stage 3, already has multiple better options at every position.

The HR derby cards just released, many which are sitting at near-quicksale prices, are arguably better for this meta than any stage 3 cards.

Of course, why wouldn't they?

I'm sure they have it down to a literal science as to when strategically rewarding folks with good pulls ultimately results in more stubs being bought. From a business standpoint, I'd assume whoever is in charge of increasing stub sales would be fired if they weren't 'rigging' packs.