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?

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

@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.

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

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

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

@skepple15 said in The three features that received the most L's in todays stream:

The only reason you can’t exchange or quick sell is to make people buy more cards nothing more nothing less, I don’t even really care about the quick sell thing, to me not being able to exchange locked in cards is a huge L. Basically what you have now is 40 dormant cards that you can’t do anything with, quash said people were abusing the system by locking in and exchanging, my question is how is that abusing the system? You don’t get to keep the cards after exchanging, you’re only abusing the system if the system is you have to buy more cards

I mean, sure it’s an obvious money grab, but considering the quantity of free content they give out (assuming similar to 19), I’ll let this one slide.

MUT/FUT/HUT folks rationalize it the exact same way...

Please never compare the content of the show to those other games.

They're going down the EXACT same path, MLBTS just started a couple years behind.

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

If you're playing offline, you don't really need the evolution version of a card. You do after all get to select the difficulty you want to play most of the time.

That's the point most are trying to make. The way DD is set up, your cards essentially don't matter offline. Virtually all the incentives are for H2H play which is probably the weakest portion of the game, at least from a gameplay standpoint.

Folks want a reason to collect cards outside of using them H2H.

@maskedgrappler said in Sds wtf are you waiting for? Revert the hitting back!:

@lucas8181 said in Sds wtf are you waiting for? Revert the hitting back!:

Correct, averages where too high in ranked seasons, when 90% of the community was still playing on Veteran and all-star. That data analysis was just a bit shy of genius level....

I mean, I'm not defending them, but to say they made hitting way harder to help bad players is pretty tin foil hattish.

It's pretty logical, actually. They didn't just make it harder, they made outcomes a lot more random as well. End result is lower scoring games where the lesser player stays competitive longer and will win more games they shouldn't due to late-game shenanigans, bugs, RNG, etc.

If I was playing online more I wouldn't give it away but... Tim Hill. Nobody can hit that card. Also, like everyone else said, Adam Cimber is great as well.

@Nanthrax_1 said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

@Hoofartid said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

@Nanthrax_1 said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

@GOtexas1 said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

This game's honestly unreal. If a top 10 player is losing three games in a row to low tier WS players, that's a problem. Not counting all other shitty RNG related outcomes in this game. Give us our money back...

You realize without "RNG" or outcomes based on ratings instead of just input, all players or cards would just be generic and all have the same rating..

You can't have it both ways...

This doesn't make any sense. Attributes would simply dictate how hard/easy it is to achieve a positive outcome and, consequently, would make them matter even more than they do now.

...is this really the argument against having a truly input-based game?

It makes perfect sense.

A perfect perfect with Juan Pierre would be the same result as a perfect perfect with Mickey Mantle if it were only input based.

There would be no /9 ratings for pitchers of course. Pitchers would only be their movement and velocities... nothing else.

You're being purposefully dense. Peace.

@Nanthrax_1 said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

@GOtexas1 said in SDS needs to make a game mode without RNG:

This game's honestly unreal. If a top 10 player is losing three games in a row to low tier WS players, that's a problem. Not counting all other shitty RNG related outcomes in this game. Give us our money back...

You realize without "RNG" or outcomes based on ratings instead of just input, all players or cards would just be generic and all have the same rating..

You can't have it both ways...

This doesn't make any sense. Attributes would simply dictate how hard/easy it is to achieve a positive outcome and, consequently, would make them matter even more than they do now.

...is this really the argument against having a truly input-based game?

@QuantumFoam_ said in What’s the point of the PCI?:

I really don't know how complicated SDS gets with the physics, but the physics of baseball is not as straightforward as many people want it to be. Balls have spin, vertical/horizontal movement that has to be taken into account in the collision between the ball and bat. The bat is also angled horizontally and vertically, and has its own speed. I really don't know how SDS calculates these parameters, but a lot of folks forget that it's not just a matter of hitting every single ball "perfectly" (whatever that means). It's obvious there has to be some probability involved, not necessarily as part of some conspiracy by SDS, but because you only get to line up a two-dimensional PCI that is clearly much larger than any bat and time the swing. http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/

Good thought but SDS hasn't implemented physics into any of their mechanics. The systems are all table-based.

I just don't understand why they even bother with the inner 'contact' circle. Common sense would tell you that anything fully within would = hard hit (with good timing)... but it obviously doesn't. It's essentially just a troll by SDS.

@hoboadam said in This is out of control now...:

Don't want to nitpick, but you waited for the first bounce before trying to lock in and pre-load a throw. Internet lag could cause a snyc issue between you running at the ball and deciding to lock in. We all lock in by selecting a throw prior to the catch. This is a timing issue and not 100% the fault of SDS.

The animation didn't trigger, causing the player to run by the ball. If you need to pre-load your throw in order to trigger an animation, that's a poor mechanic. Of course, this isn't a poor mechanic, it's just broken. SDS has never once said that you need to pre-load a throw in order for your fielder to field a ball (because that would be completely nonsensical).

100% on SDS.

@hoboadam said in Free affinity packs are amazing:

Instead of buying headliners, he finished TA. With TA packs, he pulled Trout.

Homeschooling my kids has helped with my comprehension. I can invite you to a zoom meeting if you need it.

Prayers sent for your kids.

If you "put in a bunch of orders for silvers" then they weren't free.

What's the purpose of this thread?

They ramped the DDA slider up to 100. Outcomes seem to be driven more by context than input now.

I'm guessing it's to give the bad players a fighting chance while also potentially frustrating better players into buying stubs for the exchanges.

So disappointing that SDS continues to go down the freemium MTX model path.

@ejwik13 said in Not even mad, just at a loss:

@Rosco-Suupa said in Not even mad, just at a loss:

When y'all gonna learn it's a scam. It's NOT designed to be a fair game, a great game, an E-sport. It's designed to psychologically get people to buy stubs before chasing them away. A complicated task in and of itself to straddle that line, but a scam none the less. You can argue all you want with each other, but I don't feel sorry for you anymore and I don't blame SDS or EA or whoever anymore. Y'all get what you deserve. Suffer, you fools.

Sadly I have to agree with you. I just wish I could play a good sports video game with good simulation. But now all that is out there is companies that make their game to get people to buy backs and spend money rather than genuinely enjoy the game.

From a pure gameplay perspective, 2K is pretty good. I'm sure there's DDA to a certain extent but it's nearly not as blatant as MLBTS.