I've been keeping my opinion to myself ever since the game launched, because I didn't dive into the online game modes right away. I usually grind some of the offline stuff first to build a somewhat decent team and that's exactly what I did. That meant I couldn't really give an objective opinion on the game since I didn't play online enough yet and for most of us this game centers around the online game modes.

Let me start of by saying that even though I consider myself an upper tier/elite player, this opinion is mine and mine alone. My opinion is not weighing heavier than any offline player or the more casual type of player whatsoever. You do not have to agree with anything I say, but I do ask you to respect my opinion as I will respect yours.

I can describe this game in an online environment in its current state as following:
I can not pitch.
I can not field.
I can not hit.
And yet somehow I can still win.

I throw so many meatballs and I can't control a single pitcher. Good releases sometimes lead to hangers down the middle. Horrible releases sometimes result in absolute dots on the black. Every pitch feels like spinning the wheel of fortune, I'm just lost when it comes to pitching, honestly.

When it comes to fielding, the obvious issue of outfielders not locking onto flyballs is a problem. I'm sure that will be fixed at some point. What annoys me way more is when the ball gets down and bounces off the wall, your outfielder is literally lost. There is no urgency to pick it up or throw it away quickly, you actually run past it often. Singles turn into doubles and doubles turn into triples because of this.

And the hitting.. I don't even know where to start. I struggle hitting fastballs, while I've always been a really good fastball hitter. Now I have to gamble and as a result that gets me out in front of almost every offspeed pitch. It only takes 1 inning for my opponent to figure this out. The funny thing is that an inning later I can be out in front on fastballs while I'm pretty certain that my reaction time is the same as before. It just feels off and inconsistent, I don't understand it.
I also tend to get under the ball a whole lot, while I'm not even slamming the PCI down. In my screen I align the ball in the middle of the PCI, yet the feedback says I got under it too much resulting in a good/okay flyout. This happens to me way too often.
The perfect/perfect idea is great. In reality only the perfect/perfect flyballs with power guys do real damage. I've lined out on perfect/perfect liners more often than not and perfect/perfect grounders are usually just groundouts or even double plays. You'd expect the perfect input would make you find the infield hole, which sometimes happens but not nearly enough.

All and all I'm just really disappointed more than anything. I was really hoping that we could leave 18 and 19 behind us and start moving in the right direction again, like a tweaked hybrid of 16+17 where the flaws of those games were fixed. But that's clearly not their vision for this franchise moving forward unfortunately.

For now I'll keep playing casually instead of competitively, hoping that future patches will resolve some of the stuff I mentioned, but I'm kinda pessimistic about it. Sorry. I usually quit playing ranked around Christmas, this year that might be a lot sooner.

@backerrrr44 said in Up and in Fastball:

If you result to the high and in fastball everytime you get into a jam.... I have no respect for you, that’s not how baseball is meant to be played

Sorry dude. If I notice you can't hit it, I'm gonna spam it until you show me you can. I couldn't care less about you respecting me or not, go practice on it and get better instead of crying about it here lol.

Decided to jump in some ranked today and 2 games in a row I play the most salty, toxic and miserable people in the community it seems.
Yes, I declined your friendly quit offer. You're looking for a game to play, so play.

Both these guys made it their mission to make my life miserable for declining the friendly quit. Taking minutes to wind up between pitches, pausing for a minute and a half every inning, stepping off, throwing over to first base 5 times in a row while I don't even take a lead. I don't know if these shenanigans ever work out for anyone, but if anything it only gets me juiced up to absolutely obliterate you. I honestly don't understand why people are so toxic, salty and miserable. Just play the darn game man. Such a turn off to play like this every single game.

Pitchers do tend to get upset if you watch your homerun from the batter's box. I think that's a better analogy than the one you used. But more on topic, I don't get upset at all when people want to watch their homerun. But better believe it motivates me and I will replay each and every one from that moment forward.

Everyone who's hating on the guy here knows very well themselves that sometimes you can sit on something, know it's coming and you still can't hit it. Give him a break, he makes a valid point.

Wouldn't that be my problem and not yours?

Because they're feeling brave.

I'll see myself out.

@HeavyThreat-TTV said in Putting Everyone On Notice!:

My Lineup

Craig Biggio
Mickey Mantle
Mike Trout
CAP
Reggie Jackson
Gary Shefield
Jason Giambi
Mike Piazza

....Good Luck

It's not about the car, it's about the driver.

@wdieterich1310 said in Ridiculous Number of Pickoffs:

I had a lead off single with the Edwards, the rays prospect with ridiculously high speed and I kept taking a one step lead and each time I would my opponent would pick off, twenty four times before he threw a pitch and then seven more in a 1-0 count to be exact. Eventually I advanced him on a soft grounder and he didn’t pickoff at second but is there a way to report stupidity like that?

Let me get this straight:
You initiate the first move by taking an extra step.
Your opponent reacts by throwing over for a pickoff attempt.
You continue to do so.
He continues to react.
You get annoyed, while you are the one initiating the whole sequence.
You actually wanna report him.

This is great stuff, thank you for this. Here's a tip for ya; don't take the extra step.

You can quick sell duplicates. You can exchange duplicates. The only thing they don't want is that you get double value out of your collected cards. So once you lock in a diamond, it's gonna stay there and you won't be able to get 5K each like previous years. I have zero issues with this whatsoever, I actually think it's a good thing because it makes the collections a tad harder to complete since you're not getting double value for your diamonds anymore.

Hey look, another DH thread.

@EncinoMan_TV said in How important is Prestiging cards?:

very important .... SDS will throw a curveball on the Honus collection ......have 9 Prestige Red diamonds right now. Trying to get 3 pitchers next event. GL

https://twitter.com/encinomantv/status/1282701977672052744?s=21

No they won't. That would exclude all the offline players to obtain Honus and that will cost SDS money. Simple logic my man, have fun grinding though.

@Weshill627 said in I need 12-0 tips:

@raesONE said in I need 12-0 tips:

@Weshill627 said in I need 12-0 tips:

Its 99% luck and 1% skill. I usually can be at 50 prestige player with a 50-0 record. Then I will lose to a 30 bronze with a 20-60 record. Its all luck based. If you are lucky enough not to get good/okay and line outs. You can do it. I went 12-1 once this year it was during the pre-release and before the first hitting patch. I was killing the opponents. Only lost one game due to disconnect. I had Bellinger from the start which was nice for the Dodgers collection. I've only reached 9 games a couple of times since then. Honestly, I haven't played the game since Tuesday I think, the poor game play, lack of super interesting world series rewards, and having to either spend a 40-50k stubs on exchanges or do the same showdown 100 times makes me really not want to play. Until there is a gameplay patch that makes the gameplay back to pre-release idk if i have the care to play. I believe the Youtube guys feel the same way. You can see that their uploads are every other day instead of getting multiple uploads in one day.

That is just my opinion.

It's most definitely not 99% luck lmaoo I stopped reading right then and there not gonna lie.

Well you haven't had the experiences i've had cuh

Oh I most definitely had. But to say BR is 99% luck is just straight up ridiculous and extremely exaggerated and you know it.

@Weshill627 said in I need 12-0 tips:

Its 99% luck and 1% skill. I usually can be at 50 prestige player with a 50-0 record. Then I will lose to a 30 bronze with a 20-60 record. Its all luck based. If you are lucky enough not to get good/okay and line outs. You can do it. I went 12-1 once this year it was during the pre-release and before the first hitting patch. I was killing the opponents. Only lost one game due to disconnect. I had Bellinger from the start which was nice for the Dodgers collection. I've only reached 9 games a couple of times since then. Honestly, I haven't played the game since Tuesday I think, the poor game play, lack of super interesting world series rewards, and having to either spend a 40-50k stubs on exchanges or do the same showdown 100 times makes me really not want to play. Until there is a gameplay patch that makes the gameplay back to pre-release idk if i have the care to play. I believe the Youtube guys feel the same way. You can see that their uploads are every other day instead of getting multiple uploads in one day.

That is just my opinion.

It's most definitely not 99% luck lmaoo I stopped reading right then and there not gonna lie.

@KBizzyGetBusy said in help me understand vision?:

@raesONE said in help me understand vision?:

@PapaBaboo721 said in help me understand vision?:

@olivegarden2 said in help me understand vision?:

Vision doesn’t matter this year. Contact is what matters and is the center of the PCI

what makes up the inner ring, the one that matters? contact?

It's not just contact though. Power also has a (minor) impact on the PCI size as well as the pitcher's H/9.

Did they put power back into affecting PCI size or are you just referring to the center dots? I remember them saying during pre release streams for 18 that power no longer would impact pci size.

No I'm fairly certain they said it does influence the inner PCI size some, but of course they didn't specify how it works precisely. The clutch attribute also affects the PCI size with RISP, but again we've never been told how it works exactly like percentage wise.

@jonnydaman said in I need 12-0 tips:

@raesONE said in I need 12-0 tips:

@BigCedDibiase said in I need 12-0 tips:

@raesONE said in I need 12-0 tips:

So which is it? You can't draft or you can't handle the pressure?

I’d like to say it’s both. I mean I feel like I make good picks but once I string together 9 I notice holes in what I drafted

Holes how? I assume pitching wise? The key is to draft 1 or maybe 2 different decent SP and for all the other games you use openers. You also gonna need a ragequit later in your run ideally to ensure you have a rested bullpen for that last stretch. Make sure you have 1 dominant (like really dominant, Rollie or 97 Chapman for example) bullpen arm to go to when you need to close it out against a good player.

Regarding the pressure, you can only overcome that by being successful. I remember the first time I went 12-0, I was nervous from 9-0 moving forward. My 11-0 game was so intense because I hyped it up way too much, I kinda put the achievement on a pedestal which works negatively. Just play every game like it's a 0 win run and try to play good baseball like your normally would. After going 12-0 once, it does get easier for sure because that mental barrier will be gone. I think I had 14 flawless runs last year and God knows how many 12 win runs where I choked the 11-0. After a while you'll get unfazed about it.

Interesting, I rarely draft gold relievers let alone a high diamond but it sounds like it's worked well for you. My feeling on RPs in BR is that you need a full pen of reliable guys that you can go to when you need to so you're not using tired guys. I would rather use my high diamond pick on a great hitter at hopefully a hard to find position and make sure to have 8 or 9 useable but not elite pitchers.

I mean, you can be successful with just silver relievers as well. But it depends on who you run into during your run. I had some crazy comebacks this year where my opponents thought they had it in the bag, I'm talking like 8+ runs deficit in the bottom of the 3rd, and they just couldn't close it out because their silver arms just kept getting lit up. Even the glitchier silvers. It's BR, it's a slugfest. And especially now with that 3 batter minimum, if you hit a homerun off of a reliever they just brought in, chances are high you're gonna score more than just 1 because the confidence drops real quick.

So long story short; you can definitely be successful with just silver arms. But it's gonna be tough to close out games against better players. Rollie for example still gets the job done most of the time. Not saying he's a guarantee to close it out, but it definitely increases your chances.

It's better to focus on glitchy silver or even bronze hitters throughout your draft who play like diamonds. Guys like Teoscar Hernandez, Khris Davis, Miguel Sano, Edwin Encarnacion, Willie Calhoun, Kyle Schwarber, and a bunch of other dudes who mash like diamonds and then just draft 1 dominant high diamond RP that you can go to in critical situations.

@PapaBaboo721 said in help me understand vision?:

@olivegarden2 said in help me understand vision?:

Vision doesn’t matter this year. Contact is what matters and is the center of the PCI

what makes up the inner ring, the one that matters? contact?

It's not just contact though. Power also has a (minor) impact on the PCI size as well as the pitcher's H/9.

They both have pros and cons. Depends on what you prefer I guess.

Strange way of showing excitement

@BigCedDibiase said in I need 12-0 tips:

@raesONE said in I need 12-0 tips:

So which is it? You can't draft or you can't handle the pressure?

I’d like to say it’s both. I mean I feel like I make good picks but once I string together 9 I notice holes in what I drafted

Holes how? I assume pitching wise? The key is to draft 1 or maybe 2 different decent SP and for all the other games you use openers. You also gonna need a ragequit later in your run ideally to ensure you have a rested bullpen for that last stretch. Make sure you have 1 dominant (like really dominant, Rollie or 97 Chapman for example) bullpen arm to go to when you need to close it out against a good player.

Regarding the pressure, you can only overcome that by being successful. I remember the first time I went 12-0, I was nervous from 9-0 moving forward. My 11-0 game was so intense because I hyped it up way too much, I kinda put the achievement on a pedestal which works negatively. Just play every game like it's a 0 win run and try to play good baseball like your normally would. After going 12-0 once, it does get easier for sure because that mental barrier will be gone. I think I had 14 flawless runs last year and God knows how many 12 win runs where I choked the 11-0. After a while you'll get unfazed about it.