State of DD

[TheKnack]

Well, there's a first for everything. I'm by no means a great player. My rating is 690 and I'm fine with it. I have no aspirations of reaching WS, I'm not that competitive.

Today, I lost an RS game 38-33 in 9 innings. There were 68 legitimate hits, 23 home runs, and 7 grand slams hit. I repeat, this was a legitimate game. No boosting, nothing like that.

I understand the game is a WIP, but I've just about had it. You'd think that type of game would be fun. It wasn't. Neither of us could get an out, and every ball hit went to the warning track or farther. The guy who beat me was a 568. This was not at Coors. This was not at Shippett. This was not at Shibe. This was Oakland Coliseum.

I'm lost for words, to be honest. Part of me wondered is this just a coincidence? No. All of his players had batting averages in the .270s. Most of mine in the .330 range.

We are by no means good players.

This was, and I cannot stress this enough, a glitchy, broken game. There was something wrong in the code, and I'm so sick and tired of uttering that sentence. Neither one of us deserved to lose that game, let alone have to experience an exercise in such futility.

I hope for the sake of this franchise SDS can start debugging sooner rather than later. I'm an SDS apologist and give them all the credit in the world for trying to right this ship while working from home in the midst of a pandemic.

At this stage, I'm hopeful, but not optimistic. This feels like a lost year where competitive play is void.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Operation Sports mobile app

[mikeq672]

Re: State of DD

Unfortunately I believe this game plays nearly identical to how they want it to play. For whatever reason, they think this game needs to be a glitchy broken mess to keep people funneling money into packs and stubs.

[Fiddy]

Re: State of DD

I was watching that Canada vs USA stuff or whatever those guys were doing and it’s like all games are 15-14.

6382638277373 pitching changes and 648373738733 home runs. Zero fun to watch!

Why don’t those guys use bronze and common cards and play a game of baseball?

Those guys obviously really good, but show case how good you are with some great games with bronze and common cards. That would be more entertaining than what was going on.

[jake19ny]

Re: State of DD

My RS games have been the opposite. While I have had some 6-5 games most are 1-0 or 2-1 snooze fest pitchers duels. That said yes way to much glitchy things or bizarre events seem to steer those games to a particular outcome.

[BigOscar]

Re: State of DD

Unfortunately, what you mention is pretty much a perfect example of the game not playing "straight". Some games, the game engine seems to be deliberately tilted one way or the other, so either nothing lands or everything flies out, sometimes for both teams, sometimes to help keep the game close.

When the game is playing "straight", it's pretty decent, it feels fairly rewarding (hitting at least, pitching and fielding is still god awful) but at least it feels like your hitting is mostly down to what you are doing. But for whatever reason, they have absolutely wrecked their game by putting in so much code that messes with the way the game is supposed to play.

They need to get rid of all that stuff and let the game play fair, have some faith in the sport of baseball and the game they made and stop trying to artificially create excitement and tension.

[JHodges57]

Re: State of DD

Oh. I thought we had a 51st state. I was wondering where it was.

[papadell]

Re: State of DD

I said last year that I think each game gets a unique seed that alters sliders or how the game plays in some way. It's not a coincidence that the game plays differently more often than feels familiar.

But with the perks in Showdown, it made me wonder if there's some random assignment of those kinds of perks before the game or something. Again, I don't believe the game is scripted and the outcome is predetermined. But it DOES feel at times like there's nothing you can do as you constantly end up with negative outcomes. And also times where nothing you do can go wrong as you're just piecing everything even with poor contact or your opponent lines out all game. I experienced both plenty last year and I'm sure it will be the same this year.

Whether it's a "seed" that determines gameplay variance or something simple as teams being assigned perks each game something always feels different each game. Combined with the terrible matchmaking and ping issues it's just all over the place.

Whether it's true or just fun conspiracy ****, I've wondered how different RS would feel if there WAS a visible way of getting the perks assigned. Not chosen by players but the game rolls the perks and you see what you get before the game and can at least play around it. Similar to Showdown where you can lean into those strengths and possibly alter your strategies. Because if something like that IS going on in the background, I wonder if making it visible would make the game feel more like a game and not a frustrating mess because you feel like the game is skull****ing you for no reason.

[hyacinth1]

Re: State of DD

I've stopped playing 20 and am taking a break. Again this year I wish there was more offline content. It'll never happen as that makes them no money.

Having no real season hurts the game too. I booted up 19 a few days ago and just went thru all the topps now moments that i never completed and all the other moment content that game had to offer. It is really impressive how they kept adding content weekly to 19.

maybe if we have a season more will be added to 20. but the game sort of is flawed mainly because of the terrible fielding and i may go back to 19 to finish those offline DD moments and other modes.

[papadell]

Re: State of DD

I've stopped playing 20 and am taking a break. Again this year I wish there was more offline content. It'll never happen as that makes them no money.

Having no real season hurts the game too. I booted up 19 a few days ago and just went thru all the topps now moments that i never completed and all the other moment content that game had to offer. It is really impressive how they kept adding content weekly to 19.

maybe if we have a season more will be added to 20. but the game sort of is flawed mainly because of the terrible fielding and i may go back to 19 to finish those offline DD moments and other modes.

This takes me back to something I repeat a lot - meaningful Play vs CPU games with your DD team. If there was real, tangible stuff we could earn and do against the CPU with our DD team I would still be willing to drop money weekly on content. I think a lot of people would do that. I'll get around to playing RS eventually since I finished collections but I would have no issue dropping money on fun **** if I could actually use it and have fun with it.

I even submitted a "suggestion" for them to do something like that. That and some kind of tiered leagues would add so much playability to this game. The 3 inning games are great. A nice relief from the long grind of RS games where all types of dumb **** happens. Let me use all these ******* cards I've accumulated in meaningful games. I'll play a Gold Tier League. I'd probably even play with silvers and bronzes. Give me something to do.

But no. Just buy packs, buy players and load up your RS team and GIT GUD. Lose a tough game due to some bad luck? Here's a shiny new players to add to your team and help you win! Oh no! Your pitchers aren't locating pitches very well? Well replace that 91 OVR with this 93 OVR and watch your wins increase! That combined with the weird attitude that creates the atmosphere of RS and it's just lame.

Now that Chipper is a boss I don't want to start RS until I get him. But ironically the quickest way there will be playing RS to try and grind out the missions. Which brings me back to the dilemma I always have with this game - I want to want to play it. I don't want to play it.

[NDAlum]

Re: State of DD

To me a huge issue of the game is the 1%ers.

Just make hitting/timing more accessible to the masses and stop letting the 1% dictate the state of the game. When the game dropped they needed to improve pitch accuracy and fielding a tad. Instead they made substantial changes to hitting and introduced horrible issues to fielding.

Just let those 1% guys hit .700, who cares. If they can square up everything like a robot they deserve to destroy all their opponents.

[NDAlum]

Re: State of DD

To me a huge issue of the game is the 1%ers.

Just make hitting/timing more accessible to the masses and stop letting the 1% dictate the state of the game. When the game dropped they needed to improve pitch accuracy and fielding a tad. Instead they made substantial changes to hitting and introduced horrible issues to fielding.

Just let those 1% guys hit .700, who cares. If they can square up everything like a robot they deserve to destroy all their opponents.

[papadell]

Re: State of DD

To me a huge issue of the game is the 1%ers.

Just make hitting/timing more accessible to the masses and stop letting the 1% dictate the state of the game. When the game dropped they needed to improve pitch accuracy and fielding a tad. Instead they made substantial changes to hitting and introduced horrible issues to fielding.

Just let those 1% guys hit .700, who cares. If they can square up everything like a robot they deserve to destroy all their opponents.

Agreed. Those guys will end up just playing each other anyway so it wouldn't affect the masses if they had their own little playground. That's how it should be. If someone is THAT good, then they should be THAT good. The equalizer for amazing hitters is pitching. I would like my chances against an elite hitter if I knew my pitches would go where I'm aiming and not have to worry about any RNG bull****. I'd REALLY like my chances of at least holding them down a bit and then seeing what I can do offensively.

They handicap their own game. It's so strange how they decide these things. It's why I don't really buy that it was a results-based decision to nerf hitting. I truly believe they just did it after advertising the changes because now we're all in the churn and people are buying stubs despite the fact the game is inconsistent and not even close to representing the Beta version.

[brunopuntzjones]

Re: State of DD

Agreed. Those guys will end up just playing each other anyway so it wouldn't affect the masses if they had their own little playground. That's how it should be. If someone is THAT good, then they should be THAT good. The equalizer for amazing hitters is pitching. I would like my chances against an elite hitter if I knew my pitches would go where I'm aiming and not have to worry about any RNG bull****. I'd REALLY like my chances of at least holding them down a bit and then seeing what I can do offensively.

They handicap their own game. It's so strange how they decide these things. It's why I don't really buy that it was a results-based decision to nerf hitting. I truly believe they just did it after advertising the changes because now we're all in the churn and people are buying stubs despite the fact the game is inconsistent and not even close to representing the Beta version.

Yeah they either need to protect us from their streamer buddies and the ****heads they've influenced or give us more to do offline so we don't have to suffer for it.


I mean the Players League played on veteran right? That seems very telling.



At the very least it's dawning on me that if on a given night I play 1-3 conquest games and 2-3 play vs CPU games I should earn 7-12 program stars (in addition to team inning stars if I go for that), which is better than playing 1.3 RS and 1 BR/event games and not actually getting the dailies.

[NDAlum]

Re: State of DD

Agreed. Those guys will end up just playing each other anyway so it wouldn't affect the masses if they had their own little playground. That's how it should be. If someone is THAT good, then they should be THAT good. The equalizer for amazing hitters is pitching. I would like my chances against an elite hitter if I knew my pitches would go where I'm aiming and not have to worry about any RNG bull****. I'd REALLY like my chances of at least holding them down a bit and then seeing what I can do offensively.

They handicap their own game. It's so strange how they decide these things. It's why I don't really buy that it was a results-based decision to nerf hitting. I truly believe they just did it after advertising the changes because now we're all in the churn and people are buying stubs despite the fact the game is inconsistent and not even close to representing the Beta version.

If I face a guy and he just rakes and squares up everything, I'll wear the L. Hats off to that guy and he deserves it.

I don't want to lose to an early/okay HR no doubter. I'm giving those up more than anything.

IMO the changeup is horrible this year. For some reason their is an excessively big timing window where early = HR. Maybe it's just me.

[JoshC1977]

Re: State of DD

IMO the changeup is horrible this year. For some reason their is an excessively big timing window where early = HR. Maybe it's just me.

It's not the timing window per se. SDS seems to have tightened the speed offset between fastballs and other pitches. I'm fairly sure they mentioned this change on-stream pre-launch, but am not 100%. But in practice, I DO see a difference compared to '19; far too often on default settings, I'd be sitting FB, swing early on a realistic speed CH (i.e. one that is 6-7 mph below FB speed) and still be right in front of it for a hard hit pull swing.