Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

[Steve_OS]

The MLB postseason is full steam ahead. That means MLB The Show 19 has been on...

Written By: Jeff Botkin

Click here to view the article.

[Armor and Sword]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

Good article.

And I will add:

Classic and fictional Rosters!!!!! The roster community year in and year out, really out does itself in bringing true baseball junkies an assortment of amazing rosters from years past. MLB 19 is no slouch in that department. Some seriously amazing work done by the OS roster community.

I am about to start playing classic seasons starting with the 1989 season (and using the Texas Rangers for this journey). There are so many to choose from.

Also there are a couple of fantastic fictional rosters available.

Go to the roster forum and check out what is in the vault for you to get incredible replay value out The Show 19.

[legacyme3]

I feel a sense of "meh" whenever I go back to the Show now. And I don't know what it is.

Objectively, the game as improved with every installment to some measure. It's a better game than it was when I started playing over a decade ago. But with every passing year, despite my love for baseball, I play less and less. I've tried all kinds of things to keep the experience fresh, but I always get hit with the same sense of "meh" whenever I try anything different, and I'm not sure how to break this rut.

I don't know if it's that I find hitting too hard to get accustomed to, or if I find the gameplay unsatisfying, or if I think it moves too slowly now. I'm genuinely unsure what the issue is, or if there's any issue at all.

Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy.

[Drty_Windshield]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

I'm almost positive that I'm in the minority here, but as someone that plays on both HOF and legend with max pitch speeds, I think that the max speeds for each of the difficulty levels should be the default speeds for the particular levels. A lot of people are going to think that max speeds make the game harder, and technically they would be right about that, but the default speeds especially on the lower difficulty levels aren't even close to being realistic.

[da_centa_fielda]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

I feel a sense of "meh" whenever I go back to the Show now. And I don't know what it is.

Objectively, the game as improved with every installment to some measure. It's a better game than it was when I started playing over a decade ago. But with every passing year, despite my love for baseball, I play less and less. I've tried all kinds of things to keep the experience fresh, but I always get hit with the same sense of "meh" whenever I try anything different, and I'm not sure how to break this rut.

I don't know if it's that I find hitting too hard to get accustomed to, or if I find the gameplay unsatisfying, or if I think it moves too slowly now. I'm genuinely unsure what the issue is, or if there's any issue at all.

Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy.

If you play it yearly, that's part of your problem. I feel the same way about the game even after taking a year or two off. While I believe the overall game improves, the gameplay itself is stagnant.

Other sports titles feel different immediately every year because we have control over our players. They run, dribble, skate, interact with each other, differently (for better or worse) each year. We just don't have that luxury in The Show:

- Pitching is moving a icon and pressing a button or moving a stick.
- Hitting is moving an icon and pressing a button or moving a stick.
- Base running is just button presses or moving a stick to chose your base

The ONLY time we really can [briefly] move around with our players is when fielding and players STILL don't even collide. Collisions were in MLB 2k7 over a decade ago. Madden gets destroyed for not having elements that old 2k games had. The Show users mostly seem to not care.

[drugsbunny]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

The reason why baseball games, the show in particular are feeling stale is due to the fact that there is really no gameplay options outside of fielding the ball once hit... Its the same thing every play: Ball hit, move player to spot, cpu takes it from there. Once upon a time, baseball video games had no training wheels or rails to limit the experience. You controlled everything from the moment the game began. There were some games that you were responsible for getting the ball back to the pitcher to began the next play. It gave you an opportunity to take in the joy of the game. After the play was over, being able to throw the ball around to your team mates gave you a sense of chemistry and also gave you a chance to gain the timing of throws. Throw the ball away and cause runners to advance was an extra layer of strategy to compete with. Now its linear gameplay has sucked the life out of a sports game that once owned the genre. Its just a repetitive motion of pitch, catch, and cpu do the rest. Very stale. besides, they advertise 1000s of new animations that you never get a chance to really see because the cpu takes control of everything once the play is established.

[bo_jax2000]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

Can anyone tell me how to replicate the camera angle in the picture below?

https://www.operationsports.com/wp-c...howTM-19_3.jpg.

[countryboy]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

For me, the combination of my love for the game of baseball and how well SDS simulates the sport, keeps the game fresh for me. Add to that the ability to continue my franchise from one year to the next keeps it from ever feeling "stale" as I'm engrossed in the virtual world that is my franchise.

If the ability to carryover didn't exist, or if I didn't do it, I think there would be times where the game started feeling "meh" because of having to constantly start over. Thankfully, that isn't a concern I need to have with MLB The Show.

[dalger21]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

I believe the only version of the show I've ever played throughout the year was MLB '18. The past several years, I will play the new release of The Show for a few weeks to a month and then move on to something else. I will pick back up around Feb after football season and play until the next release and repeat the cycle again.

[KnightTemplar]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

I'm in a rut. I absolutely hate the announcing, so I turn it off, always have. I tried this years, but found it exceptionally obnoxious and way too much. I'm sort of a graphics w@ore and can't quite get into a game with some of the stock faces created by SDS (there's got to be a way to give us a player editor that will almost replicate what we see in the game). It would help if they would dump some of the repetitive cut scenes (I swear, the guys dancing between innings looks like it's from the PS2 era. That can't be removed????). I have zero problems with the game play, and appreciate the new pre pitch presentation that I see, but they should have either changed, updated what presentation already exists, more than they did. Way more.

First year I haven't finished my franchise by playing every game. I used QUICK MANAGE the last two months. So I'm sort of in that "meh" group myself. Guess will just have to "wait til next year".

[Junior Moe]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

I have played more of The Show 19 than any other edition. I know I have logged over 100 games. I'm using Mike Lowes sliders along with dynamic pitching and hitting. I'm somewhere between I think, all star and HOF pitching and I vacillate back and forth. IIRC, I'm between veteran and allstar for hitting. The dynamic difficulty has scaled the most important and dynamic aspects of the game exactly to my level. In years past I'd get too good for whatever pitching/batting slider set I was using and never be able to keep the fun, yet challenging without a frustrating difficulty spike. In addition to speeding up the games, quick counts make every at bat a chess match.



I'm about to enter the post season in year 2 of my Braves franchise. We're like 16 games up so it has been fun to play with up and comers like Joey Bart and Austin Riley in September. I also edited Kyle Wright into a strait monster at the begging of the season. Wright is 17-3 and I'm going to try to make him a HOFer.

[legacyme3]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

If you play it yearly, that's part of your problem. I feel the same way about the game even after taking a year or two off. While I believe the overall game improves, the gameplay itself is stagnant.

Other sports titles feel different immediately every year because we have control over our players. They run, dribble, skate, interact with each other, differently (for better or worse) each year. We just don't have that luxury in The Show:

- Pitching is moving a icon and pressing a button or moving a stick.
- Hitting is moving an icon and pressing a button or moving a stick.
- Base running is just button presses or moving a stick to chose your base

The ONLY time we really can [briefly] move around with our players is when fielding and players STILL don't even collide. Collisions were in MLB 2k7 over a decade ago. Madden gets destroyed for not having elements that old 2k games had. The Show users mostly seem to not care.

This is a great point. I'm not sure if it applies to me or not, but I'm willing to run with it as an acceptable answer.

My question then becomes what can SDS really do to make things different, while maintaining a simulation style of play?

It's not like hockey or football, or basketball. Players collide with each other both intentionally and unintentionally in this respect. About the only time players collide in baseball is through the rare poor defensive alignment, on the basepaths, etc.

Baseball as a game is beautiful. It's why it's my favorite sport to watch. I get a sincere joy out of watching the slower pace of the sport, even without the contact seen in other sports.

And SDS does a fantastic job of relaying that.

It just doesn't feel fun to play.

Part of me wishes they'd adopt a more arcade style of play for use in other game modes. They got a little closer with the RBI baseball style classic mode, but it doesn't feel quite right either. I'd love a style of gameplay like what Super Mega Baseball 2 does, or what the Bigs did when it was briefly around. As an extra on top of the current game modes.

I love simulation style play, but it doesn't lend itself to a terribly fun gaming experience all the time.

Sliders can change certain things, but at its core it's still simulation style. NBA 2k I think handles this better than MLB the Show does. Where if you set the 3pt slider all the way to the right, it's practically guaranteed to go in, even under heavy pressure in a situation where the shot has no business getting in. Whereas if you slide the power slider all the way to the right in Show games... sometimes it doesn't really feel like much of anything has changed. I might hit more HRs, but I also might not, it's too random feeling for the slider to feel like it matters like in other sports games. And part of that is it is baseball.

[bravesfan1984]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

Franchise immersion is desperately needed to keep me coming back. It's just so stale right now, I have a hard time playing on a consistent basis.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Operation Sports mobile app

[mlblover15]

Re: Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

guys you don't have to keep it fresh just keep your franchise going and going forever. you can always start a new franchise with a new roster next year but why to stop playing... I'm in the middle of my 3rd year of a franchise I started back in 18.

I plan on keeping this going for the foreseeable future. (that is if my owner resigns me after this year). I have won back to back World Series and will probably win a third this year.

I have a good chunk of my main roster signed for at least 2-4 more years. I do have a great many FA's to deal with this upcoming offseason. However, I have given up all other responsibilities other that lineup and pitching rotation to the CPU.

IMO... IMO........

if your not wanting to play this every day as much as you can you not playing at or on a level which your TRULY having fun playing... again this is MY opinion and mine alone.

I tried going up to AS level from Rookie... yeah it was fun for a bit... but after a while, it became more of a chore to play and I wasn't having fun. Rage quitting almost every time played...

now that I am back on rookie and just having fun dominating from start to finish... I feel alive again. (and before you think I'm some young punk, I am a 49-year-old man who has been gaming since 1980 on the Atari 2600)

I love playing video games for fun, not to challenge myself. our lives already have too much stress as it is. why would you want to add to it while playing a game???

[Detroit Tigers]

Ways to Keep MLB The Show Fresh Throughout the Rest of the Season

... what can SDS really do to make things different, while maintaining a simulation style of play?

Well they can start by not lopping off aspects of presentation like the catcher throwing the ball back between pitches and guys taking their between-pitch practice cuts. Say what you will about their “meta data” showing people skip that stuff, fact remains the game was much more satisfying when everything ran in real time.

Audio is another overlooked aspect of the game that could use serious improvements. Sorry but crowd reactions still suck (cheering for road team hits, NOT cheering for home team hits, NOT cheering the first strike or out of the game, cheering for the first two outs of an inning but then NOT the third, I could go on and on here), umpires have had the same three or four voices for literally ten years, and of course the commentary which was already stale back on PS3 and never sounded particularly good to begin with, gripes about repetition notwithstanding.

As for gameplay mechanics, you’re right there’s not a lot they can do given the nature of the sport, but a couple things come to mind:

Introduce a “steady and gather” mechanic to defense, where you press and hold L2 (not unlike strafe, intense-D and backsake in the other three games) to ready-up a defensive play (getting in front of the ball on the infield, gathering under the ball in the outfield). This could work as an auto-track/defensive assist button (with the byproduct of allowing us to get rid of that ridiculous giant spinning ball on pop-ups) as well as a way to mitigate fighting with player momentum when trying to settle into a specific spot. Just like strafing in Madden.

Also for pitching and defense, get rid of the meters and just go with a simple hold & release mechanic, where release timing dictates accuracy: hold the button until the throw animation reaches the release window, release early and the ball sails, release late and you get an overthrow, tap the button for a high-arching-low-power-but-fast-release throw, hold for some extra time for a build-up-and-throw-a-seed throw, and so on. Simple yet satisfying. Just like shooting the ball in 2K.

Hitting I think they have about 95% right. Some more typical tweaks as the years go on and I think they’ll absolutely nail it eventually.