MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

[NYJin2011tm]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressionsy StStSs

Playing a series against the Rockies. Randal Grichuk has had 5 at-bats and has 5 homeruns. Maybe I should stop pitching to him...

I would have hit him by now lol.

[Hockeystatic]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I would be very curious to know the player BABIP vs. The computer BABIP because it feels incredibly lopsided toward the CPU. Extremely frustrating part of an otherwise good game.

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I would be very curious to know the player BABIP vs. The computer BABIP because it feels incredibly lopsided toward the CPU. Extremely frustrating part of an otherwise good game.

I would also look at other aspects. A lower BABiP is caused by swinging at bad early in a count instead of waiting. So you could also look at how you pitch the ai, in relegation to their swing tendency, to see if you can induce more bad swings, as well as if you are not taking enough pitches. Are you swinging at breaking balls early, instead of looking for a fastball?

The main reason I am finding this game so rewarding this year is that how you play affects the game. If you make poor swinging decisions, over the course of 100 pitches, you are going to suffer.

By the same token, if you pitch by the book, or just super consistent, the CPU will learn when you are going to throw a pitch, and it will become less effective. It’s also why it is critical to throw outside the zone, with intention. Sometimes I view the catcher’s suggestion as a time to do the opposite.

I mean, it feels so wicked good to freeze a hitter with a two strike change-up over the heart of the plate. I know he’s sitting fastball. Everything says fastball. Honestly, it’s less risky than it sounds, because the change of speed comes with some break, and maybe you get a groundout or fly out.

If you tweak the sliders so the CPU grounds out more, or more of your hits get through, you might have just missed part of what makes playing sports great. Finding a flaw, and then fixing it.

The game isn’t just happening to us. We are driving it. One of the main reasons I focus on pitch count so much is that it drives the narrative of an inning.

One of the best places I learned this, believe it or not, was in SMB3 in online play. There is a point when you begin getting matched up against guys that know how to exploit the typical weaknesses guys have when they move up a level, just in the minors.

One thing I learned was the importance of taking a ton of pitches early, because if a good guy got you to chase, that guy was going to battle you hard. But if you could take strikes, they are less likely to throw balls, and now I’m starting to see pitches.

But Metalhead is also insanely good at using this info to drive their ai hitters and pitchers. (Side note: maybe THAT’S what EA really bought.) You could lull yourself into thinking you were playing a human a lot. The ai decision making is so good.

That said, I feel like the AI has been equally good in those areas in The Show over the last two years. It becomes less about a checklist, and more about adaptation. And if an AI can make me game plan it like I would a human, I’m going to stick with it for awhile. So far, The Show has given that to me in spades.

Also, bouncing between DD and franchise play will mess with you. The way rosters are built and games are played is completely different, as your goals are different. When to get aggressive or conservative switches up fast.

Back in the day, verifying the supposed accuracy of a sim model wasn’t the end all. The point was to change things to see what results you got. Somehow, it has morphed into making the game play “correctly” no matter what the user does, so the game can always reward them for being good.

I play this on default sliders, and it is just remarkable. I feel like real baseball decisions result in real baseball results.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

When the guy you traded away because you thought he was declining offensively, kills you in a series :

[Armor and Sword]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

100 plus hour update.


So.....we have poured in easily over 100 hours now of offline franchise gameplay. And the game is still a great game of baseball. But now the negatives have really stuck out for me and dampened my initial “wow” after release.

Is the game still excellent? Yes. Is it the best ever? No. That still belongs to MLB 20 and IMO will probably never be exceeded.

Why?

The hitting engine.

Back when 21 came out.....the biggest jarring change for me came with the hitting engine and the fundamental changes under the hood to it. I despise MLB 21. I think that was a low point for me with this series for many reasons....but the primary factor was hitting.

MLB 22 is a good improvement. Make no mistake. But it still has a few lingering issues.

1. Check Swings - The mechanic is no longer ratings based. This has been discussed ad nausea.....so I am not going to get into it here...but it is a mess. Clear check swings are more often than not rung up as strikes.....and it is a clear check swing. Why? It is based on the pressure of the button press (whether that be a normal swing, contact swing or power swing). It simply is unbalanced and can really set me off when it costs me games. But I digress......I really hope SDS takes a much closer look into how the context of this is all over the place and it truly is a terrible experience. Check swings are a major part of baseball and hitting at the highest level. The inability to check swing on this game (it is a 90/10 ratio of strike to check which is ridiculous) can really grind my gears. I am still playing.....and have adjusted somewhat.....but every single iteration of this game before MLB 21 check swings were fair and far more balanced than what we have here. It simply is inexcusable that Competitive online complaints fundamentally changed a core game mechanic and removed the Discipline rating from the equation. Simply a terrible design decision which I have talked about with SDS at length about.

I feel they slightly adjusted it on 22.....because on 21 it was 98% no check. The ratio was nuts.

So enough of that.....but it is a huge complaint. And I know I am not the only offline franchise player who feels this way.

2. Play by Play - So we all know it was a rebuild. But in no way did we get 300 hours of lines. Sorry...most of that was recording names. The Play by Play is atrocious in terms of the same exact story’s about players every single solitary game.....and it get’s worse and worse as the season wears on. I am closing in on the All-Star Break and it is permanently shut off......I can’t even do it on the road anymore. It is simply terrible. Maybe the worst this series has had since it’s move to PS3. Obviously it is being rebuilt from the ground up.....and the name data base losses were tremendous too. A huge wart. So hopefully they continue to record and add lines.....because this is beyond bad. Sorry SDS....gotta call this out.

3. Hitting Engine Variety - Back to the hitting engine. MLB 20 still has the greatest variety of hitting ever produced in a console baseball game. Period. MLB 22 was a nice improvement from the sterile 21......but it still lacks the overall feel of a nice variation of results. Balls come off the bat too hot more often than not and sliders are not changing this....it is a fundamental core code under the hood thing. And I get it. It is trying to reflect the modern day game of the three result outcome. Well that has been accomplished for the most part. This limits MLB 22 to being a modern day baseball game only and eliminates the Roster Community from really producing classic baseball.....because it won’t play like classic baseball regardless of any slider adjustments. MLB 20 marked the end of an era for the classic roster community. If you still have MLB 20.....DL all you can before those servers are shutdown for good. There are 10’s of thousands of hours of roster work in that vault spanning a generation of MLB titles. The greatest collection of classic (and Bacons best Fictional Roster with career stats and service time) rosters ever assembled for MLB The Show.

4. Equipment - What in the world happened here. We have toy “Rawlings” gloves. It is a massive eye sore. And nothing....nothing has been said. Silence. Equipment removed.....why? At this point we should have total control of editing any and all equipment and we should not be losing standard, classic and new equipment. But the Rawlings gloves? Man it looks terrible and is a massive wart. And I was very hopeful it would have been added back by now. However I am now doubting it ever is for MLB 22.

5. Franchise Logic - Man......yeah.....it is not good. It went backwards and I am not going to get into the details as it has been discussed....but roster management is terrible by the CPU and continues to be a big issue. If you play without 30 team control you are not going to be happy long term.


So back in April I gave the game a 9.5/10 but that new car smell and paint wore off after 100 plus games.

Revised Score:

7.5/10

Pros:

Visually beautiful, a gorgeous game in motion. Defense is simply the best it has ever been. The “in park” atmosphere is simply sublime. Audio is top notch. Presentation swipes, Stat-Cast, Regional theme, and the new News Ticker are fantastic additions. The game plays a great game of baseball.

The ugly warts were outlined above and really hold back the game from being a true legendary addition to the series.

20>22>21

Final answer.

I am still enjoying my Yankees season on 22 but where I go with it is up in the air after Year 1. I can see myself playing 22 for several cycles though along with the GOAT MLB 20 and sticking with these two versions. No doubt MLB 20 is living on in infamy for me with all the content. But 22 may also live on for several years.

I don’t think this game can really break out until they stop developing it for the PS4/One but who knows. I just don’t see what a lot of franchise players want going forward. I also think it is reasonable to think March To October and Franchise get folded into each other at some point as that was made kinda clear in Emmond’s interview/podcast with a developer that they cannot do much with the current franchise engine anymore. And that has become clear to me as well with the logic regression.


Have fun folks.

[Scott]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

100 plus hour update.


So.....we have poured in easily over 100 hours now of offline franchise gameplay. And the game is still a great game of baseball. But now the negatives have really stuck out for me and dampened my initial “wow” after release.

Is the game still excellent? Yes. Is it the best ever? No. That still belongs to MLB 20 and IMO will probably never be exceeded.

Why?

The hitting engine.

Back when 21 came out.....the biggest jarring change for me came with the hitting engine and the fundamental changes under the hood to it. I despise MLB 21. I think that was a low point for me with this series for many reasons....but the primary factor was hitting.

MLB 22 is a good improvement. Make no mistake. But it still has a few lingering issues.

1. Check Swings - The mechanic is no longer ratings based. This has been discussed ad nausea.....so I am not going to get into it here...but it is a mess. Clear check swings are more often than not rung up as strikes.....and it is a clear check swing. Why? It is based on the pressure of the button press (whether that be a normal swing, contact swing or power swing). It simply is unbalanced and can really set me off when it costs me games. But I digress......I really hope SDS takes a much closer look into how the context of this is all over the place and it truly is a terrible experience. Check swings are a major part of baseball and hitting at the highest level. The inability to check swing on this game (it is a 90/10 ratio of strike to check which is ridiculous) can really grind my gears. I am still playing.....and have adjusted somewhat.....but every single iteration of this game before MLB 21 check swings were fair and far more balanced than what we have here. It simply is inexcusable that Competitive online complaints fundamentally changed a core game mechanic and removed the Discipline rating from the equation. Simply a terrible design decision which I have talked about with SDS at length about.

I feel they slightly adjusted it on 22.....because on 21 it was 98% no check. The ratio was nuts.

So enough of that.....but it is a huge complaint. And I know I am not the only offline franchise player who feels this way.

2. Play by Play - So we all know it was a rebuild. But in no way did we get 300 hours of lines. Sorry...most of that was recording names. The Play by Play is atrocious in terms of the same exact story’s about players every single solitary game.....and it get’s worse and worse as the season wears on. I am closing in on the All-Star Break and it is permanently shut off......I can’t even do it on the road anymore. It is simply terrible. Maybe the worst this series has had since it’s move to PS3. Obviously it is being rebuilt from the ground up.....and the name data base losses were tremendous too. A huge wart. So hopefully they continue to record and add lines.....because this is beyond bad. Sorry SDS....gotta call this out.

3. Hitting Engine Variety - Back to the hitting engine. MLB 20 still has the greatest variety of hitting ever produced in a console baseball game. Period. MLB 22 was a nice improvement from the sterile 21......but it still lacks the overall feel of a nice variation of results. Balls come off the bat too hot more often than not and sliders are not changing this....it is a fundamental core code under the hood thing. And I get it. It is trying to reflect the modern day game of the three result outcome. Well that has been accomplished for the most part. This limits MLB 22 to being a modern day baseball game only and eliminates the Roster Community from really producing classic baseball.....because it won’t play like classic baseball regardless of any slider adjustments. MLB 20 marked the end of an era for the classic roster community. If you still have MLB 20.....DL all you can before those servers are shutdown for good. There are 10’s of thousands of hours of roster work in that vault spanning a generation of MLB titles. The greatest collection of classic (and Bacons best Fictional Roster with career stats and service time) rosters ever assembled for MLB The Show.

4. Equipment - What in the world happened here. We have toy “Rawlings” gloves. It is a massive eye sore. And nothing....nothing has been said. Silence. Equipment removed.....why? At this point we should have total control of editing any and all equipment and we should not be losing standard, classic and new equipment. But the Rawlings gloves? Man it looks terrible and is a massive wart. And I was very hopeful it would have been added back by now. However I am now doubting it ever is for MLB 22.

5. Franchise Logic - Man......yeah.....it is not good. It went backwards and I am not going to get into the details as it has been discussed....but roster management is terrible by the CPU and continues to be a big issue. If you play without 30 team control you are not going to be happy long term.


So back in April I gave the game a 9.5/10 but that new car smell and paint wore off after 100 plus games.

Revised Score:

7.5/10

Pros:

Visually beautiful, a gorgeous game in motion. Defense is simply the best it has ever been. The “in park” atmosphere is simply sublime. Audio is top notch. Presentation swipes, Stat-Cast, Regional theme, and the new News Ticker are fantastic additions. The game plays a great game of baseball.

The ugly warts were outlined above and really hold back the game from being a true legendary addition to the series.

20>22>21

Final answer.

I am still enjoying my Yankees season on 22 but where I go with it is up in the air after Year 1. I can see myself playing 22 for several cycles though along with the GOAT MLB 20 and sticking with these two versions. No doubt MLB 20 is living on in infamy for me with all the content. But 22 may also live on for several years.

I don’t think this game can really break out until they stop developing it for the PS4/One but who knows. I just don’t see what a lot of franchise players want going forward. I also think it is reasonable to think March To October and Franchise get folded into each other at some point as that was made kinda clear in Emmond’s interview/podcast with a developer that they cannot do much with the current franchise engine anymore. And that has become clear to me as well with the logic regression.


Have fun folks.

I definitely feel your pain on the equipment…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Formula1Racing]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I agree with Armor. Still, it is a fun baseball game to play and I am enjoying this year for what it is.

For the first time since being a long time Sony MLB baseball fan since the PS2 era with new animations and graphics that started with Eric Chavez on the cover with Vin Scully as Play-by-play man and Dave Campbell doing Color Analysis and with the ability to scan your face in the game! (wish they would bring that back!..lol)

I am getting older, 60 years old just trying to have some fun and not taking the game too seriously by experimenting with the other offline MLBTS modes/features like Moments, Programs, Mini-Season etc. which I never played or tried before until this year for the first time and I love it!, it actually is fun and addicting and you don't have to spend a penny on coins....just your time which I have (Retired Now) Maybe that's why I'm enjoying it more? Of course, Franchise and RTTS modes are still my favorites. I'm an Offline only player.

I am definitely not a fan of the online mode!..Ouch! I've seen people on twitch play and the slow movement of the ball with pitching and the delay hitch with hitting is not for me, that's NOT baseball IMO. In offline, MLBTS shines and plays great!

Armor brings some good points and trust his judgment and expertise, he's spot on most of the time!

Peace!

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I'm not saying for sure that it has a bigger effect, but man hitting the ball in cold air just doesn't carry. Played a game in St.Louis that was cold and both teams have smashed some baseballs that I knew were gone, but they just seem to die in the dense air.

Nicely done

[IndianSummer]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

100 plus hour update.


So.....we have poured in easily over 100 hours now of offline franchise gameplay. And the game is still a great game of baseball. But now the negatives have really stuck out for me and dampened my initial “wow” after release.

Is the game still excellent? Yes. Is it the best ever? No. That still belongs to MLB 20 and IMO will probably never be exceeded.

Why?

The hitting engine.

Back when 21 came out.....the biggest jarring change for me came with the hitting engine and the fundamental changes under the hood to it. I despise MLB 21. I think that was a low point for me with this series for many reasons....but the primary factor was hitting.

MLB 22 is a good improvement. Make no mistake. But it still has a few lingering issues.

1. Check Swings - The mechanic is no longer ratings based. This has been discussed ad nausea.....so I am not going to get into it here...but it is a mess. Clear check swings are more often than not rung up as strikes.....and it is a clear check swing. Why? It is based on the pressure of the button press (whether that be a normal swing, contact swing or power swing). It simply is unbalanced and can really set me off when it costs me games. But I digress......I really hope SDS takes a much closer look into how the context of this is all over the place and it truly is a terrible experience. Check swings are a major part of baseball and hitting at the highest level. The inability to check swing on this game (it is a 90/10 ratio of strike to check which is ridiculous) can really grind my gears. I am still playing.....and have adjusted somewhat.....but every single iteration of this game before MLB 21 check swings were fair and far more balanced than what we have here. It simply is inexcusable that Competitive online complaints fundamentally changed a core game mechanic and removed the Discipline rating from the equation. Simply a terrible design decision which I have talked about with SDS at length about.

I feel they slightly adjusted it on 22.....because on 21 it was 98% no check. The ratio was nuts.

So enough of that.....but it is a huge complaint. And I know I am not the only offline franchise player who feels this way.

2. Play by Play - So we all know it was a rebuild. But in no way did we get 300 hours of lines. Sorry...most of that was recording names. The Play by Play is atrocious in terms of the same exact story’s about players every single solitary game.....and it get’s worse and worse as the season wears on. I am closing in on the All-Star Break and it is permanently shut off......I can’t even do it on the road anymore. It is simply terrible. Maybe the worst this series has had since it’s move to PS3. Obviously it is being rebuilt from the ground up.....and the name data base losses were tremendous too. A huge wart. So hopefully they continue to record and add lines.....because this is beyond bad. Sorry SDS....gotta call this out.

3. Hitting Engine Variety - Back to the hitting engine. MLB 20 still has the greatest variety of hitting ever produced in a console baseball game. Period. MLB 22 was a nice improvement from the sterile 21......but it still lacks the overall feel of a nice variation of results. Balls come off the bat too hot more often than not and sliders are not changing this....it is a fundamental core code under the hood thing. And I get it. It is trying to reflect the modern day game of the three result outcome. Well that has been accomplished for the most part. This limits MLB 22 to being a modern day baseball game only and eliminates the Roster Community from really producing classic baseball.....because it won’t play like classic baseball regardless of any slider adjustments. MLB 20 marked the end of an era for the classic roster community. If you still have MLB 20.....DL all you can before those servers are shutdown for good. There are 10’s of thousands of hours of roster work in that vault spanning a generation of MLB titles. The greatest collection of classic (and Bacons best Fictional Roster with career stats and service time) rosters ever assembled for MLB The Show.

4. Equipment - What in the world happened here. We have toy “Rawlings” gloves. It is a massive eye sore. And nothing....nothing has been said. Silence. Equipment removed.....why? At this point we should have total control of editing any and all equipment and we should not be losing standard, classic and new equipment. But the Rawlings gloves? Man it looks terrible and is a massive wart. And I was very hopeful it would have been added back by now. However I am now doubting it ever is for MLB 22.

5. Franchise Logic - Man......yeah.....it is not good. It went backwards and I am not going to get into the details as it has been discussed....but roster management is terrible by the CPU and continues to be a big issue. If you play without 30 team control you are not going to be happy long term.


So back in April I gave the game a 9.5/10 but that new car smell and paint wore off after 100 plus games.

Revised Score:

7.5/10

Pros:

Visually beautiful, a gorgeous game in motion. Defense is simply the best it has ever been. The “in park” atmosphere is simply sublime. Audio is top notch. Presentation swipes, Stat-Cast, Regional theme, and the new News Ticker are fantastic additions. The game plays a great game of baseball.

The ugly warts were outlined above and really hold back the game from being a true legendary addition to the series.

20>22>21

Final answer.

I am still enjoying my Yankees season on 22 but where I go with it is up in the air after Year 1. I can see myself playing 22 for several cycles though along with the GOAT MLB 20 and sticking with these two versions. No doubt MLB 20 is living on in infamy for me with all the content. But 22 may also live on for several years.

I don’t think this game can really break out until they stop developing it for the PS4/One but who knows. I just don’t see what a lot of franchise players want going forward. I also think it is reasonable to think March To October and Franchise get folded into each other at some point as that was made kinda clear in Emmond’s interview/podcast with a developer that they cannot do much with the current franchise engine anymore. And that has become clear to me as well with the logic regression.


Have fun folks.

I have really tinkered with the sliders trying to find something to help the hitting. I think I have it about as good as I am capable of finding. I changed foul frequency to 2 and wind speed to 3. It’s not MLB20 but it helped.

[MetsFan16]

MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I’ve been playing on PS5 since release and recently got a Nintendo Switch because I’ll be traveling for work a bit. Booted up the show on the handheld and I was really bummed by the graphical quality. I remember people saying the Tech Test was horrible and then when release day came it was much improved.

Maybe I had too high of expectations for the graphics but it was hard to get through 1 inning. I’ll probably stick with flipping cards for stubs or playing mindless moments but definitely not touching my Franchise or RTTS on the handheld


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[loso_34]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

100 plus hour update.


So.....we have poured in easily over 100 hours now of offline franchise gameplay. And the game is still a great game of baseball. But now the negatives have really stuck out for me and dampened my initial “wow” after release.

Is the game still excellent? Yes. Is it the best ever? No. That still belongs to MLB 20 and IMO will probably never be exceeded.

Why?

The hitting engine.

Back when 21 came out.....the biggest jarring change for me came with the hitting engine and the fundamental changes under the hood to it. I despise MLB 21. I think that was a low point for me with this series for many reasons....but the primary factor was hitting.

MLB 22 is a good improvement. Make no mistake. But it still has a few lingering issues.

1. Check Swings - The mechanic is no longer ratings based. This has been discussed ad nausea.....so I am not going to get into it here...but it is a mess. Clear check swings are more often than not rung up as strikes.....and it is a clear check swing. Why? It is based on the pressure of the button press (whether that be a normal swing, contact swing or power swing). It simply is unbalanced and can really set me off when it costs me games. But I digress......I really hope SDS takes a much closer look into how the context of this is all over the place and it truly is a terrible experience. Check swings are a major part of baseball and hitting at the highest level. The inability to check swing on this game (it is a 90/10 ratio of strike to check which is ridiculous) can really grind my gears. I am still playing.....and have adjusted somewhat.....but every single iteration of this game before MLB 21 check swings were fair and far more balanced than what we have here. It simply is inexcusable that Competitive online complaints fundamentally changed a core game mechanic and removed the Discipline rating from the equation. Simply a terrible design decision which I have talked about with SDS at length about.

In a sport that’s driven by data I dunno how SDS just nullifies certain ratings. That crowd that wants “skill” to supersede ratings are killing sport games we may as well play with fictional characters and let the most skilled user win.

[DJ]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

I’ve been playing on PS5 since release and recently got a Nintendo Switch because I’ll be traveling for work a bit. Booted up the show on the handheld and I was really bummed by the graphical quality. I remember people saying the Tech Test was horrible and then when release day came it was much improved.

Maybe I had too high of expectations for the graphics but it was hard to get through 1 inning. I’ll probably stick with flipping cards for stubs or playing mindless moments but definitely not touching my Franchise or RTTS on the handheld


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

Improvements mentioned were more related to framerate stability than graphics, I believe.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

The Giants city connect jerseys are sweet!

[Archie56]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

Did they tweak the no doubt home run cam just a little bit within one of the most recent patches? Usually the hitter obscures the view from seeing the ball clearly but I noticed the last few weeks it seems like there's a little bit different of an angle after hitting a no doubter. I can see the ball better and where it lands. I'm still not a fan of it, but it's been more tolerable lately. Maybe my eyes are deceiving me

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[pokerlife]

Re: MLB The Show 22 - (PS5/Xbox Series X|S) Impressions

100 plus hour update.


So.....we have poured in easily over 100 hours now of offline franchise gameplay. And the game is still a great game of baseball. But now the negatives have really stuck out for me and dampened my initial “wow” after release.

Is the game still excellent? Yes. Is it the best ever? No. That still belongs to MLB 20 and IMO will probably never be exceeded.

Why?

The hitting engine.

Back when 21 came out.....the biggest jarring change for me came with the hitting engine and the fundamental changes under the hood to it. I despise MLB 21. I think that was a low point for me with this series for many reasons....but the primary factor was hitting.

MLB 22 is a good improvement. Make no mistake. But it still has a few lingering issues.

1. Check Swings - The mechanic is no longer ratings based. This has been discussed ad nausea.....so I am not going to get into it here...but it is a mess. Clear check swings are more often than not rung up as strikes.....and it is a clear check swing. Why? It is based on the pressure of the button press (whether that be a normal swing, contact swing or power swing). It simply is unbalanced and can really set me off when it costs me games. But I digress......I really hope SDS takes a much closer look into how the context of this is all over the place and it truly is a terrible experience. Check swings are a major part of baseball and hitting at the highest level. The inability to check swing on this game (it is a 90/10 ratio of strike to check which is ridiculous) can really grind my gears. I am still playing.....and have adjusted somewhat.....but every single iteration of this game before MLB 21 check swings were fair and far more balanced than what we have here. It simply is inexcusable that Competitive online complaints fundamentally changed a core game mechanic and removed the Discipline rating from the equation. Simply a terrible design decision which I have talked about with SDS at length about.

I feel they slightly adjusted it on 22.....because on 21 it was 98% no check. The ratio was nuts.

So enough of that.....but it is a huge complaint. And I know I am not the only offline franchise player who feels this way.

2. Play by Play - So we all know it was a rebuild. But in no way did we get 300 hours of lines. Sorry...most of that was recording names. The Play by Play is atrocious in terms of the same exact story’s about players every single solitary game.....and it get’s worse and worse as the season wears on. I am closing in on the All-Star Break and it is permanently shut off......I can’t even do it on the road anymore. It is simply terrible. Maybe the worst this series has had since it’s move to PS3. Obviously it is being rebuilt from the ground up.....and the name data base losses were tremendous too. A huge wart. So hopefully they continue to record and add lines.....because this is beyond bad. Sorry SDS....gotta call this out.

3. Hitting Engine Variety - Back to the hitting engine. MLB 20 still has the greatest variety of hitting ever produced in a console baseball game. Period. MLB 22 was a nice improvement from the sterile 21......but it still lacks the overall feel of a nice variation of results. Balls come off the bat too hot more often than not and sliders are not changing this....it is a fundamental core code under the hood thing. And I get it. It is trying to reflect the modern day game of the three result outcome. Well that has been accomplished for the most part. This limits MLB 22 to being a modern day baseball game only and eliminates the Roster Community from really producing classic baseball.....because it won’t play like classic baseball regardless of any slider adjustments. MLB 20 marked the end of an era for the classic roster community. If you still have MLB 20.....DL all you can before those servers are shutdown for good. There are 10’s of thousands of hours of roster work in that vault spanning a generation of MLB titles. The greatest collection of classic (and Bacons best Fictional Roster with career stats and service time) rosters ever assembled for MLB The Show.

4. Equipment - What in the world happened here. We have toy “Rawlings” gloves. It is a massive eye sore. And nothing....nothing has been said. Silence. Equipment removed.....why? At this point we should have total control of editing any and all equipment and we should not be losing standard, classic and new equipment. But the Rawlings gloves? Man it looks terrible and is a massive wart. And I was very hopeful it would have been added back by now. However I am now doubting it ever is for MLB 22.

5. Franchise Logic - Man......yeah.....it is not good. It went backwards and I am not going to get into the details as it has been discussed....but roster management is terrible by the CPU and continues to be a big issue. If you play without 30 team control you are not going to be happy long term.


So back in April I gave the game a 9.5/10 but that new car smell and paint wore off after 100 plus games.

Revised Score:

7.5/10

Pros:

Visually beautiful, a gorgeous game in motion. Defense is simply the best it has ever been. The “in park” atmosphere is simply sublime. Audio is top notch. Presentation swipes, Stat-Cast, Regional theme, and the new News Ticker are fantastic additions. The game plays a great game of baseball.

The ugly warts were outlined above and really hold back the game from being a true legendary addition to the series.

20>22>21

Final answer.

I am still enjoying my Yankees season on 22 but where I go with it is up in the air after Year 1. I can see myself playing 22 for several cycles though along with the GOAT MLB 20 and sticking with these two versions. No doubt MLB 20 is living on in infamy for me with all the content. But 22 may also live on for several years.

I don’t think this game can really break out until they stop developing it for the PS4/One but who knows. I just don’t see what a lot of franchise players want going forward. I also think it is reasonable to think March To October and Franchise get folded into each other at some point as that was made kinda clear in Emmond’s interview/podcast with a developer that they cannot do much with the current franchise engine anymore. And that has become clear to me as well with the logic regression.


Have fun folks.

Disagree with you on hit variety. Im 100 games in , playing online only and i am still seeing new types of hits. Just had a homerun come up short and land on the padding on top of the wall and bounce back into play. Commentary is excellent for first year rebuild. It stays focused on the play by play and they know when to shutup. Sure it can be repetitive but they will get it there.