[Armor and Sword]

MLB The Show 15 was a rousing success for me on many levels in regards to the style of play I employ (well known I how approach the game via the slider section).

I absolutely felt the new speed paradigm was a huge upgrade. OF had true ratings differentiation. You knew if you had a weak, slow LF (Matt Holiday) compared to a sleek CF like Lorenzo Cain. I loved how The Show got it right with defense this year. It made a huge difference for me and my immersion into the realism of playing The Show.

Once again the sliders worked amazingly and the addition of separate fielding sliders for INF and OF was huge.

The ever evolving ball physics reached another new high for me. Hit variety was fantastic and vastly improved. I continue to see even after 300 plus games in franchise great variety and unpredictability game to game and series to series.

Pitching went to a new level with AI batters chasing out of the zone pitches. I found AI batters were not nearly as robotic as in the past and played to ratings better than ever at the plate. Setting up batters felt realistic and rewarding. It has been a gradual growth since MLB 12

I actually disagree with the article talking about XP progression. Oh god no. Please do not do that. Instead focus on a smart intuitive stat's based algorithm system based on:

1. Potential
2. Performance
3. Age
4. Injury

I do not want any mini games in The Show. I already like the in season training system, and continued tweaking to player progression and regression is far more my preference than introducing training mini games and XP. My meat and potatoes is playing 162 games. I don't have time to be bothered with training mini games and XP systems. Please steer clear of any thing like that in a baseball game.


Things I would love to see improved upon are:

1. Presentation - Absolutely needs a refresh in regards to commentary, and MLB or Fox Sports Network style presentation. This would take The Show to a new level of total immersion. Also bring back the ability to see our foul balls play out. I really missed that. To me it took away from the ohhhs and ahhhhs of ripping screaming foul balls or just missing HR's. Not seeing them.....very un-baseball like and I was shocked they were basically removed for the most part. Please bring it back. Enhanced in game stat swipes showing batter/pitcher match up stats in season and historically if available. Enhanced batter stat's showing average with the current situation eg: average with the bases loaded vs average against the pitcher on the mound....it just add's layers of realism, intensity and managerial decisions to make.

2. Scouting - Obviously it had a bug (well documented) and that needs to be seriously looked at to enhance the draft and make scouting a rewarding part of the game.

3. Stats - Player cards with full stat tracking and historical stats for their entire careers past, present and moving forward.

4. bring back the ability to press up on the D-Pad and get in game stat's on current batter and pitcher on the mound. Why was it removed?

5. Enhanced catcher ratings for calling games for your pitcher, as well as defense. I use API in that whatever my catcher calls, I typically throw. i will look him off if I feel I am rolling with other pitches and I feel he made the wrong call, but expanding this aspect of the game would be awesome.

6. Improved catcher physics in reacting to knubbers, bunts and foul balls - Every catcher has cheetah like reflexes and it was tiresome seeing too many foul outs and easy outs on knubbers between the pitcher and catcher. Defensive ratings should matter...not a canned animation. I hope this can be looked at and improved by the team. It would go a long way towards even more realism.

7. Carry forward roster files - Carry forward saves is the best feature ever in a sports game. And it was executed almost to perfection. Well The Dev's know how incredible the roster making community is so let's have that ability to carry forward all the amazing rosters created each year.

8. More personality management during franchise. I liked how MVP 2005 had tempers, moods and clubhouse chemistry. I would love to see this element brought to MLBTS going forward. Also I agree with the article to have a owner mode so we can set prices, promotions etc and make it meaningful to the bottom line much like the awesome sponsorship feature added this year did.

9 Diamond Dynasty - I really got into this mode and enjoyed it immensely other than the online instability and the fact the game just does not really play nearly as good as it does offline. But if they could expand on this mode and allow us to play our friends teams online, have divisions and tournaments etc it could be really cool. Maybe also have different levels of DD play. Balks on, all visual aides off, allow us to create our own DD leagues with our own settings rules, a cap on how many Diamond, Gold Silver card players you can have etc. It has a ton of potential to be a major online mode.

10. Online Franchise - This area of the game IMO needs a huge overall. I lost my desire to play online franchise really fast. games played out almost exactly the same every time for me. Horrible ping issues with me seeing one thing while my opponent would see something else. Functionality of franchise online is nothing like offline. I know there are a lot of online players feeling like they are getting stiffed. I for one am content to play offline (I tried online franchise and just quite frankly...not my cup of tea. I prefer this game offline all day). But the online franchise community needs representation in development on community week etc.

11. Replay - implement the current MLB system into MLB The Show 16


Overall MLB The Show 15 is hands down the best version yet and in my book the greatest console baseball game I have ever played. I am as always super pumped for March 30th as I think that should be when we get 16? In any case I hope to see some major upgrades to offline franchise as that is where 95% of my time will be spent. Diamond Dynasty has tons of upside potential and last seasons offering was a nice start. The card collecting was addicting for me.