MLB The Show - General Discussion

[FLiam]

I do it so often that I think if I don’t, I’ll miss an out! 

[Bobfoc]

Sounds as though it's along the same line of thinking as holding B to increase the chances of catching a Pokemon.

[Gabriel]

In a very curious moment, I'm thwomping Cleveland in the sixth inning by a score of 9-0. Doesn't happen often, but I'm absolutely lighting them up. Stroman has allowed no hits and struck out seven with two outs in the sixth. I've walked a batter, who stole second. Jose Altuve comes up to bat and hits a very routine grounder to second base for what is sure to be the third out.

NOPE.

I move Devon Travis towards the ball and get ready to make my throw, only... he keeps going after I let go of the analog stick, like he's trying to make his way over to have a conversation with Justin Smoak at first base. The ball rolls sadly into shallow right field, and the Indians have their first run and hit of the game, because Travis decided he wanted to go for a walk instead of play the ball.

[Your Mom]

If I am still fine enjoying 17 is it worth spending $20 to upgrade to 18? Was just wondering if a lot changed or not. I told myself I was going to stick with 17 and then just jump to 19 next year but $20 is very tempting

[Gabriel]

3 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

If I am still fine enjoying 17 is it worth spending $20 to upgrade to 18? Was just wondering if a lot changed or not. I told myself I was going to stick with 17 and then just jump to 19 next year but $20 is very tempting

I only play Franchise, really. A little bit of Road to the Show when I'm waiting for the OSFM rosters to come out at the beginning of the year, but 95% Franchise.

So, I'm not sure about other modes, but if you just play Franchise, you can probably put that $20 away for when 19 comes out, unless you're a sucker like I am. Not to say that there aren't improvements, because there most definitely are. I play this game every day, so the little things seem bigger to me, and even small improvements are enough to justify the $80 price tag for me every year. I get way more than $80 worth of entertainment out of this franchise every season.

[Your Mom]

6 minutes ago, Gabriel said:

I only play Franchise, really. A little bit of Road to the Show when I'm waiting for the OSFM rosters to come out at the beginning of the year, but 95% Franchise.

So, I'm not sure about other modes, but if you just play Franchise, you can probably put that $20 away for when 19 comes out, unless you're a sucker like I am. Not to say that there aren't improvements, because there most definitely are. I play this game every day, so the little things seem bigger to me, and even small improvements are enough to justify the $80 price tag for me every year. I get way more than $80 worth of entertainment out of this franchise every season.

I also mostly just play franchise so I might wait. Heres another question though. If I want to move my franchise from 17 to 19 do I have use 18 first? This is one of my favorite games and is always worth it I was just thinking I've held out this far so if I can skip one it might be worth saving the money

[Gabriel]

2 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

I also mostly just play franchise so I might wait. Heres another question though. If I want to move my franchise from 17 to 19 do I have use 18 first? This is one of my favorite games and is always worth it I was just thinking I've held out this far so if I can skip one it might be worth saving the money

Ooh, yeah. I believe that if you want to continue your 17 Franchise save, that it first needs to be converted to an 18 Franchise save, and THEN a 19 when that comes out. So, in that case, maybe spend the $20 to get 18 while it's on sale. If 19 provides significant upgrades that intrigue you, it usually drops to half price before the All-Star break, even just temporarily.

EDIT: You'd still technically be saving money. Going off of Canadian pricing, if it's $20 right now for 18... and you buy 19 when it goes on sale the first time for $40, that's $60 between two iterations of the game. If you just buy 19 at regular price when it comes out, it's $80.

So, in Canada anyways, you'd still be saving money if you jump to 18 now, and then buy 19 at its' first major price reduction before or at the All-Star break next season.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Gabriel

[Gabriel]

I play with quick counts on to speed up the games so I can get through more of Franchise, and for whatever reason, ever since I called Vladimir Guerrero Jr up as a full time roster member, every plate appearance I have with him starts with some kind of 2 strike count. It's like the game wants him to fail... except, games that I sim, he's the most consistent hitter that I have. It's a really weird dynamic, and I'm hoping to see that settle down a little bit so that I'm not battling every time he comes up to the plate in games I'm playing.

[Meacon Keaton]

If I'm not mistaken, a player's discipline is suppose to affect the count they have during quick counts. He's Vlad Sr.'s son, so he's probably got low discipline in the game, hence 0-2 counts. 

[Your Mom]

On 22/09/2018 at 18:27, Gabriel said:

Ooh, yeah. I believe that if you want to continue your 17 Franchise save, that it first needs to be converted to an 18 Franchise save, and THEN a 19 when that comes out. So, in that case, maybe spend the $20 to get 18 while it's on sale. If 19 provides significant upgrades that intrigue you, it usually drops to half price before the All-Star break, even just temporarily.

EDIT: You'd still technically be saving money. Going off of Canadian pricing, if it's $20 right now for 18... and you buy 19 when it goes on sale the first time for $40, that's $60 between two iterations of the game. If you just buy 19 at regular price when it comes out, it's $80.

So, in Canada anyways, you'd still be saving money if you jump to 18 now, and then buy 19 at its' first major price reduction before or at the All-Star break next season.

Thanks! I forgot to mention this at the time but you made a good point so I jumped in at $20. This one is new to me so I'm sure I'll be happy with it at least until the All Star Break next year

[Gabriel]

I just pitched my first perfect game! Blue Jays over Minnesota, 7-0... Drew Pomeranz with 11 strikeouts, 0 hits, 0 walks and no team errors.

I've thrown shutouts and no-hitters, but this is the first actual perfect game I've had since the PS3 days.

[Gabriel]

Does anybody know exactly how many rounds are in the Fantasy Draft? Is it all 90 rounds to fill out each team?

I am working on setting up a 30-team control Franchise for when I get to the point in my Jays game that I have no current real life players left on my roster... as I probably won't grab 19 right away unless something really brings me in. What I'm trying to do with this game is more or less put players where they were originally drafted.

I'm going through the most recent OSFM rosters to write down the top players at each position in order to fill out the rosters, and I'm putting rules in place. Such as, the top 30 Starting Pitchers will all go in the first round. If a team is making a selection and none of those thirty players were drafted by them (or signed, if undrafted), then I will be looking at what teams have more than one option in that group. If a player has played with the team that needs a selection and their drafting or signing team has more than one option in that pool, they will be chosen by the team with the current pick.

Rounds 1 through 5 will be Starters. Round 6 through 11 will be Relief Pitchers. 12 will be Closers. Then the next rounds follow in positional order from Catcher through to Right Field. This will more or less set the starting rosters for all thirty teams. This setup for the rounds will go twice more (AAA and AA), and all picks following that will be made based on the highest overall player left available, who was drafted or initially signed to the MLB by that team.

When I'm done, I will post all of the rosters so you guys can see how it turned out.

 

Here's an example, with the top 30 Starting Pitchers and the teams that drafted them. Some teams show up more than once, but will only get to choose one of those top 30. Which guy they get will depend on the randomized draft order. For instance, the Jays have Syndergaard and Paxton in the top 30. If they choose 30th though, and a team needs one of them, they're going to get the higher rated Syndergaard, and the Jays will select Paxton. UNLESS a team needs a selection who has had Paxton on their roster previously, but not Syndergaard, in which case team familiarity will win out over Overall Rating. Convoluted, yes, but I love this kind of stuff.

-Chris Sale - White Sox

-Max Scherzer - Diamondbacks

-Clayton Kershaw - Dodgers

-Corey Kluber - Padres

-Stephen Strasburg - Nationals

-Madison Bumgarner - Giants

-Zack Greinke - Royals

-Jacob De Grom - Mets

-Aaron Nola - Phillies

-Luis Severino - Yankees

-Rich Hill - Reds

-Gerrit Cole - Yankees

-Justin Verlander - Tigers

-Noah Syndergaard - Blue Jays

-Patrick Corbin - Angels

-Lance McCullers Jr - Astros

-James Paxton - Blue Jays

-Johnny Cueto - Reds

-Alex Wood - Braves

-Jake Arrieta - Orioles

-Jose Berrios - Twins

-Trevor Bauer - Diamondbacks

-Jon Lester - Red Sox

-Dallas Keuchel - Astros

-Blake Snell - Rays

-David Price - Rays

-Kenta Maeda - Dodgers

-Kyle Hendricks - Rangers

-Gio Gonzalez - White Sox

-Sean Manaea - Royals

[Meacon Keaton]

@Gabriel yes it is the full 90 rounds. I did one in a Show franchise with my buddies. I think it took like three hours.

[Your Mom]

When the download finishes I am going to be playing the Alpha for 19! 😮 

[Meacon Keaton]

The Hot Stove talk (and lack of Hot Stove action) actually got me playing this again the other day. I think I'm going to use the last Operation Sports roster update and start a new franchise as I can't remember what team I was even playing as a few months ago when I last played for realsies. I was thinking about playing as Toronto, but their minors are already too stacked. Maybe Minnesota or Cincinnati. 

[Gabriel]

36 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

When the download finishes I am going to be playing the Alpha for 19! 😮 

Is it like last year's Alpha/Beta tests in that it's basically the online stuff only?

[Gabriel]

Quick Count balls and strikes for opposing pitchers has been an issue since they introduced the feature. It's not gamebreaking, by any means, but it does make it more difficult to actually wear a pitcher down without driving in loads of runs.

Example:

My first hitter in a new inning comes up to bat. The opposing pitcher has a count of 6 balls thrown against 17 strikes. My first hitter takes a ball, and then grounds out.

Second hitter comes up with a quick count of 1-1... opposing pitcher's line still says 6 balls thrown.

I had two more hitters that inning, with three more balls thrown by the opposing pitcher.

When I go to check the pitch counts at the beginning of my half inning on the mound, the opposing pitcher still says 6 balls thrown.

Yet, it seems to have no issue in properly counting how many pitches the human player is throwing. So it's not out of the norm for my starter to be at 90 pitches in a pitcher's duel against a CPU pitcher that apparently has only thrown just over half of that.

On a happier note, not only is MLB 18 the first game where I've actually won the World Series while playing a legitimate franchise, I have now done it three times while building a powerhouse Jays team. I am now at the point though, where I have a lot of my homegrown talent all ready to secure long-term, big dollar deals in the upcoming off-season. That could pose a huge problem in keeping my team at the top of the AL East.

[The Buscher]

Speculation is that the "brand new game mode" March to October is basically just the return of Season Mode which got removed last year.

Contract extensions are certainly a nice touch for franchise but given that franchise doesn't have it's own stream day suggests that the mode is completely unchanged except for that one feature.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, I didn't play a second of Road to the Show last year. I'm strictly Franchise guy now. I like the addition of in season contract extensions, but being a Yankee fan, I'm likely not going to utilize it anyway.  

[The Buscher]

I feel like I always lose interest in RTTS super quickly.  As a pitcher I can generally make it to The Show fairly quickly, but as a hitter it doesn't seem to matter how great I'm doing, I'm made to toil in the minors for ages and I just lose patience.

And yep, franchise is pretty much all I play now too so I don't really think I can see myself dropping $60 again just for a roster update.  That's not meant to be a knock on the developers either, they've probably just about maxed out what they can do with this game on the current platform.  I don't see an overhaul coming until PS5.