MLB The Show - General Discussion

[Meacon Keaton]

Makes sense. They’ve never made money off of Xbox owners before. Good way to introduce the series to them and earn those future sales.

[Gabriel]

1 hour ago, Buschie Lee said:

They did their franchise stream yesterday.

-Budgets are now shown in terms of annual instead of weekly.
-Depth chart feature allows you to see what your organization will look like years into the future based on what players you have under contract, and that includes showing projected ratings years into the future.  Like the Rays depth chart was shown year over year and by 2025 they have Wander Franco at a 90 OVR, whether he actually ends up that good still depends on performance.  Conversely you can see when your older players are going to start declining, and can maybe try to hone in on when your "window" is closing.
-The ability to project future ratings spun a total revamp of logic across the board for trades, free agent signings, promotions/demotions, etc.

Overall, nothing that would change my mind and make me get the new game.  The logic stuff sounds cool and they said those logic upgrades set a framework for where they want to take franchise in future installments, but even then I'd sooner wait and see if people on OS are complaining about the logic right out of the gate before I just believe it's better.  As it is most of the franchise-only players on OS are also skipping the year, just not enough there to justify starting over.

As a franchise only guy myself, I see a lot that I like about the changes that they've made... but not enough to warrant scrapping the custom franchise I built for MLB 20... especially since I'm still on the PS4. Maybe when I make the move to PS5, and the Show 21 goes on a deep discount, I'll pick it up... but I'll just keep riding out 20 until that happens.

The depth chart thing is huge for me. I already try to do that on my own, but now having the game handle that will make it so much better. I also love that it lists guys at their secondary positions as well, and moves them around based on age and performance. In the depth charts, you can see guys going from SS to LF because by the time they're ready to be an every day player at the MLB level, they're blocked by someone better at their original position.

[Ruki]

Gonna play this with Gamepass! Most likely just Road To The Show... has there been any big updates for that this year? The last one I played was 2018. And what are the most fun positions to play? I know nothing about baseball!

[Bobfoc]

They're bringing in a stadium creator this year. Other than that, I think the changes are incremental. Actually, I did read that Road to the Show will let you play as both a pitcher and hitter before you decide which one to go for. I think you might be able to do both after that too.

[The Buscher]

The stream they did on "next gen features" ended up basically being a Create a Stadium tutorial with no mention of anything else.  So it sounds like it was more a less a 1:1 port of the game from PS4 to PS5 this year with the Stadium mode added.  I'd imagine it'll take a year or two of playing around with the new system before there's any sort of enormous graphic overhaul.

[METALMAN]

I've not played this since the relocation thing came in. I'd quite like to give that a go. Can you expand the league or just move existing teams around? I mean, either is cool.

[Gabriel]

4 hours ago, metalman said:

I've not played this since the relocation thing came in. I'd quite like to give that a go. Can you expand the league or just move existing teams around? I mean, either is cool.

Move existing teams around. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's fun.

I created a whole new league, which I am quite enjoying, but there are little things that could be fixed.

You can't change the alignment of the divisions at all, so if you want things to make sense, you have to plan it out pretty well. For instance, I chose the 15 team locations per league I was going to use, and then separated them into West, Central and East divisions. Then when I was relocating teams, I would choose a team from the division I want them to play in.

It also doesn't recognize the new locations. So I've got Canadian teams with Canadian players who want to play close to home, but take a morale hit because my NL West (Canada) division is made of teams from the real NL West, meaning that the players all think they're playing in the States and lose morale because of it.

No expansion yet, but I would imagine that may be on the horizon.

The additions to Franchise this year aren't game altering, but they'll be great little quality of life things that will make the mode just that much better.

[FLiam]

21 hours ago, Ruki Returns said:

Gonna play this with Gamepass! Most likely just Road To The Show... has there been any big updates for that this year? The last one I played was 2018. And what are the most fun positions to play? I know nothing about baseball!

I played 17 a lot and had good fun as second baseman. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by FLiam

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, any position up the middle (2nd/shortstop/center field) are fun. Although I think my longest running RTS I ever had was a third base which is pretty fun too.

[JasonM]

Last year I started with a 2B and I ended up shifting him to SS pretty soon after. 2B is decent fun, but I felt the defensive moments generally are sucky, especially having to cover a steal.

SS is the gravy train for infield action, you're all over the place and it's always engaging to be a catalyst in double plays and gunning someone out at homeplate.

CF is also a fun spot, can get a bit confusing with the camera, and you get less action plays than the infield, but if you get the archetype that gets you a strong arm it's always fun to throw long ones to home.

One position that was more enjoyable than expected was 1B, Lots of easy stuff, but also quite a bit of action all around the diamond.

[The Buscher]

I was loving my time as a 3B but the Royals moved me over to 1B when I got to the big leagues.  Didn't really enjoy playing 1B, it was pretty boring so I set the game to sim my defensive appearances and figured I'd play D again if they moved me back.

Then I won AL ROTY and the dummies immediately traded me away to the Rockies, who had Nolan Arenado at 3B so I was permanently entrenched as a 1B.

[FLiam]

14 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

Last year I started with a 2B and I ended up shifting him to SS pretty soon after. 2B is decent fun, but I felt the defensive moments generally are sucky, especially having to cover a steal.

SS is the gravy train for infield action, you're all over the place and it's always engaging to be a catalyst in double plays and gunning someone out at homeplate.

CF is also a fun spot, can get a bit confusing with the camera, and you get less action plays than the infield, but if you get the archetype that gets you a strong arm it's always fun to throw long ones to home.

One position that was more enjoyable than expected was 1B, Lots of easy stuff, but also quite a bit of action all around the diamond.

Agreed, covering steals gets old quite quickly. There’s definitely more action on the bases though.

Is it possible to be the catcher? 

[Meacon Keaton]

Yes. And you can set it so that you can catch every pitch if you want, or make it so that you only play if there's a bunt, or a possible play at home, or if you have to throw a runner out stealing a base. It can be fun, but also felt more time-consuming. 

[Ruki]

I suck at hitting! 

[JasonM]

8 minutes ago, Ruki Returns said:

I suck at hitting! 

Try to hit the ball better!

One thing that helped for me was adjusting the base camera to be closer to the plate. The default camera has too high of a FOV which causes it to become a bit fish-eyed, in turn making pitch detection harder and before you figure it out you got burned already.

Another tip that helped me was to only go for stuff you want to hit. You can sit in the bottom of the strikezone and only go for strikes that go middle-low, or vice versa. Accepting you might be struck out looking a few times, but generally avoid trying to swing when you're struggling to control the sweet spot.

It's also useful to avoid breaking stuff if it's near the edges of the zone, you need good timing and a good sweet spot to get something out of them. If they're meatballs, then you can blast them.

If all else fails, change the hitting indicator to directional until you become confident about your timing/pitch detection, then go back to zone and learn to place your bat.

[FLiam]

So, is this better than the last?

[FLiam]

Runs terribly on Xbox One. 

[Maxx]

The only video review I found so far was from gamespot where the guy pronounced debut as “day-beaut” and made up the word “particularily” 

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

On 20/04/2021 at 10:19, FLiam said:

Runs terribly on Xbox One. 

How terribly is terribly?

[FLiam]

From what I could tell, it wasn't even hitting 30fps. Last game I played was 17 on the PS4 and that ran just fine in comparison. 

I had to uninstall as I couldn't play it like that.