Though its opening week has been beleaguered by technical difficulties, Diamond Dynasty's redesign for MLB 15: The Show has transformed the mode from being a total afterthought in MLB 14: The Show to being something that I somehow want to keep playing, despite all of its mechanical kinks. If Sony San Diego's quality assurance department can squash some of these bugs over the next week or two, then Diamond Dynasty could become one of the better fantasy team modes in sports gaming.
 

You can customize everything

MLB 15: The Show is the only Ultimate Team-style mode that lets users hand-design their own logos and uniforms. It's an excellent way to let players express their personality, plus it increases the feeling of ownership you have towards your team. Even if you're an uncreative person, you can still download other people's creations by accessing the "Vault" feature. I just wish that everything uploaded to the Vault carried over to the next version of MLB The Show, because it's a bummer having to spend a day or two recreating the same super-detailed designs every season.

Customizable logos/uniforms should be a standard option in every fantasy team mode by now, but I'm guessing that it still hasn't (and won't) become widespread, for the greedy reasons detailed immediately below:

Reasonable card packs

Most Ultimate Team-type modes water down their card packs by filling them with worthless items like uniforms, logos, coaches, attribute boosts, and player contracts. Developers do this to lower the odds of players pulling anything worthwhile, which urges users to continue opening packs over and over again, until they finally get something good -- after dozens, if not hundreds of attempts.

Card packs -- which cost a mere 1,000 stubs -- are still an odds-based gamble in MLB 15: The Show, but the contents feel more rewarding in Diamond Dynasty than they do in MyTeam/Ultimate Team, since the ratio of junk (2 trinkets) to athletes (6 ballplayers) is more reasonable. The ability to "feed" unneeded cards directly to your created player and raise his attribute ratings also helps to alleviate the frustration of receiving duplicate players.

Dynamic player ratings for current-day MLB cards

In one of the Twitch livestreams leading up to MLB 15: The Show's release, Sony mentioned that the player ratings for all current-day cards will be automatically updated throughout the season alongside the game's regular roster updates. That means buying low on 2014 disappointments like Cliff Lee or Prince Fielder could pay off later this year, if those players return to their past forms.

This method of keeping the player cards updated is much more consumer-friendly than what Ultimate Team and MyTeam do -- i.e., releasing three, four, even five differently rated versions of the same athlete throughout the year. Once you purchase a player in Diamond Dynasty, he's yours to keep for the remainder of MLB 15, and his ratings will rise or fall according to how he performs in real life. It's also nice to not have to worry about managing player contracts, which was a concept that only benefited the game companies, by forcing users to continue spending currency, even after they'd acquired all the cards they desired.

Well-organized auction area

The marketplaces in Ultimate Team and MyTeam are cluttered, difficult-to-navigate messes. Instead of being overwhelmed by dozens of clone cards, all lined up in short, slow-to-load, single-file rows, Diamond Dynasty simply has one page per team and one listing per player, which makes it easy to find the exact item that you're searching for. Athletes are even ordered by their overall rating, making it simple to see the most valuable items for each team. There is no eBay-style countdown clock, so you won't have to worry about getting outbid at the last second by bothersome "snipers." And there's no need to keep relisting items repeatedly, since orders never expire. If someone undercuts you by one or two stubs, it only takes about 15 seconds to cancel your old listing and post a replacement order. Even entering bids is easier in Diamond Dynasty, because it uses a punch-in numberpad instead of an incrementally scrolling number slider. Everything you can do on your PlayStation 4, you can also do on your computer or smart phone, thanks to MLB 15's web-powered marketplace.

Whiffs

This is the most blatantly "pay to win" mode in sports gaming

Ultimate Team and MyTeam have always been designed to prevent users from directly purchasing in-game currency. In those modes, gamers are only allowed to spend real money on randomized card packs. Despite that setup, unofficial "black markets" still exist in Madden NFL, EA NHL, NBA 2K, et al., allowing gamers to purchase in-game currency at unofficial "coin selling" websites. This illegal practice has cost Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive quite a bit of cash, so to compensate, Sony San Diego has just decided to let MLB 15 users purchase currency (called "stubs") at their official in-game shop. That decision works well for Sony (more money into their coffers), and for the players who are willing to use their credit cards to build-up their squad (unburdened by the randomness of card packs). But for the users who refuse to pay more than MSRP for their sports games, Diamond Dynasty puts its $60-per-year customers at a greater competitive disadvantage than any other Ultimate Team-type mode.

Hit-by-pitch and walk cutscenes are freezing online games

It only took a couple days for the MLB 15 community to discover that repeatedly walking or hitting a batter will often trigger a fatal freeze bug in online contests. So if you take the lead in an online match, and your opponent knows about the freeze glitch, he can trigger it the next time he takes the mound, and now you're stuck in a stand-off, where the person who turns off his system first will be handed a loss.

The developers, at least, are already aware of this issue, and are working on a fix for it.

Extra Innings games against the CPU aren't being processed

Currently, there are three ways to play Diamond Dynasty: online versus another user, offline versus a CPU-controlled MLB team, offline versus a CPU-controlled user-created team. That last option is named "Extra Innings," and unfortunately, none of the five games I've completed in that mode have shown up under my match history. A message will appear on the screen after you finish a game, stating that "the results are being processed." It's been a week and a half since MLB 15: The Show's release day, and still, none of my Extra Innings games have been processed.

This exact issue was in MLB 14: The Show, which makes it even more irksome to see again this season.

No option for shorter matches

An hour is a long time to commit to online match, especially when you're competing against complete strangers, who may or may not be numskulls. Like Madden NFL's Ultimate Team mode, MLB: The Show needs an option for shorter online games. Sony San Diego could accomplish that by turning on Quick Counts, or by making a separate mode that starts at the seventh inning, with a tie score and appropriately fatigued starting pitchers.

No way to play your friends

Playing online against total strangers or offline against predictable computer opponents should not be your only options in Diamond Dynasty. Users should be able to challenge their friends to unranked matches that don't count towards the global leaderboards, and don't generate any stubs or universal rewards (to prevent "farming").

If your pause timer expires, you automatically forfeit the game

To minimize griefing, MLB 15: The Show has implemented a five-minute pause limit for each player. That's fine for a nine-inning contest, but if a game goes to extra innings, then those five minutes might not be enough time to make all the necessary defensive and offensive adjustments that happen during a baseball game. Right now, if your pause timer runs out, you automatically forfeit the game, regardless of what the scoreboard says. A simple solution to this problem is adding another minute to each player's pause timer at the start of every inning past the ninth. That way, users will still have plenty of time to make the appropriate changes, even in lengthy games.

Online difficulty level should be higher than "All-Star"

Many Diamond Dynasty lineups are already filled with athletes who have juiced-up attribute ratings, resulting in hitting cursors that fill the entire strike zone, and throwing accuracy that allows pitchers to easily paint the corners. To compensate, the online difficulty settings for head to head games really need to be raised to "Hall of Fame" or "Legend." That way, users will have to work a lot harder at the plate to get hits and strikeouts, instead of being able to turn their brains off, and let the attribute ratings do all the work.

Your created player's stats are not being recorded

Whether you've been playing offline or online games, your created player's career stats will show zeros across every category, because Diamond Dynasty is not currently recording CAP statistics. Baseball places a higher importance on box score numbers than any other American sport, and baseball video games shouldn't be any different. Let's see some stats for these CAPs, Sony!

Cannot save separate hitting lineups according to pitcher handedness

No manager is going to pencil-in a bunch of hitters who are bad against left-handed pitching, once he sees that the starter he'll be facing is a lefty. So why not let users create two separate squads based on pitcher handedness? The appropriate lineup could automatically load-in once your opponent's starting pitcher is decided in the randomized "dice roll." A hitter's ratings can drop by 20 to 30 points in MLB 15: The Show, just based on the pitcher's handedness, so users should be able to set lineups that are pitcher-appropriate, before entering a game.

What do you think of Diamond Dynasty? Are you a fan of this year's mode?