MLB 15 The Show: Diamond Dynasty Hits and Whiffs

[xCeeTee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dolenz

It's only pay to win if player skill is removed from the equation. I am absolutely atrocious at fielding and base running so while I could easily go buy a lineup of legend, diamond and gold players, a skilled player could probably beat me with bronze and common.

I have just a basic team and in my last game I played against a full Gold team with a couple of Diamonds includiding Miggy! I'm nowhere near a decent player, yet I held him to 2 runs all game and they were only because I got the controls mixed up with RTTS', then he won when I 'forfeited' because I called a mound visit lmao.

I HATE Ultimate Team and MyTeam, it is all just pay to win. This on the other hand is amaing, especially with them awards.

[thedudedominick]

I almost feel like to make the games competitive and create some different lineups, DD could use sort of a salary cap. Each card has assigned value and your roster has to fit under that. It would give people a chance to really use all of their cards and not just throw together gold and diamond players resulting in each team consisting of the same 20 guys.

[yingjjin]

I am absolutely atrocious at fielding and base running so while I could easily go buy a lineup of legend, diamond and gold players, a skilled player could probably beat me with bronze and common.

[ChaseB]

Quote: Originally Posted by thedudedominick

I almost feel like to make the games competitive and create some different lineups, DD could use sort of a salary cap. Each card has assigned value and your roster has to fit under that. It would give people a chance to really use all of their cards and not just throw together gold and diamond players resulting in each team consisting of the same 20 guys.

I would love if there was a Salary Cap side option as a way to have a different team. I just wonder if they worry about splintering the user base. It seems like they try to keep the mode as streamlined as possible.

[nomo17k]

I don't know if salary cap is a good solution to avoid all stacked teams to converge to similar looking teams with all the same players (as there are other ways I believe), but there should be some sort of mechanism to maintain the variety across the mode.

Honestly I don't think the developers thought people would be so quick to assemble all these stacked teams, but it was kind of obvious that this would happen given that the market aspect is pretty wide open for more values to flow into the mode from the other game modes, and values do not expire (except for feeding into the custom players).

I think this year's Diamond Dynasty is a smashing success in a sense that the intention of bringing in a lot of gamers into the mode to try things out by lowering the entry bar much lower than what the mode used to have, but as someone who has enjoyed the mode in the previous states I do miss some of more creative and deeper aspects of the old mode, like more customization and the roster management involving training, etc.

And in a sense it's also kind of sad to see it was a drastic simplification that has led to such a spike in popularity of the mode. In my opinion DD was already very interesting way to enjoy the game, but it's apparent complexity kept people away from just even trying the mode in the past.

[ChaseB]

Quote: Originally Posted by nomo17k

I don't know if salary cap is a good solution to avoid all stacked teams to converge to similar looking teams with all the same players (as there are other ways I believe), but there should be some sort of mechanism to maintain the variety across the mode. Honestly I don't think the developers thought people would be so quick to assemble all these stacked teams, but it was kind of obvious that this would happen given that the market aspect is pretty wide open for more values to flow into the mode from the other game modes, and values do not expire (except for feeding into the custom players). I think this year's Diamond Dynasty is a smashing success in a sense that the intention of bringing in a lot of gamers into the mode to try things out by lowering the entry bar much lower than what the mode used to have, but as someone who has enjoyed the mode in the previous states I do miss some of more creative and deeper aspects of the old mode, like more customization and the roster management involving training, etc. And in a sense it's also kind of sad to see it was a drastic simplification that has led to such a spike in popularity of the mode. In my opinion DD was already very interesting way to enjoy the game, but it's apparent complexity kept people away from just even trying the mode in the past.

I don't know, I hate to just go as far to say that simplification is the reason for it doing well. I would argue more there were lots of weird barriers in previous years that have been removed. Sometimes streamlining and simplification are just what makes sense. I mean I'm pro adding layers back like training or contracts etc. but what makes Diamond Dynasty stand out is that it's streamlined and does feel different than the other team-building modes out there. If you add those things back, you have to make them unique.

[nomo17k]

Quote: Originally Posted by ChaseB

I don't know, I hate to just go as far to say that simplification is the reason for it doing well. I would argue more there were lots of weird barriers in previous years that have been removed. Sometimes streamlining and simplification are just what makes sense. I mean I'm pro adding layers back like training or contracts etc. but what makes Diamond Dynasty stand out is that it's streamlined and does feel different than the other team-building modes out there. If you add those things back, you have to make them unique.

I'm not saying this year's version is dumbed down or too simple; I think it's good for what it intends to offer.

I agree that the mode definitely had quite a few "barriers" which prevented casual entry.... but it did offer rather unique experiences in my opinion. There were issues in game balance but if you overlook them the whole array of customization options offered very unique experiences. I know a few guys who had "official" twitter/twitch accounts for streaming their DD games, etc.

I feel this year's DD, due to being primarily filled with MLB players, took away some gamers simply from the online rated player pool. That by itself isn't a bad thing, but there were some old DD fans who saw the attraction of the mode being its fantasy nature (i.e., not just fantasy draft type thing but also the presence of fully customizable DD players).

If I want to play "competitive" skill-based online game, I still prefer online-rated over DD, because in DD when you get ranked higher you start facing teams full of same players (who are good at taking advantage of where the game falls short in providing balanced game... be it power hitters, speedsters, too successful bunters, etc.) over and over and it's simply not fun.