MLB 15 The Show: A Look Back At What Worked and What Didn't

[RaychelSnr]

For many baseball fans, the end of the World Series simply signals the beginning of the offseason, a period arguably as exciting and tumultuous as the regular season. It's also when we start getting our first glimpse of what the next iteration of MLB: The Show may bring us come next spring.

Before we jump ahead to next season, however, let's take a quick look back at MLB 15: The Show.

Read More - MLB 15 The Show: A Look Back At What Worked and What Didn't

[bravesvolsfan]

Agreed 100%. If they allow us to relocate and/or expand in Franchise mode, that could open the door to Create-A-Stadium. Make a Create-A-Stadium available in all modes and have the option to upload them to the Vault. I would like to see them model their Franchise mode like OOTP.

[ozcore]

mlb the show is by far the best sports game out there, which i play all year long and never get fed up. unlike other games like nhl or nba which i play for like a week then i stop playing it. I'm sure we won't be disappointed with mlb 16

[ryanmc564]

All good points here, except I would consider the fielding defensive changes to be something that went wrong not right, this was the only version of the show where I turned fielding to auto, due to the constant frustrating errors being made. One thing I would like to see for 16 is improve baserunning logic and animation (the batter running down to first looked terrible this year and had a weird hitch/slow down when approaching the bag)

[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.

[Lisac]

The only thing that i would love the most is to relocate a team or create a Stadium. Would love to move the Rays and A's out of their crappy parks and would love to relocate a team back to Montreal.
And if this isnt possible than give us more old time parks or better yet better minor league stadiums, The ones currently in the game are pretty bad (imo)

[asu666]

First, let me say that I love MLB and appreciate the thousands of good things the team does. Now for the constructive observations on where to go with the next version:
1. Quality control at launch
2. Sponsorships rolled back to visual only
3. A second broadcast team and presentation package
4. A NBA 2K-like "My Gm" mode

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by ryanmc564

All good points here, except I would consider the fielding defensive changes to be something that went wrong not right, this was the only version of the show where I turned fielding to auto, due to the constant frustrating errors being made. One thing I would like to see for 16 is improve baserunning logic and animation (the batter running down to first looked terrible this year and had a weird hitch/slow down when approaching the bag)

I can understand that.

I play auto fielding and manual throwing and it was the best playing Show as far as OF play and IF play I have seen. So it worked on different levels.

Manual fielding though IMO was vastly improved upon than past versions. It did not have that over clunky feeling like in years past and I felt more in control. With great OF's the animation would lock in easier and quicker where as a weak fielder you had little room for error in lining up a ball. It was not perfect, still needs some refinement, but I still feel fielding overall was improved from years past where it was almost totally canned.