Detailing the Changes to Hitting Coming to MLB The Show 19

[RaychelSnr]

On Thursday, San Diego Studio began its annual Twitch streams aimed at providing insight and information...

Written By: Joe Doyle

Click here to view the article.

[Bullit]

Well written article, but seems a little redundant.

Furthermore I will say that it just goes on to point out and solidify that the single player offline experience in sports games is dying quite quickly. Companies have all converted to the micro transaction, card flipping, e sport crowd and really just don't care for the offline single player gamer anymore.

Now I understand its all about the all mighty dollar, I get that. Companies are here to make money. If all of the offline franchise players quit buying it would be a small blip on their financial radar.

I love The Show and I am more cautiously optimistic that I was a week ago. But lets be honest for a minute. None of these changes were made to gameplay for the benefit or development of the offline franchise players. Sure we may benefit in small part because of it, but they were not made for us in any way shape or form. Just look at the offline features that have been removed in 10 years over online modes and features that have been added.

Again I am not faulting anybody for making a buck, that is they way business works. But I am just being realistic about my opinions on the future of this game and others. We of the offline community are merely an afterthought if that and we will continue to see the way we want to play our game dwindle until it is non existent and I think it will happen sooner rather than later.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bullit

Well written article, but seems a little redundant. Furthermore I will say that it just goes on to point out and solidify that the single player offline experience in sports games is dying quite quickly. Companies have all converted to the micro transaction, card flipping, e sport crowd and really just don't care for the offline single player gamer anymore. Now I understand its all about the all mighty dollar, I get that. Companies are here to make money. If all of the offline franchise players quit buying it would be a small blip on their financial radar. I love The Show and I am more cautiously optimistic that I was a week ago. But lets be honest for a minute. None of these changes were made to gameplay for the benefit or development of the offline franchise players. Sure we may benefit in small part because of it, but they were not made for us in any way shape or form. Just look at the offline features that have been removed in 10 years over online modes and features that have been added. Again I am not faulting anybody for making a buck, that is they way business works. But I am just being realistic about my opinions on the future of this game and others. We of the offline community are merely an afterthought if that and we will continue to see the way we want to play our game dwindle until it is non existent and I think it will happen sooner rather than later.

I don't agree that it's quite so simple.

If games lose the backing of the "sim" crowd, they lose the feel of the sport. Then, there is virtually no valuable content (rosters, sliders, CAPs) created after release. The feedback they get is also much less useful. What was a AAA title with many options for gameplay becomes something more of a joke game, and even the casuals start jumping ship. That's closer to what I believe would happen if they developed the game solely for the arcade-y, cheese-y, baseball know-nothings straight out of a *take my money* meme. I think it's important for them to keep some critical mass of "sim" offliners in the fold and I think they are probably smart enough to realize that.

[Trackball]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Microtransactions ruin everything.

[Cycloniac]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

I don't agree that it's quite so simple. If games lose the backing of the "sim" crowd, they lose the feel of the sport. Then, there is virtually no valuable content (rosters, sliders, CAPs) created after release. The feedback they get is also much less useful. What was a AAA title with many options for gameplay becomes something more of a joke game, and even the casuals start jumping ship. That's closer to what I believe would happen if they developed the game solely for the arcade-y, cheese-y, baseball know-nothings straight out of a *take my money* meme. I think it's important for them to keep some critical mass of "sim" offliners in the fold and I think they are probably smart enough to realize that.

I agree, to a certain point

No, it isn't so simple. I listened very carefully to what the developers were saying in both streams and I am weary that all of the gameplay changes were explained in the lens of head to head, human versus human play. This is a good example of the pendulum shifting towards online play.

With that being said, I will say that I'm excited to see how these changes are reflected in the behavior of the AI. The optimist in me says the streams and the language used was just the developers marketing their product towards the DD crowd, even though the changes made to the AI, for the offline franchise players, are still significant. Maybe they could have gone into more detail about the user vs AI experience with these changes, but I (unfortunately) understand why they didn't.

[Bullit]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

I don't agree that it's quite so simple. If games lose the backing of the "sim" crowd, they lose the feel of the sport. Then, there is virtually no valuable content (rosters, sliders, CAPs) created after release. The feedback they get is also much less useful. What was a AAA title with many options for gameplay becomes something more of a joke game, and even the casuals start jumping ship. That's closer to what I believe would happen if they developed the game solely for the arcade-y, cheese-y, baseball know-nothings straight out of a *take my money* meme. I think it's important for them to keep some critical mass of "sim" offliners in the fold and I think they are probably smart enough to realize that.

I see your point, but I still disagree on a point or two.

First there has obviously already been a decline in offline numbers pretty much across the board. Maybe not as a whole, but certainly as a percentage. Just to use base numbers for my example: Lets say 100 people play The Show and 60 of those play offline modes only. Thru development of DD, card collecting, online head to head the number of people playing the game as a whole doubles. So now 200 people play The Show. I think we can agree that the majority of those players brought into the game will spend little if any time in offline play. So as the number of players in the game increase those playing the offline modes will not see the same increase and have more potential for drop off. This would mean that over time the percentage of people playing offline would steadily decrease.

We can already see this happening. Starting with 17 the developers started working on making The Show more approachable to new users. Which at its core is a good thing. But we have also seen no real development in any offline mode except for RTTS. This isnt just a SDS problem , I think this can be seen across the board. All of the major sports titles have added "RTTS" modes to increase accessibility to the player base for offline, but all of these modes are tied to micro transactions of some form or another to increase monetization of the game as a whole.

So yes, while popularity and player count go up, in my opinion (based on pretty solid financial and mathematical formulas of economics) the overall percentage of people playing offline will go down over time. Again let me be clear I am not saying this is a problem for any company or a fault at all. I am not laying blame or bad mouthing anybody. This is straight up economics of capitalism. I love the folks at SDS and hold them in very high regard. They put out a wonderful product that has kept me playing for well over a decade. But things change, the world changes and as much as I HATE change it is inevitable.

I used to play every sport title out there, I mean all of them. Now I only play The Show and I know I am not the only one. I am also sure that there are players in the respective game that have given up all other games and only play FIFA or Madden Or NBA2k. This is my second point. The loss of those players in each of those games has had no effect whatsoever on their bottom lines. But it does effect the development of those titles. If the numbers of offline players in any sports title was as high or effective at bringing in income then we would see development of those modes to a much higher degree. But the lack of ability to tie money into these modes has and will effect their growth. Look at the results when 2K added micro-transactions into the GM mode. Was it not added that you had to purchase with VC the ability to trade players or other GM decisions as well. I am not sure because I stopped playing those games because of things like this. I am sure others did as well, but again it did not change anything going forward with the game.

So thats a long winded treaty that I really let get away from me sorry, but I had good intentions.

[Caulfield]

so knuckleballs and splitters will be less effective this year. dont particularly care about the knuckler, but I love that splitter so I'll definitely be interested in seeing just what I can do throwing it. Wonder if the splitter's ugly cousin the forkball is affected.

[nemesis04]

Quote: Originally Posted by Caulfield

so knuckleballs and splitters will be less effective this year. dont particularly care about the knuckler, but I love that splitter so I'll definitely be interested in seeing just what I can do throwing it. Wonder if the splitter's ugly cousin the forkball is affected.

Unless it is the pitcher’s number 1, then it would not be less effective.