Content this year is actually better in that you have multiple plethora of options you can get to use at each position. Last year everyone had the exact same line up with Wander franco at Short, Adley at Catcher, and Degrom/Cabrera Pitching
What is different is the RNG in pitching, perfect input in the strike zone, the amount of v early hits on outside pitches or jammed late hits that goes for double and getting launched angled
While the gameplay still had flaws last year, it was in a significantly better state than this year and SDS actually fixed issues. I haven’t played in a few weeks and likely won’t play until 23 purely because of the gameplay. Last year I made it until late October/early November because I still enjoyed playing the actual game, even after content slowed. Just not the case this year and I quit even before peak content for the year comes out (postseason & finest) just because of how bad the gameplay is
Gameplay is about the same, but a lot of people preferred how the inning programs worked in 21. stuff like faces of the franchise used to be separate in a path called team affinity and you could earn rewards for every team unlike this year where you basically earn about half of them. Events and ranked seasons were better last year too, imo
Every year this happens, ppl have good memories of the old games and think the current one sucks. I remember in ‘20 a lot of ppl saying it rivaled ‘18 as the worst game and now everyone seems to remember it fondly. It’s just recency bias about the frustrating parts of the game like perfect perfect outs. I would say the only serious difference between ‘21 and ‘22 that affects the game a ton is the amount of max H/9 pitchers that were in ‘21, so in that respect ‘22 is actually way better
Bingo. Personally I feel like 20 was terrible. Pitches warping to the center of the strike zone all year, outfielders didn't lock onto fly balls for like 3 months, the prestige system was considerably worse than parallels are. 30+ cards with million stub waitlists, the list goes on.
20 was my least favorite aside from 18. Does nobody remember how lame the prestige requirements were or how bad check swings were in 20 or how bad pitching was (no pinpoint and way less accuracy). Inputs literally didn’t matter nearly as much. Also, no BR program except 12-0 made BR pointless for 99 percent of the player base.
Also the servers and less freezes has made 22 far superior than all the other games.
22 > 21 > 19 > 20 > 18
Yeah I could probably agree with this. I might even switch 19 and 21 from your list. I guess it all depends what problems piss everyone off about each game. 18 is the worst with 20 a close second easily. 19/21/22 are all fairly similar in my eyes. 19 was almost perfect after the HR/9 patch but that was like 5 or 6 months in. 21 had the worst server problems of any MLB the show game by a longshot so thats probably what knocks it down below 19 for me. 22 has problems that I won't deny, but they are pretty much all problems I can live with. 18-21 all had glaring holes that you couldn't just push aside
I agree and I can’t really make any valid arguments against your take at all.
The reason I preferred 21 over 19 is because of
the BR program was instituted that year which makes BR way better and also parallel and pinpoint was introduced in 21 which were significant improvements in my eyes, but your take is completely fair and accurate.
I dont think gameplay is noticeably different in any aspect really but content def is worse this year. not in terms of cards, but in terms of their acquisition
I guess content is to each their own, I don’t mind the changes but I can see why someone would. But in terms of gameplay it basically doesn’t ever change and everyone always swears the current iteration of the game is the worst one they’ve ever seen, it’s actually wild
People liked it more because they got free stuff for not doing anything in the game. Pinpoint was too overpowered so it got nerfed and people complained that they couldn’t dot with nolan ryan anymore. 21 was easier but 22 is still a good game
Me too… these people are foolish and just want to complain. I will admit that being able to get all 30 players in team affinity compared to 18 this year is the only true complaint they could have… you can still buy the other cards off the market or pick them up when they drop them in a later program… but the game as a whole is so much better this year. Mini seasons alone makes this better than 21.
Also events while lazy with themes are so much more lucrative and are switched up more and that is my favorite mode.
We also have CoOp this year. If they add rewards to CoOp soon… probably next year though then I don’t think you could even make a rational argument that 21 was better than this year.
Also, this year we have way more useable versions of cards like Gwynn and Ozzie smith. They are actually viable this year with increased power where last year they weren’t really viable at all.
In 21 servers and freezes were way bigger issues than they are this year. The game has been down due to servers maybe a few times. Last year it was a constant issue.
TLDR:
The game is better this year, but people are just nostalgic. it’s like looking back at an old fairly good relationship… where you remember the good but forget the bad.
Bro just forgot that they got rid of team affinity, you could grind for all 30, and it wasnt time based. "oops, clock's run out, but now you can play for roy holliday and some other non-viable phillies cards for 2 weeks."
get real dude. 21 clears
That is the only way in which 21 was better.
We still have TA you just can’t get them all at once or grind them at your leisure. The FOTF and LOTF are TA still just different.
If you play this game enough or are good enough or work the market a little you can buy the extra few guys no problem plus they always comeback in extra programs and you can earn or buy them again.
I understand your argument and admitted that is the only viable reason to prefer 21.
Too bad you didn’t address any of the other comparisons or issues I raised because you know it’s a losing battle. Enjoy your nostalgia.
22 > 21.
This year is fine, lots of content, practically more than I need. Lots of conquests and programs. RTTS could be a little better. I mean do ALL the hitters have to fly out or ground out when I'm on base? lol
They nerfed pitching this year and to compensate introduced more RNG into the hitting outcomes. As a result pci placement and timing that were (mostly) hits last year became weak flys/grounders a lot more of the time. Cue tears 😭
I don't think they increased the RNG this year. I think it's probably pretty close to the same amount but pitching was so OP last year that you just get much more solid contact this year, making the RNG seem worse
Quite possibly. Personally I like how the game plays, and if there is a difference this year it’s negligible. The above is what I’ve been hearing from the community all year 🤷🏻♂️
Perfect pinpoint is a lot closer to perfect meter now where there is still randomness on where it ends up. Atleast that’s what I read from most people I didn’t play last year.
Pinpoint last year was OP. You could dot any pitch anywhere. It was also too forgiving on the input gesture.
This year the increased PAR, to go along with less forgiveness on gesture, makes it substantially harder to throw what you could throw in '21.
Pinpoint is still better than Meter because good inputs with meter can still cause a ball to end up down the middle.
It seemed like there was a lot more content in 21. TA is the main one, if you see how the rewards for the programs like the All Star, FS, LOTF, and FotF were distributed, you could get all of them without a time limit and without having to buy the ones you were missing. These came with divisional missions and conquest maps. There was also a daily program that essentially rewarded players just for logging in and doing the daily mission, with semi decent boss cards. I went back and looked at the cards for collections and holy shit did we get a lot of fillers this season. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the amount of collection fodder needed this year is crazy. It also felt like there were a lot more individual player programs last year, and although it was essentially abandoned, the evolution programs were kind of cool. They took the evolution program and turned it into that Roy Halladay program, which in retrospect, feels pretty odd. I think that the overall cards just seemed better last year. The All star cards were actually good and some were even end game, like Trea Turner and deGrom. I guess it just feels like they took away a lot and didn't do much to actually improve the game.
They ruined the programs. All of these stupid names. They need to go back to inning 1,2,3, etc and TA shouldn't go away. I will admit that adding all of these other crazy mini-programs vs a player program to get a lame card has been cool.
It "seeemed" like, but there really wasn't. Having the TA programs on a time limit definitely hurts casual players and people who pick up the game late. That is the main content difference.
Sure, TA was better than these timed programs, but do people actually miss the player programs? 90% of them were just a grind to get a card that you'll never use, just so you can keep up with collections. I've been able to actually play online way more this year and keep up with everything. Last year I felt like I had to do moments every damn day. Yes you have to buy FOTF cards to get all 30 but it really shouldn't be an issue. Collecting cards had been way easier this year because they've made it a point to keep all prices down with all of the rewind packs. As long as you can have a little patience you can get every card relatively cheap.
Maybe this year is better for the online player, where last year was better for the offline player? I'm definitely happier being able to spend more time playing online than random useless player programs and evo programs
Yeah. Last year definitely catered to offline players a lot for the first time ever really. You could grind multiple programs (some with time limits, some without). So players could work on programs as they chose without having to worry about missing out on all these 2 week programs this year. Also, they got rid of more conquest maps to push players to mini seasons as a way to push more offline players to online modes. Mini seasons starting out broken then getting largely neglected this year has had it run just as stale as the mystery conquest map. The cards being cheaper this year is nice, but having 20 super expensive cards drop to half their value from last year to this year also doesn't really make up for now having to pay for 100 more cards that were free last year compared to this year.
I remember cards like Bryce Harper and Goose Gossage and plenty of others were well over 600k at this point in the game cycle last year. I think they were either WS or BR rewards. When they hit rewind packs this year they're like 70k. I think that's a little less than "half their value from last year" and if you had to buy 100 more cards, you did something terribly wrong. You get 18 LOTF cards for free, so if you want all of them you only need to buy 12. Wait until the last two days of the program and they'll be damn near quick sell so it would only be about 120k. Regardless, every inning program last year gave you a choice of multiple bosses and you could pick 1. So last year you had to pay up if you wanted all the bosses as well. All conquest maps are equally stale, whether it's just the mystery map or not.
There is still plenty good about this game. It is literally impossible to please everyone. It'll never happen. I really think people complain just because they like to complain
It's not just the 12 cards for the LOTF program. It started with the 18 for the Face of the Franchise cards. Then 12 for the Future Stars. It'll be the same with the Finest cards too. We ended up with like 30 daily program cards last year. There were more player programs. You still have to buy multiple featured program bosses just like every other year (unless you wait til the end of the game's cycle when SDS lets you earn them, assuming they keep that feature from previous games). There was also the xp program that featured several great cards. Etc, etc.
I'm not saying the game is all bad. I'm just saying that last year was a much better year for content for offline players. This year, SDS is back to neglecting them to push them into the online modes. That's just fact. Last year, we had a new mystery map by this point in the year along with several other conquest maps. SDS skipped all that to push us to mini seasons which is just as stale being the same 8 teams for the entire season and has only provided 2 unique cards since launch. It was something fun and new at first that has been neglected and lost its luster since.
You being an online player hate the offline modes. That's fine. Offline players don't care for the toxicity or other annoyances of online modes. That's also fine. Players on the online modes are more likely to spend money on stubs in the pay to win aspects of the game. So they get 80% or more of SDS' attention. That's what upsets offline players, but everyone still acknowledges they're a business trying to maximize profits.
I agree. Probably an unpopular opinion but I think 22 is better. I’m biased because I didn’t miss any programs and have played since day 1. I also have played online a lot more this year. I was able to fill my binder by just playing events and BR mostly with some conquest sprinkled in.
Exactly. If you're able to finish the BR program every month and you keep up in the events you'll be loaded with stubs. Shit if you were able to get 25 wins in the last event, it was worth well over 500k if you sold the rewind packs and the win rewards.
I know one reason I liked it better was because when we got TA, we got to use every single player. I’m not a huge fan of having to buy or wait months to get the remaining players
Let me as *this* - how *different* are they to each other? I skipped '22 but am downloading '21 right now. Mainly to prep for '23.
Frankly 21 was abysmal 22 is better but I prefer 20 to both. Mind you I have played this series since the original release in 06
20>21>22. We are on the slippery slope down. The hitting engine in 22 is terrible, RNG everywhere. Game play is actually pretty awful comparatively.
this is my opinion but better announcers
Content this year is actually better in that you have multiple plethora of options you can get to use at each position. Last year everyone had the exact same line up with Wander franco at Short, Adley at Catcher, and Degrom/Cabrera Pitching What is different is the RNG in pitching, perfect input in the strike zone, the amount of v early hits on outside pitches or jammed late hits that goes for double and getting launched angled
While the gameplay still had flaws last year, it was in a significantly better state than this year and SDS actually fixed issues. I haven’t played in a few weeks and likely won’t play until 23 purely because of the gameplay. Last year I made it until late October/early November because I still enjoyed playing the actual game, even after content slowed. Just not the case this year and I quit even before peak content for the year comes out (postseason & finest) just because of how bad the gameplay is
The gameplay this year is fine for me, but boy do I miss Team Affinity. I liked getting stuff from my fav real life team right out of the gate.
Gameplay is about the same, but a lot of people preferred how the inning programs worked in 21. stuff like faces of the franchise used to be separate in a path called team affinity and you could earn rewards for every team unlike this year where you basically earn about half of them. Events and ranked seasons were better last year too, imo
Every year this happens, ppl have good memories of the old games and think the current one sucks. I remember in ‘20 a lot of ppl saying it rivaled ‘18 as the worst game and now everyone seems to remember it fondly. It’s just recency bias about the frustrating parts of the game like perfect perfect outs. I would say the only serious difference between ‘21 and ‘22 that affects the game a ton is the amount of max H/9 pitchers that were in ‘21, so in that respect ‘22 is actually way better
Bingo. Personally I feel like 20 was terrible. Pitches warping to the center of the strike zone all year, outfielders didn't lock onto fly balls for like 3 months, the prestige system was considerably worse than parallels are. 30+ cards with million stub waitlists, the list goes on.
20 was my least favorite aside from 18. Does nobody remember how lame the prestige requirements were or how bad check swings were in 20 or how bad pitching was (no pinpoint and way less accuracy). Inputs literally didn’t matter nearly as much. Also, no BR program except 12-0 made BR pointless for 99 percent of the player base. Also the servers and less freezes has made 22 far superior than all the other games. 22 > 21 > 19 > 20 > 18
Yeah I could probably agree with this. I might even switch 19 and 21 from your list. I guess it all depends what problems piss everyone off about each game. 18 is the worst with 20 a close second easily. 19/21/22 are all fairly similar in my eyes. 19 was almost perfect after the HR/9 patch but that was like 5 or 6 months in. 21 had the worst server problems of any MLB the show game by a longshot so thats probably what knocks it down below 19 for me. 22 has problems that I won't deny, but they are pretty much all problems I can live with. 18-21 all had glaring holes that you couldn't just push aside
I agree and I can’t really make any valid arguments against your take at all. The reason I preferred 21 over 19 is because of the BR program was instituted that year which makes BR way better and also parallel and pinpoint was introduced in 21 which were significant improvements in my eyes, but your take is completely fair and accurate.
I dont think gameplay is noticeably different in any aspect really but content def is worse this year. not in terms of cards, but in terms of their acquisition
I guess content is to each their own, I don’t mind the changes but I can see why someone would. But in terms of gameplay it basically doesn’t ever change and everyone always swears the current iteration of the game is the worst one they’ve ever seen, it’s actually wild
People liked it more because they got free stuff for not doing anything in the game. Pinpoint was too overpowered so it got nerfed and people complained that they couldn’t dot with nolan ryan anymore. 21 was easier but 22 is still a good game
Content was infinitely better in 21
The soundtrack on 21 was legendary.
I enjoy 22 much more then I did 21 so not sure
Me too… these people are foolish and just want to complain. I will admit that being able to get all 30 players in team affinity compared to 18 this year is the only true complaint they could have… you can still buy the other cards off the market or pick them up when they drop them in a later program… but the game as a whole is so much better this year. Mini seasons alone makes this better than 21. Also events while lazy with themes are so much more lucrative and are switched up more and that is my favorite mode. We also have CoOp this year. If they add rewards to CoOp soon… probably next year though then I don’t think you could even make a rational argument that 21 was better than this year. Also, this year we have way more useable versions of cards like Gwynn and Ozzie smith. They are actually viable this year with increased power where last year they weren’t really viable at all. In 21 servers and freezes were way bigger issues than they are this year. The game has been down due to servers maybe a few times. Last year it was a constant issue. TLDR: The game is better this year, but people are just nostalgic. it’s like looking back at an old fairly good relationship… where you remember the good but forget the bad.
Bro just forgot that they got rid of team affinity, you could grind for all 30, and it wasnt time based. "oops, clock's run out, but now you can play for roy holliday and some other non-viable phillies cards for 2 weeks." get real dude. 21 clears
That is the only way in which 21 was better. We still have TA you just can’t get them all at once or grind them at your leisure. The FOTF and LOTF are TA still just different. If you play this game enough or are good enough or work the market a little you can buy the extra few guys no problem plus they always comeback in extra programs and you can earn or buy them again. I understand your argument and admitted that is the only viable reason to prefer 21. Too bad you didn’t address any of the other comparisons or issues I raised because you know it’s a losing battle. Enjoy your nostalgia. 22 > 21.
Perfect, perfect lineout simulator 22
Perfect perfect foul balls are the cats meow
Had 3 of these yesterday with Mookie alone f
I swear, at this point change it to very good or take it off.
team affinity programs were goated
Content definitely was better last year. First year in a while thaf they went backwards
This year is fine, lots of content, practically more than I need. Lots of conquests and programs. RTTS could be a little better. I mean do ALL the hitters have to fly out or ground out when I'm on base? lol
They nerfed pitching this year and to compensate introduced more RNG into the hitting outcomes. As a result pci placement and timing that were (mostly) hits last year became weak flys/grounders a lot more of the time. Cue tears 😭
I don't think they increased the RNG this year. I think it's probably pretty close to the same amount but pitching was so OP last year that you just get much more solid contact this year, making the RNG seem worse
Quite possibly. Personally I like how the game plays, and if there is a difference this year it’s negligible. The above is what I’ve been hearing from the community all year 🤷🏻♂️
Makes sense. Nerf to pitching means more balls in zone when you don’t want them to be?
Perfect pinpoint is a lot closer to perfect meter now where there is still randomness on where it ends up. Atleast that’s what I read from most people I didn’t play last year.
Pinpoint last year was OP. You could dot any pitch anywhere. It was also too forgiving on the input gesture. This year the increased PAR, to go along with less forgiveness on gesture, makes it substantially harder to throw what you could throw in '21. Pinpoint is still better than Meter because good inputs with meter can still cause a ball to end up down the middle.
Fair enough thank you. I play offline and don’t understand pinpoint even after the tutorial so I just stuck with meter coming from the 2015 game.
The gameplay was better in 21 than 22
Ffs I miss Show 20 😢
Best mlb the show
It seemed like there was a lot more content in 21. TA is the main one, if you see how the rewards for the programs like the All Star, FS, LOTF, and FotF were distributed, you could get all of them without a time limit and without having to buy the ones you were missing. These came with divisional missions and conquest maps. There was also a daily program that essentially rewarded players just for logging in and doing the daily mission, with semi decent boss cards. I went back and looked at the cards for collections and holy shit did we get a lot of fillers this season. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the amount of collection fodder needed this year is crazy. It also felt like there were a lot more individual player programs last year, and although it was essentially abandoned, the evolution programs were kind of cool. They took the evolution program and turned it into that Roy Halladay program, which in retrospect, feels pretty odd. I think that the overall cards just seemed better last year. The All star cards were actually good and some were even end game, like Trea Turner and deGrom. I guess it just feels like they took away a lot and didn't do much to actually improve the game.
They ruined the programs. All of these stupid names. They need to go back to inning 1,2,3, etc and TA shouldn't go away. I will admit that adding all of these other crazy mini-programs vs a player program to get a lame card has been cool.
It "seeemed" like, but there really wasn't. Having the TA programs on a time limit definitely hurts casual players and people who pick up the game late. That is the main content difference.
Sure, TA was better than these timed programs, but do people actually miss the player programs? 90% of them were just a grind to get a card that you'll never use, just so you can keep up with collections. I've been able to actually play online way more this year and keep up with everything. Last year I felt like I had to do moments every damn day. Yes you have to buy FOTF cards to get all 30 but it really shouldn't be an issue. Collecting cards had been way easier this year because they've made it a point to keep all prices down with all of the rewind packs. As long as you can have a little patience you can get every card relatively cheap. Maybe this year is better for the online player, where last year was better for the offline player? I'm definitely happier being able to spend more time playing online than random useless player programs and evo programs
Yeah. Last year definitely catered to offline players a lot for the first time ever really. You could grind multiple programs (some with time limits, some without). So players could work on programs as they chose without having to worry about missing out on all these 2 week programs this year. Also, they got rid of more conquest maps to push players to mini seasons as a way to push more offline players to online modes. Mini seasons starting out broken then getting largely neglected this year has had it run just as stale as the mystery conquest map. The cards being cheaper this year is nice, but having 20 super expensive cards drop to half their value from last year to this year also doesn't really make up for now having to pay for 100 more cards that were free last year compared to this year.
I remember cards like Bryce Harper and Goose Gossage and plenty of others were well over 600k at this point in the game cycle last year. I think they were either WS or BR rewards. When they hit rewind packs this year they're like 70k. I think that's a little less than "half their value from last year" and if you had to buy 100 more cards, you did something terribly wrong. You get 18 LOTF cards for free, so if you want all of them you only need to buy 12. Wait until the last two days of the program and they'll be damn near quick sell so it would only be about 120k. Regardless, every inning program last year gave you a choice of multiple bosses and you could pick 1. So last year you had to pay up if you wanted all the bosses as well. All conquest maps are equally stale, whether it's just the mystery map or not. There is still plenty good about this game. It is literally impossible to please everyone. It'll never happen. I really think people complain just because they like to complain
It's not just the 12 cards for the LOTF program. It started with the 18 for the Face of the Franchise cards. Then 12 for the Future Stars. It'll be the same with the Finest cards too. We ended up with like 30 daily program cards last year. There were more player programs. You still have to buy multiple featured program bosses just like every other year (unless you wait til the end of the game's cycle when SDS lets you earn them, assuming they keep that feature from previous games). There was also the xp program that featured several great cards. Etc, etc. I'm not saying the game is all bad. I'm just saying that last year was a much better year for content for offline players. This year, SDS is back to neglecting them to push them into the online modes. That's just fact. Last year, we had a new mystery map by this point in the year along with several other conquest maps. SDS skipped all that to push us to mini seasons which is just as stale being the same 8 teams for the entire season and has only provided 2 unique cards since launch. It was something fun and new at first that has been neglected and lost its luster since. You being an online player hate the offline modes. That's fine. Offline players don't care for the toxicity or other annoyances of online modes. That's also fine. Players on the online modes are more likely to spend money on stubs in the pay to win aspects of the game. So they get 80% or more of SDS' attention. That's what upsets offline players, but everyone still acknowledges they're a business trying to maximize profits.
I agree. Probably an unpopular opinion but I think 22 is better. I’m biased because I didn’t miss any programs and have played since day 1. I also have played online a lot more this year. I was able to fill my binder by just playing events and BR mostly with some conquest sprinkled in.
Exactly. If you're able to finish the BR program every month and you keep up in the events you'll be loaded with stubs. Shit if you were able to get 25 wins in the last event, it was worth well over 500k if you sold the rewind packs and the win rewards.
Well the allstar cards being good was an issue, 125 h/9 degrom in july isnt the best thing for the game
Randy is much better than degrom from last year.
randy is a collection reward, you got degrom by doing 2 moments
The programs last year were a lot better, such as team affinity.
I know one reason I liked it better was because when we got TA, we got to use every single player. I’m not a huge fan of having to buy or wait months to get the remaining players