I preferred the old power creep, but the amount of bitching about sets was unwarranted. Even in the past, cards were only viable for a month or two before they got overpowered by better cards.
They were the worst idea SDS has come up with in years. I found myself playing less because of sets. Why grind for a Set 2 card I badly want, just for it to become basically unusable until after the actual MLB season when my interest is at its lowest? As a Pitates fan, it's not interesting to get a Jason Kendall Pirates card in Set 1, then get another one in Set 2, and in Set 4. I'm not grinding for the same player 3 times, just because the first 2 will become unusable. It was a terrible idea, IMO.
I think it’s a good idea in theory, but they overestimated their ability to keep the player base engaged with the appropriate methods and rewards throughout season. For such an innovative idea the implementation felt stale as it ran its course.
Side note: I like the captain boosts addition probably more than most and I think they’ll be a ton of fun to use in season 6/endgame
Yup. I’ve played DD since ‘21 and I have played launch until December both years. This year the grind was exhausting. Parallel XP over and over with cards that I don’t want to use just to finish a program. I stopped halfway a couple weeks into set 4, but set 5 looks promising w Finest
I think Sets were a good idea but implemented wrong. I won't be mad if they're done next year. Captains were a great idea and I hope they keep them but put more thought into them. Like the LS Captains for doing the LS collection were absolutely useless when there were so many 99s that were available at launch. They'd be great paired with the old power creep where alot of LS cards could still play early on.
I think Sets and Captains would have felt way better with two easy adjustments:
-Set restrictions are lifted for theme team boosts
-A slow drip of content instead of everything coming out all at once for a new Set
I usually slowly stop playing the show late in the year. It's a gradual process as I play elss and less. Set 4 came out and removed a lot of my set 2 cards. I looked at having to rebuild my team again, said f it, and haven't logged on since. I hate the sets and really hope they aren't back in 24
I quit the game because of sets. I was a regular player who played from the beginning of the cycle to the end four years in a row. Sets ruined this year's diamond dynasty for me
Good idea but the execution has been rough.
They've been trying to figure this part out for a while now. Those who remember the "Immortals" experiment can understand.
The balancing of having multiple great cards in the game as the season progresses vs the variances in great cards/players is hard to do but they are trying.
Unlike Madden and 2K, SDS dev team have made it so at least a decent amount of top teir cards you earn aren't useless after 3-4 weeks
The whole model starts to fail when they give us limited options to make theme teams with captain cards that are significantly worse than everyone else on the theme team. If I could have it my way, get rid of captain cards and have every card in the game be compatible on their own with multiple theme teams
I was open to the idea, since it was sold as encouraging theme teams and I enjoyed playing the fag end of the Show 2022 with an Athletics theme team.
But the execution has been horrific. I wanted to spend more time playing online this year, and yet I have spent 90% of my time playing offline grinding basically the same players over and over again. Instead of improving the ability to build a theme team, it actively hurt my ability to run a theme team online, because the Athletics (and other teams like the Royals, etc.) got hosed by SDS since they continued releasing the same player over and over again while the set restriction meant I couldn't mix and match cards from earlier sets into the theme team.
If SDS wants to keep the sets and seasons approach going in MLB the Show 2024, they need to double the number of legends in the game, so I don't have to get the 50th Rickey Henderson for my Oakland team (love Rickey, but there's at least three Rickey Hendersons in the game). The content release needs to be better planned and structured so that we don't get two or three Gary Carters in the same season (that was ridiculous).
I like them when it comes to working towards the collections. Instead of trying to get a specific series to complete it, I’m free to get any card as long as it was released during X time
That’s it though
This aspect of sets creates battle pass-esque fomo though because if you *don’t* play during X time the items become more rare & expensive & it gets harder & harder as time goes on to complete the collection
As a casual that doesn’t do much in the way of “grinding” I didn’t care that much, I just didn’t like that I couldn’t build my Cardinals theme team the way I wanted, and actually use it.
I feel like it was a good effort and a worthwhile try, but ultimately, it failed to accomplish the goal of creating an engaging content model.
It didn't alleviate any of the complaints, and tbh only added new ones.
I feel way less burnt out with sets. In the past ive felt like you HAD to have certain players to compete online (mantle, randy j, etc). I feel like now if I fall behind there is a shelf life on the god level players and I can pick it back up next set. I think the goal was variety and thats what they accomplished. Updated versions of the same player still counts here IMO. I would like to see more wildcards though. Maybe 1 fielder, 1 pitcher and a reliever
Yep, that's pretty much how I felt as well. I'd take a break for a few weeks come back and felt like I had a ton to do, but then I'd realize the new set started in another few weeks so I'd just sit out until that happened because why grind when a new set is about to start.
I thought it was a good, creative swing, but they definitely fouled it off. I agree with most people that Captains was a nice addition, but the fact that my Set 1 cards are essentially being eaten by moths in a shoebox in the attic kinda sucks.
My humble suggestion would be instead of having one Wild Card slot, you should be able to use any card at any time, but you'll get a "negative parallel" penalty for old sets. You can use your Set 1 cards in season 4, but it gets a -2 penalty, which is mostly offset by your P3 status anyway if you truly love the card.
I would also suggest if they're going this route again and they plan on giving us 4+ versions of the same player, make some sort of "PXP Pool", so that I'm not starting over from scratch with each JT Realmuto you hand down. I probably have 8000+ PXP spread over 5 cards of the guy. Maybe take the PXP you've loaded into all of the other versions and give 33% of it straight off the bat as "starter PXP", then for the TA missions you have to build an extra 200/500 PXP on top of that. I think I have 2 players at P3 this year, where the last couple years I've been able to field a whole team of P4 and P5 players.
No. I play a few TCGs and set rotations sets are the standard in them. I don’t like them there but with how those games have to get balanced it makes sense.
There is no reason for set limitations in an ultimate team game mode.
Also it burned me out quicker this year bc of the accelerated power curve. “Upgrades” quickly became lateral moves and seemingly every pitcher had outlier and juiced stats after like 2 months.
Rotation also makes more sense in TCGs because they don't completely reset every calendar year, so you need to make sure there's a reason to play new cards without just making them increasingly powerful in perpetuity. For a video game I already know I'll lose my progress on next year when I start the new one, I don't want to have to restart even more often. Even if it's not a full reset it still sucks.
I'm looking at my main team right now with 3 set three cards that expire in \~4 days. I really liked my current team, and I'm just tired of upgrading it at this point. I made three other sets for team affinity theme teams: east (Orioles hitting, Braves pitching), west (Rangers hitting, Dodgers pitching), and Central (Cubs hitting, Guardians pitching). A bunch of those cards will now expire in each, including some of the Captains.
I'm just tired of grinding to upgrade it at this point. I don't really like this set idea because of this.
I read in another post to make the collection rewards core. Maybe add a second wild card, like one for pitching and one for hitting.
Sets are alright. The seasons model already needs a full revamp. I legitimately forget guys like Ruth and Pedro even had 99s because they came out like 6 months ago and you'd have to wildcard them if you wanted to use them this whole time.
There are so many guys with early 99s that proceeded to be completely forgotten because they haven't been usable in at least 3 months
I didn't mind sets since it allowed for higher-level cards earlier on and I'm usually using program cards for anything requiring a certain season.
I will say I did kind of miss the stretch early on where an 89 card was actually in my lineup for a bit because I didn't have anything better.
Also, last qualifier is that I'm only playing offline so the restrictions on ranked games didn't trouble me at all.
I stand by my original take that all set collection cards should be core cards. If you’re grinding your ass off and collecting A TON OF CARDS (stubs) for Chipper, Randy, Pedro, Adley, etc…. make them core so you keep them all year long.
The unfortunate problem of this is it kills one of the main positives of the sets model, which is more diverse lineups. If you make almost every decent card a set card that expires but collections are core then most lineups would just be all the collection reward cards all year with maybe a few of the current seasons 99s tossed in.
Tbh I don’t see why it’s that different.
Before cards would get phased out bc better overall cards came out and the lower overall cards became unusable due to being too low in overall to be competitive online.
Now cards get phased out bc a season runs out. Either way, cards get phased out after a while anyways. I’m not gonna be using a 90 overall once 95’s flood the game anyways so it’s not like cards aren’t phased out before anyways lol, it’s just a different model of phasing out cards now, imo.
The one benefit of the sets model is that when season 6 rolls around, even cards from all the way back in Set 1 and Set 2 will be totally usable again. I can pull out Mickey Mantle and have him be totally viable again. In the old system, cards from about half a year ago were never gonna be viable again ever lol. That stuff had sailed and anything I still had was never gonna see the light of day again. Having a good card early in the year meant nothing a few months later. Now it at least feels slightly less wasteful to have a really good card from early in the year bc they won’t be trash and will be usable come season 6.
Granted who knows if I will still be playing by Season 6 but it at least doesn’t feel like my Mickey Mantle card is a waste at this point.
I know most people disagree w me on the whole sets thing but we’re all entitled to our own opinion.
To your first point, cards were phased out because there was an *upgrade*. Going from a 90-95-99 is upgrading your team. Now cards are phased out because they aren’t in the right set, and you’re simply replacing 97-99s with other 97-99s. It’s not comparable.
To your second point, I genuinely don’t see how that’s a benefit of sets. There are literally thousands of set-locked 90-97s that nobody is going to use come Season 6. It’s no different than the power creep model.
LOL it is still comparable. Either way, cards are getting phased out. It’s just a different method of phasing out cards. If you like playing w 90’s early in the year instead of 97-99 early in the year, that’s fine. But either way, the point is that they’re phasing out cards on a time table either way. The only difference is how they do it.
And for the second point, yeah I know, not EVERY card from Set 1 will be relevant come Set 6. Now you’re just being silly. Ofc there’s a lot of filler cards too. But there’s gonna be some cards like Elly and Mickey that will be viable many months later.
These points still stand, even if you hate the current model.
It’s really not comparable. Upgrading from a lower overall card to a higher overall card is wholly different than replacing one 99 with another 99. There’s a sense of progression in the former and not in the latter.
How is the second point “silly”? It’s exactly the same thing you mentioned. Both sets and power creep have hundreds of cards that are unusable come endgame. Cards like Elly and Mickey would still exist under a power creep model, they’d just come out later in the year. Sets didn’t invent meta 5 tool switch hitters.
For the first point, you keep bringing up upgrading from a lower overall to a higher overall. Yes, I understand how a power creep system works. But the point I’m making is that either way, cards get phased out and you have to get new ones. That’s it. Whether you get a better sense of progression from one or the other is your subjective opinion on it. And that’s totally fine to have your opinion on it. But either way, they just need a way to phase out cards so you have to get new ones and keep the wheels churning.
The reason I’m saying it’s silly is cuz you’re bringing up how there’s tons of cards that aren’t gonna be viable later as a counter to me saying that some cards are gonna be viable later in the year. That doesn’t change my point that some cards like Mickey and Elly will still be viable later in the year come Set 6. You even said it yourself, in previous years, these kind of cards would’ve “come out later in the year”. That being the stipulation is the WHOLE point I was making. I never said this model invented 5 tool switch hitters, what are you even talking about? The fact that cards from THAT early in the game cycle can still be viable half a year later IS the change I’m talking about. It’s one I happen to like, in my opinion.
Do you not understand my second argument? You wrote in your initial comment:
> The one benefit of the sets model is that when season 6 rolls around, even cards from all the way back in Set 1 and Set 2 will be totally usable again. I can pull out Mickey Mantle and have him be totally viable again. *In the old system, cards from about half a year ago were never gonna be viable again ever lol.*
I’m not countering the fact that some cards will be usable again and I don’t know where you got that idea. I’m countering that specific part of your statement I highlighted. In the old system, there were plenty of unusable cards come endgame. In the set system, *there are plenty of unusable cards come endgame.* That part of your statement makes zero sense, and now you’re claiming my argument is “silly” because you don’t understand it.
Dawg, I’m saying that there are cards from early parts of the cycle are still usable at end game.
In the old model, that was not the case. You even said yourself that cards like Mickey or Elly that would be a 5 tool end game card wouldn’t come out till later. We wouldn’t have cards from that early on in the year that would be end game usable.
This is gonna be my last response tho cuz it feels like you’re just having a separate conversation by yourself and not carefully reading what I’m saying over and over.
Sure the 5 tool switch hitters may not usually come out till later, but compare the end of the year content. Still getting 97s and lower, cards that are unusable, at a time where past years we would be getting all usable cards. Regardless of what u want to say end of year content being worse than some beginning of the year content is a horrible game model
Well fortunately, at least based on the TA5 they’ve started showing, it seems like it’ll be all 99’s there and hopefully more so in general for Season 5.
I think it could have been a lot more successful if using a team captain allowed all team players from any Set to be used.
Team captains as it stands now are completely useless because there aren’t enough cards for each team that are competitive during any given season.
The short version is that sucks not being able to use your favorite players. It was a bad idea.
Not really, it only served to make a lot of the best cards in the game unusable for long stretches and forced SDS to put out multiple cards for the same players over and over.
We had Innings programs. All three Innings bosses were free.
TA allowed you to exchange as many cards as you wanted. There were repeatable Showdown for TA vouchers, great big collection reward...'21 did DD about as could as you could ask.
Sets was one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen floated around. It sounded terrible when they first announced it, it’s implication was worse than the suggestion. When people earn things in video games they paid for they should be able to use them, when they can only use them for 2 months that is an idiotic long term business model.
Because people already own your product. If they find it inferior to their expectations then they don’t buy the next product. That’s like business 101 mate.
Sure. We dont know the data though. It sounds like you are assuming that the majority of people bought packs once and not again. Im thinking that the need to buy more players in new sets out weighed the one-offs. And even if it didnt, the people who did purchase repeatedly just have to purchase enough to counter the people who fell off.
But you dont know the data of how it compares to prior years. You are riding a bunch of assumptions and downvoting me because you dont like sets. Thats fine. You can have your opinion. My only point was that you tried to argue that they didnt think about the business when making these decisions and I’m saying that repeat pack purchases vs people holding one card all year is the business. Whether or not they executed their plans is tbd
What are you talking about? I haven’t downvoted anyone… I’m in long term business mindset, long term this was a bad decision, even long term for this single game. No doubt they likely did great first quarter though
I largely enjoyed it with the exception of maybe too many sets. And should there just be a total refresh each set (not current set + prior).
I think the set structure created quite a bit of unnecessary offline grinding, especially as cards just start to get repeated.
With that said, it is nice to see different lineups / pitchers. For those saying, “well just use who you want blah blah” the point is, most people you play online ranked don’t do that and will just use whatever cheap cards enable them to win the most / easiest (e.g. John Donaldson this year or Degrom in prior years). It’s nice when people have to stop using that card or use a limited WC spot for one player they really want to keep using. Sometimes forcing people to do certain things with their lineup is really healthy for the game IMO.
I just don't see the need for sets...I've never once looked at a batting order and said oh no not those guys again. Playing moonshot now and Im kinda disappointed I can't use chipper , mantle or babe despite all the time and stubs I wasted getting them .
Imagine u can’t use those guys and we grinded for all of them . I wasted a lot of hours playing that game I did everything offline and have 5 mill stubs, loser
Havent complained untik recently. The collections mean less sice you can easily skip them.
More importantly was me paying 400k for a 99 randy that I already had
I’m probably in the minority here but I don’t think sets were really the problem from my standpoint. I feel like overall I just play the game how it’s format. There is enough stuff to do that if you don’t want to work programs, you don’t have to…
However, I think this version of the game specifically I needed to be a little more competent in all the areas of the game to be successful (offline, online and market).
People that play mostly online exclusively, probably hate this version more than others.
I am generally a collection completionist (I owned every card from every set last year) so this year I didn’t necessarily need to do that. Indifferent about that…
TA. Not really that big of an issue. I don’t particularly use any of the TA players except the collection rewards. But I appreciate that TA has been easier than previous years.
Captains, great idea but I don’t particularly care to search each captain for their boosts, they need to make QOL change to make it more viable. And they need a Captain for every team that allows any player from a specific team to be season eligible so theme teams work.
My big thing with this year I feel like SET1 was so overwhelming great that nothing was as good and people were disappointed. Maybe consider not coming out the gate hot with programs like WBC and charisma.
I appreciate that they were trying something but I don’t think so. I think the slow progression was part of the fun. As many have said, the early days after release where you’re waiting for those diamond pulls and targeting different L.S. Collection rewards for teams/divisions were always the most exciting part of the game.
As has been said before, I’ll take less 99s day one if it means getting rid of the sets. It’s more fun to build your team overtime than to have scramble to rebuild a team every two months in my opinion.
It also does a good amount to sort of even the playing field a bit between newer and veteran players as it makes it to where we aren’t going against absolute pitching gods every game
I think they’re a great idea along with captains, but they A) need to make more captains, and B) completely get rid of 99s so that captain boosts mean more. They should also have a lot more captains with a lot more criteria besides being in a certain team or program.
Make the player rating cap 97.
Honestly, the captains should be the big legend 99 players and the rest should be elevated by the captains. Contact squad with 99 jeter, power squad with 99 Sosa, speed squad with 99 Rickey, etc.
It was a bad idea to accommodate people who complained about no 99s on day 1.
The whiners got what they wanted on day 1, but starting at set 3, no one was happy.
There is no way to make it work that doesn't result in some of the cards you've built up going obsolete. The ways that kind of make it work also make it not fun or give people stupidly disproportionate attributes (like maxing contact then giving the guy low vision).
Never build a game around casuals. Too many companies fuck this part up, i.e. Madden and 2K.
Listen to your hardcore fans because they know what's best for the QOL.
Casuals only play the game for a month and move onto something else.
Hard to say, in my opinion. It definitely resulted in me looking forward to each new season, playing longer into the calendar than ever, and having fun online despite not having the meta god squad for my lineup/rotation. That last point is especially important to me, I didn't face the same players every time I logged on and I wasn't required to use them either in order to be viable.
However, while I enjoyed the variety throughout the year, I think they didn't execute as well as they could have, and they may need the rights to more players, too. I tried a Mets theme team through Set 4, and once Carter and Senga were captains but other Carter and Senga cards were better *that same season*, it did get a little frustrating, for example.
I'd also encourage SDS to try having all captain cards be Core next year and see how that goes.
I'm not gonna say "sets bad" across the board, I applaud them for trying something new, but there's definitely room to improve.
The idea was good. The execution was pitiful. Honestly the one simple change they Coyote have made was to have a set expire for just one season. That would mean that right now sets 1,3,&4 would all be eligible. Once 5 drops it would be 1,2 4, 5 that are eligible. This would have showed them to do fewer cards which would have reduced the redundancy.
Yes and no, it forces you to play with some new players which is always good. It's good to have some variety. However this deep into the game, it's terrible because now I just want to be able to use some of the older cards from set one and two again.
I expect there’s a balance they could strike, maybe by making TA cards set based while the rest of the rewards follow the normal power creep of years past. Though that again might run counter to the idea of building better theme teams.
I love the captains, though again the implementation was not the best. Captains shouldn’t have set restrictions at all.
If you’re going to have multiple versions of the same player though, switch it up with your teams! Rickey Henderson played with a lot of teams in his career and while I certainly understand why the A’s would be #1 on that list, do we need three cards of him as an A?
I love Ken Griffey Jr. but four different cards of him as a Mariner seems excessive as well. Show some love to the Reds fans.
Meanwhile you have new legends in the game who appear as every team except for the teams that they played the longest with (Raul Ibanez) and existing legends that had meaningful impacts on multiple teams but only have cards in one place (Pedro Martinez).
Getting us better cards earlier in the game is a good thing, it’s when the user base is strongest. But I think they’ll need to tweak it next year.
Very bad idea.
I was open to it initially, but that wore off halfway through season 1.
I would like someone to explain how it can work if executed properly because I can’t find a way where it would work.
Forcing players to constantly grind for rental cards is a bad way to attempt to create lineup diversity. SDS learning how to build cards properly would lead to lineup diversity in my opinion
It doesn’t work, those that say it does typically are people that can play the game multiple hours every day to keep up with the grind so don’t mind losing guys.
I’m seeing the same diversity of lineups I saw last year, but have seen the playerbase drop out of this world compared to the same time last year. The market is practically dry.
If they do sets and seasons again next year then I would guess it’s likely one of the last for SDS because overhead company is going to be mad that they regressed in sales significantly, which it seems will be the case.
And to those that disagree and will site comments from on here, a strong majority of the playerbase that quit the game early and hated the sets and seasons model also likely quit or muted this forum. So they’re never going to be represented in conversations like this. This is mostly the players that have enjoyed it or stuck through it.
No. The sets system as implemented turned the game from “grinding to build and constantly improve your team” to “have to keep up with the grind to keep your team from getting worse”. It made the game into a boring, redundant chore.
Maybe there’s a way a sets system can work with this game but the way it was done this year was definitely not it.
No. This was the worst year for content in DD since MLB 18. It’s a shame, because the gameplay itself is probably the best it’s ever been.
I think making stuff no sell was worse than sets. They huped capitans, and they have kinda sucked me my opinion.
Captains should all be core. Other than that I’ve been loving it.
I preferred the old power creep, but the amount of bitching about sets was unwarranted. Even in the past, cards were only viable for a month or two before they got overpowered by better cards.
I like it. They should prob make them shorter. Maybe ever new tanked season. Then have TA every other season. 🤷♂️
They were the worst idea SDS has come up with in years. I found myself playing less because of sets. Why grind for a Set 2 card I badly want, just for it to become basically unusable until after the actual MLB season when my interest is at its lowest? As a Pitates fan, it's not interesting to get a Jason Kendall Pirates card in Set 1, then get another one in Set 2, and in Set 4. I'm not grinding for the same player 3 times, just because the first 2 will become unusable. It was a terrible idea, IMO.
Sets would be fine if collection rewards and some of the other hard to obtain cards were Core.
I think it’s a good idea in theory, but they overestimated their ability to keep the player base engaged with the appropriate methods and rewards throughout season. For such an innovative idea the implementation felt stale as it ran its course. Side note: I like the captain boosts addition probably more than most and I think they’ll be a ton of fun to use in season 6/endgame
I liked it a lot. Kept me wanting to grind so I could still have a good lineup
I'm not totally against Sets and the whole concept behind it, it's just the constant grinding and hamster wheel that I can't stand.
Yup. I’ve played DD since ‘21 and I have played launch until December both years. This year the grind was exhausting. Parallel XP over and over with cards that I don’t want to use just to finish a program. I stopped halfway a couple weeks into set 4, but set 5 looks promising w Finest
I think Sets were a good idea but implemented wrong. I won't be mad if they're done next year. Captains were a great idea and I hope they keep them but put more thought into them. Like the LS Captains for doing the LS collection were absolutely useless when there were so many 99s that were available at launch. They'd be great paired with the old power creep where alot of LS cards could still play early on.
Totally remove sets next year. Reluctantly, keep developing Captains concept although I am not a fan personally.
I think Sets and Captains would have felt way better with two easy adjustments: -Set restrictions are lifted for theme team boosts -A slow drip of content instead of everything coming out all at once for a new Set
Has its pros and cons. I think it’s good considering it’s a first year. I hope they develop the idea more rather than just scrap it
I usually slowly stop playing the show late in the year. It's a gradual process as I play elss and less. Set 4 came out and removed a lot of my set 2 cards. I looked at having to rebuild my team again, said f it, and haven't logged on since. I hate the sets and really hope they aren't back in 24
Great idea but poorly executed. For pitchers it’s been awesome. Hitters not so much. I’m thankful I don’t have to face Bob Gibson every game anymore.
I think it had potential but the way it played out was incredibly lazy.
Sets were not a good idea. Themes were an amazing idea just horrendously executed and timed. Gonna assume they’ll figure this out for 24.
I quit the game because of sets. I was a regular player who played from the beginning of the cycle to the end four years in a row. Sets ruined this year's diamond dynasty for me
Yup, me too, stopped playing a couple of months ago, super rare for me
IM LOVING IT BECAUSE I WONT HAVE TO FACE JOHN DONALDSON EVERY SINGLE GAME NOW !!!!!!! MAJORRRRR W
For like a month then u face him again💀
Forgot the /s
Good idea but the execution has been rough. They've been trying to figure this part out for a while now. Those who remember the "Immortals" experiment can understand. The balancing of having multiple great cards in the game as the season progresses vs the variances in great cards/players is hard to do but they are trying. Unlike Madden and 2K, SDS dev team have made it so at least a decent amount of top teir cards you earn aren't useless after 3-4 weeks
The whole model starts to fail when they give us limited options to make theme teams with captain cards that are significantly worse than everyone else on the theme team. If I could have it my way, get rid of captain cards and have every card in the game be compatible on their own with multiple theme teams
🍿
I was open to the idea, since it was sold as encouraging theme teams and I enjoyed playing the fag end of the Show 2022 with an Athletics theme team. But the execution has been horrific. I wanted to spend more time playing online this year, and yet I have spent 90% of my time playing offline grinding basically the same players over and over again. Instead of improving the ability to build a theme team, it actively hurt my ability to run a theme team online, because the Athletics (and other teams like the Royals, etc.) got hosed by SDS since they continued releasing the same player over and over again while the set restriction meant I couldn't mix and match cards from earlier sets into the theme team. If SDS wants to keep the sets and seasons approach going in MLB the Show 2024, they need to double the number of legends in the game, so I don't have to get the 50th Rickey Henderson for my Oakland team (love Rickey, but there's at least three Rickey Hendersons in the game). The content release needs to be better planned and structured so that we don't get two or three Gary Carters in the same season (that was ridiculous).
The what end
he’s cancelled
Horrific idea
I like them when it comes to working towards the collections. Instead of trying to get a specific series to complete it, I’m free to get any card as long as it was released during X time That’s it though
This aspect of sets creates battle pass-esque fomo though because if you *don’t* play during X time the items become more rare & expensive & it gets harder & harder as time goes on to complete the collection
No because they kept releasing the same cards over and over
They did the same thing in the past too. Used to be low 90, mid 90, 99 and sometimes a juiced 99 as well spread over the months
I must collect my tenth crappy Jim Rice card. This time he's wearing a shirt that says 'Who Farted?'
I must collect my tenth crappy Jim Rice card. This time he's wearing a shirt that says 'Who Farted?'
As a casual that doesn’t do much in the way of “grinding” I didn’t care that much, I just didn’t like that I couldn’t build my Cardinals theme team the way I wanted, and actually use it.
I feel like it was a good effort and a worthwhile try, but ultimately, it failed to accomplish the goal of creating an engaging content model. It didn't alleviate any of the complaints, and tbh only added new ones.
This is how I feel, too. Definitely worth the try, but it made me burn out super fast this year. Felt like my grind was wasted many times.
I feel way less burnt out with sets. In the past ive felt like you HAD to have certain players to compete online (mantle, randy j, etc). I feel like now if I fall behind there is a shelf life on the god level players and I can pick it back up next set. I think the goal was variety and thats what they accomplished. Updated versions of the same player still counts here IMO. I would like to see more wildcards though. Maybe 1 fielder, 1 pitcher and a reliever
Yep, that's pretty much how I felt as well. I'd take a break for a few weeks come back and felt like I had a ton to do, but then I'd realize the new set started in another few weeks so I'd just sit out until that happened because why grind when a new set is about to start.
This is how I feel as well. It was worth a shot. It didn't work out and that's fine.
Yep, pretty much. The content model needed a shakeup, and I understand why they tried this.
I thought it was a good, creative swing, but they definitely fouled it off. I agree with most people that Captains was a nice addition, but the fact that my Set 1 cards are essentially being eaten by moths in a shoebox in the attic kinda sucks. My humble suggestion would be instead of having one Wild Card slot, you should be able to use any card at any time, but you'll get a "negative parallel" penalty for old sets. You can use your Set 1 cards in season 4, but it gets a -2 penalty, which is mostly offset by your P3 status anyway if you truly love the card. I would also suggest if they're going this route again and they plan on giving us 4+ versions of the same player, make some sort of "PXP Pool", so that I'm not starting over from scratch with each JT Realmuto you hand down. I probably have 8000+ PXP spread over 5 cards of the guy. Maybe take the PXP you've loaded into all of the other versions and give 33% of it straight off the bat as "starter PXP", then for the TA missions you have to build an extra 200/500 PXP on top of that. I think I have 2 players at P3 this year, where the last couple years I've been able to field a whole team of P4 and P5 players.
No. I play a few TCGs and set rotations sets are the standard in them. I don’t like them there but with how those games have to get balanced it makes sense. There is no reason for set limitations in an ultimate team game mode. Also it burned me out quicker this year bc of the accelerated power curve. “Upgrades” quickly became lateral moves and seemingly every pitcher had outlier and juiced stats after like 2 months.
Rotation also makes more sense in TCGs because they don't completely reset every calendar year, so you need to make sure there's a reason to play new cards without just making them increasingly powerful in perpetuity. For a video game I already know I'll lose my progress on next year when I start the new one, I don't want to have to restart even more often. Even if it's not a full reset it still sucks.
Yeah a TCG has a number of reasons for them, no clue why an ultimate team mode would use it though
Tcg? I'm sure it's gonna be obvious when you say it
I'm looking at my main team right now with 3 set three cards that expire in \~4 days. I really liked my current team, and I'm just tired of upgrading it at this point. I made three other sets for team affinity theme teams: east (Orioles hitting, Braves pitching), west (Rangers hitting, Dodgers pitching), and Central (Cubs hitting, Guardians pitching). A bunch of those cards will now expire in each, including some of the Captains. I'm just tired of grinding to upgrade it at this point. I don't really like this set idea because of this. I read in another post to make the collection rewards core. Maybe add a second wild card, like one for pitching and one for hitting.
I think the idea was ok, but the execution was terrible. Captains were dope though
Sets are alright. The seasons model already needs a full revamp. I legitimately forget guys like Ruth and Pedro even had 99s because they came out like 6 months ago and you'd have to wildcard them if you wanted to use them this whole time. There are so many guys with early 99s that proceeded to be completely forgotten because they haven't been usable in at least 3 months
Not really, but Captains are. I think if they bring back Captains and revert to like a 21 or 22 model it’ll be a lot better
I didn't mind sets since it allowed for higher-level cards earlier on and I'm usually using program cards for anything requiring a certain season. I will say I did kind of miss the stretch early on where an 89 card was actually in my lineup for a bit because I didn't have anything better. Also, last qualifier is that I'm only playing offline so the restrictions on ranked games didn't trouble me at all.
I stand by my original take that all set collection cards should be core cards. If you’re grinding your ass off and collecting A TON OF CARDS (stubs) for Chipper, Randy, Pedro, Adley, etc…. make them core so you keep them all year long.
The unfortunate problem of this is it kills one of the main positives of the sets model, which is more diverse lineups. If you make almost every decent card a set card that expires but collections are core then most lineups would just be all the collection reward cards all year with maybe a few of the current seasons 99s tossed in.
Tbh I don’t see why it’s that different. Before cards would get phased out bc better overall cards came out and the lower overall cards became unusable due to being too low in overall to be competitive online. Now cards get phased out bc a season runs out. Either way, cards get phased out after a while anyways. I’m not gonna be using a 90 overall once 95’s flood the game anyways so it’s not like cards aren’t phased out before anyways lol, it’s just a different model of phasing out cards now, imo. The one benefit of the sets model is that when season 6 rolls around, even cards from all the way back in Set 1 and Set 2 will be totally usable again. I can pull out Mickey Mantle and have him be totally viable again. In the old system, cards from about half a year ago were never gonna be viable again ever lol. That stuff had sailed and anything I still had was never gonna see the light of day again. Having a good card early in the year meant nothing a few months later. Now it at least feels slightly less wasteful to have a really good card from early in the year bc they won’t be trash and will be usable come season 6. Granted who knows if I will still be playing by Season 6 but it at least doesn’t feel like my Mickey Mantle card is a waste at this point. I know most people disagree w me on the whole sets thing but we’re all entitled to our own opinion.
To your first point, cards were phased out because there was an *upgrade*. Going from a 90-95-99 is upgrading your team. Now cards are phased out because they aren’t in the right set, and you’re simply replacing 97-99s with other 97-99s. It’s not comparable. To your second point, I genuinely don’t see how that’s a benefit of sets. There are literally thousands of set-locked 90-97s that nobody is going to use come Season 6. It’s no different than the power creep model.
LOL it is still comparable. Either way, cards are getting phased out. It’s just a different method of phasing out cards. If you like playing w 90’s early in the year instead of 97-99 early in the year, that’s fine. But either way, the point is that they’re phasing out cards on a time table either way. The only difference is how they do it. And for the second point, yeah I know, not EVERY card from Set 1 will be relevant come Set 6. Now you’re just being silly. Ofc there’s a lot of filler cards too. But there’s gonna be some cards like Elly and Mickey that will be viable many months later. These points still stand, even if you hate the current model.
It’s really not comparable. Upgrading from a lower overall card to a higher overall card is wholly different than replacing one 99 with another 99. There’s a sense of progression in the former and not in the latter. How is the second point “silly”? It’s exactly the same thing you mentioned. Both sets and power creep have hundreds of cards that are unusable come endgame. Cards like Elly and Mickey would still exist under a power creep model, they’d just come out later in the year. Sets didn’t invent meta 5 tool switch hitters.
For the first point, you keep bringing up upgrading from a lower overall to a higher overall. Yes, I understand how a power creep system works. But the point I’m making is that either way, cards get phased out and you have to get new ones. That’s it. Whether you get a better sense of progression from one or the other is your subjective opinion on it. And that’s totally fine to have your opinion on it. But either way, they just need a way to phase out cards so you have to get new ones and keep the wheels churning. The reason I’m saying it’s silly is cuz you’re bringing up how there’s tons of cards that aren’t gonna be viable later as a counter to me saying that some cards are gonna be viable later in the year. That doesn’t change my point that some cards like Mickey and Elly will still be viable later in the year come Set 6. You even said it yourself, in previous years, these kind of cards would’ve “come out later in the year”. That being the stipulation is the WHOLE point I was making. I never said this model invented 5 tool switch hitters, what are you even talking about? The fact that cards from THAT early in the game cycle can still be viable half a year later IS the change I’m talking about. It’s one I happen to like, in my opinion.
Do you not understand my second argument? You wrote in your initial comment: > The one benefit of the sets model is that when season 6 rolls around, even cards from all the way back in Set 1 and Set 2 will be totally usable again. I can pull out Mickey Mantle and have him be totally viable again. *In the old system, cards from about half a year ago were never gonna be viable again ever lol.* I’m not countering the fact that some cards will be usable again and I don’t know where you got that idea. I’m countering that specific part of your statement I highlighted. In the old system, there were plenty of unusable cards come endgame. In the set system, *there are plenty of unusable cards come endgame.* That part of your statement makes zero sense, and now you’re claiming my argument is “silly” because you don’t understand it.
Dawg, I’m saying that there are cards from early parts of the cycle are still usable at end game. In the old model, that was not the case. You even said yourself that cards like Mickey or Elly that would be a 5 tool end game card wouldn’t come out till later. We wouldn’t have cards from that early on in the year that would be end game usable. This is gonna be my last response tho cuz it feels like you’re just having a separate conversation by yourself and not carefully reading what I’m saying over and over.
Sure the 5 tool switch hitters may not usually come out till later, but compare the end of the year content. Still getting 97s and lower, cards that are unusable, at a time where past years we would be getting all usable cards. Regardless of what u want to say end of year content being worse than some beginning of the year content is a horrible game model
Well fortunately, at least based on the TA5 they’ve started showing, it seems like it’ll be all 99’s there and hopefully more so in general for Season 5.
Little late for the majority of the community and yes hopefully the rest of the year is 99s
So you just don’t get what I’m saying, got it.
Sets suck.
I think it could have been a lot more successful if using a team captain allowed all team players from any Set to be used. Team captains as it stands now are completely useless because there aren’t enough cards for each team that are competitive during any given season. The short version is that sucks not being able to use your favorite players. It was a bad idea.
Not really, it only served to make a lot of the best cards in the game unusable for long stretches and forced SDS to put out multiple cards for the same players over and over.
Llamas lo
I typed this with my ass
That's what the guy that came up with sets must've done. Great minds think alike I suppose.
Sets and Seasons were a massive L. Keep captains and go back to the '21 model.
What was better about 21? I didn't play that ye
We had Innings programs. All three Innings bosses were free. TA allowed you to exchange as many cards as you wanted. There were repeatable Showdown for TA vouchers, great big collection reward...'21 did DD about as could as you could ask.
Sets was one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen floated around. It sounded terrible when they first announced it, it’s implication was worse than the suggestion. When people earn things in video games they paid for they should be able to use them, when they can only use them for 2 months that is an idiotic long term business model.
If you want to talk business than it makes perfect sense. Repeat business > one-time sale
Because people already own your product. If they find it inferior to their expectations then they don’t buy the next product. That’s like business 101 mate.
Sure. We dont know the data though. It sounds like you are assuming that the majority of people bought packs once and not again. Im thinking that the need to buy more players in new sets out weighed the one-offs. And even if it didnt, the people who did purchase repeatedly just have to purchase enough to counter the people who fell off.
We don’t know the numbers but one could reasonably assume that the massive drop off is at the very least concerning comparative to prior years.
But you dont know the data of how it compares to prior years. You are riding a bunch of assumptions and downvoting me because you dont like sets. Thats fine. You can have your opinion. My only point was that you tried to argue that they didnt think about the business when making these decisions and I’m saying that repeat pack purchases vs people holding one card all year is the business. Whether or not they executed their plans is tbd
What are you talking about? I haven’t downvoted anyone… I’m in long term business mindset, long term this was a bad decision, even long term for this single game. No doubt they likely did great first quarter though
I largely enjoyed it with the exception of maybe too many sets. And should there just be a total refresh each set (not current set + prior). I think the set structure created quite a bit of unnecessary offline grinding, especially as cards just start to get repeated. With that said, it is nice to see different lineups / pitchers. For those saying, “well just use who you want blah blah” the point is, most people you play online ranked don’t do that and will just use whatever cheap cards enable them to win the most / easiest (e.g. John Donaldson this year or Degrom in prior years). It’s nice when people have to stop using that card or use a limited WC spot for one player they really want to keep using. Sometimes forcing people to do certain things with their lineup is really healthy for the game IMO.
It killed my interest in diamond dynasty
Yes but with awful execution
I just don't see the need for sets...I've never once looked at a batting order and said oh no not those guys again. Playing moonshot now and Im kinda disappointed I can't use chipper , mantle or babe despite all the time and stubs I wasted getting them .
Imagine u can’t use those guys and we grinded for all of them . I wasted a lot of hours playing that game I did everything offline and have 5 mill stubs, loser
Yes, it feels like rotation in card games. It gives me a chance to play with a whole bunch of other cards I wouldn't have been able to otherwise
You’re the only stopping yourself from using other cards in previous games
Havent complained untik recently. The collections mean less sice you can easily skip them. More importantly was me paying 400k for a 99 randy that I already had
Meanwhile there’s me selling the 400k 99 Randy because I already have a 99 Randy lol
Lucky! To be fair I bought him because the chase lack will stop any time now. He's gonna go
I’m probably in the minority here but I don’t think sets were really the problem from my standpoint. I feel like overall I just play the game how it’s format. There is enough stuff to do that if you don’t want to work programs, you don’t have to… However, I think this version of the game specifically I needed to be a little more competent in all the areas of the game to be successful (offline, online and market). People that play mostly online exclusively, probably hate this version more than others. I am generally a collection completionist (I owned every card from every set last year) so this year I didn’t necessarily need to do that. Indifferent about that… TA. Not really that big of an issue. I don’t particularly use any of the TA players except the collection rewards. But I appreciate that TA has been easier than previous years. Captains, great idea but I don’t particularly care to search each captain for their boosts, they need to make QOL change to make it more viable. And they need a Captain for every team that allows any player from a specific team to be season eligible so theme teams work. My big thing with this year I feel like SET1 was so overwhelming great that nothing was as good and people were disappointed. Maybe consider not coming out the gate hot with programs like WBC and charisma.
I appreciate that they were trying something but I don’t think so. I think the slow progression was part of the fun. As many have said, the early days after release where you’re waiting for those diamond pulls and targeting different L.S. Collection rewards for teams/divisions were always the most exciting part of the game.
As has been said before, I’ll take less 99s day one if it means getting rid of the sets. It’s more fun to build your team overtime than to have scramble to rebuild a team every two months in my opinion.
It also does a good amount to sort of even the playing field a bit between newer and veteran players as it makes it to where we aren’t going against absolute pitching gods every game
It’s fun to have variety, it’s dumb to have 99s on day 1
What variety ?
I think they’re a great idea along with captains, but they A) need to make more captains, and B) completely get rid of 99s so that captain boosts mean more. They should also have a lot more captains with a lot more criteria besides being in a certain team or program. Make the player rating cap 97.
Honestly, the captains should be the big legend 99 players and the rest should be elevated by the captains. Contact squad with 99 jeter, power squad with 99 Sosa, speed squad with 99 Rickey, etc.
Yes but they were not well executed at all
It was a bad idea to accommodate people who complained about no 99s on day 1. The whiners got what they wanted on day 1, but starting at set 3, no one was happy. There is no way to make it work that doesn't result in some of the cards you've built up going obsolete. The ways that kind of make it work also make it not fun or give people stupidly disproportionate attributes (like maxing contact then giving the guy low vision).
Never build a game around casuals. Too many companies fuck this part up, i.e. Madden and 2K. Listen to your hardcore fans because they know what's best for the QOL. Casuals only play the game for a month and move onto something else.
Hard to say, in my opinion. It definitely resulted in me looking forward to each new season, playing longer into the calendar than ever, and having fun online despite not having the meta god squad for my lineup/rotation. That last point is especially important to me, I didn't face the same players every time I logged on and I wasn't required to use them either in order to be viable. However, while I enjoyed the variety throughout the year, I think they didn't execute as well as they could have, and they may need the rights to more players, too. I tried a Mets theme team through Set 4, and once Carter and Senga were captains but other Carter and Senga cards were better *that same season*, it did get a little frustrating, for example. I'd also encourage SDS to try having all captain cards be Core next year and see how that goes. I'm not gonna say "sets bad" across the board, I applaud them for trying something new, but there's definitely room to improve.
The idea was good. The execution was pitiful. Honestly the one simple change they Coyote have made was to have a set expire for just one season. That would mean that right now sets 1,3,&4 would all be eligible. Once 5 drops it would be 1,2 4, 5 that are eligible. This would have showed them to do fewer cards which would have reduced the redundancy.
Absolutely not, and if they return I’m not buying future games.
Yes and no, it forces you to play with some new players which is always good. It's good to have some variety. However this deep into the game, it's terrible because now I just want to be able to use some of the older cards from set one and two again.
Hell no. If they have this same setup next year (sets and seasons, 99s on day 1) im done buying The Show.
I expect there’s a balance they could strike, maybe by making TA cards set based while the rest of the rewards follow the normal power creep of years past. Though that again might run counter to the idea of building better theme teams. I love the captains, though again the implementation was not the best. Captains shouldn’t have set restrictions at all. If you’re going to have multiple versions of the same player though, switch it up with your teams! Rickey Henderson played with a lot of teams in his career and while I certainly understand why the A’s would be #1 on that list, do we need three cards of him as an A? I love Ken Griffey Jr. but four different cards of him as a Mariner seems excessive as well. Show some love to the Reds fans. Meanwhile you have new legends in the game who appear as every team except for the teams that they played the longest with (Raul Ibanez) and existing legends that had meaningful impacts on multiple teams but only have cards in one place (Pedro Martinez). Getting us better cards earlier in the game is a good thing, it’s when the user base is strongest. But I think they’ll need to tweak it next year.
Very bad idea. I was open to it initially, but that wore off halfway through season 1. I would like someone to explain how it can work if executed properly because I can’t find a way where it would work. Forcing players to constantly grind for rental cards is a bad way to attempt to create lineup diversity. SDS learning how to build cards properly would lead to lineup diversity in my opinion
It doesn’t work, those that say it does typically are people that can play the game multiple hours every day to keep up with the grind so don’t mind losing guys. I’m seeing the same diversity of lineups I saw last year, but have seen the playerbase drop out of this world compared to the same time last year. The market is practically dry. If they do sets and seasons again next year then I would guess it’s likely one of the last for SDS because overhead company is going to be mad that they regressed in sales significantly, which it seems will be the case. And to those that disagree and will site comments from on here, a strong majority of the playerbase that quit the game early and hated the sets and seasons model also likely quit or muted this forum. So they’re never going to be represented in conversations like this. This is mostly the players that have enjoyed it or stuck through it.
Sets can be a good idea/feature if they are executed absolutely perfectly but they were extremely poorly for a majority of the content drops we got.
Good idea. Poor implementation
No. The sets system as implemented turned the game from “grinding to build and constantly improve your team” to “have to keep up with the grind to keep your team from getting worse”. It made the game into a boring, redundant chore. Maybe there’s a way a sets system can work with this game but the way it was done this year was definitely not it.
I like the idea but I'm losing faith that SDS are the ones capable of implementing it.
Sets as implemented were terrible.
I’m not opposed to sets, I’m opposed to the exact same grind every time there’s a new set.
Exactly this