For those considering a PC version purchase, on the Steam page they have a free demo available, which may answer your questions on load times or other things. Personally the $45 is a little steep for me, just based on how much I played the last versions of the game.
That is a good point; I’d somehow overlooked that all systems seem to have a demo. Will check it out, thanks.
I’m using a controller on the PC and so far I found the franchise screens fine to navigate around without going back to the mouse.
I don’t know how that will hold up when season end comes around, some players leave, other players retire and I have to trawl free agent lists to replace them, but in general day to day stuff it hasn’t been a problem yet.
Quality of Life stuff is definitely present; shoulder buttons move you through categories and then when there are pages of information - like on roster screens - you can use the triggers to jump down or up whole pages in one go. UI is hard, but there has definitely been some thought put into this one.
Thanks for pointing that out. I missed it.
Great info, thanks!
From what I’ve been reading in the steam forum this happens more often than it probably should.
There was a guy complaining about it happening a couple times in one game.
This shouldn’t be happening more than like once every like 20 games, or 50, or whatever the actual statistical percentage is for how often pitcher are hit and go out of a game.
That dude did get plunked pretty good didn’t he, haha
I did that a bunch in the second game.
Same here - one such “knockout” in my second game.
I’m not sure how the player development works - in the example above does the boost only last three games?
No - the boosts are permanent.
During the course of the season these opportunities to boost players come up and they hang around for an undetermined period of time. That bit in the middle means that this opportunity will be there for at least three games and then each game after there will be an increasing chance that it will vanish.
As soon as one goes a different option for a different upgrade for a different player will come up.
You earn money to buy these upgrades based on how far you are under the salary cap - the expiry indicator lets you know roughly how many games you have to save the money for one you want.
That makes a whole lot more sense. I thought it was the chance for the boost to “expire” and the player to revert back to their previous ratings.
Thanks!
Just bought this today and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I’m still slowly cranking my ego rating up but I’m winning most games easily so I’m going to have to turn it up faster if I want competitive games.
Played this one a bit last night thanks to a free weekend and enjoyed it. Also 40% off, first time I’ve seen it on sale.
I played the demo and decided to drop the money for the full game (on Steam). It doesn’t play terribly nicely with a wired Switch controller, but turning off the Switch customizations (flipping X+Y and A+B) allows you to throw to first base “normally”.
I really like it, not having played either of the first two. It feels a little bit like MLB Power Pros, my favorite baseball game of all time. A small tip for rookies like me; just because a pitcher is inaccurate doesn’t mean that you can’t steer his pitch (which is what I was used to). After you set the location and throw, you can still move the ball with the left stick. I was walking the WORLD until I figured that out :P
Love this game but the load times are aggravating (Switch version).
Yeah, this game is great and I’ve played it a ton. I played though at least 3 seasons of franchise mode at 30+ games a season. I’m almost done with a 16 game regular season. I’m like number 470 on the total star point leaderboard. Great game.
I have a little more trouble in this game than the earlier versions. I can hit a ton at ego 55 but at 59 it severely drops off. In the older versions I was over 70.
Is there some way to tell it that I’m using an Xbox controller on the PC? The controls are real screwed up - instead of using the right stick to choose a pitch, the triggers choose one specific different pitch and I can’t access all of them, and there’s a bunch of other weirdness too (it seems like throwing to bases is reversed from what I’d expect, for example).
I don’t remember needing to do something special, but it’s possible and I forgot. I use an XBox One controller. My problem is that it won’t recognize it if I don’t turn the controller on before I start the game, and even then it sometimes fails and I have to restart the game.
If you right click on the game in the STeam list and do properties, there is a controller setting. I guess check that out?
A little tip for people playing franchise mode; apparently all your players are on yearly contracts, and they decide if they want to re-sign with you or not. If not, they will leave the team (it says player resigned, which is a little confusing at first since that’s not typically a sports term.) So in addition to the folks that retire (so long, Bubba Blastman, and thank you for your years of service) there are players that decide to just leave.
You can re-sign them, but they ask for a LOT of money. It seems like double their original salary, which would seriously cut into your player development funds.
So here’s the tip…there are 32 weeks of free agent negotiation, in which any team can sign free agents. It seems that all teams go for the cheapie free agents (<5M) first, and you should do the same. Each week, the salary expectations for the free agents drop slightly. In fact, it seems they will ask the same as last year or even less.
Around week 24, the (now less expensive) free agents get signed. This is when the computer teams will poach your free agents. So you probably want to sign them yourself around week 20, unless (like myself) you are pissed off for them even thinking about leaving a championship team and you decide to Tampa Bay it with cheaper, younger substitutes.