Coming off a season of Diamond Dynasty that felt like a disappointment to most, SDS has gone into this cycle saying they heard the feedback and would course correct for MLB The Show 24.
After today’s Feature Premiere for Diamond Dynasty, early returns would suggest they have done just that on the whole. Things like power creep, team affinity programs, and the power of captains were some of the highlights in terms of areas where SDS has made changes based on feedback from all of us.
Quality Of Life Changes
It feels best to just bullet point a lot of the biggest changes here since they cover various areas:
-Power creep was mentioned early in terms of SDS mentioning that folks were tired of all the 99s we got right away and then throughout the year. This time around, Season 1 will start in the high 80s and low 90s, and it’s not until the end of the first season when we’ll start getting into those 99s. It also seems like this same cycle will start anew after each 3-month season comes to an end. It’s not clear if the start of Season 2 maybe has a higher “floor” to begin with in terms of ratings, but either way this should be a good change.
-The three-month season change is also new, and it ties into a general philosophy of XP being easier to earn but also with more focus on trying to cap the in-game XP payouts so people don’t get way ahead of others on the XP reward path via gameplay “exploits” of sorts. SDS wants everyone to be able to get to the 99s when the end of the season approaches rather than a couple people being able to race to those 99s within the first couple weeks.
-Paralleling players will require lower thresholds in order to reach those higher parallels
-There will be four wild cards you can earn for your lineup when Season 2 rolls around. This is up from last year, and while you have to “earn” up to four, this should help diversify lineups even more as seasons roll on.
-On that same note, we’ll talk more about Team Affinity below, but the 99s that will come into play during the third phase of TA will also be earnable beyond Season 1 if you miss them.
-10 wins is all you need now for the top Events and BR rewards during a single run (including Flawless).
-In terms of trying to be more user-friendly, this also ties into removing a lot of the “no sell” packs, including the “no sell” packs that were part of various programs. It also involves making Team Affinity programs easier to complete while also adding more of them per season. Team Affinity is arguably the biggest change for this year in terms of how it will work, so I want to break it out into its own little section.
Team Affinity
Again, there will be three batches of Team Affinity programs throughout each Season, which basically means we will get one each month. These TA programs will include 30 players each time, and as with a lot of other aspects of the game, it’s much more flexible in terms of how you earn these rewards. You won’t have to do Conquest, or Showdown, and so on if you want to get these players. The XP requirements are lower overall, and SDS wants us to be able to play the game how we want while still getting to these rewards. This means whether you like co-op, single-player, or multiplayer you should be able to get to these rewards.
When the third TA program drops in the third month of the cycle, there will be 99s in this program, and it will be a program you can complete at any point throughout the year — it will not be time-specific like the first two parts of the program.
Cornerstones/Captains
Strengthening Captains and introducing Cornerstones are the two ways SDS wants to make team-building matter more while also creating more diversification among lineups. The Cornerstone players will come out at the start of each season, and it seems like there will be four per launch (and you can exchange one for another at any point during the season).
Here is the attribute boosts for Byron Buxton, who is one of the Cornerstones.
With Captains, there will be 60 at launch, two per team with one pitcher and one hitter on each team. You will earn them throughout the year, and the idea with Captains is to make them matter more in terms of making team-specific squads more viable. With that in mind, if your team does not have the “juice” of some others (you have fewer high-rated options) your captain will give better boosts so you don’t feel like you can’t compete with your current team-specific squad. On top of that, each captain will boost both hitting and pitching this year.
At Launch
Beyond Live Series and all that, SDS says there will be 250 player items at launch that involve flashbacks, legends, and all that good stuff. The Bosses for Season 1 are Andy Pettitte, Jimmy Rollins, and Larry Walker.
Some of the card series mentioned for this year include:
- Subway Series (Storylines)
- Negro Leagues Series/Barrier Breakers (Storylines)
- Hyper Series
- Hall of Fame series
- Headliners replace Diamond Duos this year as the bi-weekly pack
- Standout Series
In terms of programs, at launch we know there will be the usual Season 1 Program, a Spring Breakout Program, and a Starter Program. This is on top of the usual Battle Royale and Ranked programs.
Bottom Line
On the downside, we did not get oodles of news about single-player updates beyond it being easier to earn XP and rewards because there will be more single-player missions throughout various programs. That said, it seems like it will be more fulfilling playing any mode within Diamond Dynasty this year, which is the bigger overall deal.
In short, this seems to be the year of SDS saying “our bad” and correcting a lot of the changes they made last year to hopefully keep people more excited about all the new cards that are added throughout the season. We’ll put together the list of all the legends once we get our hands on the game, but otherwise if you want to chat with others about Diamond Dynasty, we all gather in the What Are You Working On thread on the forums.
