A little over a week ago, I saw a thread in the MLB The Show forum that caught my attention: “Ways to make fielding more fun?” The thread, created by OS member metallidevils, argued that fielding in all baseball games -- past and present -- was boring and tiresome.

I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with his point. Defense in baseball games has never been a particularly exciting experience. Though some games have done it better than others, fielding becomes a chore rather quickly, and eventually it becomes so simple that it could probably be accomplished while sleeping.

What can be done to add some excitement to fielding without making defense unnecessarily challenging? In the thread mentioned above, I asked for your ideas. I’ll break down some of those ideas later, but first we need to take a closer look at how fielding works in The Show, both in regular play and in the Road to the Show (RTTS) mode.

The defensive controls in regular gameplay are quite simple. The left stick controls player movement. The face buttons are used to throw to the corresponding bases. Jumping is accomplished by pressing R1 or pressing the right stick up; to dive, press R2 or the right stick down. This is the extent of your control options while playing defense.

This formula doesn’t change much in RTTS mode. While in the field, the familiar situation box pops up letting you know who is batting, where baserunners are located, and how many outs there are. Since you only get control during plays where your player is involved, you know before the pitch is thrown that the ball will be hit in your general direction. The camera in RTTS mode gives you a third-person view behind your player looking in towards home. Once the ball is hit, the controls are exactly the same as the regular gameplay mode, except the “throw to base” buttons have been remapped to adjust for your perspective.

Now let’s delve into some ideas on how to improve the defensive experience. Let’s start simple: the throwing meter and fielding animations need improvement. In the aforementioned thread, metallidevils wrote, “I'm sure everyone agrees that the throwing meter needs to be better… This year's seems more or less random.” I agree here. The Show’s version of a throwing meter doesn’t seem to allow for a great variety of strengths of throws. Even when barely tapping the button to throw to first, my fielder will fire a bullet. Throwing errors seem random as well, as I’ve had an equal amount of throwing errors at each stage of the throwing meter. Whether you love or hate EA’s MVP Baseball series, there is little argument that the throwing meter in those games was far superior to what The Show has now. A few minor adjustments to the throwing meter would help gamers feel like they have more control while in the field.

Chuckm1961 also mentioned in the thread that animations kick in far too early, leaving the user feeling more like a spectator instead of a player. SCEA’s idea here was understandable: the sooner the animations take over, the smoother the play will look visually. There’s no question that the animations look stellar, but the cost of user control may not be worth the smooth visuals. More tweaks need to be made in order to achieve a better balance between fluid animations and user control. This year’s version made some strides in this area when compared to MLB '07, but there is more work to be done.

Here’s a more innovative idea from the thread: chuckm1961 suggested that users should have to hit a button at the moment that the ball hits the player’s glove in order to simulate closing the glove to secure the catch. This idea would at least provide some user control as to whether the play is made or an error is committed -- as it is now, the game simply “generates” errors based on the fielder’s defensive attributes. With this idea, if your player booted a ground ball or couldn’t come up with a tough catch, you would know that you determined that result by mistiming the catch. Whether this could actually work in the game or not is unknown, but it is an interesting idea nonetheless.

Where SCEA can get very creative with defensive controls is in the RTTS mode. In the thread, metallidevils and gbx34 suggested that the third-person camera should be scrapped in this mode in favor of a first-person approach. This could really bring the user closer to the action and make the RTTS mode a totally different experience than regular play. How cool would it be to be a center fielder in RTTS, have to read a fly ball off the bat, remember to flip down the shades, and make the catch? Or as a second baseman, tracking down a grounder up the middle, choosing to backhand it, then making a quick motion with the right stick in order to flip it to the shortstop at second for the force? Of course, how the camera moves and tracks the ball would be crucial in making this idea work. If SCEA could make the camera work well, I could see this really enhancing the experience of the RTTS mode.

No matter what new controls are developed or what new camera perspectives are implemented, there is an obvious need to improve the user experience while in the field. New changes may finally make Web Gem-type plays feel spectacular instead of automatic.

Don’t like the ideas presented here? Have a few great ideas of your own? Post them in the thread above or in the comments section of this article. With developers constantly checking the boards, your idea might help make fielding fun!