Four Keys to Success for MLB '11: The Show

[BobSacamano]

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

Every play baseball before? I mean, organized competitive baseball? Ever watch it on TV? You can time the pitch perfectly, hit the ball on the sweetspot and still hit the ball into an out. It happens. Just as you can be fooled, flip the bat and get a hit. Its baseball. Sounds to me you want to remove that aspect of a baseball game.

I don't want to speak for the other poster but this is not the problem I have with the hitting engine. The problem I have is when you hit the ball perfectly and hit a lazy fly ball or ground ball and conversely when you DON'T hit it perfectly and crush a home run (or when the CPU does). It's not that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly into an out it's that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly and hit it weakly. If I hit the ball perfectly (meaning perfect timing and perfect contact) I should be getting close to the "max result" with that player. I get that some of this should be a result of ratings - Pujols can not get all of a pitch and still hit one out and Joe MiddleInfielder can hit a ball perfectly and have it hang up in the outfield for an easy catch.

HOWEVER, having played this game quite a bit I'm convinced that more than ratings the big culprit in this inconsistency is pitcher confidence. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this whole engine should either be scrapped or significantly tweaked in the future. It seems to play WAY too much of a part in determining outcomes in the game - if a pitcher has given up a couple singles any contact is bound to be a rocket, and conversely if he's pitched a couple scoreless innings he's practically unhittable. I don't think it works this way in real life. I think the dev's had made an admirable effort to mimic real-life pitcher confidence, which probably exists to some degree, but it seems like it's way overdone.

If I could suggest a better system - anybody ever play Hardball 5? When your pitcher was struggling it was much harder to control the pitch cursor. It would move around in the zone a little when you were aiming your pitch. You had to steady your hand if you wanted to hit your spot. This would be an interesting way to mimic a pitcher struggling with control.

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by BobSacamano

I don't want to speak for the other poster but this is not the problem I have with the hitting engine. The problem I have is when you hit the ball perfectly and hit a lazy fly ball or ground ball and conversely when you DON'T hit it perfectly and crush a home run (or when the CPU does). It's not that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly into an out it's that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly and hit it weakly. If I hit the ball perfectly (meaning perfect timing and perfect contact) I should be getting close to the "max result" with that player. I get that some of this should be a result of ratings - Pujols can not get all of a pitch and still hit one out and Joe MiddleInfielder can hit a ball perfectly and have it hang up in the outfield for an easy catch.

This has to do with ratings. Not only the batters, but the pitcher's as well. If the system were strictly time and hit(and there is a level of batting for that) then the hitting system becomes far too simple. The goal is to try to simulate what you would see in real life and balance that with user input. To do that, there has to be a formula that takes all ratings as well as player input to determine the result.

Quote:

HOWEVER, having played this game quite a bit I'm convinced that more than ratings the big culprit in this inconsistency is pitcher confidence. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this whole engine should either be scrapped or significantly tweaked in the future. It seems to play WAY too much of a part in determining outcomes in the game - if a pitcher has given up a couple singles any contact is bound to be a rocket, and conversely if he's pitched a couple scoreless innings he's practically unhittable. I don't think it works this way in real life. I think the dev's had made an admirable effort to mimic real-life pitcher confidence, which probably exists to some degree, but it seems like it's way overdone.

I disagree with your assessment of pitcher confidence. I agree its part of the formula, but I don't believe that its overbearing in the formula. Far too many times I've pitched out of jams, rattled a pitcher who was on a roll, and everything in between.

[Heroesandvillains]

Quote: Originally Posted by BobSacamano

I don't want to speak for the other poster but this is not the problem I have with the hitting engine. The problem I have is when you hit the ball perfectly and hit a lazy fly ball or ground ball and conversely when you DON'T hit it perfectly and crush a home run (or when the CPU does). It's not that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly into an out it's that sometimes you'll hit the ball perfectly and hit it weakly. If I hit the ball perfectly (meaning perfect timing and perfect contact) I should be getting close to the "max result" with that player. I get that some of this should be a result of ratings - Pujols can not get all of a pitch and still hit one out and Joe MiddleInfielder can hit a ball perfectly and have it hang up in the outfield for an easy catch. HOWEVER, having played this game quite a bit I'm convinced that more than ratings the big culprit in this inconsistency is pitcher confidence. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this whole engine should either be scrapped or significantly tweaked in the future. It seems to play WAY too much of a part in determining outcomes in the game - if a pitcher has given up a couple singles any contact is bound to be a rocket, and conversely if he's pitched a couple scoreless innings he's practically unhittable. I don't think it works this way in real life. I think the dev's had made an admirable effort to mimic real-life pitcher confidence, which probably exists to some degree, but it seems like it's way overdone. If I could suggest a better system - anybody ever play Hardball 5? When your pitcher was struggling it was much harder to control the pitch cursor. It would move around in the zone a little when you were aiming your pitch. You had to steady your hand if you wanted to hit your spot. This would be an interesting way to mimic a pitcher struggling with control.

Again, how much offense do you guys really want?

Let me say it again. The hardcore, 200+ games a year player is likely looking for the most statistical realism. He'd like/demand that his offense get two-hit against every once in a while. This player would also like/demand that some key players in his lineup hit .250 over the course of an entire season, because in real life, this happens.

Because the hardcore players play this game A LOT, they'll likely be able to get very good with the L-Stick. Based on what you're asking for by wanting the benefit of the doubt on well timed pitches, or as you said "max result," the hardcore player will hit too well.

Thus, the game will only provide realistic hitting averages for the casual player. If SCEA becomes more forgiving with timing, next year I'm out. I'm already on Legend! What do you suggest for someone like me that's already seeing realistic results? An even MORE challenging difficulty level? No thanks.

And to your point on pitching. Just because we don't visually see the pitching cursor move when a guy gets rattled, doesn't mean that it's not very hard to hit your spots when the confidence meter is low. If you're not seeing this, you're pitching at a difficulty too easy for you. Pitching is GREAT this year. I hope they leave user pitching alone.

[MLB01]

The Show has something established that is amazing -- realism. It hard for me to even express how closely this game emulates actual baseball games I've watched on TV -- not even talkin' about the visuals but the stats and player tendencies.

Take what you see in the L3 pitch / hit info window with a grain of salt some times, because I've looked at it after I was clearly late on a swing and it said " normal " timing. I'm not sayin' it doesn't work, but sometimes it seems to be off.

As far as pitcher confidence goes, if you turn it off in the options, does it just turn the visual for it off or does it turn the entire mechanic off ?

[Heroesandvillains]

Quote: Originally Posted by MLB01

The Show has something established that is amazing -- realism. It hard for me to even express how closely this game emulates actual baseball games I've watched on TV -- not even talkin' about the visuals but the stats and player tendencies. Take what you see in the L3 pitch / hit info window with a grain of salt some times, because I've looked at it after I was clearly late on a swing and it said " normal " timing. I'm not sayin' it doesn't work, but sometimes it seems to be off. As far as pitcher confidence goes, if you turn it off in the options, does it just turn the visual for it off or does it turn the entire mechanic off ?

It only visually turns off the individual confidence of pitches. The blue bar underneath each individual pitch. The overall confidence, or lack there of, still exists "under the hood", so to speak.

If your fasball is good, it's still good with the confidence meter turned off.

Think of it as turning the PCI off. It's still there; you just can't see it.

There's no way to turn off or diminish/enhance the overall confidence meter.

As far as the rest of your post goes, I'm almost all in there. This game is great.

The hitter's overall power needs to be toned down, as far as it's influence over base hits are concerned. Fielding needs a makeover too, but I'm fine just using auto field (thanks SCEA for this.).

I mostly agree with Countryboy on all fronts. But Swaldo does make a great case for adding more seperation between top/bottom tier CPU pitchers. I just disagree (mostly) with how he wants to go about it. I personally love the H/9, BB/9, SO/9 ratings. I don't know about you guys, but my Yanks franchise is going great. It feels very real. Sometimes...uh, it feels too really (Javy Vazquez for instance).

[jhawk826]

The presentation needs to be revamped. The commentary in 10 was the same from 09 with a few minor differences. Because of that, I felt like I was playing 09 instead of '10 for the last few months. Make the commentary more realistic. At least let them have some conversation. It sounds like they were all in separate booths. Hopefully this issue is addressed.

[ElectricWizard]

STANCES STANCES STANCES

[cardsleadtheway]

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

Ever play baseball before? I mean, organized competitive baseball? Ever watch it on TV? You can time the pitch perfectly, hit the ball on the sweetspot and still hit the ball into an out. It happens. Just as you can be fooled, flip the bat and get a hit. Its baseball. Sounds to me you want to remove that aspect of a baseball game.

I have agreed with almost everything you have said up to this point. I have played competitive baseball at so many levels for the better part of my life, and still do in fact. If you time a pitch perfectly, and hit it on the sweet spot, you will make solid contact. You won't pop it up and you won't dribble a weak grounder for an easy double play. You won't get a hit every time, or even half of the time because there are these people that just happen to be hanging around in the field trying to stop you from getting a hit. In my opinion, The Show does a great job with getting stats to a realistic level. I just feel that they go about it wrong. The physics are more than a little off in this game and dependent way too much on attributes. Attributes have to play an important role, but it seems like the attributes take over instead of the physics. I would rather have the frustration of a great pitcher placing the pitch exactly where they want it and possible getting more calls going their way, or a great hitter laying off borderline pitches and crushing the mistake than to have the attributes determine a weak grounder because pitcher A has a H/9 rating that trumps the batters contact rating. The truth is that the difference between a .300 hitter and .250 hitter is a mere 25 hits anyway.

All that being said, I would rather not see any changes to the pitching or hitting system without at least a three year development cycle. It takes far too long to make the game as it is, thus the need to skip of the quality assurance part of development. I hope they leave it all alone and focus solely on fielding and fixing all the franchise bugs. That would make it well worth buying again.