MLB 2K11 Developer Diary #4 - Revamped Fielding System, Animations, Sliders & Videos

[The Gamer]

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2K Sports have just posted MLB 2K11 Developer Diary #4, going over the revamped fielding system, animations, fielding sliders and more.

Quote:

"I’m an avid gamer and the most important part of any sports game is player differentiation. I expect a 75 rated player to feel different than an 85 and so on. This is always difficult to accomplish because, traditionally in sports games, there are so many ratings and trying to make each attribute affect a player’s performance can be very challenging. In MLB 2K11, our fielders are differentiated by three skills: 1) Range – broken down to range and anticipation 2) Glove 3) Arm – broken down to strength and accuracy By simplifying things, it allows us to introduce new elements of gameplay and, more importantly, differentiate the players. With that said, let’s get right to it and introduce the new features."

[jeffy777]

Nice. The gameplay videos look good. I really like the fielding camera.

EDIT:

I also dig the new sliders:

Quote:

Throw Accuracy – Modifies the difficulty of the throw meter when fielding. Gather error frequency – Increases the slider to see more gather errors and decrease to see less gather errors. Throwing error frequency – Modifies the frequency of throwing errors by the CPU or when putting the meter into the red. Outfield & Infield Throw Speed modifier – Tunes the throw speed of the outfielders and infielders separately. Outfield & Infield Run Speed modifier – Adjusts the running speed of the outfielders and infielders separately. Baserunner speed – Tunes the running speed of the baserunners. Catcher Arm Strength and Accuracy – Tunes how hard and accurate the catchers will throw on steal attempts. All sliders can be adjusted separately for the user and CPU.

[The Gamer]

This is on of the better DD that they have released. Lots of good info and the video support to show what they are explaining. Fielding looks to be majorly improved over previous versions. I'm so glad that errors have been included as that was the main sticking point for me with 2k10.

[Blitzburgh]

WOW! This game has me excited for baseball and I hope fans of the other game (which I am) give this a shot. It looks vastly improved where as the other game basically added new controls to an already good game. It looks like we may have two good games this year for a change. Now, if only football could be the same way! lol

[RGmoney]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Gamer

This is on of the better DD that they have released. Lots of good info and the video support to show what they are explaining. Fielding looks to be majorly improved over previous versions. I'm so glad that errors have been included as that was the main sticking point for me with 2k10.

Agree with my fellow Cubbie.

[jeffy777]

A lot of good info in the "Animations" section. Hopefully it all translates well into good gameplay. Looking forward to seeing more of it in action.

I especially like:

Quote:

No more “football catches” – Playing MLB 2K10, we cringed every time we saw a shortstop run backwards and make what we called “football catches”. We knew that we wanted to address that issue by adding new animations. We added animation coverage that has the fielder turn around while the ball is in midair in order to catch it. These animations look very smooth and make our game look more authentic. Sliding catches – We have a good database of diving catches already, but we didn’t have many catches where the outfielders are sliding in to catch the ball. You see this frequently in real baseball when an outfielder is charging a ball and, instead of diving head first, they slide feet first. We added quite a few animations to add variety and refresh our diving catches. Barehand queue ups – Last year, we introduced the ability to preload a throw and the fielders could trigger these smooth catch-and-throw animations. This year, we took that a step further by adding the same kind of plays from barehand gathers. That means that if a ball is hit into the gap and the ball stops at the foot of the outfield wall, if you queue up a throw, your outfielder should be able to just pick up the ball and fire it into the infield in one smooth animation. These animations are my personal favorite when they appear. Restricting animations by ratings and weight – We wanted to continue to add to our realism and get rid of as many “that player wouldn’t do that in real life” moments as we could. We did a couple of very interesting things to limit that in the field this year. The first thing we did is limit animations to different ratings, so certain animations won’t trigger unless your glove rating is greater than 90, etc. We also limited animations by height and weight so that, even if a player has a good glove or arm rating, you won’t see bigger players make amazingly athletic plays.

[johnnyg713]

I like the DD a lot.. But honestly 2k.. If I hear "see ya" every time someone hits the ball deep im gonna smash my controller on the ground

[jeffy777]

Quote: Originally Posted by johnnyg713

I like the DD a lot.. But honestly 2k.. If I hear "see ya" every time someone hits the ball deep im gonna smash my controller on the ground

haha, I'm getting tired of that one too.