Ten Areas of Improvement for MLB 12: The Show

[brewers713]

Retractable roofs. I play as the Brewers and it's awful playing a game early in the season or in the playoffs and it is 40 degrees and windy when it should be a controlled envioronment. Miller Park in general looks bad because it is too dark and looks very stale. The west coast stadiums look much better in the game.

Otherwise, I like the additions especially the one with the in season contracts. A players happiness is pre determined at the start of season based on his contract. For example, Braun had a good contract and was happy and he was much easier to hit with whereas Fielder had a bad contract and was unhappy and it made it much more difficult to play with him. There was really nothing I could do about it until the offseason.

On that same note, I'm not a fan of the hot and cold streaks because it seems as it is almost impossible to get a hit with Yuny Betancourt (or a similar player) when he is on a cold streak. Some players are on cold streaks for weeks at a time also and it really affects their average. I played my season on Legend this year so I don't know if the hot and cold streaks have a bigger effect on a higher difficulty.

I've read some good suggestions so far and I hope they can get some of them into next years game! Although, like some have said, they are already done taking suggestions for this 2012 so we will just have to wait and see.

[bp4baseball]

Quote: Originally Posted by pootytang

When do we start getting news on the new game?

Roughly the middle of December going by previous years, but each is different, so we'll just have to wait and see.

[kg54mvp1]

better lighting on the fields, CREATE A TEAM WHERE YOU CAN CREATE UNIFORMS!!!

[tnixen]

Quote: Originally Posted by pootytang

When do we start getting news on the new game?

The first preview last year was about "December 15"

[1Rose]

How about just better player physics and models all together?

When players jog or when your running in the outfield it seems like players have no weight to them. I want to feel some momentum and fix the canned animations of the outfielders running into the walls, they look really bad.

All animations need a huge overhaul, which I've been saying for like 4 years, but seems to never get addressed, they just keep adding equally awkward animations. Still have the same terrible looking swings for 1H releases for Right Handers and the Left Handed swing is the same for everybody. FIX!!!

90% of the pitching animations look completely awkward and unrealistic. Look like they have no momentum or power behind them, just a weird arm flail or weird leg kick and the ball flies out of their hand without it looking like the pitcher is actually throwing it.

Presention needs a HUGE overhaul. Commentary is stale and has been virtually the same for the past 5 years. New commentators. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver? Don't understand why this can't happen. Implement FOX, TBS etc. and dynamic playoff atmosphere with realistic sounds and reactions. Compare '11 to a game going on right now and it's not even close. I want towels waving on every 3-2 count and with 2 outs. Huge pops when a player hits a home run or gets a big double play. Booing when a player that is hot is coming to the plate in an opposing park etc. You guys claim the most realistic baseball game, but I think that only applies to spring training. This includes improved overlays, TV style camera angles and TV style replays. In game cuts to manager faces, cuts to the bullpen if someone is warming up etc. Link up with a TV production crew like 2k did for NBA.

Dynamic Weather.

Also, please can we get some new jersey textures?? Ones that actually move. I mean didn't 2k do that in like 2006?? The painted on look is getting old.

Also, CAP needs an overhaul. The skin textures are really bad and most CAP look alien like, especially faces look totally weird.

I could keep going...but these are the main points I wanted to stress.

[blueduke]

Two things I'd love see addressed:

1. Would love to download a roster and start a season without the rosters and lineups being scrambled all to heck. I know there's a work around for it (and it's a nuisance) but why does there have to be? if you enable roster control you should have it

2. Noticeable differences in fielding abilities. I honestly can't see the difference between the abilities of a gold glover and an average fielder in this game

[tnixen]

After reading all the posts at OS I think I have learned one thing for sure. Just about everyone is in agreement that the "Presentation" has gotten very old and stale over the years. And its time for a complete make over with a brand spanking new TV Style Presentation. Something like Fox Baseball.TBS,ESPN or even MLB Network.

Personally for me if Sony does completely redo the "Presentation" to a true TV style "Presentation" it would totally make MLB The Show have that NEW feeling!

I have read that the reason 2K11 Sports games "Presentations" are so cool and like a real life TV broadcast is because the company hired real "Presentation" crew from one of the TV broadcast networks. I think it was "TNT" maybe. Sony should probably think about doing the same thing. My only worry why Sony would not hire real life "Presentation" crews from a big sports network is maybe it would cost them to much money? But Money or not this is the only way MLB The Show truly would feel like a brand new game and not feel Stale and get boring too play too quickly.


Just for example one of the things that could be improved is the "Score Bar" or what every you call it at the top of the screen. I see no reason why it needs to be so big in size. It should be more like say the NESN "Score Bar" in this screen shot below. The NESN "Score Bar" is way smaller then the MLB The Show "Score Bar" and yet it even has more info then the MLB The Show one has. Notice the NESN "Score Bar" has the "Pitch Count" which then flashes to "MPH" after every pitch for a second or two. It would be nice having the "Pitch Count" displayed in the "Score bar" so you do not have to click "Select" button to see the pitch Count.

That is only one example of course on how the "Presentation" could be improved.

Here's hoping MLB 12 the Show has the TV Style "Presentation" that we all have been wanting for years now!!!

[Legionnaire]

I think the expansion team idea is my favorite. In sports games, franchise/dynasty mode is usually something I rush through early on because it's not real to me until I've really invested myself in my roster by picking my own players. Expansion Mode would let me to hop right in with that from Day 1 (without making me do a fantasy draft, which I have no interest in because I don't want to shake up the whole league like that).

I can't remember the last time I played a sports game that truly had this, an expansion team in franchise mode. I feel like maybe there was a Madden game with some kind of expansion thing in place in advance of the Texans joining the league, but I'm fuzzy on the details (no longer sure if the game actually had an expansion draft and all that good stuff, or if I just came up with my own system for doing my own expansion team).

Still, I'd be all over it if I could build up my own team from scratch. Have other teams forced to choose who to protect and who to expose in the expansion draft (and, like real life, have the logic of those decisions dictate that plenty of recognizable names get exposes because the teams are just hoping to dump contracts here and there). Let me design my team, pick a city.

Let me design a stadium. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the college baseball game EA Sports put out where I could manually design my own stadium. Choose how far/close and what angles to make the outfield walls. It was my favorite coming up with bizarre, unique stadiums to hit and play defense in. I could have the corners much deeper than centerfield. I could have the centerfield wall incredibly close in, but have the wall alternate back and forth between being insanely high and insanely low in different spots, so it was a crapshoot whether hard-hit balls would be held in or find their way out for homers. If The Show took that idea and brought it to next-gen I'd love them 'til the day I die.

I'd love being able to customize my stadium dimensions and build a team to thrive in that stadium from the ground-up. Maybe even cook up a nice uniform editor for designing my team's appearance (something similar to Backbreaker's uniform design program? or maybe just let us import pictures from the hard-drive, similar to how EA's create-a-school website works for NCAA football).