hot teams too hot?

[sidekickjosh]

i noticed that when i am playing a team that is on a winning streak, and has a good number of hot players, it seems they are tooo hot.. like the game takes it a bit too literally..

not even at bats, but i feel like my team is more error prone, as well as my hits less effective.. is this just an illusion? or are you given a disadvantage when playing a hot team?

[Phoenixmgs]

This series is notorious for over doing it with player confidence. When a hitter is hot, he hits too well. You can literally swing horribly bad and he'll still get a hit. Opposite is true for cold players, it's almost impossible to get a hit. Samething with pitchers; you get their confidence down and hitting is far too easy. If a pitcher has low confidence in a pitch, you better not throw that pitch unless it's to a pitcher and you're trying to build confidence back up.

[Grnngld]

Yup. Especially when there's no proof something as arbitrary as "confidence" makes an average player suddenly hit like Barry Bonds.

I can't tell you how many times a guy would be "cold" at the plate and he couldn't even square up a meatball. On the other hand, I can't tell you how many times I've made an absolute perfect pitch on the corner to some guy who's "hot" and he'd blast it over the fence for a homer. Heck, I've thrown balls about a foot outside intentionally to those guys and they'd still manage to get a base hit. If some team has about 5 or 6 guys who's currently "hot", good luck trying to win. Absolutely ridiculous and not "realistic" at all.

It goes the same for pitchers as well. I'd make two guys look foolish and K them with my closer. Then I decide to pitch around the next guy cause, well, maybe he's A-Rod or something. I end up walking that guy. My confidence would take a hit and the following guy would blast a game tying double or something, more often than not. I'm at the point where I'm scared to even walk the CPU once. It goes both ways too. Sometimes I draw a walk against a guy who's very "confident" and then all hell would suddenly break loose. It just feels like I have no control over what's going on.

In future editions, we NEED to have the option to play with confidence completely off (pitch confidence included).

[Phoenixmgs]

Also, a 2-3 #8 hitter with a HR is more dangerous than an 0-3 Albert Pujols. If a guy has a couple hits in a game, you'd better just pitch around him because he's very likely to get another hit.

[TripleThreat1973]

Quote: Originally Posted by Grnngld

Yup. Especially when there's no proof something as arbitrary as "confidence" makes an average player suddenly hit like Barry Bonds. I can't tell you how many times a guy would be "cold" at the plate and he couldn't even square up a meatball. On the other hand, I can't tell you how many times I've made an absolute perfect pitch on the corner to some guy who's "hot" and he'd blast it over the fence for a homer. Heck, I've thrown balls about a foot outside intentionally to those guys and they'd still manage to get a base hit. If some team has about 5 or 6 guys who's currently "hot", good luck trying to win. Absolutely ridiculous and not "realistic" at all. It goes the same for pitchers as well. I'd make two guys look foolish and K them with my closer. Then I decide to pitch around the next guy cause, well, maybe he's A-Rod or something. I end up walking that guy. My confidence would take a hit and the following guy would blast a game tying double or something, more often than not. I'm at the point where I'm scared to even walk the CPU once. It goes both ways too. Sometimes I draw a walk against a guy who's very "confident" and then all hell would suddenly break loose. It just feels like I have no control over what's going on. In future editions, we NEED to have the option to play with confidence completely off (pitch confidence included).

Not to mention throwing an 0-2 pitch out of the zone (intentionally) seems to negate any of the "hot streak" you racked up by K'ing the previous hitter and going 0-2 on the current guy.

I like the hot/cold streak aspect, but don't have a "quantity" on how it's applied in this game. But watching the Cards-Brewers game the other day, Carpenter gives up two early homers on curveballs, and then responds by throwing 3 beauties (all curves) to Prince and sits him down. When a pitcher throws a certain pitch 25 or so times per game, they may throw the occassional "rusty nail" and pay for it, but that doesn't mean the other 20-some pitches of the same type are poor quality. Now, how that type of thing could be accurately and consistently represented in a video game is beyond me .... my preference would be as someone else stated, the ability to play with the effect off (and not just hidden from sight).

[ParisB]

All in all, the Confidence is too fickle in this game and plays too big of a role.

Just like the example above, when a top flight pitcher gives up a homerun, they don't rattle to pieces and suddenly can't locate anything (and unfortunately in this game "not locating" means meatballs down the middle that get hammered).

There should be some static confidence attribute where a guy like Beckett, Lackey, Sabathia, or whatever don't fall apart after a bad inning or bad at-bat. They should still have the occasional bad start where they're just not feeling it, but the Confidence meter is simply too dynamic. Once it kicks in the slider settings don't even matter. Mediocre pitchers become marksmen if they take you down 1-2-3 in the first two innings. And elite pitchers just fall apart if you give up a couple of hits. Once your pitcher gets in that rattled mode, there's nothing you can really do but ride it out. The CPU will string along 3 singles and 2 doubles, get their 3 spot and then go down easily. You can almost sense the 3spot inning is coming if you walk the leadoff guy and the next batter slices a double in the gap. But once the 3 runs go on the board, the CPU becomes feeble most of the time.

I mean, there's pitchers who can get rattled easily or be completely dominant at times (ervin santana is the perfect example), but this game takes it a little too far.

p.s.- and my biggest complaint is how we still get punished for throwing intentional balls on 0-2 counts. C'mon, my confidence meter shouldn't drop on pitches where I intentionally throw junk.

[capnharry]

Quote: Originally Posted by Phoenixmgs

Also, a 2-3 #8 hitter with a HR is more dangerous than an 0-3 Albert Pujols. If a guy has a couple hits in a game, you'd better just pitch around him because he's very likely to get another hit.

Thanks for this tip! Man I have seen one extreme to the other in my first month of my Franchise with Nelson Cruz. He started out almost identical to real life and had 7 HR through the first couple weeks. He immediately followed that with an 0 for like 30 something spell...it's sick and I still can't get out of it. I've tried shuffling him around in the lineup putting him in the 2 spot or even batting 3rd against lefties when Hamilton needs a break to give him some protection in the lineup but nothing is working. Also have let him sit a game, still not breaking the slump. Any tips on getting out of this or just have to ride it out?

[Phoenixmgs]

Quote: Originally Posted by capnharry

Thanks for this tip! Man I have seen one extreme to the other in my first month of my Franchise with Nelson Cruz. He started out almost identical to real life and had 7 HR through the first couple weeks. He immediately followed that with an 0 for like 30 something spell...it's sick and I still can't get out of it. I've tried shuffling him around in the lineup putting him in the 2 spot or even batting 3rd against lefties when Hamilton needs a break to give him some protection in the lineup but nothing is working. Also have let him sit a game, still not breaking the slump. Any tips on getting out of this or just have to ride it out?

I'm not sure. Maybe the game just after time slowly removes the penalties that a cold streak brings about. Also, you should be able to have a couple good games with him and it should break him out; however, that has more to do with luck than anything since, as you know, it's very hard to get a hit even if you put a good swing on the ball.