What we know about MLB 2K11 so far......
I thought it would be helpful to have one compiled list of everything we know about 2K11 so far, in terms of what's new and what's been improved, especially for people that just want a quick overview. I went through everything that's been released thus far and picked out anything that was original. I found a few details that I had forgotten, so I hope this is helpful to you as well. I'll update this list as new stuff is released. Please let me know if I missed anything and I'll add it in......
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Completely revamped fielding system
- MLB 2K10 had a big flaw when it came to fielding: No errors......That has been fixed.
- Fielder ratings now play a big part in the gameplay: "Last year, it didn't really matter what a fielder's rating was. Everyone basically made the same plays. But this year everything is based on the fielding rating.....We didn't want to fix fielding by just determining instantly whether someone was going to catch the ball or not. We want to make it half ratings and half your doing."
- Improved Throwing Meters: the throwing meter has a green zone and a red zone, the size of each depends on the fielder’s throw accuracy. Throwing Meter accuracy will now have a much greater impact on the quality of your throws and errors. "A throw in the red isn't automatic failure - if he's a good fielder, the inaccuracy will be less pronounced."
- "Fielding balls in the air is similarly ratings-dependent. On a fly ball or pop-up, you’ll see a large white circle; the ball will end up somewhere within it. A small yellow circle will come up as the ball is falling to Earth, and it gradually shrinks to let you know exactly where the ball will land. For a good fielder, the yellow circle will come up quickly after the white one. So with a defender like Carl Crawford, you’ll be able to get into position to make the catch well before the ball comes down. But if you have, say, Adam Dunn in the outfield, pulling down a fly ball is going to be an adventure."
- "Baseball video games typically auto-steer fielders to the flight of the ball for a short moment as the game transitions from the hitting view to the overhead fielding view. That break on the ball has been shortened considerably in MLB 2K11."
- New Fielding Animations.....(See Animation section below for details)
- Improved Fielding AI
- "The other part of throwing, that we addressed based on your feedback from previous MLB 2K editions of the game, is that players threw too hard and that there wasn’t as much player differentiation as in real life when it comes to arm strength. We devoted a lot of attention towards making sure there is significant variation between the hardest and softest throwers so that, once again, the user is able to tell the difference when they see the fielder throw in-game."
- "Another throwing improvement that you’ll find in MLB 2K11 is that throws sometimes are one or two hopped to their target. It always bothered me that fielders were able to backhand a ball from deep short, turn around and throw to first base on a rope while fading away into left field. This year, you’ll see those throws one or two hopped to first base and, sometimes, lead to an infield single. Just like in real life, it’s sometimes better to take your time, set your feet, and make a stronger throw."
- "When we sat down and played MLB 2K10 and looked for areas that needed improvement, we all agreed that the tagging system needed an upgrade. We set out to make tagging more realistic. We created all new tagging animations to support the new tagging system, and what we accomplished was a spectacular tagging system that delivers realistic results. Even when I play our game, I’m constantly surprised by how quickly the fielders get their tags down and how much better the new tag animations look and feel compared to previous years."
More details on Fielding improvements, with video demonstrations
Pitching
- Pitching is now more challenging in terms of accuracy: "In MLB 2K10, it was way too easy to pitch with pinpoint accuracy -- even with sub-par hurlers -- once you got good enough. Visual Concepts has introduced variance for missed analog-stick gestures, so even if your gesture is off in a particular manner each time, you won’t be able to easily predict the behavior of the pitch: it might break more or less. Real pitchers can’t simply aim a pitch at a particular spot and get it there every time, and even MLB 2K pros won’t have that luxury anymore."
- "Pitching I found was less automatic as well, and there seemed to be a greater difference in your pitch location and effectiveness if you didn't hit the max-pitch circle in the pitching mechanism, introduced last year."
- A “Pitcher Control” slider is one of several new difficulty sliders that we added to the game this year. Through the Pitcher Control slider, you can change the concept of control to be more or less challenging. This new slider will allow you to customize the pitching experience to your liking. This is a sensitive slider that will make it noticeably easier or harder to throw strikes."
- "Now if you continuously miss a pitch, you will not be able to know where it will wind up, just like in real life, if you miss badly, the pitch may end up anywhere in the zone."
- Variable Strike Zones
- "There's now a stat for how many pitches a batter averages on a plate appearance. Basically, 2K11 knows if a batter tends to extend an at-bat by taking a lot of pitches (or fouling a lot of them off). If balanced right, this little detail could add an extra layer of realism to the pitcher-batter duels."
- New Pitch Introduced - Split-Finger Changeup, thanks to Roy Halladay's suggestion.
- The Pitch Count is now accessible at all times via the pause menu
- "One of the improvements he (Halladay) suggested was to have the batters’ hot and cold zones displayed throughout the entire at-bat, rather than only for the first pitch. The reasoning behind this was that Halladay and Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz memorize every hitter’s hot and cold zone before each start and they pitch to the hitter’s weaknesses, so players should get that benefit when playing 2K11 as well. "
Hitting
- New Hit Types, including Choppers, Dribblers.... "and we shot all new animations for speedsters leaving the batter's box and trying to beat out the play at first."
- More types of pop ups and foul balls: "Poorly timing a contact swing can also result in pop-ups behind the plate and near the dugouts, balls playable for the catcher....There is also the chance to hit an infield fly ball when poorly timing a power swing. The new hit types added to MLB 2K11 mean your catchers first baseman, and third baseman will have to cover much more ground in foul territory. These subtle additions provide a much more realistic gameplay experience at the plate."
- "In addition to new hit types, we also re-worked our ball physics to behave according to the surface with which the ball is interacting. The ball will have different physics depending on whether the surface is grass, turf, dirt or brick. Part of the ball physics improvements also includes hits that slice or fade. Hitting a ball that slices down the first base line, barely foul, gives you that “oh so close” feeling when combined with the new hitting cameras from the plate perspective."
- Improved Hit Distribution for both the Player/AI and less opposite field home runs: "Using hit charts from the 2010 MLB season, the baseball team here at 2K Sports wanted to emulate the same ratio and breakdown of hit types in MLB 2K11. This year, we have the AI hitting the right amount of pulled home runs vs. opposite field home runs. Last year, there were definitely too many opposite field home runs. This has been addressed in MLB 2K11. We also have doubles, triples, and hits into the gaps occurring with the same frequency that took place in real life last season. For the player you are controlling at the plate, you will also find that a lot of power is required this year to hit opposite field home runs. Trying to pull the ball against a fastball is the most common way to hit a home run in real life and it is no different in MLB 2K11."
- All new swing animations (See Animations Below)
- "Also, a concept of acceleration allows the player likenesses to shine through even in the first few steps to first base after making contact. Guys like Carl Crawford get out of the box much quicker than someone like his new teammate, Adrian Gonzalez."
- "At the plate, in single-player mode as a hitter, a new camera angle replaces the cut from the batting view to the field. Now the camera follows the flight of the ball to the outfield, from home plate instead of trailing behind it. You base runners were off camera and managed from the HUD in the old mode anyway. It's an enhancement consistent with the broadcast presentation tuning that, as we noted earlier, features park specific camera angles that mimic those of real life games on TV."
- "Another change is that the camera eliminates any sort of home run indicators, so you will have to judge based on the sound of the ball off the bat and the trajectory if you have warning-track power or if you sent one into the bleachers.".... "Like in real life, the only time you’ll immediately know that a hit is a home run is if it is truly crushed. When this happens, the hitter will play animations leaving the box showing that he knows it’s long gone. Otherwise, you will need to wait it out to see if it stays in play or not, just like a real hitter. In addition to this improvement, we also added new clutch and “long gone” presentation HR cameras. Again, these will only play if it is a completely obvious HR. The close calls will not have any such tells."
Baserunning
- "Runners caught between bases can hold the two triggers rather than tap a single direction so that they can make the call when to run at the right moment."
General
- Injuries are back in (see more details on this in the Franchise section below)
- MLB 2K11 will feature a new broadcast-style presentation in which the angles of the center field camera view will change for all 30 major league ballparks, mimicking real-life broadcasts.
- If the view is too problematic, or if you prefer to pitch from the catcher's perspective (facing the incoming pitch), you can lock the default camera angle to a single setting, or make your home park's camera setting uniform across every game you play.
- In the camera settings, we allow you to customize the type of camera, zoom, position, height, and side perspective. In MLB 2K11, when you customize the cameras in-game, we allow you to save them to your profile.
- When viewing lineups/rosters, players on hot/cold streaks are labeled with icons, making management easier.
- During a game you can go through a substitution screen and see a pitcher's repertoire (including his arsenal and speeds), as well as a "splits" screen where you can see how pitchers/batters do in certain situations. You can also now see the other team's bench.
- "And don’t worry,we are not disabling achievements this year if you change the sliders. It’s your game and it should be played however you want to play it."
Graphics
- New Player Models: "Player body types have also received a complete overhaul."
- "Along with all these body types, we made sure that the players kept the right shape as the camera moved further away from them and they become smaller on the screen. This way, when the camera pans out to see your player run the bases, he’ll maintain his shape rather then popping back to an average size body, as was the case in 2K10."
- Better Player Faces
- Improved Uniforms/Jerseys: "Uniforms have been reworked to better represent authentic MLB uniforms. We added details, such as name plates and the Cool Base pin holes, which helped us achieve higher realism. Folds and wrinkles in the jersey also move more smoothly and accurately, animating with each of the player’s movements."
- Hats and helmets have a closer fit to the player’s heads.
- Improved Lighting: "Stadiums, players and crowds now look like they exist in the same world without being blown out by oversaturation or contrast"
- New Crowd Models with more variety in closthing, size, and shape, as well as more accurate team colors, and rally towels in the Postseason.
More info and examples of improved Graphics
Animations
- "Animation is smoother across the board, with less popping in and out of certain states"
- New Swing animations: "We removed every single contact swing, both one-handed and two-handed, from MLB 2K10. We re-shot new contact swings that look much more natural and smooth. Batters will step into their swing rather than stepping, pausing and
then swinging. In addition to the contact swings looking more realistic, the batter also looks a lot better when leaving the box on his way to first. Gone are the days when the contact swings looked choppy and sluggish."
- New Fielding Animations: "Another change that looks to help fielding is the introduction of new animations. The increased variety, especially for bobbled balls, makes the game more fluid and realistic." ....... "Rather than just saying, you're good or you're bad, now with the new animations, you might have a grounder ride up your glove and hit your body and it's up to you to still make the play. Or you might hit the throw meter in the red and throw a one-hopper to the first baseman and you're sitting there hoping he catches it. These new animations make you sweat out every play because now every ground ball is not just a clean catch and throw."....... ""If a shortstop doesn't have a chance of gobbling up a grounder, he won't sprint after it or oddly switch back to default fielding position. He'll slow down and watch the play develop." (Animations like these add more realism to the game)"
- Many improvements to tagging animatios: Quicker tags, Offline tags, Different tag heights
- Third Out only catches – In order to improve the casual look of our player models, we need to make the players aware of the context of their animations. The best example of this is our third out only animations that will trigger when a fielder catches an out to end the inning.
- Credit/Excitement – Not only did we want to make the fielders aware of the situation that they are in when it comes to outs, we wanted to make them aware of what just happened. This means that the first baseman will pump his fist after a big defensive play, or the pitcher shows emotion after getting out of a tough jam. It also means that the pitchers credit their fielders when an amazing play is made. These kinds of little touches add a lot to the overall experience and presentation when playing the game.
- 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."
- 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.
- "A number of player-specific animations also have been added - Sandoval's nutball at-bat ritual, where he enters the batter's box and then appears to charge out of it, is included. So is the crazy windup of the Astros' Samuel Gervacio - who shows the ball to the third-base dugout before each pitch, and has an arms-flailing follow-through."
- New General Animations: "On the note of detail, some additions have been implemented to bring out the high drama of the game. As a tense no-hitter progresses through the innings, pitchers are going to show their tension or frustration, base coaches are going to be shown coaching at the bases. Pitchers, like the Giants' Tim Lincecum, show their traditional stance on the mound. Using hours of captured footage of famous players doing their thing, 2K Sports aims for an air of authenticity when you see a famed batter stepping out of the box to dust off a shoe, or walking off the field when struck-out."
- "The dugout reactions, fielding animations, swings and leaving the batter’s box have all been reshot to add another level of realism to the gameplay experience. For example if Shane Victorino legs out an infield single, he might pump his fist as he heads back to first base, or if CC Sabathia loads the bases he might head back to the mound while shouting expletives into his mitt. If you see it in real-life, you can expect to see it in 2K11."...."(Players on the bench) will duck or scatter when a screaming liner heads their way. Pitchers will salute teammates who make nice plays and show signs of frustration in extended innings."
- "It's funny, though, because at work we have things that we call '2K11' plays. That's a play where everything that happened couldn't have been done in '2K10.' I just had a play where Ichiro hit a chopper (new hit type), and we shot all new animations for speedsters leaving the batter's box and trying to beat out the play at first. We also shot all new fielding animations where good fielders charge the ball and bare hand it, then wing it to first while falling down (while a bad fielder might need to get a better grip before they throw or double clutch)."
- Catcher specific animation set: In previous versions of our game, the catcher shared all of the same movement animations as the rest of the fielders that were the catcher’s size. However, catchers always move differently because they carry a lot of gear. This meant that getting our catchers to look more like catchers would require us to capture all of the animations with the catcher in his gear. After we captured all of the animations and put them in-game, we would clearly see a difference in how our catchers move and catch the ball. We hope that you guys will be able to appreciate this change as well.
Dynamic Player Ratings
- Dynamic Player Rating system (DPRS for short) dynamically adjusts player ratings to represent recent performance.
- "For MLB Today, we use the real life results from the previous four weeks of play to drive the DPRS and determine rating adjustments. This means that, while playing MLB Today games, the players are adjusting based on their real world performance."
- "In Franchise and My Player modes, the DPRS uses the player results generated by playing or simulating games in your season."
- "In Franchise and My Player mode, we now get to see the results of players having breakout years, rookies playing beyond their years, seasoned vets finding their groove again and players faltering and playing poorly. These changes and updates happen automatically on a daily basis so the players in our franchise are playing like their stats suggest."
- "With Dynamic Player Ratings and MLB Today we can now play every streak and slump that develops in the MLB. No subjectivity, no hype, we are going to let each player’s performance do the talking."
- "Like last year, we show the batter’s power and contact rating versus the pitcher on the mound at the start of every at bat. This served as a great reminder of player ratings for both your own team and the opposing lineup. We now show the adjusted ratings for the batter instead of their base ratings. If the adjusted power or contact rating is up or down they will be colored GREEN or RED. We also added some callout text to let you know the batter is hot or cold."
Much more detail on Dynamic Player Ratings
AI/Management
- "As for player management, pitchers now will get a pitch-count range that CPU managers, especially those in the My Player career mode, will watch more closely. No more leaving in a dead-armed hurler whose stamina ran out before he reached the 100th pitch."
- "Situational pitching changes to create more advantageous matchups will also be more frequent"
- "When you're hitting, you will see in the HUD whether the history of this pitcher-vs-hitter matchup favors one side or the other, regardless of overall stats. The game will perform accordingly."
Franchise:
- "To start, Franchise mode has been deepened and players have much more control over what is said and done with their controlled teams. When it comes to the front office, everything has been made more realistic, from the stats players accumulate when simulation is on, contract negotiations, player development and even injury management have been revamped."
- Improved player progression system: "We gutted our player progression system," adds Bailey. "Now we factor in a player's potential, their age, their position, their style of play. Look at Buster Posey. He's got 5-star potential, and right now he's at 4 stars in the game and trending up and we show it all to you right on the screen.This year, everything is right there in front of you. A lot of this stuff used to be under the hood, but now, it's right there for everyone to see."
- New Star and Trending Features: "When it comes to other front office decisions, such as trades and signing free agents, 2K11’s new star and trending features will help sway you in one direction or another. Each player has a star and potential rating attached to them. What that means is that a player such as Buster Posey may have a current star rating of three, but his potential is five. An owner may be more inclined to trade for Posey because he is on an upward trend and will one day reach the five-star max. On the other hand, a player like Bobby Abreu, who at one time had a five-star rating, may only have four stars now and is clearly trending downward in his career. All of this will undoubtedly help more inexperienced managers and GMs make team personnel decisions."
- In addition to all of these front office changes, gamers will also be greeted with an all-new organizational breakdown for each month, a team health page, and the ability to micro-manage your minor league teams as well."
- In-game injuries play a role this year: "Forget the days of a screen just randomly popping up and telling you a player is hurt. In "MLB 2K11" you will see your player get injured on the field (all new motion-captured animations), then it's up to you to manage how to play him. You can keep him in, but his ratings are going to take a hit, or you can decide whether you want to put him on the DL or just bench him and hope he's a fast healer. And while these decisions can be automated for anyone who doesn't want to tinker, for those gamers looking for that extra edge that putting someone on three 15-day DL lists can give them as opposed to one 60-day stint, the choice is yours on how to deal with everything from a freak injury or a flu to an older player dealing with chronic back pain as older players will break down if you play them too much during the season"
- Reoccurring injuries have been implemented: "A major helper in making the kind of managerial and front office decisions is the new player dynamic system 2K11 has implemented. Just like in the course of the real MLB season, players will now go through slumps and hot streaks, become fatigued, play through injuries, and be hampered by reoccurring or nagging injures."
- Injuries can be progressive. So if you play a guy through an injury and can lead to a worse injury to the same affected area. These injuries are real-time, so each animation has a certain about of "injury risk" tied to it. So if a player is playing through a bad shoulder and tries to steamroll the catcher at the plate, it could mean very bad news.
- Fatigue will play more of a role: "Unless you manage your starters like Dusty Baker does, leaving them out there for 115-130 pitches, you'll want to keep and eye on their fatigue. If Johnny Cueto walks off the mound with no gas left in his tank, he won't magically regain all of his stamina for his next start. Even after five days of rest, he could enter the game at 70 or 80 percent. You'll probably have to pull him early which will likely result in the bullpen burning up.".... "Rather than just thinking about the game at hand, you'll have to think about the entire season. If a division rival is coming to town next week, you may want to pull him early, even if he's mowing down the opposition."
- Player ratings now rise and fall depending on how a player is playing during a rolling 30-day period (Hot and Cold Streaks actually temporaily affect player ratings......See Dynmaic Player Ratings above).
My Player:
- Getting called up will be more of a challenge this year: "The 2K team has said that this is the mode that has improved the most thanks to the changes made this year. First off, your player isn’t just going to be forced up into the big leagues, you have to earn your way up and will be called upon when needed. So if you are a second baseman in the Yankee's farm system, you had better hope for a trade, injury, or you better play your tail off because you’ll need to displace All-Star Robinson Cano to make your way up to The Show."
- New My Player are achievements meant to better the team
- New Fielding Animations unlock as your player improves: "Last year, as you improved your player's defense in My Player, all it did was adjust the results on a dice roll. The animations all remained the same day after day no matter how good you got. But this year, as you improve your player, you're actually opening up new tiers of animations that will really show off how good you are."
MLB Today:
- "Other features in 2K11 will be an improvement of MLB Today, which will update rosters daily and will allow players to play that night’s games. Also MLB Today will use the player dynamic system mentioned in Franchise Mode to track players’ real trends over the past 30 days and adjust ratings accordingly. The commentary has also been beefed up bigtime, with unique commentary for almost any possible scenario you can think of. The team at 2K said that MLB Today will be so immersive and accurate that it can in theory replace SportsCenter, MLB Network and Baseball Tonight on a daily basis."
New Difficulty Sliders:
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.
Sources
02-11-2011, 06:23 PM
Jeffy
