Improving the Player Personalities in 17

[HarlemYankee]

The player-specific animations were an awesome addition to this year's game, but the situation was almost a little too specific for each animation to be triggered... I have RARELY seen any of the custom animations for players, and I'm pretty sure I've read before that certain situations need to line up exactly how the devs planned, i.e. the Pirates outfield has to be completely intact for them to do the shoulder brush off, Donaldson has to hit a HR with Bautista on deck to do his handshake, etc...

I'm not positive that is the case, but I would still like a way for the user to have a way to customize each step. In the "personality" section of CAP or edit player, each batter should have a walk-up animation, practice swing, "no-doubt" HR follow through, rounding the bases animation, 3rd base coach animation & handshake with the next batter/runners on base animation. It would make sense to have a drop down list of all the players who do something specific for each of these, instead of have it set to "default" and adopt everything that the person whose stance you use does. If you want your CAP 1st Baseman to "walk the parrot" like Encarnacion, bat flip like Bautista, tip his cap when he touches home like McCutchen, then greet the person on-deck like Josh Donaldson, you should be able to customize each one of those steps. After the final out, why not have a choice in what your outfielders do when they come together? Similar to Sounds of the Show, where you can edit team-specific music, why not have a "Team Personality" section where you can edit certain rituals that your team does after games, home runs, walk-offs, etc.

Another thing I noticed is there is next to zero ways to customize your pitcher's personality. Why not have a "pitcher type" that determines whether or not he gets fired up and pumps his fist when he strikes you out in a big situation. Just from watching the Yankees, I can tell you that Dellin Betances will turn his back to the hitter and backpedal off the mound when he strikes someone out in a big situation, Aroldis Chapman will just stand straight up and savagely stare you down as you walk back to the dugout, and Luis Severino will scream his lungs out while pounding his glove if he gets out of a big situation.

And finally, why not have a last out animation for closers? If a pitcher has a signature "move" they do after they close out a game, like when Brian Wilson used to throw up the "X", then you should be able to select that specific animation for your pitcher.

It would also be great if there were variations on these animations, so that they could be ramped up during the postseason... Case-in-point, Encarnacion going bananas after he hit the walk-off in the ALWC game, but still walking the parrot around the bases.

I hate to bring up 2K, but they have it down perfectly. They give you the option to have Allen Iverson's size-up, Kobe's spin move, Lebron's crossover, Chris Paul's floater, Steph Curry's jump shot, Dwyane Wade's layups & Clyde Drexler's dunks. All while being able to customize how much emotion your guy shows.

My question is just, why not MLB? With all the characters in baseball, with all the rituals, this seems like a must for me. Maybe added incrementally throughout the upcoming years, but the more customization the better.

Is anyone with me on this?

[HarlemYankee]

I see people are liking this post, but I'd love to get a discussion with everyone going so it could potentially get noticed.

What would you all like to see?

[KBLover]

I think you pretty much covered the bases.

[Unlucky 13]

Quote: Originally Posted by HarlemYankee

I see people are liking this post, but I'd love to get a discussion with everyone going so it could potentially get noticed. What would you all like to see?

I think that you made a lot of really good suggestions. I don't have any specific other things to add on the topic, but I love depth of customization. I typically will adjust the batting stance and equipment of any player that I'm not entirely comfortable with, and the more items that we can specialize, the better.

I'll also echo that even though I just played every pitch of a season, I can't recall seeing a lot of the animations of the type to mentioned. Maybe thats something people would see more in head to head, but as a guy who only does offline, single player franchise, it doesn't come up a lot. If I could set the players on my own team that way, it would be great.

It would also be cool to occasionaly see CPU generated players come up into the majors with those animations sometimes. If I'm playing the Brewers, and they have a new rookie RF, and I see him use the animation of a veteran when he does something impressive, that would be a fun moment.

[aldon_47]

I'm all for customization, its one of the things I like about The Show as far as difficulty and pitching/hitting/fielding interfaces. I think extending that into animations would be very welcomed. You referenced the Donaldson/Bautista interaction. Unless you play as the Blue Jays or against them a lot, the chances of seeing that specific animation is very limited. Being able to make it so you can edit that animation for two players on your team would be pretty cool. If anything it might add to the more intense times in a game, especially postseason.

It was also mentioned that generated players come into the game with some of those animations too, I like that idea. It would give a little more flavor to incoming rookies.

[beau21]

Love all of these ideas.

I know people reference NBA 2k for a lot of things - but their player personality options are fantastic and very similar to what you're describing. Would love to see this level of detail in The Show.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[13SM13]

One small thing I've been wanting for a while is seperate wind up and stretch animations for pitchers.
Currently you can only pick a windup animation which is attached to a stretch animation (which you can't preview), would love to be able to pick these separately for better customization

[HarlemYankee]

Quote: Originally Posted by beau21

Love all of these ideas. I know people reference NBA 2k for a lot of things - but their player personality options are fantastic and very similar to what you're describing. Would love to see this level of detail in The Show. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Another thing they do that slipped my mind is pre-game rituals... If I have to see the two hitters from each team standing back to back one more time!!!!!!

But having personalized options could change up the intro to the game a little bit by displaying a different person going through his pre-game stretches, hand shake routine, or have the pitchers walking in from the bullpen... It could be a nice addition.