Submitted on: 02/18/2011 by
Steve Noah
My name is Sean Bailey. Many of you probably remember my Developer Insight on Pitching vs. Hitting from last year. I am a designer for MLB 2K11 and I am back to discuss pitching and hitting today. We have a talented, dedicated team here at 2K Sports and we worked hard to bring out the intricate details that make baseball such a challenging, yet fun sport.
Real Pitch Count, Real Results
Everyone, from announcers to managers to the pitchers themselves, refer to a pitch count in real life. How many pitches has he thrown? How many pitches can he throw today? This important aspect of real-life baseball is introduced to the gaming world in MLB 2K11. MLB 2K11 games feature believable and realistic pitch counts. You will feel the frustrations of a 10-pitch at bat. You will also feel the satisfaction of inducing a ground out in a one pitch at-bat. This was accomplished in multiple ways.
First, we had to make it more challenging to throw the ball exactly where you wanted to throw it. In the past, I could take the worst pitcher and, as long as I was nailing the gestures, I could paint corners and rack up the strikeouts all day long. This year, ratings differentiate players from each other more than ever before. The control rating is where it all starts. Strikeouts are a stat owned by those with nasty movement and velocity. In a nutshell, guys like Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum are strikeout kings due to the ridiculous combination of both the movement and velocity that they display on their pitches. However, for guys like Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, it’s about control. That’s why Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay walked fewer batters than any starters in baseball last season.
There are two factors that drive control in MLB 2K11. One is based on the control rating for a particular pitch and the other is based on your gesture. There is more room for error when performing a gesture with higher rated control pitchers. Also, when a gesture is not precise with a guy like Halladay, the ball will not deviate as far from the intended location. However, a lack of gesture precision with a more wild pitcher will result in the ball ending up much further from the intended location. The lower the control rating, the less predictable the missed pitch will be. Either way, you will be throwing more balls in MLB 2K11, even with the aces. You will even walk batters. This is not a bad thing, this is baseball. As the game goes on into the late innings and the pitch count increases, a pitcher’s control will slowly deteriorate. Whether it is a lack of gesture precision, the result of sub-par ratings, or the result of a tired arm, the concept of control is one of the main factors contributing to realistic pitch counts.
Other factors contributing to realistic pitch counts are patient batters and varying strike zones. Not every hitter swings at a pitch just because it is a strike. Guys like Jayson Werth and Bobby Abreu are consistently among the league leaders each year in “pitches per plate appearance.” They take strikes until they see the pitch they want. When faced with two strikes, they foul off pitch after pitch in an attempt to stay alive for the right pitch. This characteristic is reflected by the AI on a per player basis in MLB 2K11.
In addition to certain batters battling or showing patience, your pitch count will be slightly increased by varying strike zones. Anyone who watched the 2010 MLB Postseason on television knows that just because a pixel of the baseball caught the strike zone, it does not mean the ump is going to call it a strike. Last year, in MLB 2K10, we called a strike for any pitch that caught any portion of the strike zone. This year, the only way to guarantee a called strike is to have the entire ball in the strike zone. A pitch that catches a part of the corner or a pitch that is halfway into the strike zone may or may not be called a strike. When you flirt with the edges of the strike zone, you are at the mercy of the ump’s judgment just like in real life. Even the small details like this contribute to realistic pitch counts. This extra layer has made the pitching experience more fun and challenging.
Rather than setting out to make pitching harder across the board, we simply made the results more realistic on a per player basis. In the 2010 season, Cliff Lee walked a batter once every 11.8 innings. His former Texas Ranger teammate on the other hand, C.J. Wilson, walked a batter once every 2.2 innings. How many batters you walk in MLB 2K11 will depend on a combination between your right stick skills and the strengths of the pitcher you have on the mound. Now, if you are concerned that a) Cliff Lee-like walk numbers are not challenging enough or b) C.J. Wilson-like walk numbers are not fun, have no fear. 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. 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.
As tempted as I am to dive into all the new sliders with you guys (something we’ll do in a future Insight), let’s get back to pitching. While making all of these changes and improvements, we also realized that our manager logic needed some work as well. The AI managers will now be monitoring these pitch counts and will take it into consideration when deciding who to warm up in the bullpen or when to pull a pitcher from the game. However, the AI manager is looking at a lot more than just pitch count. Today, I was able to chase Kansas City’s Vin Mazzaro out of the game in the middle of the first inning after scoring a quick 3 runs on his Royals. Performance and composure will mean just as much to the AI manager’s decisions as pitch count. This is also the case when you are a pitcher in My Player. Not only will the manager not let you overthrow your young arm, he will yank you from the game (regardless of what inning you’re in) if things are getting ugly out there. More on My Player in a Future Developer Insight.
And trust me, even if you are oblivious to the scoreboard or stats, you will know when it is getting ugly out there. We added new animations for such occasions. Pitchers walk around the mound or take a little longer to settle in between batters when things are going tough. . They will take deep breaths and wipe sweat off their brow during tough stretches in which they can’t find the strike zone. They will mutter frustrations to themselves as they give up back-to-back hits. As their composure dips, they can even be seen yelling into their glove after giving up a game-changing home run. In order for the realistic pitch counts, concepts of control, and realistic manager logic to feel right, the pitchers themselves needed to show various emotions. When things are going well, the pitcher will also show it on the mound. He will walk around the mound with a look of confidence when he is sitting batters down. He will pump his fist after clutch strikeouts. He will point to infielders and give them credit after they save him with a spectacular diving catch or double play.
Before I move on to the improvements surrounding hitting, another new realistic addition to MLB 2K11’s pitching comes in the form of a new pitch type: the split change. This is an uncommon, yet lethal, pitch that some of the league’s aces are using as their changeup. It is the same change-up that caught the league off-guard when a 5’11, 170lb kid in San Francisco struck out more batters than anyone in baseball from 2008 to 2010. Yep, that’s right. It is Tim Lincecum’s strikeout pitch. A couple years ago, Lance Berkman called it “almost unhittable.” Ryan Howard and Josh Hamilton never came close to hitting it in the 2010 Postseason. It is also the same change-up that Roy Halladay used for the first time in his career when winning the 2010 Cy Young, and it was Roy who campaigned for it to be added to the game. Gripped like a wider version of a split finger fastball, it falls off the table and dives down and away from lefty batters. However, before you start thinking that it’s your ticket to the $1 million prize, just know that it is very hard to control in real life. That is why we made it the most challenging gesture in the game. And with the amount of break on that thing, there is no telling where it’ll end up if you’re lacking consistency on the mound. However, those who have command of it will feel the same satisfaction that Timmy and Roy felt when they mastered it during their Cy Young seasons.
Hitting
Cameras
In 2K11, we changed our hitting cameras in a way that makes it feel like you are the hitter. Rather than having the camera follow the ball once it is hit, we stay back with the hitter and watch the ball leave from a view that is closer to the hitter’s perspective. This makes it “feel” as though you are actually the hitter. It also means that you won’t immediately know the outcome or result of the play. A HR that lands in row 2 and a fly out to the warning track will look the same leaving the bat. We removed many presentation tells that give away home runs as a part of this more immersive hitting camera. 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.
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. As some of you may have already heard, the default pitching camera per stadium syncs up to the same default camera that each team uses for their local broadcast in real life. In addition to giving local fans a perspective that they are used to seeing when watching their team on television, this also provides a feeling of being on the road when pitching at different stadiums.
Hit Types
MLB 2K11 features new hit types based on your timing. Poorly timing a defensive or a contact swing can result in infield choppers. While they usually result in a ground out, players with top end speed (Ichiro, Carl Crawford, Andrew McCutchen to name a few) can actually record infield singles this year when hitting choppers to third or deep short. While they are a result of a poorly timed swing, choppers can still result in an infield single. Add this to the fact that the third baseman risks an error when he’s forced to quickly charge, bare-hand and throw on these choppers, and now we have baseball. 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.
Swings
Once we had the physics and hit types behaving properly, the next step was to improve the visuals of the swings. 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. 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.
Hit Distribution
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. For those that aren’t quite sure of the swing timing, we have a slider called “batter eye frequency” that modifies how often you get a pitch tell on what pitch type is coming. Looking at the pitch tells is the best way to judge your swing timing. Or, of course, you could always study that legendary Pujols character in St. Louis until you get your timing down.
Thank you for taking the time to read this Developer Insight on Pitching and Hitting. We are very excited about this year’s game and I cannot wait for you guys to get your hands on the demo (not too long until that hits). Your passion and feedback have been very instrumental in providing a fun and realistic baseball experience in MLB 2K11.
- Sean Bailey
Gameplay Designer
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