walks- down the road

[GoodyBucs]

I love this game!
I have a great set of sliders that play a solid major league game of baseball with one exception:

No walks- human or computer

For me the next step in the evolution of The Show will be for the programmers to find a way for walks to be as important s they are on the major league field.

Off my soap box now

[spitoon]

Re: walks- down the road

You will probably get several people chiming in about how it "works fine" for them, but I agree with you.

The satisfaction I derive from drawing a walk in this game exceeds that of any other successes I may achieve. I actually drew 3 in the last game I played and it was ecstasy.

I struggle to draw 1 per game, and I rarely issue more than 1 per game (most often 0 on both sides). (Classic pitching).

[nomo17k]

Re: walks- down the road

There are plenty of walks in the game... at what difficulty level are you playing the game?

[rjackson]

Re: walks- down the road

I've drawn 9 walks in a game before, usually get 4ish (sometimes 2, sometimes 6, etc.). So instead of asking the OP to just throw away any thoughts of fixing it with the "works fine" for me line, how about letting us help a bit if you would like it? Up to you.

[strawberryshortcake]

Re: walks- down the road

I love this game!
I have a great set of sliders that play a solid major league game of baseball with one exception:

No walks- human or computer

For me the next step in the evolution of The Show will be for the programmers to find a way for walks to be as important s they are on the major league field.

Off my soap box now

You will probably get several people chiming in about how it "works fine" for them, but I agree with you.

The satisfaction I derive from drawing a walk in this game exceeds that of any other successes I may achieve. I actually drew 3 in the last game I played and it was ecstasy.

I struggle to draw 1 per game, and I rarely issue more than 1 per game (most often 0 on both sides). (Classic pitching).

[Note: I'm currently playing on All Star Mode with the Oakland Athletics, default slider, and only bumping up the pitch speed to a maximum of 100%. Currently 27-5. Will need to bump up the difficulty level. Already did that a couple months back from Veteran level to All Star.]

I draw plenty of walks through the games. I also walk a few CPU batters especially if the umpire refuses to call the pitch on the black, edge of the strike zone. What you need to do is to stop swinging at close pitches and obviously your outside pitches.

My currently strategy is to take pitches until I get at least 2 strikes. Using this technique, I have manage to get a lot of 3-0, 3-1, 2-1, 2-0 counts. Using this technique, I have trained my eyes to stop swinging at close pitches that are in fact balls and outside the zone. I have learned to stop swinging at sliders/curve balls out and away through this technique.

Having patience and discipline at the plate is the key to drawing walks.

Regarding the CPU drawing walks. If you keep pitching inside the strike zone, it's going to be difficult for the CPU to draw walks. Two great things about this game is (1) variable umpire strike zone (2) no pin point pitching [you may aim at a certain location inside the strike zone or corner, and the pitch would break to a different location]. Both of these allows balls to be pitched and CPU walks to be drawn.

[Jgainsey]

Re: walks- down the road

I just wanted to chime in here to say that drawing walks works fine for me.

[Bobhead]

Re: walks- down the road

As far as receiving walks is concerned... I had to tweak sliders for a realistic number of walks and strike percentage. I don't think they come at a realistic rate with default sliders, though of course it depends on your difficulty level, and other people will disagree.
My main quibble with default in this aspect is this: If you have to chase no pitches at all in order to draw a realistic number of walks, then that is not a realistic number of walks. Ideally you should get a fair share of walks with only an average amount of discipline. After all, even the most undisciplined MLB hitters draw at least 1 walk a week. And that's just one hitter. You have 9 of them.

As far as giving walks... I have limited experience using meter, classic, or pulse pitching, but i feel like the walks are already pretty accurate on the other side.

I think there are only problems giving walks if you use Analog Pitching. Any time I've tried another mechanic, I've had no problem walking the entire lineup.

[MLB Bob]

Re: walks- down the road

I find it possible to draw walks. I can even draw walks in RTTS. I can average 3-4 walks a game and sometimes get a ton more. What I find is that the players drawing walks are not the players that typically draw walks in MLB. Thats a major issue. the pitchers arent as likely to pitch around players. they intentionally walk some but some times they dont bother.

I use the Blue Jays. Bautista never gets near 100 walks a season but cletus (Colby rasmus) or back in the day i could draw a walk with JP Arencibia which just isnt realistic.

Drawing a walk is based on the batter (players) patience which I get, but to be accurate I have to hack away with the guys that hack away but then the avg BB per game numbers plummet. guess it depends on how people want the game to play.

the guys that support walks not being an issue never say what players get them just how many their team got. The guys that say BB is "broken" cant get walks even with guys they should.

[decga]

Re: walks- down the road

The walks in this game work as well as you input on the pitching side and output with you at the plate. It depends on you!

[Bobhead]

Re: walks- down the road

The walks in this game work as well as you input on the pitching side and output with you at the plate. It depends on you!

I'm with you on the batting side, but that argument makes no sense when pitching. Why should I intentionally pitch poorly, just to produce the realistic walks that the game fails to create on its own? Ideally, the game would be good enough to already give me limited accuracy and command of my pitches.

I'm not saying this does or does not already happen, I'm just commenting on your argument. You can totally blame a lack of walks received on the user, but if someone fails to hand out enough walks, and still pitches effectively, that is 100% on the video game.

Real pitchers don't purposely throw pitches way outside the zone just for the sake of "staying realistic". Why should we?

[nomo17k]

Re: walks- down the road

...

My main quibble with default in this aspect is this: If you have to chase no pitches at all in order to draw a realistic number of walks, then that is not a realistic number of walks. Ideally you should get a fair share of walks with only an average amount of discipline. After all, even the most undisciplined MLB hitters draw at least 1 walk a week. And that's just one hitter. You have 9 of them.

...

That's usually the problem when it comes to walks... the average discipline of a typical gamer is nowhere near that of professional baseball player.

Drawing walks is not just about laying off non-strike pitches, but also letting go of pitches that you should not be putting into play.

Great examples are Tony Gwynn and Ichiro Suzuki. They both were great contact hitters who didn't strike out much. However, they were not huge walkers. That's partly because their approach was to put ball in play before going deep in count.

On the other hand, someone like Rickey Henderson was very deliberate on his approach, so he drew so many walks (which makes him pretty much the greatest lead-off hitter of all-time). To do this he must stay very selective at the plate, letting go of a lot of pitches that are strikes.

Needless to say they had no issue being great ballplayers regardless of their approach. It just shows you need a different kind of mindset if you are going to draw more walks.

Another issue is that, in video game, you control all players so your approach propagates to every single player. Even if you are only slightly off from having skills that allow you to produce realistic baseball stats, that gets multiplied when you control all players, all innings.

[nomo17k]

Re: walks- down the road

I'm with you on the batting side, but that argument makes no sense when pitching. Why should I intentionally pitch poorly, just to produce the realistic walks that the game fails to create on its own? Ideally, the game would be good enough to already give me limited accuracy and command of my pitches.

I'm not saying this does or does not already happen, I'm just commenting on your argument. You can totally blame a lack of walks received on the user, but if someone fails to hand out enough walks, and still pitches effectively, that is 100% on the video game.

Real pitchers don't purposely throw pitches way outside the zone just for the sake of "staying realistic". Why should we?

I agree with this... and I'd say the game still does it better than the rest of video baseball games we have had before. Perhaps still not perfect, but it's pretty good, at least for average pitchers (not the kind like Nolan Ryan & Carlos Marmol on his heyday, or Gregg Maddux & Cliff Lee on the other side of spectrum... I think the game still fails to reproduce these extreme players).

I think the ingredients necessary for realistic production of walks on the pitching side is that (1) pitchers are sufficiently wild that they cannot always command pitches to wherever they want to and (2) some hitters must be intimidating enough such that we as pitchers do not think we can get away with laying one in there casually. If we were forced to nibble, that naturally leads to more walks if pitchers are wild enough.

I think the game does pretty well of (1) right now. I think (2) can still be improved...

[Darkleaf]

Re: walks- down the road

I am in July in my franchise and I am leading the league by about 40 walks. I struggled for years taking walks, this year I went with offset camera and its like it all came together for me.
Just saying something as simple as this could change the game for you forever.

[Darkleaf]

Re: walks- down the road

I am in July in my franchise and I am leading the league by about 40 walks playing every game. I struggled for years taking walks, this year I went with offset camera and its like it all came together for me.
Just saying something as simple as this could change the game for you forever.