I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

[Padgoi]

Ease of contact has always been a problem for me. I just think there aren't enough strikeouts. Your PCI cursor can be nowhere near the ball, but if you time it right (using Zone hitting), there's a good chance you can at least foul the ball off. This is presenting a problem for me because in an effort to increase user strikeouts, I've resorted to moving pitch speed to 10. This regulates user strikeouts, however it also reduces number of hits because making solid contact on a pitch that fast becomes exponentially more difficult. I've been toying with sliders since Day 1, but I'm starting to think that this problem will never be rectified until SCEA actually lowers the potential to foul pitches off where the PCI isn't close to the actual pitch. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to back up my assertion, but I'm pretty sure we've all experienced this where you can foul off a pitch where the PCI isn't even close to the pitch. I guess this is why I've always been an advocate of cursor-based hitting (ala Yakyuu Pro) because if your cursor isn't on the ball, you're not hitting it.

Anyone else seeing this as an issue?

[braves_94]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I find my strikeout totals swing with my aggresiveness at bat. If I look for something in a particular zone, or let a few pitches go by for the length of a game, I might end up with 5 stikeouts on hall of fame. But if I open up my strike zone earlier in counts, I see more strikeouts. Do you have the same approach for every batter? For sim purposes in my Brave franchise, I tend to be a little more aggressive early in counts with Gattis, Simmons, and Johnson. Yet try to make the pitcher work with Heyward and Freeman. I see pretty typical results with the exception of Freeman. His strikeout total is pretty low compared to his just under a strike out per game in real life. Probably a rating thing.

[nomo17k]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

My plate discipline has gotten good enough that I can "choose" to strike out less having a certain approach in at bats.

That said, if you increase Pitch Speed and reduce Contact slider, at a high difficulty level I think you should still be able to find a compromise. Unless you are so good that you can perform very well on Legend, I think it can still be a challenge.

What kind of setting are you playing at? Difficulty level, sliders?

[Bobhead]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I did have a problem with putting too many balls in play, but i wouldn't say it's too easy to foul off pitches. I think it's very easy to take for granted how many foul balls are hit in an actual game: about 25, per team, per game.

It should be easy to foul off pitches.

[KBLover]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I think there's too many swings and misses, especially on Timing hitting.

Contact % are just too low, both in zone and especially out of zone.

When I look at the real life contact rates (both from the hitter and pitcher sides), there just seems like there's too little contact on Timing.

[KayOtic723]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I agree that this is a problem but strikeouts are there if you try to work counts take strikes because they are not where you want and sometimes not swinging at close strikes with 2 or 3 ball counts...its all about how deep you get in to the count...if you turn on Quick Counts you will at least see 5-10 strikeouts per game with a bunch of walks because the counts are more realistic (only thing about QC that isn't realistic is pitchers with 2 strikes in a bunt situation) about a month ago i went strictly to quick counts because of this reason and it makes the game 10 times more realistic..you can get the same result not using QC just have to work counts and while pitching not be scared to walk batters throw a ball with 3 ball count throw strikes with 0-2 count a lot of people also pitch in the same zone all the time if you play on the harder levels (HOF Legend) you won't strike people out gotta mix your spots just my two cents

[Acts 4 12]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

Ease of contact has always been a problem for me. I just think there aren't enough strikeouts. Your PCI cursor can be nowhere near the ball, but if you time it out (using Zone hitting), there's a good chance you can at least foul the ball off. This is presenting a problem for me because in an effort to increase user strikeouts, I've resorted to moving pitch speed to 10. This regulates user strikeouts, however it also reduces number of hits because making solid contact on a pitch that fast becomes exponentially more difficult. I've been toying with sliders since Day 1, but I'm starting to think that this problem will never be rectified until SCEA actually lowers the potential to foul pitches off where the PCI isn't close to the actual pitch. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to back up my assertion, but I'm pretty sure we've all experienced this where you can foul off a pitch where the PCI isn't even close to the pitch. I guess this is why I've always been an advocate of cursor-based hitting (ala Yakyuu Pro) because if your cursor isn't on the ball, you're not hitting it.

Anyone else seeing this as an issue?

I agree with you and I also prefer cursor based batting, but I have come to appreciate the batting in this game. I think you can find a happy medium with the correct level and slider tweaks. I'm 40 years old and have really good hand eye coordination and reflexes. Pitch speed below max is just too easy for me to make contact. Finding a level to bat on proved to be a little more difficult. I either had to decrease the sliders on H.O.F or increase them on Legend. I chose the latter. I can't put my finger on it but batting on legend just played a little more realistically for me. If you haven't batted on legend with some slider tweaks I highly recommend it.

[Bobhead]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I do agree Legend hitting feels a little more realistic and natural. I haven't had the time to really invest into making it work, though, so I've stuck to HOF for now. Eventually I'll figure out the sliders I need to change to get the offense how I want it on Legend, and I think I'll be pretty happy there.

I don't agree, however, that cursor batting is necessary, or that the problems in this thread render the current "zone" system inferior or useless.

I think the hitting engine is simply wayyyyyyyyyyy too lenient in regards to making contact, and then the entire system is scaled outwards to accommodate the leniency.

If SCEA would just shrink the PCI and timing windows in half, on Legend, Hall of Fame and All-Star, I think the hitting system would immediately become more realistic.

The physics still need a lot of work, especially with the line drives I've discussed to death... but I think the main problem that turns players off to the hitting system is that you're making contact on pitches you shouldn't be making contact on.

Of course I am going to get unrealistic batted ball physics, and unrealistic at-bats, when I am literally making contact with the ball unrealistically.

[Acts 4 12]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I do agree Legend hitting feels a little more realistic and natural. I haven't had the time to really invest into making it work, though, so I've stuck to HOF for now. Eventually I'll figure out the sliders I need to change to get the offense how I want it on Legend, and I think I'll be pretty happy there.

I don't agree, however, that cursor batting is necessary, or that the problems in this thread render the current "zone" system inferior or useless.

I think the hitting engine is simply wayyyyyyyyyyy too lenient in regards to making contact, and then the entire system is scaled outwards to accommodate the leniency.

If SCEA would just shrink the PCI and timing windows in half, on Legend, Hall of Fame and All-Star, I think the hitting system would immediately become more realistic.

The physics still need a lot of work, especially with the line drives I've discussed to death... but I think the main problem that turns players off to the hitting system is that you're making contact on pitches you shouldn't be making contact on.

Of course I am going to get unrealistic batted ball physics, and unrealistic at-bats, when I am literally making contact with the ball unrealistically.

Much respect to you Bobhead I've been reading your posts for years and always found them helpful. You just made some excellent points. I don't find zone batting useless at all it's just a matter of preference for everyone. Like I said I have learned to really appreciate zone hitting. On Legend the PCI becomes smaller and the more you adjust the batting sliders, the more I believe every individual can achieve what they're looking for.

[turty11]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

most MLB guys have a contact rate of like 70-80% and quite a few in the 90s, its not unrealistic to not strikeout spam all over the place, just take more pitches

[KBLover]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

If SCEA would just shrink the PCI and timing windows in half, on Legend, Hall of Fame and All-Star, I think the hitting system would immediately become more realistic.

As long as the PCI placement becomes logical for Timing hitting (and any other interface that doesn't give you command of the PCI), then this makes a lot of sense. As it is - wildly and purely random and illogical placement + smaller PCI on Timing hitting? Please, no.

Of course, I'm not having problems with seeing K's even with the existing system - probably because of the interface I'm using (though I've seen my guys miss on balls where the PCI *is* over the pitch location and my timing was "Normal" so...I don't know...if it's too lenient...what explains things like that?)

[KBLover]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

most MLB guys have a contact rate of like 70-80% and quite a few in the 90s, its not unrealistic to not strikeout spam all over the place, just take more pitches

Yep, Out of Zone contact ranges from 41 to 86% this year with In Zone contact ranging from 73 to 97% among qualified batters.

Biggest difference is in the ability to make contact out of the zone. That's where guys swing and miss more regularly, depending on ability of course.

With the existing system, I don't feel this happening. Again, maybe it's the nature of Timing hitting, but everyone just feels the same except at the very low VIS/CON combos without the very high VIS/CON really cutting down on swings and misses, as long as my timing is decent.

[nomo17k]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

Yep, Out of Zone contact ranges from 41 to 86% this year with In Zone contact ranging from 73 to 97% among qualified batters.

Biggest difference is in the ability to make contact out of the zone. That's where guys swing and miss more regularly, depending on ability of course.

With the existing system, I don't feel this happening. Again, maybe it's the nature of Timing hitting, but everyone just feels the same except at the very low VIS/CON combos without the very high VIS/CON really cutting down on swings and misses, as long as my timing is decent.

I think the statement that everyone (i.e., every CPU-controlled hitter, including user-controlled hitter with timing interface) is probably true. I remember Brian@SCEA mentioning, when you vary difficulty level, how the difference between hitters are mostly introduced through batting attributes like Contact and Vision (which basically vary PCI size), but AI itself doesn't change much. Though I'm not sure if that statement applies to the variation in the ability of individual hitters at a specific difficulty level, but it's not unreasonable to imagine that the implementation is similar.

I personally hope this to be improved by introducing multiple AI tendencies, i.e., letting players have different "brains" that behave differently based on their preferred approach. Even just for PCI movement, a hitter can choose to be rather static in his approach by putting it in the middle of the strike zone most of the time and look only for mistake pitch (i.e., a very patient hitter) or he can try to react to every pitch by moving PCI to that location (i.e., a hacker).

With the current game, playing against CPU, I do feel every CPU-controlled player tends to respond similarly, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing in a game (after all, each gamer controls all players), when we see a weird tendency we get stuck with it.

[KBLover]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I remember Brian@SCEA mentioning, when you vary difficulty level, how the difference between hitters are mostly introduced through batting attributes like Contact and Vision (which basically vary PCI size), but AI itself doesn't change much. Though I'm not sure if that statement applies to the variation in the ability of individual hitters at a specific difficulty level, but it's not unreasonable to imagine that the implementation is similar.

I wonder if it's a "blanket" +/- based on difficulty. Like if I go from A-S to HoF, I'm losing X on all my hitters CON/VIS/DIS. Likewise by pitching on HoF, the CPU hitters all get a "blanket" gain to those ratings.

If that is true, that would help explain what I see. By being on HoF, I'm basically nerfing my own contract hitters, turning them into average contact % guys when they should be among the better end, if not top end (guys with high CON/VIS, for example).

This makes me wonder, assuming the premise is true, what difficulty level imposes none of that. I.E. ratings listed are the ratings used? I assume the default Contact slider would be a given. Would that be Veteran (the shipped default difficulty)? Perhaps All-Star?

Likewise, are there any known "equivalencies"? For example, if Veteran/5 Contact is the "WYSIWYG" for the hitter ratings, what would the equivalent be on, say, HoF? Things like that?

I personally hope this to be improved by introducing multiple AI tendencies, i.e., letting players have different "brains" that behave differently based on their preferred approach. Even just for PCI movement, a hitter can choose to be rather static in his approach by putting it in the middle of the strike zone most of the time and look only for mistake pitch (i.e., a very patient hitter) or he can try to react to every pitch by moving PCI to that location (i.e., a hacker).

Would love to see this!

[NDAlum]

Re: I think I finally figured out my problem with this game - ease of contact

I don't have an issue because I use Timing. When I went to Zone I rarely struck out.

In 104 games I've K'd 124 times with Pedro Alvarez lol

Believe it or not he's hitting .288 with 25 HR's and slugging .559...

BABIP must be like .450