Is batting harder or is it just me?

[foxis]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

I think -15 is much harder than last version. Much harder.

In fact, I am severely disappointed. I am a relatively new and quite casual player. I picked -14 up and had a great time with it, playing season on dynamic difficulty and was slowly moving up from rookie.

With -15 I can not even offer resistance in offline season mode even when on rookie and sliders adjusted to my benefit. Which is extremely frustrating, and has me not enjoying the game. In fact, I am turning it off in frustration.

I understand that some of you who have been around much longer may enjoy the added realism and difficulty, but it really is too difficult at the easier end of the spectrum. I cannot get into it and I cannot enjoy it.

What is most frustrating is how the CPU will swing and produce on relatively hard pitches (very often hitting the gap or having a ball just miss my infielders), whereas a good swing from me almost always results in a direct ball to an infielder, a popup, or a weak hit rolling towards 1st. So after a couple of innings I am usually down 3-4 runs already.

So, basically the cards feel stacked against me. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

[PhilliesFan13]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Changeups and curveballs are ridiculously slow in 15. Even with pitch speed raised. It's annoying as hell.

[Scary Larry]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Unrelated to hitting, but I'm having a really tough time fielding ground balls and throwing to the correct base. Never had this issue with 13' The Show. Something change as far as that goes?

[KillerSloth]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Does anybody feel like hitting is more difficult this year?

I carried my MLB 14 RTTS save across yesterday and continued on from roughly halfway through my first full season as an MLB starting SS for the Mariners. My overall has grown enormously this season, from 76 or something to 89 and I'd previously been playing with TNK's 2014 sliders. My batting average was bouncing around between .280 and .295 for the month or so before MLB 15 came out, which seemed to be a direct result of the fact that I'd hit my skill ceiling and Dynamic difficulty was ebbing back and forth between All-Star and All-Star plus. I should mention I use zone hitting too.

Continuing on from my save on MLB 15 my average is down to .266 and apart from a six game streak last night I've been totally inconsistent and at times embarrassingly bad.

I really don't want to put the difficulty down, and I really enjoyed the balance I found last year! But I'm struggling.

Everyone is different, easier for me by a good margin, not having to worry about stride makes hitting too easy for me, had to bump up to Hall of fame.

[nemesis04]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Unrelated to hitting, but I'm having a really tough time fielding ground balls and throwing to the correct base. Never had this issue with 13' The Show. Something change as far as that goes?

All the bases are still in the same spots.

[Sora_529]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Yeah I'm getting my *** kicked at the plate so far through about 10-12 games. I have it set in dynamic difficulty, (pure Analog hitting, which I've used since its inception) and have yet to pass Rookie+ despite the fact that I generally have played on All-Star in years past. I think I've whiffed 12+ times in all but one game. Curveballs are KILLING me. I'm gonna have to sit down and spend a little time going back to basics in the cage and see if I can get this figured out, haha.

[foxis]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

As a follow-up to my whiny post above I will just add that going back to beginner made it feel more like -14 difficulty-wise, but too easy actually. Either dynamic difficulty is too difficult at the low-end, or I am just horribly bad at batting.
Something did definitely change though, and I am not sure it was for the better?

[CaseIH]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Unrelated to hitting, but I'm having a really tough time fielding ground balls and throwing to the correct base. Never had this issue with 13' The Show. Something change as far as that goes?

IM having issue throwing accurately too, didn't have this problem ever before, other thansome times throwin home, with analog. I like having more errors, but don't feel throwing should be quite this touchy.

[RogueHominid]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

I'm still at Rookie + after 15 games of DD. Kind of disappointing, lol, but the stats are about right, so I'll take that.

To me, the timing seems a little different, or its a combination of the new pitch vectors and the timing system.

I love the new pitch vectors, though, so I'll happily trade a steeper learning curve for a much more realistic experience of the incoming pitch.

[TuffGnarl]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Thanks for the responses!

Today I decided to switch off dynamic in favour of just staying put at All-Star and gritting my teeth. I figure there's only a month or so worth of games left in my season and we aren't making the playoffs, so I'm treating the games like Spring Training and watching pitches carefully.

Anyway, whilst changing some settings I discovered that it's possible (with the new slider for dynamic) to lock the dynamic difficulty at the current setting. Of course switching between the two versions of All-Star opened up a world of (probably psychosomatic) .261 related paranoia on my part and it got me wondering about a few things.

First off, are All-Star and Dynamic All-Star truly equal? Because regular All-Star feels more difficult.

Secondly, does the PCI change in size? Because it seems to do this AB by AB in dynamic at least, even when the setting is locked from progression up or down. If so is the change in size down to hitting form or dynamic difficulty trying to compensate when you're having a cold spell?

Thirdly, do the individual progress increments between dynamic difficulties actually ratchet up the difficulty or are they simply there to show you how far you are between say Veteran and Veteran + or Veteran + and All-Star?

[tcorb95]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

I've actually had more success in 15 than I did at the beginning of 14. I play on All-star but the addition of directional hitting has really allowed me to improve and hit more balls down the line and really just hit it where they're not. I have noticed I'm waaaayyyyy off on changeups.

[vinny_77]

Is batting harder or is it just me?

Hitting was difficult for me at first. In the past, I always enjoyed working into a hitter's count and slamming a fat pitch with a power swing. I learned the hard way that this strategy does not work this year. Hitters are much better off swinging with x. Don't use power swing. It also seems that the AI throws more balls on lower difficulty than in the past. I know it's cliche, but patience is an asset. Take a strike, maybe even two with a weak hitter. Be more aggressive with runners in scoring position. Pitchers will get themselves into trouble this year, a great addition IMHO.


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[therewillbechud]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

You really do have to wait for "your pitch". I keep track of what a guy is throwing me in the course of a game. If he's throwing a lot of changeups, let anything that looks low go by. It is a lot more difficult to tell a changeup from a fastball this year, but rarely in my experience will the CPU throw a changeup that is not in the bottom portion of the strike zone, and usually it will drop out of of the zone.

I'm using timing hitting and I haven't used the new directional hitting interface yet.

Every pitcher is different but if the guy is throwing you a lot of offspeed pitches, don't worry about trying to pull the fastball, just put that out of your head. The longer you wait to swing the better off you'll be, and take fastballs the other way. You'll have less power (as it should be) but it shouldn't effect your average much on those pitches and on offspeed pitches you'll be able to crush, or lay off them more often if needed.

The pitcher isn't up there throwing random stuff at you, if you make a mental note of how he got you out and use the information provided you can zero in on him. As soon as you hit pause it shows you his pitch breakdown and what percentage he's thrown for strikes with each pitch.

Take a boatload of pitches, like someone else said swinging at the first pitch doesn't work out very well this year. Turn CPU strike rate down until you move up to at least All star if you're using DD. The lower modes the pitcher feeds you too many strikes.

[bigdaddykraven]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

Changeups and curveballs are ridiculously slow in 15. Even with pitch speed raised. It's annoying as hell.

Yes this. I didn't want to say it until someone else did. There seems to be a HUGE difference between a 93MPH fastball and an 86MPH Changeup. I like that they are different speeds but I can't seem to figure out timing for a breaking ball to save my life. Once I do "get it down" Its impossible for me to catch up to fastball.

[Bobhead]

Re: Is batting harder or is it just me?

I changed my camera and immediately started hitting. I think the default camera just lends itself to poor pitch reading.

Edit: I also raised pitch speed by quite a bit. First time I've had to do that in a while.