This game desperately needs some excitement

[bodhiball]

Baseball is a "boring" game. It's slow paced, cerebral, and long, with moments of pure ecstatic insane excitement. I love it.

And I feel none of that excitement with this game. Never really have.

It's great in so many ways, and needs improvement in a lot of others....though I think the thrill of baseball and its little moments is one of the glaring things deeply missing in the franchise, and rarely discussed.

As an example...here are some clips of some game tying homeruns. Have you EVER felt this way hitting one in the Show? Has the crowd reacted that way? Announcer? players? Anything?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9CGqH-cCU

It needs a "Moments" feature. The crowd standing on an 0-2 pitch in a clutch situation. The dugouts exploding on a game winning or tying hit. The crowd at a fever pitch with the game on the line. Key matchups, big strikeouts, heck...even scoring a run (which is the whole point of the game) doesnt even have an animation in this game. Never has. You score, and MAYBE you see the player clap his hands as he walks by home plate on the way to the dugout.

Boring.

Here are some walkoffs just to keep the good times going:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZSnCniptwY

Listen to that crowd. It's deafening....in a regular season game. Look at the player reactions.


Baseball is boring, and wonderful. Because it has those intense moments...Hoping The Show can start to bring some of that excitement to their franchise

[Stolm]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

Ya, they really need to add some sort of "Clutch Moments" reaction from the crowd and the commentators.

I can only imagine how cool making a spectacular diving play would be in RTTS late in a tied ball game, and having the stadium explode in cheers and the commentators freaking out.

[eric7064]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

I agree with everything you say. But the opening sentence saying baseball is boring I completely disagree. I get what you mean by saying it. But I don't think you can call something you love boring.

But I do agree they really need the crowd to be ridiculously loud at times. There needs to be a diff between the Rays and the Cubs. Atmosphere needs to be electric.

[Jeffrey Smith]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

The crowds in Toronto were crazy this past season. Wish The Show could duplicate that atmosphere.

[LastActionHero]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

Well I played a 15 inning game a few days ago against a friend online (very smooth this year!) and I won with a squeeze play and Matt and the crowd went nuts! So in some moments it's there but I agree it could be improved on overall.

[headzapp]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

Making the audio and crowds get excited like that would be perfect. The cut scene in the game would be better if they were like real life too. More cuts of players faster replays. To me they seem slowed down too much. Look at the replays in that video. It's only a little bit slower. In the Show it's like Baywatch slow. Better, realistic crowd sounds, realistic broadcast with realistic replays will make this game better.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

The crowds in Toronto were crazy this past season. Wish The Show could duplicate that atmosphere.

I'm... not sure I'm ok with that. I was at game 5 of the ALDS, and when people started throwing stuff on the field, all I could think was how embarrassed I was to be associated with that group of people.

Duplicate the noise, yes, and the passion of the crowd. Just not the disrespect for the game those (all to many) few showed. Made me sick to my stomach.

[kaptainkarl76]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

Maybe not have the same four or five idiots waving signs every game...How about some variety?

[ryanmc564]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

this thread is spot on, one thing for sure is the commentary, the lack of enthusiasm in the announcers play by play is one of the things that keep it from having those exciting big moments. and honestly I think its just Matt himself, I've never cared for him as a broadcaster something about his voice that just doesn't have a good baseball broadcaster sound.

[kaptainkarl76]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

I think its just Matt himself, I've never cared for him as a broadcaster something about his voice that just doesn't have a good baseball broadcaster sound.

Thus far thus far thus far thus far...

[pitfallharry219]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

The crowds in Toronto were crazy this past season. Wish The Show could duplicate that atmosphere.

Yeah, it'd be fantastic if the crowd would throw beer at babies in The Show.

[bodhiball]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

I agree with everything you say. But the opening sentence saying baseball is boring I completely disagree. I get what you mean by saying it. But I don't think you can call something you love boring.

Well, the word Boring is in quotes to show that I dont actually agree the sport is in itself boring. And I definitely think you can love something that you think is boring...playing Candyland with your child is one of the most BORING activities in the world, and I love absolutely every minute of it.


Let me also take the moment to say I understand this is not a quick fix or that the team doesnt care about it or isnt aware. Though I do think a shot of new or outside perspective could help a lot in the places where this game is stuck. I create games for a large gaming company, and we completely get stuck or relaxed in our ways being a group that has worked together for a long time. We have to actively seek and bring in new perspectives to point out and help with spots that are becoming stale. (and I do see they achieve this in some way by listening to the forums, but this is predominately a forum of fans who love the game and respect the team)

With that said...and with my own ignorance to the process....It seems that a focus on adding animations (tension, excitement, emotion, etc) and a BIG focus on crowd audio (the away team crowd was cheering my double last night), and some sort of extra time taken in those big moments (cut scenes, building drama, and definitely additional camera cuts and replay angles for the BIG hit, the big run, the big K, etc)

Someone else pointed out too the slowness of camera cuts and replays. I agree. These could easily be speed up to create more energy. Something simple as well would be to flip the cut scene of the player and the replay they sometimes show....put the replay first, cut scene after, since the cut scene is often so slow and repetitive its easy to x through it and then miss the replay.

Get rid of ALL "floating camera" cut scenes and replays...the ones that have been in there for years and take away from the broadcast feel of the game.

And one last thing, thats a bit of topic....the pitching animations. You can tell that a lot of them were motion captured with people not actually holding or throwing a ball. So they looks like this sort of dead armed, whip animation...like someone miming what throwing a ball should look like. It takes away from the feeling of "danger" or intensity that this guy is throwing a rock hard object at you around 90mph.

[HypoLuxa13]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

I'm... not sure I'm ok with that. I was at game 5 of the ALDS, and when people started throwing stuff on the field, all I could think was how embarrassed I was to be associated with that group of people.

Duplicate the noise, yes, and the passion of the crowd. Just not the disrespect for the game those (all to many) few showed. Made me sick to my stomach.

I feel the same way when some drunk jack*** at Wrigley throws his beer in the outfield bleachers. Security has gotten much better about preventing that, and ejecting fans that do it. 20 years ago any time things got rowdy with a bad umpire call, or a Cubs player getting beaned, etc., the warning track would get littered with beers and there would be a 10 minute delay while the grounds crew cleaned up the trash. Thank goodness that doesn't happen anymore. Still get an occasional idiot who thinks it is funny to create a beer shower, though.

[vidgames]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

The cut scenes need to go...bring back "real time broadcast". Why did they take that out?

[Jr.]

Re: This game desperately needs some excitement

The cut scenes need to go...bring back "real time broadcast". Why did they take that out?

It's still there. The Show has used both since introducing RTP.