A.I. baserunners exploiting locked fielding animations to unrealistically advance

[TheLooseCannon]

Something weird I've noticed in this year's game is how the A.I. with a speedy runner (seems to be about 85+ speed rating) will stretch far too many singles into doubles because my outfielder seems locked into their soft toss to second or the cut off man. It's weird because it feels like the A.I. is cheating, in a way. I'm not talking about Billy Hamilton in real life stretching a single into a double by catching an outfielder snoozing, I mean I'm just playing and give up a base hit to the outfield and just toss it back to the infield like normal, even with a full power meter throw, and the A.I. will immediately break for second while my outfielder will soft toss it to the infield and there's nothing I can do about it. Another annoying thing is when a runner is on second and I catch a fly ball in the outfield and when I throw it back to the cutoff man or throw it to third to prevent a tag-up the A.I. "cheats" like the runner is psychic and knows as soon as the throw is started that it's going to be wide or my infielder is going to boot the catch and so they advance a base easily where, again, I can't do anything about it.

Anyone else seeing this? I'm not sure if this is a foible of this year's game or if something in my sliders is causing these psychic baserunners.

[KBLover]

Re: A.I. baserunners exploiting locked fielding animations to unrealistically advance

Could be an expression of the speed rating.

Baserunner speed slider would impact things too in the sense of how the runners "read" their chances of advancement. It factors into how much time they take to get to the next base vs how long they think it will take for the ball to reach the next base. Though that's more a "should I stay or should I go?" aspect, not necessarily how successful he is if he does go.

Basically, runners are "psychic" because all of that is often considered very well - at least until the AI goes screwy sometimes - and perhaps better than a lot of human "base coaches" when controlling the runners manually.

The fielder animations - I've seen that and it's like a chicken-and-egg scenario. Does the fielder animation trigger, telling the runner he has more time, or does the runner advance and the game "triggers" the animation at random chance to express the runner advancing safely?

Some of it is that the game seeming to have some kind of "urgency level" of plays and if it doesn't match what's actually happening, you might see this kind of thing. This "urgency level" seems to override input...or at least modify it. I don't use meter throwing, but I see the same thing.

Another thing is there's a "preload point" you need to hit. I read about this in a thread. If you miss that point, the player might do "awkward" or otherwise slower things.

Some or maybe all of that might be what you (and I) have seen?

[jada855]

Re: A.I. baserunners exploiting locked fielding animations to unrealistically advance

TheLooseCannon,

Yeah fielding needs a complete overhaul. It's the main reason I personally can't give MLB The Show that official pass yet. Playing defense is a disappointment. Just player lock a fielder and play a full game with no scripted turns and you will see what I mean.

MLB The Show does many things well to replicate the game of Baseball. But the only thing we as a community can do at this point is to try to voice this huge issue. Things like graphic improvements,jersey styles need to be put on the back burner.

Currently in the month of September and can't continue to play because it's so bad but trust me I want to play but the issues just happen to much even on default sliders and becomes even more evident with slider sets.


There is a thread on the forums that says fielding needs a complete overhaul. I have been thinking about putting together a detailed PDF to help the development team out.

But I'm not sure what direction the game is going anymore with the removal of manual catch and so many player lock features and adding modes, show time and an showtime Jr effect that cannot be turned off. If doing so will have any impact at this point.

I know they mentioned they start their development cycle shortly after the release. I guess the best part about it all is the year to year saves. So if fielding improvements are made next year we can pick up where we left off.