Help me out

[celticboy25]

I'm REALLY struggling with hitting this year. I use All Star directional. I wish there was a setting which would allow me to just press a button to swing, based on timing of pitch, and not have to manually aim and allow the CPU to handle direction of swing. It seems like that has always been an option in previous years. I have pitches which are right down the middle and I time it perfectly but will completely miss it- this happens quite often. Then other times I'll swing at a pitch outside the zone and make contact. I can't figure it out. If I drop down in difficulty I hit too many home runs. I've even bumped up contact and solid hits up 2 ticks and still can't manage more than 3 to 4 per game.
I'm 40 years old with a wife and kids so I don't have time to spend hours practicing. I know I suck at all star but if I lower difficulty I'm too good. Any help would be appreciated

[mrCPUgeek]

Help me out

Greetings fellow 40 something...

Directional is the mode that is timed based. You can influence the direction of the hit with the left stuck if you want. But not required. The player attributes determine the swing pci position.

Works well for me at least.


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[celticboy25]

Re: Help me out

Okay I thought that was the case in previous years, but this year the circle is always ditectly in the middle of the strike zone. Any pitches I make contact with at the far top or bottom of the zone are foul tips 95% of the time- at least it feels that way. I assumed the batter only ever swings down the middle without my input. I may re-check my settings to make sure I don't have something wrong. If not I don't know what to do. I can't win if I can't hit any better than I have to this point lol

[forme95]

Re: Help me out

Greetings fellow 40 something...

Directional is the mode that is timed based. You can influence the direction of the hit with the left stuck if you want. But not required. The player attributes determine the swing pci position.

Works well for me at least.


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I agree with this too, as I am 44 (tomorrow) and this has really helped me enjoy playing. The timing takes some practice and I use fisheye. It seems to for me seeing the ball come in better. I just use the X button to swing.

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[Mav3rek7]

Re: Help me out

While I'm not quite 40 yet, I do fall into the 'older' group of gamers, and I sympathize with the wife/kids part.

TL.DR -- Changed cameras last year and it helped out a ton for my directional hitting. (All star with Armor/Sword/Marino slider set)

I don't have countless hours to spend playing video games and practicing/testing/etc. I want to jump in feet first and have it be perfect from the get go. (unrealistic I know, but what I strive for anyway).

I have always used directional hitting, but treated it like zone. (If that makes sense.)

I still move the analog stick trying to move to where the pitch is located, but on a smaller scale. For instance, if I see the pitch it coming inside I'll hold the left stick to the right and time the swing up with the buttons. Not sure if this helps at all, but it seemed to help some. Maybe it was just a placebo effect.

That always worked for me until last year. I could not for the life of me hit anything but a fastball. 98+ MPH fastball? I crushed it. Perfect timing almost all the time. Anything else? I was constantly "too early" or "way too early" on the swing timing and was seeing games where I'd get 2 hits, maybe 3 if I were lucky.

The thing that changed it the most, was when I changed my camera view. I had always been a guy that went with the traditional "zoomed" camera view where you see the game through the catchers eyes. Kind of like the old camera views on older baseball games. Last year however, I switched the camera to the even more zoomed view where my view is the strike zone basically and all I can see of my batter is his hands and a little bit of body (give or take).

This made a night and day difference. Granted it took a couple games to get used to, but once I did, 7,8,9,10 hits or more games were pretty consistent. Every now and then I'd run into a Kershaw type of pitcher and get 4 or 5 total for a game, but that felt realistic. My offense changed once I switched up the camera. (All of that was on All-Star by the way, with Armor & Sword's & Marino's slider set)

This year I've switched to zone and absolutely love it so far. Timing/hitting/etc has been great on All-Star.

[celticboy25]

Re: Help me out

It sounds like you have more skill than me lol. I am lucky if I can even foul tip any pitch that isn't a fastball

[RLB]

Re: Help me out

This is info that bcruise passed along on another thread regarding PCI placement. After checking this out, I am convinced that the PCI is moving because everything relates correctly back to ball movement and contact



bcruise's Arena




I settled on HOF on hitting, pitching and fielding. I'm using directional as a timing mode but I am not convinced that the players attributes are really controlling the PCI. I cannot seem to find anything that actually shows the contact of the ball on the bat. Does anyone know where to find that?



Okay...so Label_Hitchance. It can be found in Stats/Batter Analysis, under the "Result" filter - just cycle through to get to it. It plots every swing a batter takes, and measures their quality of PCI placement on a 1 - 15 scale. High numbers usually mean that, assuming timing was good, you will hit the ball hard. Most hits inside the PCI will be 15's or very close. As you get farther to the edges and outside of the PCI, this number will drop off.

As you can see, It's very possible to have 15's (meaning good pci placement) and still miss/foul depending on timing. So this can't be an end all/be all of how well you're hitting (not to mention actually getting that solid hit past the defense).

I'm using Zone here, but Hitchance works for all the other hitting modes too (as well as the CPU). That means you can use it to see where the game is placing the PCI behind-the-scenes to determine your contact on directional or analog. If the PCI didn't ever move from the middle on directional, you'd never see a ball hit on the strike zone corner (or outside the zone entirely) show up as a high number here. I can tell you that's not the case - solid contact can still be made on the corners in directional just by pressing the X button - but it's all up to where the game places that PCI. And that is all ratings driven.

Armor And Sword plays using directional and I'm sure he can attest to hitting balls solidly on the corners despite just taking a normal X swing. Anyone who plays directional probably can. And this mechanic is why they can do that.

Does that make sense?

[celticboy25]

Re: Help me out

This is info that bcruise passed along on another thread regarding PCI placement. After checking this out, I am convinced that the PCI is moving because everything relates correctly back to ball movement and contact



bcruise's Arena




I settled on HOF on hitting, pitching and fielding. I'm using directional as a timing mode but I am not convinced that the players attributes are really controlling the PCI. I cannot seem to find anything that actually shows the contact of the ball on the bat. Does anyone know where to find that?



Okay...so Label_Hitchance. It can be found in Stats/Batter Analysis, under the "Result" filter - just cycle through to get to it. It plots every swing a batter takes, and measures their quality of PCI placement on a 1 - 15 scale. High numbers usually mean that, assuming timing was good, you will hit the ball hard. Most hits inside the PCI will be 15's or very close. As you get farther to the edges and outside of the PCI, this number will drop off.

As you can see, It's very possible to have 15's (meaning good pci placement) and still miss/foul depending on timing. So this can't be an end all/be all of how well you're hitting (not to mention actually getting that solid hit past the defense).

I'm using Zone here, but Hitchance works for all the other hitting modes too (as well as the CPU). That means you can use it to see where the game is placing the PCI behind-the-scenes to determine your contact on directional or analog. If the PCI didn't ever move from the middle on directional, you'd never see a ball hit on the strike zone corner (or outside the zone entirely) show up as a high number here. I can tell you that's not the case - solid contact can still be made on the corners in directional just by pressing the X button - but it's all up to where the game places that PCI. And that is all ratings driven.

Armor And Sword plays using directional and I'm sure he can attest to hitting balls solidly on the corners despite just taking a normal X swing. Anyone who plays directional probably can. And this mechanic is why they can do that.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for this info. I was having a tough time figuring out why I was consistently missing pitches within my pci even when my timing is good. Maybe this type of analysis can help me better understand it..... I'm totally fine missing a lot of balls as long as it's ratings-based misses and not something I'm doing wrong. Then I can curse at the player I'm controlling instead cursing at myself lol

[RLB]

Re: Help me out

Thanks for this info. I was having a tough time figuring out why I was consistently missing pitches within my pci even when my timing is good. Maybe this type of analysis can help me better understand it..... I'm totally fine missing a lot of balls as long as it's ratings-based misses and not something I'm doing wrong. Then I can curse at the player I'm controlling instead cursing at myself lol

Lol.....yep, I have referred to the Sailor handbook a few times myself with some of them. Be patient and as long as your timing is good, the rest is up to the players attributes. Also as a side note, my timing was horrible this year as I was getting around on everything early. I upped the pitch speeds to 8 on the sliders and it really helped me out considerably.

[celticboy25]

Re: Help me out

I'm WAY early most of the time if it's anything off speed. Sometimes even on the fastball. I will mess around with upping the pitch speed. Thx

[Caulfield]

Re: Help me out

celtic, have you given any thought to dynamic, at least for hitting, maybe just until you get more acclimated to this years hitting? eventually dynamic will tell you you've reached all-star level at which time you could switch dynamic off. But I bet you will want to leave it on.

[celticboy25]

Re: Help me out

I've considered trying it. I never had to before but for some reason I just can't hit this year. I might have to experiment with different cameras as well. Another thing that could be affecting me, as I'm thinking about it, is that I'm just choosing random teams to play as and against in play now. I've just been using default line ups and choosing the top pitcher in the rotation for both teams. I should probably try hitting against some lower tier starters to see if that helps

[jeffy777]

Re: Help me out

Also, try messing around with different hitting cams. I was using the Fish Eye cam, but my timing was off and started slumping in RTTS, so I switched the cam to The Show 16 and found it to be much easier.

[RLB]

Re: Help me out

You could also choose whatever team that has the best contact rating Just to get you started.

[hyacinth1]

Re: Help me out

I'm like the OP, just having a hard time hitting this year. I tried all the modes and so far have settled on directional. I did dynamic difficulty and the game keeps making fun of me during batting putting in big bold red letters BATTING DIFFICULTY DECREASED.

I think I"m back to like Beginner 3. It's pathetic but I'm over 40 too and don't have time to really mess around. I use to love the days of zone hitting in High Heat and the early MLB The Show games on PS2 but now it feels like I'm playing mech warrior using zone.

I'll keep trying. One of my biggest problems is I tend to swing at everything. Even when I tell myself don't swing at everything, it's just so hard not to. I wish they had a setting where the pitcher just pitched in the strike zone. Maybe then I could hit and the cpu would increase my difficulty.