Directional Hitting Guide

[Fuimus Troes]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I have to say that probably 85% of the time I don't touch the analog stick. I just try to time the pitch.

Same. I'm not young anymore, I have NO qualms about surrendering my stick skills ego to the video game gods.

[The Chef]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Many times I will just swing and not touch the stick but there are exceptions to the rule obviously. When I hit with either Dee Gordon or Jarrod Dyson I always, and I mean ALWAYS, swing influence down and away towards thirdbase where they're guarding against the drag bunt. Dyson led the MLB in batting average season 1 doing that and Gordon and Dyson are at the top so far in season 2. I will also hold straight down every single time with Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Marlette as neither have great power so I look for a pitch up, hold down and try and hit line drives into the OF. If I have a runner on first when Segura is up I will try and push into the hole between first and second since he is a push hitter. Other then that I just swing away as well.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

You guys really should try the proof of concept situation I made on page 37. It really will show off the buffs and debuffs for each swing type and why it's beneficial to always pick an influence.

But...

I'm not going to force it on you. Only made the guide to help, not to dictate what is right or wrong. Either way, I wish happy hitting for you guys.

[bcruise]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Ok, I've got a slider set and two practice scenarios to help proof of concept the guide for those that are struggling to see the difference between the different swing types, or even the benefit of picking a swing influence at all. The differences will show up from ideal contact scenarios, you can ignore choppers and popouts, or situations where you chased. The main thing you want to focus on is hit speed. This is the only thing power effects. There will be overlap, as there is always an element of randomness to power, but you will notice higher average hit speeds on pull and up solid hits, whereas you will notice it is easier to get a solid hit with push/down swings.

The reason why it's so much easier to see with this slider set is because it's so Human batter favoured. When you can push out more solid hits, it's much easier to see the patterns.

Roster: DEFAULT

Difficulty: Veteran (add 1 to X for every level you choose above Veteran)

Sliders all default EXCEPT

Human Contact: 6 + X
Human Timing: 8
Human Solid Hits: 10
Fastball Speed: User's Choice
Offspeed Speed:User's Choice

Go to mini-modes on the front screen and select batting practice.

For batter, you have two choices.

Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers for a Power Archtype
Francisco Lindor of the Indians for a Speed/Contact Archtype

These two were chosen because they both have high vision and they both have balanced hitting profiles.

For the pitcher, choose Ervin Santana of the Twins.

He was chosen because his attributes are nearly even across the board. His stuff is all good but he has nothing exceptional. He has been my "calibration" pitcher for years as he is solid, predictable and relatively easy to read the pitches from while also not being a pushover.

Hope this helps those who are frustrated by their lack of results. I know if I were in their shoes, being able to see something tangible to know the effort was making a difference would go a long way.

Great post. Thought I'd take you up on it even though I'm not primarily a Directional hitter (I play Zone). The nature of directional is that it can be played by anyone, even someone who normally plays with higher difficulty hitting modes, and the results should all be relatively similar and comparable because the AI has so much control over the outcome. So what I'm getting at is that my data should be as good as anyone else's.

This was on All-Star with the recommended sliders from that post - contact at 7, and everything else as listed. My pitch speeds are default.

First my "control" session - no influence (it's every "action" pitch - otherwise these would be 9 minute videos):

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QGh3r5dwjng" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Then my down influence test - it REALLY showed up here. All of my decent-to-solid contact was in the infield grass/dirt:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KomhgwlZScc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I did do an up influence one too, but I'll spare you that one - I had some bad PCI luck (even worse than the control one) and didn't really get much solid contact at all. Really inconclusive either way, but that was the only set I had time for. Not really worth showing.

I was pretty surprised at how well the down influence worked - those were middle-zone and even high-zone pitches that I was burying into the ground. But I wasn't surprised at how you can still pop it up when you get jammed - no amount of influence is going to override that.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

The bad PCI luck with the up influence is actually in line with the guide, since the "PCI luck" is determined by the vision stat, and the up influence debuffs vision. Remember Vision does two things in Directional, it moves the PCI and it determines if the batter gets any contact at all on misses.

Check out the Vision vs. Contact expanded and why Vision is the most Important Attribute section in the guide for more info.

Thanks for the videos though that was awesome. I should post my own. I'll get to it eventually. I think the next thing for me is to edit the OP and remove inconsistencies/make minor corrections though. Which is also something I'll get to eventually. When I stop being a lazy bum.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Ok so I've got two videos using the Proof of Concept settings with Lindor showing the swing analysis results on pitches I made any contact with only. Dry stuff I know but hopefully it'll showcase the benefits and drawbacks of Push and Pull swings.

The first video I used pull swings only:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZGgjG_Zi-U

Notice how hit speed has a much higher ceiling and a higher average, especially on pitches I get decent contact on.

The second video I used push swings only:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAJFkqNK1M8

Notice how I managed to do a little better, despite having worse pitch selection.

It's boring just looking at numbers flash past I know, but hit speed is the only thing power effects. One might get a bunch of infield popups or groundouts and think that the power isn't there, or that push/down swinging is objectively better (I'd bet some IRL hitting coaches might agree) but hopefully this clears up some of the confusion surrounding the buffs/debuffs that swing selection brings.

Wasn't my best session in practice, but it's all I got for now.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I mean no offense by this whatsoever, so please don't take it as such. But unless something is officially released by SCEA explaining, in specific detail, the things you suggest, I have to say it's all just conjecture.

I've played thousands of games of The Show and one of the frustrating things for me is that I've still never seen a detailed explanation of exactly how directional and/or zone hitting work from the developers.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I mean no offense by this whatsoever, so please don't take it as such. But unless something is officially released by SCEA explaining, in specific detail, the things you suggest, I have to say it's all just conjecture.

And you'd be correct. No offence taken.

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so do we not use the left analog stick to aim or do we just always aim down? the only I got so far is aiming up is bad lol.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so do we not use the left analog stick to aim or do we just always aim down? the only I got so far is aiming up is bad lol.

No, the left stick has little to no impact on aim. The different swing types have buffs and debuffs, similar to how pressing circle when swinging buffs vision and contact but debuffs power, and pressing square buffs power at the cost of contact and vision.

The directions should be thought of as nothing more than granular choices between the "big" choice of choosing a contact, normal, or power swing. And yes, the effects of the choice you make with the buttons and the choice you make with the stick do stack.

Edit: The up swing is generally considered bad because it debuffs vision, and in directional vision is the most important attribute.

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so I'm just confuse so I should just swing then and not influence correct?

No, the left stick has little to no impact on aim. The different swing types have buffs and debuffs, similar to how pressing circle when swinging buffs vision and contact but debuffs power, and pressing square buffs power at the cost of contact and vision.

The directions should be thought of as nothing more than granular choices between the "big" choice of choosing a contact, normal, or power swing. And yes, the effects of the choice you make with the buttons and the choice you make with the stick do stack.

Edit: The up swing is generally considered bad because it debuffs vision, and in directional vision is the most important attribute.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so I'm just confuse so I should just swing then and not influence correct?

The buffs are usually bigger than the debuffs, so I recommend always picking an influence. What influence you should pick is based on the situation, the count, and the batter at the plate.

This is all laid out in the OP (including the info in this post), but I understand that can be a whole lot of information overload. Just start at the top, and work on one section at a time. Once that section becomes second nature, move on to the next one. Learning it all at once is a daunting task.

Edit: A good place to start is with the images provided by triplecrown. They are an oversimplification of what is happening, but they condense the basic info of the guide in an easy to digest visual package. A lot of players have mentioned that they keep the images open on a second screen to give them an instant reference when playing the game, and that has helped them immensely in learning the guide.

It's really hard to learn the more advanced sections of the guide while also trying to learn this basic step. Save player scouting or working the count properly for after the swing choices become second nature to you.

[Fredette]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

This guide helped me alot to understand the (batting)gameplay better, thank you so much.

but i'm just wondering why this thread is not sticky ?

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

This guide helped me alot to understand the (batting)gameplay better, thank you so much.

but i'm just wondering why this thread is not sticky ?

You're welcome, glad this guide is helping you.

I'm not so hot on the idea of the thread being sticky. It might be worthy of a sticky (though I leave that judgement to others), but it also sets a precedence that I'm not sure is a good idea.

Do all future community made guides get stickied? Doesn't that compete with the teach me/strategies thread and the Q&A thread?

To be clear, I'm neither pro nor against stickying this thread. I leave that decision to the mods. But I obviously have concerns, which I admit could be unfounded. I mean we're talking about a fan forum here, wouldn't be the worst thing to have a fan made guide stickied.

I'm kind of going in circles here.

I'll I care about is that when you google MLB the Show directional hitting guide, this is the first thing that comes up. Kind of streamlines the process for new players and non-OSers.

Edit: P.S. you can always PM a mod if you want the thread stickied. Probably more likely to happen if requests come from sources other than the OP.

[Tomasson84]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Hey, first i wanna thank you for this guide, since i found it i enjoy the game so much more then before.

However one question i have is, does height, weight etc make you a better/worse hitter?

Im mainly a RTTS player, and i have lovads of different type of players. I play with the same sliders and difficulty on all of them.

My problem right now my best player in terms of hitting happens to be really short, 5'6 in terms of stats he is way better hitter than all of my players, however he is also the one i got the lowest %Average on, i just cant hit, good timing on good balls right in the middle etc, but he cant hit, fouls off, pop outs, straight out misses etc.

So does body type, height, weight affect hitting?