Directional Hitting Guide

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

well ive' gone full circle now in this game. I"m back to zone without pci. Not sure if it's the patches or what. Maybe I just suck at hitting. I played a great game in DD vs cpu, 14 innings, ended up losing 1-0. I barely can score a run.

Question : in directional, if I don't point the stick anywhere and just press the button, does the game basically use the player attributes in determining the outcome of the at bat?

Say the pitch is outside and I just press X or Square and I don't touch the stick to try to influence the direction of where I want to hit it. Can I still get hits this way? I'm now leaning towards less user skill since I suck and relying more on the player ratings to determine the outcome of the at bat.

If what I describe is correct, then the game is purely based on timing the pitch right?

I, umm... read the last two pages of posts I made, starting at the red post, and especially my response to The Chef. I'm still figuring out exactly what no influence does.

Also try to think about the influences more for their buffs and debuffs as opposed to hitting it in a certain direction. Timing has the biggest impact on where the ball goes, the impact that influence has is actually very small, to the point where it should be ignored.

[raneman85]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

This directional hitting guide has actually improved my zone hitting. I use both. The theory is primarily the same for the PCI zone. Timing is crucial. The high heat and the slow breaking pitch get me. Thanks for the detailed breakdown :cheers

[hyacinth1]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

This directional hitting guide has actually improved my zone hitting. I use both. The theory is primarily the same for the PCI zone. Timing is crucial. The high heat and the slow breaking pitch get me. Thanks for the detailed breakdown :cheers

I sometimes switch the hitting mode for my hitters. Not sure if it helps but some of my hitters do better with directional while others do better with zone.

Does guess pitch matter much? Since I am really bad at low pitches I'm doing guess pitch low. If a pitch is down there guess pitch shows me and I don't swing. But does this hurt pitches I swing at up in the zone?

I too have a hard time catching up with high heat.

Btw I really love playing this game. This year you really have to think as a real MLB hitter.

[Duff2]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Good questions!

Unfortunately, I don't have a simple answer for the first one. There are a lot of factors that go into determining what archetype a player is, including the the two most important:

What role do you want the player to have in your organization?

What type of success are they finding in the game?

Attributes should be taken as guidelines, not the word of the law, and I've had many a player bat outside the archetype their attributes say they should be.

But let's ignore that for now and turn this into a raw numbers game.

Yes, 65 power is a good place to start thinking about power hitting.

Speed is slider dependent, but 77 or 78 is a good threshold for the speed archetype. Anything over 55 in BR is good for stealing, though you really need to pick your spots until you get into the 80s.

Hybrid, you want contact and vision above 65. 65 is a good threshold for most batting attributes. You'll want power around 50-55 to start thinking of them as a hybrid threat. 65 to 71 speed is also a good hybrid threshold.

Contact was kind of referring to everybody else.

As for your low power pull hitters, yes, you'll still want to favour pull in general. I'd recommend using a strat that favours the pull/down hybrid swing. I've been finding a lot of success with that recently, especially with low power pull hitters. In fact it's been so successful I'm starting to use it sometimes with my high power pull hitters too. Great for a 2-2 count.

Great stuff! Thanks again.

[Theo_Fleury]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Great guide + thread for directional users and especially newbies to MLB-The Show like me....Thank you so much TheWarmWind. After this guide the game is pure fun for me

[No.27]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

WW, just hit my first home run with Hybrid/Pull down influence. High contact/mid power guy behind in the count and I sat on a circle change which was left a bit up. Admittedly just snuck over the short porch at Fenway but broke the game open for me. Well done on finding another piece of the puzzle.

Also as a test when I came up against a high 90s fastball starter in justmunc roster I played the same game twice. The first I used pull influence with my power hitters and had no luck catching up to the fastball at all. I replayed the game and then used down influence with the same power hitters and felt the timing window definitely opened up. I started getting hits slowly at first then to all parts of the field as the pitcher confidence went down.

I'm going to have a look at your latest no influence idea but unfortunately have stacked my Red Sox with high vision guys 😀 Will have to wait until I go to back to batting practice.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I'm going to have a look at your latest no influence idea but unfortunately have stacked my Red Sox with high vision guys 😀 Will have to wait until I go to back to batting practice.

lol I've stacked all of my teams with vision as well, hence why I'm asking for playtesters. I really do feel that the no influence swing is really only good for high power/low vision guys, but we will see.

[raneman85]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I sometimes switch the hitting mode for my hitters. Not sure if it helps but some of my hitters do better with directional while others do better with zone.



Does guess pitch matter much? Since I am really bad at low pitches I'm doing guess pitch low. If a pitch is down there guess pitch shows me and I don't swing. But does this hurt pitches I swing at up in the zone?



I too have a hard time catching up with high heat.



Btw I really love playing this game. This year you really have to think as a real MLB hitter.

Guess pitch messes me up as I swing early when I hear and see the light up. Hitting and pitching is timing. My opinion is no influence with either directional or zone hitting equates to a level barrel swing. I'll use no swing influence to get out of a slump to address my timing. Video games are a great way to keep the hand eye reflexes sharp. I'm an old fart at 55 so I can't keep up with you Young Fellas. The directional hitting guide has helped me. If you want to translate that into reality it makes sense: Put the barrel on the ball.


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[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so one thing I'm noticing now is if If I aim up left or up right depending where I'm hitting I get better hits then if I aim down or left or right

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so one thing I'm noticing now is if If I aim up left or up right depending where I'm hitting I get better hits then if I aim down or left or right

Interesting.

It makes sense that you would get better hits doing this thanks to the increase in power, but are you claiming that you're getting more hits doing this over the other swings?

[Councilmann_Jamm]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I've hit about 7 homer using the down angle. They get out of the park quick.

[The Chef]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I've hit about 7 homer using the down angle. They get out of the park quick.

I hit a laser last night with Kurt Suzuki of all people using the down and pull side influence. Suzuki actually has high vision but low power so I've tried to hit more line drives with him as opposed to weak *** fly balls that just hang up in the air forever. It works at times but in the end his high vision can't make up for his below average contact vs RHP.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

OK, played some more games with some lower vision players, and I'm starting to think no-influence favours hot/cold zones the most, with the precision engine being second.

I've got four guys in particular I've been watching and using the no-influence swing with, and their success seems almost directly in line with their hot zones.

The guy with the LOWEST vision is the one finding the most success. His vision is a paltry 39, but he has numerous hot zones and negligible cold zones (he only has cold zones vs LHP, and even then only 2)

The guy who is doing second best has a vision of 41. VS right handers his hot/cold zones are fairly neutral.

The guy who is doing the worst has a vision of 49 and cold zones galore, especially vs RHP. He has found practically no success with the no-influence swing, despite having power.

Not nearly enough evidence to add to the guide just yet, but my confidence is climbing. I'd say I'm at about a 5 right now.

[SolidSnake07]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I became a directional user midway through my first year of franchise and I'm still using it.

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[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Interesting.

It makes sense that you would get better hits doing this thanks to the increase in power, but are you claiming that you're getting more hits doing this over the other swings?

it looks like that. I restarted my franchise I am the cubs now and I'm going to see how it goes with just aiming up left or up right.