Directional Hitting Guide

[No.27]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so don't laugh. but I'm using dynamic diffculty. my pitching is awesome I'm on hall of fame but my hitting sucks and I'm on beginner and I still can't score lmfao

Actually that's very interesting when I first got the game I tried dynamic difficulty and couldn't hit my way past rookie+. I gave it and guess pitch away pretty quickly and am now hitting well on All Star. As an experiment why don't you try straight Veteran hitting and either Allstar or HOF pitching. You could raise your Hum contact and Hum timing sliders way up and just get a feel for hitting the ball. The game has got to be enjoyable to play and the sliders are there to help with that. I remember one year when it was harder to hit having my timing slider on 10 all year so I could stick on All Star.

[19]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so don't laugh. but I'm using dynamic diffculty. my pitching is awesome I'm on hall of fame but my hitting sucks and I'm on beginner and I still can't score lmfao

I'm right there with you. I pitch so much better than I hit it's stupid. This guide has helped me get a little better simply by adding influence to every swing. I never did that before, all I did was simply hit X.

The 10 years I've played this game my swing timing is always consistently late. I've had terrible reaction time my whole life so this is nothing new to me (which is why I just can't use zone hitting), but since I started influencing every swing to go opposite field I've been finding more success at the plate. I guess the influence is opening my timing window just enough to get a little more solid contact with my late swings.

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

my problem now is I don't know what to use to influence. I don't know when to aim up or aim left or right. my timing is getting better but the influencing is now the hard part. Its crazy as long as I play the show, my pitching has always been the best but the hitting has always giving me issues

[The Chef]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

no I don't do that I been lately swinging at first pitches. do you use guess pitch? what I am doing now is all of my pull hitters I am aiming left or right and the only two balanced hitters I am aiming up. so far I am getting hits but not getting runs.

No I don't use guess pitch. I used to use it 3-4 years ago as I too struggled mightly hitting then someone told me that the penalty for guessing wrong is so large that you're doing more harm then good and much better off just guessing in your head and sitting on it. Whoever it was that mentioned that couldn't have been more spot on as the moment I dumped guess pitch my hitting started getting better and better.

my problem now is I don't know what to use to influence. I don't know when to aim up or aim left or right. my timing is getting better but the influencing is now the hard part. Its crazy as long as I play the show, my pitching has always been the best but the hitting has always giving me issues

For starters, based on your previous post I wouldn't be influencing up unless you're looking for a sac fly or looking for one of those walk off HR's late and going for broke. Otherwise it's setting yourself up for more pop-ups and lazy fly balls and obviously that's not what you're going for.

As for when and where to influence. I'll give you a few examples of my approach, and again all credit goes to the OP in this thread as he opened my eyes to the possibilities of influencing.

When I have Nelson Cruz up he is a pull hitter so I influence left, not left up and not left down simply left. I have hit HR's doing this so not like it will zap your power either. When I get 2 strikes I influence straight down, not down/left or down/right just down. It sounds like a bad idea and will influence more ground balls, and while it does at times, it also allows me to hit line drives off pitches up in the zone more instead of popping them up and it also improves vision cutting down on strikeouts by swinging and missing yet having "good" timing.

With Segura, who is a push hitter, I influence opposite field and again not up or down simply opposite field. With 2 strikes I have the same approach as with Cruz and am simply pushing down.

With Leonys Martin and Jarrod Dyson, who are both pull hitters, this is where I go against their player type since the other team tends to pull the 3B in to cover the drag so I try and slap hits opposite field since odds are better that I can beat it out unless it's hit straight at the defender, with 2 strikes it's influencing down same as Segura and Cruz.

With guys like Brett Lawrie, Carlos Ruiz, Shawn O'Malley who are balanced and have little pop I influence down every AB for every pitch. They generally won't drive much anyways and I'd rather they get on base more slapping the ball through holes in the infield then hitting a HR once every 50 AB's and sporting a .150 average.

Then there is Mitch Haniger, has some pop, doesn't have speed and is balanced. With him I only influence with a runner on first if I want to punch it through the hole to the right side. Otherwise I don't influence at all until I have 2 strikes and then it's influence down like every other hitter on my team.

The only caveat to this is if you face a guy with a heavy sinker you will want to avoid influencing down with 2 strikes and instead just swing away with no influence. I faced Kazmir last game and he was burrying sinkers down and influencing down would have given me really poor results with a lot of easy outs.

Don't be worried about influencing down so much as the pitcher will put pitches up in the zone and those pitches will elicit more line drives when influencing down as opposed to popups and weak fly ball outs. You will for sure see ground balls but the overall outcome has been better for me when following my approach. In fact since employing this approach I've had 6 straight games with 10 or more hits (13-19-13-11-12-10), I've seen my doubles go up (hit 14 in the previous 13 games and 10 in the 6 games since influencing exclusively) and my run production has been solid (5-12-10-7-8-3). As you can see influencing down has not neutered my teams offense nor my average.

Easiest thing to do is adjust pitch speed until you feel like you're making good contact on fastballs when you sit dead red and behind when you don't or there is a real flame thrower on the mound. Anymore questions and I'll do my best to answer, hopefully this info was of some help.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so don't laugh. but I'm using dynamic diffculty. my pitching is awesome I'm on hall of fame but my hitting sucks and I'm on beginner and I still can't score lmfao

COMMISSIONERHBK9, I read through all your posts and I have a sneaking suspicion that either A: You've fallen victim to the high strike frequency of lower difficulty level hitting (something that I was a victim of for years) or B: you have a high input lag TV or C: Both.

If A, you might either want to boost your difficulty level up yourself, or take a hammer to your strike frequency slider (my recommendation, I'd suggest starting with 2 and possibly going lower).

If B, do you have a monitor with an HDMI input so you can hook up your PS4? Monitors tend to have less input lag than TVs. Even if you don't want it to stay like that, just do the experiment to see if it makes a difference.

If it ends up not being the input lag that is the problem, yet it's still not A, you probably want to turn down the pitch speed slider.

It's tough to learn the guide if these are your issues, especially the input lag.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I'm right there with you. I pitch so much better than I hit it's stupid. This guide has helped me get a little better simply by adding influence to every swing. I never did that before, all I did was simply hit X.

The 10 years I've played this game my swing timing is always consistently late. I've had terrible reaction time my whole life so this is nothing new to me (which is why I just can't use zone hitting), but since I started influencing every swing to go opposite field I've been finding more success at the plate. I guess the influence is opening my timing window just enough to get a little more solid contact with my late swings.

I suspect you too are a victim of input lag. Like I say in the post above, try and see if attaching your PS4 to a monitor improves your hitting.

[Dragsy]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I hit a similar slump recently to the point I didn't even want to fix the problem, I just wasn't going to play anymore. Instead, I tried to slow myself down, and I started watching every first pitch, even if it was a fastball down the middle. For some reason I felt that made me concentrate more. That had the knock on effect of making me more willing to leave pitches I didn't think I could do anything with, and I just took 2 of 3 against the Nats in Washington with my ailing Mets. Got a but more confident and I'll swing first pitch if I think it's worth it now.

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I got game mode on for my Samsung tv. do you think dynamic difficulty is bad for me?

COMMISSIONERHBK9, I read through all your posts and I have a sneaking suspicion that either A: You've fallen victim to the high strike frequency of lower difficulty level hitting (something that I was a victim of for years) or B: you have a high input lag TV or C: Both.

If A, you might either want to boost your difficulty level up yourself, or take a hammer to your strike frequency slider (my recommendation, I'd suggest starting with 2 and possibly going lower).

If B, do you have a monitor with an HDMI input so you can hook up your PS4? Monitors tend to have less input lag than TVs. Even if you don't want it to stay like that, just do the experiment to see if it makes a difference.

If it ends up not being the input lag that is the problem, yet it's still not A, you probably want to turn down the pitch speed slider.

It's tough to learn the guide if these are your issues, especially the input lag.

[The Chef]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I got game mode on for my Samsung tv. do you think dynamic difficulty is bad for me?

I know this question wasn't directed at me but I really don't care for dynamic difficulty. With baseball being such an up and down game with every single game playing out different then the last I don't know how it can properly take that into account when promoting or demoting. I tried it the first year they implemented it and all I found was when my top end SP's were on the mound they did well and the difficulty shot up then when my back end of the rotation guys pitched they got shelled because the difficulty was higher now and thus it would correct itself and go down, in the end I bounced back and forth constantly. Same when hitting, face an ace and struggle, game gets easier, then face a back of the rotation guy and rake off him and it shoots back up making it harder. I personally believe it's best to just find your difficulty and roll with it, only benefit to dynamic difficulty is those "+" levels if those feel better then you can lock yourself in.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I got game mode on for my Samsung tv. do you think dynamic difficulty is bad for me?

Game mode can sometimes be superficial on some TVs. Samsung is usually good but you never know.

I think the lower levels of difficulty are geared towards zone hitters (more pitches in the zone, especially early) and can be detrimental to directional hitting, where working the count is so essential to success. Doesn't necessarily mean dynamic difficulty is bad for you. I'd try knocking that strike frequency slider down first before manually setting your difficulty.

I know this question wasn't directed at me but I really don't care for dynamic difficulty. With baseball being such an up and down game with every single game playing out different then the last I don't know how it can properly take that into account when promoting or demoting. I tried it the first year they implemented it and all I found was when my top end SP's were on the mound they did well and the difficulty shot up then when my back end of the rotation guys pitched they got shelled because the difficulty was higher now and thus it would correct itself and go down, in the end I bounced back and forth constantly. Same when hitting, face an ace and struggle, game gets easier, then face a back of the rotation guy and rake off him and it shoots back up making it harder. I personally believe it's best to just find your difficulty and roll with it, only benefit to dynamic difficulty is those "+" levels if those feel better then you can lock yourself in.

While I've never used Dynamic Difficulty, I agree %100 with this. It's too volatile and a bit of a catch 22. I need a large sample pool to lock in on an appropriate difficulty, not only with games but with different players. Really wish I could unlock Veteran+ though without the hassle of working through games to lock it in.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I hit a similar slump recently to the point I didn't even want to fix the problem, I just wasn't going to play anymore. Instead, I tried to slow myself down, and I started watching every first pitch, even if it was a fastball down the middle. For some reason I felt that made me concentrate more. That had the knock on effect of making me more willing to leave pitches I didn't think I could do anything with, and I just took 2 of 3 against the Nats in Washington with my ailing Mets. Got a but more confident and I'll swing first pitch if I think it's worth it now.

That's the spirit! Start tapping that shoulder!

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so I follow everyone advice and I score 6 runs and I won 6 to 0. so what I'm doing is I'm aiming left or right depending on the hitter but then when I get to two strikes I am aiming down always. one thing that I am doing that I know most people wouldn't do it is I am doing guess pitch and location. I use it because if I don't guess right I don't swing at all and then I notice I get more walks like that. and when I guess wrong and its two strikes I just aim down and so far so good. thanks to everyone for helping

[No.27]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

so I follow everyone advice and I score 6 runs and I won 6 to 0. so what I'm doing is I'm aiming left or right depending on the hitter but then when I get to two strikes I am aiming down always. one thing that I am doing that I know most people wouldn't do it is I am doing guess pitch and location. I use it because if I don't guess right I don't swing at all and then I notice I get more walks like that. and when I guess wrong and its two strikes I just aim down and so far so good. thanks to everyone for helping

Sounds like a good system! I used guess pitch for years and like you felt it taught me how to lay off pitches and be more patient. I don't think there is any wrong way to play the game as long as you are enjoying it. Good Luck!

[Geolink]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Hit 3 back-to-back-to-back homers in 3 plate appearances with Aaron Judge this morning using the swing influence (righty hitter, aimed to LF which is where his tendency is the most highest).

Didn't use swing influence since today after reading the OP...



Swing influence and learning each batter's tendencies in the pause menu (pull, extreme pull, balanced) has really helped me hit a lot more.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Hey guys, I've noticed a lot of people mention in this and other threads that they "study" this thread. I was wondering if it would be helpful for me to edit in all of the guides into the OP, making it one huge mega-post. That way all of the info can be accessible on one page without having to flip back and forth in the thread.

I also own the second post so I can utilize that as well. Currently playing a game of the Show but let me know and I'll get to work on it when I'm finished.