MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream - Gameplay & AI, Legend Vladimir Guerrero Announced

[Armor and Sword]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

That's my concern too. Looks like it's going to be nearly impossible to advance on a wild pitch now :/

Really guys? I never jump to conclusions until I play the game myself.

I think they cured the easy steals on blocked balls right in front of the catcher with average to below average speed runners. If the ball get’s away far enough a faster guy will be able to take a base.

The two biggest issues offline (forget online it was an offline issue too) were slow and deliberate catcher animations and limp wristed throws. It was brutal. Also the amount of wild pitches were too high.

Now if you don’t get a good read on a blocked ball and take off....you will be gunned down as you should be.

I thought base stealing last season was tough already. They balanced that pretty well. You had to get great jumps (as you should in the Majors).

Anyway point is....let’s play the game when it comes out before sounding the alarms and jumping to broad conclusions based on streams. The video they showed were clear examples of the warts of 17 vs the vastly improved catcher animations in 18.

It’s night and day.

[nemesis04]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Stream was boring but some nice new animations. Wish we show more live gameplay of the new animations instead of pre recorded ones shown. Don't see much new with the hitting.

They released quite a bit of information especially in regards to the PCI and how it reacts with the different type of hitters. It actually got me juiced for hitting this year. I really disliked 17's hitting and to me 18 looks different. I would have a hard time saying it looks the same.

[jeffy777]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

I said it was a concern based on what I saw...I'm not making a conclusion, but I am a bit concerned that it won't be balanced which I think is fair since they never balanced it last year. I'm definitely optimistic though.

[bluengold34_OS]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

https://i.groupme.com/260x195.gif.d7e493f458d3454fb3a6fe1350797215

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[ninertravel]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Really guys? I never jump to conclusions until I play the game myself.

I think they cured the easy steals on blocked balls right in front of the catcher with average to below average speed runners. If the ball get’s away far enough a faster guy will be able to take a base.

The two biggest issues offline (forget online it was an offline issue too) were slow and deliberate catcher animations and limp wristed throws. It was brutal. Also the amount of wild pitches were too high.

Now if you don’t get a good read on a blocked ball and take off....you will be gunned down as you should be.

I thought base stealing last season was tough already. They balanced that pretty well. You had to get great jumps (as you should in the Majors).

Anyway point is....let’s play the game when it comes out before sounding the alarms and jumping to broad conclusions based on streams. The video they showed were clear examples of the warts of 17 vs the vastly improved catcher animations in 18.

It’s night and day.

Your right about the wild pitches it was so hard to get sliders right last year because the wild pitchers were crazy and making ERAs go up.

I hope their is more balance in manager hook this year it was a disaster last year with starters coming out after 4 innings because a game was close.

[jeffy777]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Really guys? I never jump to conclusions until I play the game myself.

I think they cured the easy steals on blocked balls right in front of the catcher with average to below average speed runners. If the ball get’s away far enough a faster guy will be able to take a base.

The two biggest issues offline (forget online it was an offline issue too) were slow and deliberate catcher animations and limp wristed throws. It was brutal. Also the amount of wild pitches were too high.

Now if you don’t get a good read on a blocked ball and take off....you will be gunned down as you should be.

I thought base stealing last season was tough already. They balanced that pretty well. You had to get great jumps (as you should in the Majors).

Anyway point is....let’s play the game when it comes out before sounding the alarms and jumping to broad conclusions based on streams. The video they showed were clear examples of the warts of 17 vs the vastly improved catcher animations in 18.

It’s night and day.

To be fair, you make some conclusions in your own post based on the video. I agree the improvements look great and I'm not trying to make a negative conclusion; I worded my initial post poorly, but I am a bit concerned about balance, yet I'll definitely wait to play the game and there's a great chance my concern will vanish as soon as I play. Not trying to bust your balls either, but I think people have a right to be at least a bit uneasy about this being balanced since it was never fixed last year. I'm thrilled with what I saw in the video. I just don't want them to go too far the other way with it in terms of balance. However, That's all I'll say about it for now and I will optimistically wait for the release.

And I'm definitely preordering today

[CSUFresnoClassof2011]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

They released quite a bit of information especially in regards to the PCI and how it reacts with the different type of hitters. It actually got me juiced for hitting this year. I really disliked 17's hitting and to me 18 looks different. I would have a hard time saying it looks the same.

This should help a lot for those of us who do use zone hitting. I definitely didn't know a lot of what said about the PCI.

[BigOscar]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Hugely impressed with the fixing of the broken tags, the terrible stuck animations allowing players to take extra bases and the awful catcher animations. All look great, but at the same time I hope they haven't overdone it. Close tags are missed in real life and sometimes weak hit balls do get beaten out for infield hits, not all catchers and pitchers do make perfect, athletic plays every time. It needs mistakes still in there on close plays.

That's my only concern, as they did the same with the infielders. They added all these fancy animations for dives, jump throws and the like, but then they had them happening all the time with perfect execution, almost regardless of the fielders ability. If they still have that but take away the cheap, slow rollers to the pitcher, then I struggle to see where the infield hits are going to come from.

So hopefully they've toned down the infield heroics, particularly with less talented fielders and added these new, fantastic catcher and pitcher animations, so we get the right amount of infield hits and in the most realistic way.

Didn't see the hitting part of the stream as I got a call, but I liked the look of the first half.

[bronxbombers21325]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

I assume directional hitting hasn’t been taken out? I haven’t heard much about it so far.

[jada855]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Tagging

Happy to see the tagging has improved. But noticed the base running and lead off animations for each runner still look the same unfortunately. If these animations were some how randomized for each member on base it would create so much more tension, engagement, and aggressiveness on the bases!

Base Running

Would definitely like to see some sort of urgency and awareness in a CPU base runner. It looks and feels as if they are on a determined path and the CPU AI has no ability to be aware and try to change the out come e.g. short stop and turn around, go half way and realize! Bad idea type of awareness.

Run Downs

They showed a run down scenario in which the tag looked better. But it always seems the CPU (MLB 14–MLB 17) involved in the run down always at one point has greater speed than the actual runner caught in the run down regardless of weight or speed attribute of the CPU player.


Fielding

Chris Gill talked about when playing defense in this case short stop the ability to cheat up. I hope this holds through and is a bit more fluid than it is currently especially when playing infield positions with Player Lock.

[milldaddy35]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

This should help a lot for those of us who do use zone hitting. I definitely didn't know a lot of what said about the PCI.

Can someone give me a quick run down on what was said about the PCI? Didn't have time to watch and won't for a few days. Thanks!

[jada855]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Hugely impressed with the fixing of the broken tags, the terrible stuck animations allowing players to take extra bases and the awful catcher animations. All look great, but at the same time I hope they haven't overdone it. Close tags are missed in real life and sometimes weak hit balls do get beaten out for infield hits, not all catchers and pitchers do make perfect, athletic plays every time. It needs mistakes still in there on close plays.

That's my only concern, as they did the same with the infielders. They added all these fancy animations for dives, jump throws and the like, but then they had them happening all the time with perfect execution, almost regardless of the fielders ability. If they still have that but take away the cheap, slow rollers to the pitcher, then I struggle to see where the infield hits are going to come from.

So hopefully they've toned down the infield heroics, particularly with less talented fielders and added these new, fantastic catcher and pitcher animations, so we get the right amount of infield hits and in the most realistic way.

Didn't see the hitting part of the stream as I got a call, but I liked the look of the first half.

BigOscar,

I saw those jump throws in the first trailer as well! Directly in the 1st base mens glove! I actually thought it was going to make a error. Not enough errors in MLB 17 on those type of throws even with slider adjustments. Hopefully different in MLB 18

[jeffy777]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

BigOscar,

I saw those jump throws in the first trailer as well! Directly in the 1st base mens glove! I actually thought it was going to make a error. Not enough errors in MLB 17 on those type of throws even with slider adjustments. Hopefully different in MLB 18

These throws from even mediocre fielders and the lack of AI throwing errors were my biggest gripes with 17. Fingers crossed it's taken care of in 18.

Definitely like what i'm seeing so far in general.

[nemesis04]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

Can someone give me a quick run down on what was said about the PCI? Didn't have time to watch and won't for a few days. Thanks!

The 3 pci's represent a weak, average and power hitter. With the ball in same location of each hitter's PCI it shows you that your hit result could vary based on the hitter's ability. Many people question why they don't get the desired or same result when they feel they squared up on the ball. Your ability to square up on everything is not the total overriding factor on the hit result.

They also mentioned they made adjustments to the timing window which should shift more balls into the field of play instead of being foul. The new visual swing analysis is really going to help people see how their timing is. In the past it would tell us for example our tiimimg was "good" but In looking at the analysis we can see there could be good early timing or good late timing within the green zone of that analysis.

[BigOscar]

Re: MLB The Show 18 Twitch Stream Starting Now - Gameplay & AI

BigOscar,

I saw those jump throws in the first trailer as well! Directly in the 1st base mens glove! I actually thought it was going to make a error. Not enough errors in MLB 17 on those type of throws even with slider adjustments. Hopefully different in MLB 18

Yup, it felt like all plays, no matter how difficult, were considered the same. So if a player had the attributes to do it (which was criminally low, something like fielding 60) then they'd be just as likely to succeed in that technique as even a basic one. So a terrible fielder would be just as likely to mess up a routine grounder as they would a ridiculous jump throw. As you say, it led to a real lack of infield errors, especially on what should be the tougher plays.

Hopefully they've fixed that as it seems a pretty easy fix, just change the error percentage depending on the difficulty of the technique animation