Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

[trackstar121388]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Unless I am missing it, I do not believe we can contact our agents, I believe we need to wait for them to contact us. So I am not sure what can you do short of waiting it out.

Your Marlins story is a little different than my Pirates/Padres story. But they are also similar in that both you and I got called up to the Show rather early in our respective careers. In your case with the Marlins you were able to pitch as a starter during your rookie year but in year two you now find yourself in the bullpen. Your story sounds like it could happen in the real world. But my story where the Pirates wanted me to be their MLB closer just does not make sense. Perhaps if I threw 100+ mph fastballs it would make sense. But who would make an 18 year old kid who throws 94 mph and is still developing their control as the closer of a MLB team? It's bunk.

I can't speak for you, perhaps I am in the extreme minority here in that I am someone who is okay with staying in AAA developing my skills as that is what I would have liked to have done with my RTTS pitcher while he was still with the Pirates. But since they traded me to the Padres, I have been given the opportunity to continue to develop as a starter. It's just that I am developing on a last place team. So for you I guess you just need to wait for your agent to contact you when he does request a trade if you are still in the Marlins bullpen. There may be another last place team (perhaps the Padres LOL) who would be willing to have you as one of their starters. Or perhaps by the time your agent contacts you your skills will develop further where you can land on a good team. I know in the real world, making it to the top levels of any pro sport can be really hard and more often than not results in failure (if anyone has seen Matt Antonelli's YouTube video series, he offers some really cool perspective on his rise and fall from trying to make it as a pro baseball player). But this is a game. It's not the real world. There should be more options that what we are seeing. RTTS has the potential to be an awesome mode. But there is something that is just not right with it, at least for those trying to make it as starting pitchers.

My Mets Pitcher was a bit different than your guys' quick call-ups, and I spent a year as a long reliever. Like you mentioned I would have preferred to stay in AAA and start than do long relief but I chalked it up to "realism" from my franchise. I'm not sure why you got locked into a closer role with some issues in control and not overwhelming speed. Maybe they were happy with your K/9 and pitching clutch attributes? I actually saw a pitcher of mine I created to have all my players "play" in the same save (obviously I can only play one but I can see what the others are doing) and I used a player save that had not finished editing his pitches he has 99 in the attributes like k/9 bb/9 etc but has 0s in all the actual pitch stats (velocity, movement, and control) for all his pitches and last year he had under a 2 era as a starting pitcher.

[My993C2]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Maybe they were happy with your K/9 and pitching clutch attributes?

Perhaps you are right. I did strike out a lot of my AA and AAA opponents and was pretty good at working my way out of trouble. Part of that likely was because when I first started playing RTTS, and being new to the mode I was pitching on the easier difficulty modes and only upped the difficulty levels once I realized getting 8+ Ks in a game was never that hard to do in AA and AAA ball. So yeah perhaps that was why the Pirates wanted me to try and be a closer. Perhaps it's not as scripted as I thought.

I now pitch on the HoF difficulty level meaning I am at the Legend level when I face MLB opposition and let me tell you I fear the MLB batters. They have punished me whenever I was complacent and left a pitch out over the plate. I really need to be careful with my placements now as I learn to become a "pitch to contact" control freak sinker ball pitcher.

[My993C2]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

On one hand, I don't agree with you because in real life, any young ball player with an opportunity the go straight to The Show would be thrilled to go. They would accept to slow their development down or even risk to have their confidence affected and become "bust" just have a shot at making it!

You're right any young guy would jump at the opportunity to play a game in the Show, just to say that they were there and go down in the history books. But you have to be really bad in this game not to succeed. Perhaps some folks won't succeed right away, but you won't see any busts in this game. So I still wish we were given more options.

Hey is there September call ups in RTTS? That is where the majority of people in real life get their first exposure to the Show. But it seems that in this game it's either right after the All Star game, or be invited to Spring Training and try and make the club there. I never hear people talk about September call ups.

[trackstar121388]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Perhaps you are right. I did strike out a lot of my AA and AAA opponents and was pretty good at working my way out of trouble. Part of that likely was because when I first started playing RTTS, and being new to the mode I was pitching on the easier difficulty modes and only upped the difficulty levels once I realized getting 8+ Ks in a game was never that hard to do in AA and AAA ball. So yeah perhaps that was why the Pirates wanted me to try and be a closer. Perhaps it's not as scripted as I thought.

I now pitch on the HoF difficulty level meaning I am at the Legend level when I face MLB opposition and let me tell you I fear the MLB batters. They have punished me whenever I was complacent and left a pitch out over the plate. I really need to be careful with my placements now as I learn to become a "pitch to contact" control freak sinker ball pitcher.

That sounds rough out of a closer position. I have to agree.

[goldar]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Well I didn't get called up till year 2 in my Mets SP RTTS because of their rotation and then they threw me as a Long Reliever almost all year other than a few spot starts, but now it looks like in year 3 I will be starting. So if you wait it out it'll eventually work out, but I hated doing LR for a whole year.

I played a few more weeks after my post and out of nowhere I was put in the rotation. Replacing the RP with 68 overall compared to my 74.

It raised another question for me though. They have cutscenes for a ton of little things in rtts, why can't they do one where the pitching coach or whatever comes to you and says they're going to use you in a relief role for the time being because reason, instead of just sticking you there out of nowhere.

[Robo COP]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

EDIT: I forgot I wanted to ask. Has anyone else had the cpu seem to walk a lot of batters with the bases loaded. I have it happen 2, sometimes 3 batters in a row. It's a little over the top

So I've realized that 2B and SS are probably the 2 best positions to play if you want to get your ovr up quick. Getting arm accuracy, fielding, and reaction every play you're involved in adds up quick. I was a 76 ovr by the end of season 1 at SS and am 80 right now a little ways through season 2.

I can't speak for the other positions but I doubt they have nearly as many opportunities to get fielding plays, and therefore fielding attributes. So playing other positions probably slows down that progression.

So far the game is actually semi similar to last year for me in terms of time spent in the minors, etc. I actually got called up to the bigs by the all star break of year 1, but that's also because I'm on the Padres. If I ever got drafted by a team with a good player at my position in the bigs I think I'd just reload until a different team took me lol.

I'm still considering just creating a player in franchise and player locking in order to do my RttS from here on out. Doing fine with this current career, but don't want to have to hope for the best case scenario if I decide to make a pitcher (though I've been wanting to make a closer but that probably won't work for franchise very well)

[Tomasson84]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Who got the best no doubt animations where they drop the bat after swinging, kinda like Ken Griffey Jrs?

[bcruise]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Perhaps you are right. I did strike out a lot of my AA and AAA opponents and was pretty good at working my way out of trouble. Part of that likely was because when I first started playing RTTS, and being new to the mode I was pitching on the easier difficulty modes and only upped the difficulty levels once I realized getting 8+ Ks in a game was never that hard to do in AA and AAA ball. So yeah perhaps that was why the Pirates wanted me to try and be a closer. Perhaps it's not as scripted as I thought.

I now pitch on the HoF difficulty level meaning I am at the Legend level when I face MLB opposition and let me tell you I fear the MLB batters. They have punished me whenever I was complacent and left a pitch out over the plate. I really need to be careful with my placements now as I learn to become a "pitch to contact" control freak sinker ball pitcher.

Yeah, not to go too far off on tangents but this is why I love pitching on Legend this year in my regular games - the CPU will MAKE you walk batters because it punishes a lot of pitches in the strike zone, especially mistake pitches. You have to try to make it chase something that starts in and breaks out otherwise it will just hammer you relentlessly.

It sure feels rewarding to get swinging or especially called K's at that level though.

[trackstar121388]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

I played a few more weeks after my post and out of nowhere I was put in the rotation. Replacing the RP with 68 overall compared to my 74.

It raised another question for me though. They have cutscenes for a ton of little things in rtts, why can't they do one where the pitching coach or whatever comes to you and says they're going to use you in a relief role for the time being because reason, instead of just sticking you there out of nowhere.

Well, that's good.

That's a good point and a cutscene that tells you that your being put into the rotation put in as the main closer, both are situations that a young pitcher would be excited about (making the rotation for a SP and getting the closer role for a relief pitcher)

[My993C2]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

I forgot I wanted to ask. Has anyone else had the cpu seem to walk a lot of batters with the bases loaded. I have it happen 2, sometimes 3 batters in a row. It's a little over the top

I have seen the CPU opponents get into trouble walking more than one batter in an inning which results in a big inning. But it's random and it can happen in baseball. Baseball is a a wacky sport where one game one team pummels the other and on the following day the pummeled team turns around and returns the favor. It's one of those "You should never give up sports" because it can be so unpredictable at times both in this game as well as in the real world.

So I've realized that 2B and SS are probably the 2 best positions to play if you want to get your ovr up quick. Getting arm accuracy, fielding, and reaction every play you're involved in adds up quick. I was a 76 ovr by the end of season 1 at SS and am 80 right now a little ways through season 2.

I can't speak for the other positions but I doubt they have nearly as many opportunities to get fielding plays, and therefore fielding attributes. So playing other positions probably slows down that progression.

1B should get more fielding opportunities than 2B or SS, but it is also possible that SDS weighs some fielding opportunities from certain positions higher than others and of course 1B doesn't get as many throwing opportunities. But yeah 2B and SS do see a decent amount of activity in most games. But it varies. Once again baseball can be a wacky sport. You could go eight innings where no balls are hit your way and then in the ninth inning it all changes and everything including the kitchen sink is thrown at you. Plus I prefer playing SS over 2B, but I created my main RTTS position player as a 2B because as it appears he fields even more plays than the SS. Example: turning double plays from a 3B throw. You pretty much never see the SS take the first leg of a double play from 3B. It's always the 2B who does it.

[Glenn33]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Question/Comment: I don't understand the intent of the interaction with the agent. Is it strictly for immersion? Why make asking the agent to request a trade an option if it is not going to happen? Its frustrating [to me at least.] I understnad "in reality" a team has a player under control for 6 years and is not likely to ever trade it's young superstar.

But this is a videogame and I think developers have poetic license to introduce certain elements into the game to make it enjoyable to everyone - not just those who wano grind it out 6 seasons for a team they have no rooting interest for.

I just repsectfully wish that since they took out the option to get drafted by the team we selected [as in previous versions] they would add a mechanism in game to get to that team sooner rather than later.

[trackstar121388]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Question/Comment: I don't understand the intent of the interaction with the agent. Is it strictly for immersion? Why make asking the agent to request a trade an option if it is not going to happen? Its frustrating [to me at least.] I understnad "in reality" a team has a player under control for 6 years and is not likely to ever trade it's young superstar.

But this is a videogame and I think developers have poetic license to introduce certain elements into the game to make it enjoyable to everyone - not just those who wano grind it out 6 seasons for a team they have no rooting interest for.

I just repsectfully wish that since they took out the option to get drafted by the team we selected [as in previous versions] they would add a mechanism in game to get to that team sooner rather than later.

Most players that I've requested a trade with as long as they weren't 99s end up getting traded within a few months of the request other than my Mets pitcher.

[Robo COP]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

I have seen the CPU opponents get into trouble walking more than one batter in an inning which results in a big inning. But it's random and it can happen in baseball. Baseball is a a wacky sport where one game one team pummels the other and on the following day the pummeled team turns around and returns the favor. It's one of those "You should never give up sports" because it can be so unpredictable at times both in this game as well as in the real world.

Yes but it has happened far more often than it should. It's a semi regular occurrence for me

[My993C2]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Yes but it has happened far more often than it should. It's a semi regular occurrence for me

It could be your sliders or something you can fix by tweaking the sliders. Some slider settings seem to have little effect while others can massively change our game play experiences. I use Armor and Swords slider recommendations with some minor tweaks made to them.

[SandGropeR]

Re: Official MLB 18 : Road to the Show Thread

Well I have had to grind through 2 years with my CP stuck in a relief role, it is not fun anymore and frankly I am just about at the point where I will leave him and maybe make a SP and see what luck I have. I'm a 87 and the CP is 84 but because the Marlin SP's are so bad I am stuck playing Mr Fix up all the time, only thing I have going is it is only 5 games until the end of the season.