MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

[nemesis04]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

Very good stream! Fielding is becoming a very strong point in the game and anything that can add some challenging layers is always welcomed.

Things I really liked:

-The defensive scouting report with R3.
-Catcher blocking animation diversity based on ratings. Now you can really see the difference.

I was a little bummed that only one throwing mechanic was retooled. Analog is by far my favorite one. The changes look good though for button accuracy but I am not a fan of the green section being locked at 12 o’clock. I liked it better when the green section shifted based on ratings and throw difficulty.

[pay26]

Dodger stadium is not remodeled

[SoxFan01605]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

How so Armor?

They stated in the hitting stream that the changes would impact outcomes for all control types. Basically , the only difference will be the manual impact on the throws you'd get with the meter.

So, it will be more ratings driven with the other control schemes vs the boost/penalty you'd get from mastering/failing the meter timing.

[Jr.]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I liked what I saw. It's nice to see ratings will matter now with fielding. Always felt like everyone was on an even playing field before. Guys with low ratings making diving stops/catches and robbing the user of base hits. Glad to see all of that is in the past now. Thankfully.

The animations look really good as well. Hopefully they re-worked the botched ground ball animations. Trying to recover was always a hassle before. Looks like that may have been cleaned up this year and that is a plus.


Looking forward to the next stream.

These are all big league players. Even "bad" players can make great plays. If they removed that possibility, that's a really poor decision.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Operation Sports mobile app

[ShowTyme15]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

These are all big league players. Even "bad" players can make great plays. If they removed that possibility, that's a really poor decision.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Operation Sports mobile app

You're taking it out of context a little bit. I know bad fielder's make plays. What I am saying is it won't be as frequent in the show anymore. It happened way too often previously. This idea separates good fielder's from bad fielder's. Doesn't mean it eliminates the probably altogether, it just lessons it a bit which is needed.

[hyacinth1]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I primarily play offline and turn off the meter throwing for fielding. Just use button press to the base.

I like these updates w/ the meter but will non-meter button or analog still be available for those of us who don't use meter throwing? Or is this the only way to play now in 20?

Did they mention anything? I didn't think so but maybe missed it.

[tessl]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Gameplay Twitch Streams Start at 2 p.m. EST

The 2/13 stream having nothing about Franchise mode, and the 2/27 "League" stream turning out to be about the return of 'Online Franchise' is definitely a possible doomsday scenario for offline franchise players.

At the end of the perfect/perfect stream Russell said next Thursday they will cover franchise relocation/re-branding and full minors which appear to the the new franchise features.

I got my #1 request for several years - relocation/re-branding.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I primarily play offline and turn off the meter throwing for fielding. Just use button press to the base.

I like these updates w/ the meter but will non-meter button or analog still be available for those of us who don't use meter throwing? Or is this the only way to play now in 20?

Did they mention anything? I didn't think so but maybe missed it.

They confirmed in the second stream that the other ways to play are still available.

[BigOscar]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

Got to be honest, hard to make anything of that without playing it yourself. Harder throwing meter sounds like a good idea as I genuinely don't recall ever making in a throwing error in about 5 years now, as it's impossibly easy. (I tend to play franchise on auto fielding just so fielders ratings actually matter, but in DD if you aren't getting 100% outs on throws you're just handicapping yourself) So making that harder is a welcome addition, hopefully it is genuinely pretty easy to mess up with bad fielders, especially in tough throwing situations.

Proper tag animations is great as well and long overdue, so many times players should have been out by a mile but fielders seemed incapable of making a fairly routine swipe. Better catcher blocking is welcome as well, but that is something they've said every year for about 3 years now so I guess we'll have to wait and see if they've finally got it right this time.

Does look a little bit like they are papering over the cracks though. Instead of altering how the fielding works, they are just adding new things on top of it, so outfielders seem like they will still hunt down line drives hit over them with the casual ease they did before, but now just the very specific scenario of dipping line drives in front of them get a new little mini game type thing. Same for throwing, instead of overhauling it, they've essentially kept it the same but put a magic line in the middle to give you are perfect bullet throw every time. There was talk of harder throws being harder to control, which is great, but no mention of harder plays being harder for less impressive defenders, so will Frank Thomas still be snagging 110mph bullets every time they get within 2 yards of him? Will JD Martinez be making over the shoulder grabs at the wall like he's playing catch in the back garden with his kid? The vidoes of Luke Voit pulling off unbelievably slick double plays wasn't hugely reassuring from that stand point.

Like I said though it will be hard to tell until we play it ourselves, but I would have liked to at least hear them address the point that fielders last year (and for a while now) just covered far too much ground, regardless of ability, making the field seem unrealistically small(both infield and outfield). That could easily have been fixed this year for all I know, as even just lowering the reaction slider last year helped a fair bit, but them not mentioning it suggests they might not have.

[Drop_ya_mitts]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I really like the changes they discussed and it's what I've wanted since as long as I can remember. I imagine I'll still end up adjusting the fielding sliders to tone down the speed and reactions but this a nice step in the right direction. I play without the meter (single player offline) so it's all about the player ratings when I play

[LastActionHero]

MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

Great in depth stream about a very important part of the game that has never been all that excited to play in The Show so all this is very welcome.

Small pet peeve: since they also put the emphasize on tags it frustrates me too see we still have to deal with swipe through tags. This is one of the few (visual) faux passes left in the game that reminds you that you are playing a videogame.

[capa]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I like the fact that they have tweaked the catcher blocking balls animations and ratings. That was sorely needed.

However, this concerns me a bit because I know that one of the issues in 19 was the cpu runner taking off almost all the time on blocked balls that squirt away and many times being thrown out easily. The tweaking of more aggressive cpu running AI makes me think that this may continue to be an issue.

I am reserving judgement of course until game releases, but I do hope they balanced both areas.

C

[Drop_ya_mitts]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

I like the fact that they have tweaked the catcher blocking balls animations and ratings. That was sorely needed.

However, this concerns me a bit because I know that one of the issues in 19 was the cpu runner taking off almost all the time on blocked balls that squirt away and many times being thrown out easily. The tweaking of more aggressive cpu running AI makes me think that this may continue to be an issue.

I am reserving judgement of course until game releases, but I do hope they balanced both areas.

C

Never had this be a problem in my games. The CPU would act like expected. Hope it continues to be the case. Sucks that you had that

[Armor and Sword]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

How so Armor?

They made big defensive animation enhancements on 19 as well, defensive ratings absolutely matter on 19.

I am a classic pitcher and directional hitter as well as an auto fielder and manual thrower.

It all translated incredibly well for me on 19.

In fact each and every iteration 2009-2019 I have always seen and felt the improvements in gameplay.

Dare I also say since I am not a competitive online player and since I play with a totally clean screen I get to enjoy the game in it’s most organic state? I do not rely nor need to see any feedback on my swings or pitches. It allows me to play baseball and let ratings play out and the results of all my franchises and experiences have spoken for themselves.

This year it looks like they really honed in and focused again on tags, catcher blocking and reactions which is something that already improved dramatically from 16 to 19. Now they look to have really cleaned up the animations regarding tags and catcher blocks and based the blocking on ratings.

With straight button throwing it will be based on ratings first and foremost, user input in terms of how long you hold the button down and your timing of when you start the throw and release it as well.

But we do not use meters or feedback. We just let things happen with a clean screen. We accept that baseball is never perfect and failure is a huge part of baseball.

I am glad I can enjoy this game immensely the way I prefer to play. The options they give us allow that.

Like Big Oscar eluded too though.....you have to play the game to see if it did improve etc. The streams are great and I am glad we get to preview the improvements. But You simply do not know if it all works until you play it yourself.

I am curious about next weeks stream with relocation. That is a feature the community has been pounding sand for. I want to see how they went about it.

Also I really want to see if they drastically improved March To October. I like the idea to have an alternative to my traditional franchise mode obsession, but it needs to be implemented well and have the ability to be fully customizable. The first attempt at MTO was not great. It lacked a lot for me.

So let’s see what they have done for 20.

[capa]

Re: MLB The Show 20 Livestream - Defensive Fundamentals (Archive Included)

Never had this be a problem in my games. The CPU would act like expected. Hope it continues to be the case. Sucks that you had that

yeah...it was out of control...way too many times. hated it.