The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

[DetroitStyle]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

Yeah, not really.

Using Classic Pitching, I aim at X location, and I expect the ball to be within Y inches of that spot Z percent of the time. When you use sliders to dial the game in, you also aim at X, hope it hits within Y inches Z percent of the time, at the same rate as me, but accounting for self imposed variables.

It doesn’t matter how well or poorly you move those sticks in time, not press the buttons in rhythm, you’ve set up the elaborate mouse trap to triggered by a set of moves instead of a button press. But you’ve gamed the system. The game is set for you to succeed or fail at your predetermined rate.

If moving a stick in a circle or pressing buttons several times in a row make you feel more engaged, it’s absolute pointless theater if you adjust sliders to affect success rate. It is the illusion of technique.

As we’ve seen here, you can decide that pitchers only try to throw strikes, so you set the accuracy way worse in order to get the same results as the person who strategically chooses when to get the batter to chase, or when he is set up to let a pitch go.

And if you found a control system that works on default settings, you should absolutely stick with it. If it makes it appropriately challenging to wear a fielders mitt on one hand and catcher’s mitt on the other to feel even more challenging, go to town.

But pretending that when you press A is less immersive that pressing A several times, is a weird *** flex you only see from baseball gamers. It’s just a complicated way to press A.

This isn't how it works at all. Anything not classic pitching has far more risk/reward based on skill. A perfect meter pitch does not equal pressing "A" on the controller. So user skill does matter.

On classic you get predetermined meatballs and perfect pitches but there's no skill. On other types a perfect meter or stick twirling will never result in a meatball pitch and a bad meter will never be a perfect pitch.

If you switched to one of the gamey mechanics you'll get more strikeouts with more user skill and more bombs and hits against with less user skill.

[kdutch98]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

This isn't how it works at all. Anything not classic pitching has far more risk/reward based on skill. A perfect meter pitch does not equal pressing "A" on the controller. So user skill does matter.

On classic you get predetermined meatballs and perfect pitches but there's no skill. On other types a perfect meter or stick twirling will never result in a meatball pitch and a bad meter will never be a perfect pitch.

If you switched to one of the gamey mechanics you'll get more strikeouts with more user skill and more bombs and hits against with less user skill.

To add to this great description, classic pitching makes ratings matter more.

Using classic pitching, a pitcher with low "control" ratings will miss his spots much more often, than a pitcher with very good control ratings.

The "good" pitchers will still occasionally miss their spots, and the "bad" pitchers will have pinpoint accuracy occasionally as well.

With meter pitching, you can make even pitchers with bad control ratings seem to have good control, at a far higher percentage than they probably should be, based on their ratings.

Not saying anyone should use Classic pitching. Use whatever you are most comfortable.


But, those of us who are looking for a true "sim" pitching experience, classic is the way to go.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

Walks are rare because people don’t have the patience to walk hitters. A walk can inadvertently tack on five or ten minutes to an inning and gamers are action junkies so they’d rather bang their head against the wall throwing “anything” than actually make the effort to throw the right pitch that may result in a walk. Prove me wrong.

I disagree. While I do think players can often be too aggressive, with Pinpoint the only way you're going to get a reasonable amount of walks is to intentionally throw a lot of balls in 3 ball counts. With control/consistency all the way down to 0 on Legend+, I could get a decent level of walks (still too low, but at least over 2/9) by pitching exclusively around the edges of the zone. But then I literally never missed over the heart of the plate. Not a single pitch touching the middle-middle section of the zone most games. That's not realistic either.

I played on pinpoint all year last year and started on it this year. Finally made the switch to classic, and it's significantly more realistic. It's like a different game.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[DonkeyJote]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

Thanks man so maybe u can help with directional are u suppose to aim where the ball is going or u can just aim up and hit.

You're aiming in the direction to want to hit the ball, not really where the ball is pitched. So if you point the stick up, your hitter is going to try and hit a fly ball (but it's an influence, not an absolute; ground balls can and will still happen, just less often).

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[kdutch98]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

I disagree. While I do think players can often be too aggressive, with Pinpoint the only way you're going to get a reasonable amount of walks is to intentionally throw a lot of balls in 3 ball counts. With control/consistency all the way down to 0 on Legend+, I could get a decent level of walks (still too low, but at least over 2/9) by pitching exclusively around the edges of the zone. But then I literally never missed over the heart of the plate. Not a single pitch touching the middle-middle section of the zone most games. That's not realistic either.

I played on pinpoint all year last year and started on it this year. Finally made the switch to classic, and it's significantly more realistic. It's like a different game.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

There is a lot more "Strategy" involved with using classic, especially with the lower rated pitchers.

Like "Do I really wanna throw this curve ball" knowing there is a good chance of hanging it, and getting it crushed 8 miles.

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

You're aiming in the direction to want to hit the ball, not really where the ball is pitched. So if you point the stick up, your hitter is going to try and hit a fly ball (but it's an influence, not an absolute; ground balls can and will still happen, just less often).

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

Roger that so is it best to aim left or right

[DetroitStyle]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

To add to this great description, classic pitching makes ratings matter more.

Using classic pitching, a pitcher with low "control" ratings will miss his spots much more often, than a pitcher with very good control ratings.

The "good" pitchers will still occasionally miss their spots, and the "bad" pitchers will have pinpoint accuracy occasionally as well.

With meter pitching, you can make even pitchers with bad control ratings seem to have good control, at a far higher percentage than they probably should be, based on their ratings.

Not saying anyone should use Classic pitching. Use whatever you are most comfortable.


But, those of us who are looking for a true "sim" pitching experience, classic is the way to go.

Yes, classic is 100% ratings dependant. There's still a dice roll but it's all based on ratings.

Even basic timing hitting isn't 100% rating. Contact is still based on timing up the swing right. Where classic pitching is just hold A or X.

[bcruise]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

To add to this great description, classic pitching makes ratings matter more.

Using classic pitching, a pitcher with low "control" ratings will miss his spots much more often, than a pitcher with very good control ratings.

The "good" pitchers will still occasionally miss their spots, and the "bad" pitchers will have pinpoint accuracy occasionally as well.

With meter pitching, you can make even pitchers with bad control ratings seem to have good control, at a far higher percentage than they probably should be, based on their ratings.

Not saying anyone should use Classic pitching. Use whatever you are most comfortable.


But, those of us who are looking for a true "sim" pitching experience, classic is the way to go.

The bolded is where two things come into play with the more user input-driven interfaces - Difficulty and PAR. Difficulty, simply enough, is how you make the risk of bad input more punishing (in meter's case, missing the perfect accuracy mark). The more you miss the accuracy mark by and the higher difficulty you play on, the less chance you have of making a successful pitch - you really don't know where the ball is going to go. Could be a wild pitch, or could be a meatball straight down the middle that gets smacked for a HR. This is the part that is independent of rating - if you play on a challenging enough difficulty to really make you pay when you mess up on the sticks, there's obviously a greater incentive to be good with your interface of choice.

Then there's PAR...and I feel like this is the part where people who say classic is the best/only sim way to play do not understand completely how it works. PAR, short for "Perfect Accuracy Region" is the area in which a pitch can land on Perfect input. It's a circle of various sizes depending on difficulty level and the pitcher's ratings (as well as the control slider) around where the pitch is being aimed. This means that even if you are very good with a specific interface, you can still have a pitch thrown on the extreme edges of the PAR cause you trouble.

The best example of this I can give is the 0-2 Breaking Ball. For me personally, I pretty much NEVER want that pitch to be in the strike zone. It's designed to get a hitter to chase after it out of the zone. But the PAR presents an interesting layer to that strategy - even if you throw a perfect input pitch on what you intend to be out of the zone, you could still wind up catching an edge of the plate if part of the PAR circle is in the zone. And that could be a potentially very dangerous pitch.



This is Cubs pitcher Wade Miley on Legend Meter, setting up a sweeping curve (his 5th pitch) that breaks out of the zone. You see the circle - that means that even if I do everything exactly as I want on the meter, the ball can go anywhere in that circle. There's a pretty wide range of error there, and to mitigate the risk of that pitch being in the zone to get hammered I have to aim FAR to the outside, almost in the other batter's box.

Whether the pitch has a chance of being a success or not then comes down to: (1) my skill with the meter - remember, if I miss perfect input, the pitch can miss by even more than that circle - (2) the batter's ratings versus how good the pitch looks, (3) and of course the random factor of where the ball is going to go even on perfect input. If I have perfect input and catch the lower left edges of the circle, the pitch is likely going to be in the dirt and not be swung on. Likewise, if I catch the far right side, well.....I've seen many a HR hit on a curveball that grazed the edge of the plate like that in real life. And if I don't have perfect input, then there is no telling where it's going.

I chose this particular pitch just to illustrate a point, and it is true that a pitcher's higher-rated pitches typically have smaller PAR circles, meaning they are more reliably accurate and you don't have to mitigate as much risk with them. This isn't a pitch you'd want to throw often in an 0-2 count because there's a ton of risk involved and the potential that things can go very badly for you on the mound. Therefore pitch selection is also very important thanks to PAR. As are ratings in general, as better pitchers (typically those with high BB/9) will have smaller PAR circles.

It's more immersive while still remaining realistic, and that is why I choose to play this way.

[AUTiger1]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

This isn't how it works at all. Anything not classic pitching has far more risk/reward based on skill. A perfect meter pitch does not equal pressing "A" on the controller. So user skill does matter.

On classic you get predetermined meatballs and perfect pitches but there's no skill. On other types a perfect meter or stick twirling will never result in a meatball pitch and a bad meter will never be a perfect pitch.

If you switched to one of the gamey mechanics you'll get more strikeouts with more user skill and more bombs and hits against with less user skill.

Even with meter pitching or one of the other methods, just because you execute things perfectly doesn't mean you'll automatically get a perfect pitch. There's still some level of uncertainly in there that could cause a perfect timing pitch to result in a hanging slider that gets hit for a homerun. I don't know how anyone could think that it's possible to game the AI to where things end up perfect every single time using meter or one of the other methods. That simply isn't true.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

l

Where classic pitching is just hold A or X.

That isn't really true. You can hold, and lose command (but gain velocity and more break). You can also tap, increasing command and getting loopier breaking pitches. Or somewhere in between.

I avoided classic becsuse, even if it's the most realistic, I need some level of agency. Once I learned that there was a little more to classic than just picking pitch and location that was enough "agency" for me to give it a try. But I totally understand if that isn't enough agency for others.



Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[kdutch98]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

The bolded is where two things come into play with the more user input-driven interfaces - Difficulty and PAR. Difficulty, simply enough, is how you make the risk of bad input more punishing (in meter's case, missing the perfect accuracy mark). The more you miss the accuracy mark by and the higher difficulty you play on, the less chance you have of making a successful pitch - you really don't know where the ball is going to go. Could be a wild pitch, or could be a meatball straight down the middle that gets smacked for a HR. This is the part that is independent of rating - if you play on a challenging enough difficulty to really make you pay when you mess up on the sticks, there's obviously a greater incentive to be good with your interface of choice.

Then there's PAR...and I feel like this is the part where people who say classic is the best/only sim way to play do not understand completely how it works. PAR, short for "Perfect Accuracy Region" is the area in which a pitch can land on Perfect input. It's a circle of various sizes depending on difficulty level and the pitcher's ratings (as well as the control slider) around where the pitch is being aimed. This means that even if you are very good with a specific interface, you can still have a pitch thrown on the extreme edges of the PAR cause you trouble.

The best example of this I can give is the 0-2 Breaking Ball. For me personally, I pretty much NEVER want that pitch to be in the strike zone. It's designed to get a hitter to chase after it out of the zone. But the PAR presents an interesting layer to that strategy - even if you throw a perfect input pitch on what you intend to be out of the zone, you could still wind up catching an edge of the plate if part of the PAR circle is in the zone. And that could be a potentially very dangerous pitch.



This is Cubs pitcher Wade Miley on Legend Meter, setting up a sweeping curve (his 5th pitch) that breaks out of the zone. You see the circle - that means that even if I do everything exactly as I want on the meter, the ball can go anywhere in that circle. There's a pretty wide range of error there, and to mitigate the risk of that pitch being in the zone to get hammered I have to aim FAR to the outside, almost in the other batter's box.

Whether the pitch has a chance of being a success or not then comes down to: (1) my skill with the meter - remember, if I miss perfect input, the pitch can miss by even more than that circle - (2) the batter's ratings versus how good the pitch looks, (3) and of course the random factor of where the ball is going to go even on perfect input. If I have perfect input and catch the lower left edges of the circle, the pitch is likely going to be in the dirt and not be swung on. Likewise, if I catch the far right side, well.....I've seen many a HR hit on a curveball that grazed the edge of the plate like that in real life. And if I don't have perfect input, then there is no telling where it's going.

I chose this particular pitch just to illustrate a point, and it is true that a pitcher's higher-rated pitches typically have smaller PAR circles, meaning they are more reliably accurate and you don't have to mitigate as much risk with them. This isn't a pitch you'd want to throw often in an 0-2 count because there's a ton of risk involved and the potential that things can go very badly for you on the mound. Therefore pitch selection is also very important thanks to PAR. As are ratings in general, as better pitchers (typically those with high BB/9) will have smaller PAR circles.

It's more immersive while still remaining realistic, and that is why I choose to play this way.

I don't disagree with anything you said.....

But my point stands. If someone can master the meter, or master analog pitching, etc, they can make it to where they hit the mark on the meter (or whatever interface they are using) 99% of the time, if not more.

Yes, hitting the meter exact isn't going to result in the pitch going exactly where you want it to go. But it will go within the PAR area.

If someone can master the meter (or other interface) it results in very few pitches being thrown outside of that PAR.

Far fewer than in real life for pitchers who don't have great control.

In short, you can basically make 4th and 5th starters pitch like Greg Maddux, if you can master the meter or analog system.

Or, in other words, you can make a #4 or #5 pitcher pitch like a #1 or #2 more often than he should.

With Classic, those great performances are fewer in number.......While still happening occasionally.

[kdutch98]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

Even with meter pitching or one of the other methods, just because you execute things perfectly doesn't mean you'll automatically get a perfect pitch. There's still some level of uncertainly in there that could cause a perfect timing pitch to result in a hanging slider that gets hit for a homerun. I don't know how anyone could think that it's possible to game the AI to where things end up perfect every single time using meter or one of the other methods. That simply isn't true.

Correct. But if you can hit perfect timing every pitch, and throw a GOOD pitch every time. Not a perfect pitch, but a good pitch.

That's the difference.


With classic, you are gonna completely miss the mark at a more realistic rate.

[AUTiger1]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

I don't disagree with anything you said.....

But my point stands. If someone can master the meter, or master analog pitching, etc, they can make it to where they hit the mark on the meter (or whatever interface they are using) 99% of the time, if not more.

Yes, hitting the meter exact isn't going to result in the pitch going exactly where you want it to go. But it will go within the PAR area.

If someone can master the meter (or other interface) it results in very few pitches being thrown outside of that PAR.

Far fewer than in real life for pitchers who don't have great control.

In short, you can basically make 4th and 5th starters pitch like Greg Maddux, if you can master the meter or analog system.

Or, in other words, you can make a #4 or #5 pitcher pitch like a #1 or #2 more often than he should.

With Classic, those great performances are fewer in number.......While still happening occasionally.

Correct. But if you can hit perfect timing every pitch, and throw a GOOD pitch every time. Not a perfect pitch, but a good pitch.

That's the difference.


With classic, you are gonna completely miss the mark at a more realistic rate.

I want to meet the perfect that can hit the perfect accuracy area on meter pitching 99% of the time. I can't do it even after years of that being the only thing I've used. I miss my mark a whole lot more than I hit it. Maybe I just suck.

[bcruise]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

I want to meet the perfect that can hit the perfect accuracy area on meter pitching 99% of the time. I can't do it even after years of that being the only thing I've used. I miss my mark a whole lot more than I hit it. Maybe I just suck.

Same. (FWIW I'm liking the post because of the first 3 sentences - not the fourth. )

For me, I have no reason to get caught up in a hypothetical "if I was perfect all the time" because I'm simply not. And I too have played this game for many years and I don't see that changing. I miss enough times to have the inaccuracy from those misses punish me - either through walks or meatballs that end up as extra base hits. And other times the PAR just simply doesn't like me and I can end up with either of those two negative outcomes even with perfect input.

Not saying there isn't merit to having that concern, because things can and do change over time - in the case of throwing, I have to use buttons throwing now. That's because the meter became too easy to use several years ago and it unbalances the game - my meter-driven throws are rarely off-target enough to not disrupt the CPU's baserunning when it decides to get aggressive. The play on the field wasn't reflecting the ratings - that's why I went for the less-input based option.

But neither I, nor the game, are near that level yet when it comes to pitching.

[baseballguy99]

Re: The AI does not know how to be patient at the plate

I disagree. While I do think players can often be too aggressive, with Pinpoint the only way you're going to get a reasonable amount of walks is to intentionally throw a lot of balls in 3 ball counts. With control/consistency all the way down to 0 on Legend+, I could get a decent level of walks (still too low, but at least over 2/9) by pitching exclusively around the edges of the zone. But then I literally never missed over the heart of the plate. Not a single pitch touching the middle-middle section of the zone most games. That's not realistic either.

I played on pinpoint all year last year and started on it this year. Finally made the switch to classic, and it's significantly more realistic. It's like a different game.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

Are u using default consistency and control on classic or still at 0?


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