Too many strikeouts

[baumy300]

Re: Too many strikeouts

I think they changed it b/c everyone was complaining about the long at bats with foul balls. I play on Legend, but my issue with K's is how many times the computer is going down looking and I really am unsure of what slider to mess with to fix that one. The one slider I have turned up for the computer is the Timing Slider hopefully it makes them more of a threat consistently.

***I too feel as if the umpires are calling a wider strike zone on this version as the poster above stated.

Yep. This is ridiculous. I was playing st louis in my franchise. I was up one run in bottom of the 9th. Bases loaded, 1 out with Goldschmidt and Arrendondo coming up. Both take fastballs right down the middle for backwards K to end the game. Very ridiculous and the kind of thing that will make me lose interest quick

That sucks man, I know what you mean. I have been trying to tweak sliders to combat K's lately. I have noticed that if you spam a fastball high and inside with 2 strikes that it is an easy K most of the time. That's not me trying to cheese the CPU or anything, it's just how I play. You can get a solid game of baseball doing it in 20, but in 23 it is just too easy. Hopefully they address it soon or down the road, because taking strikes like that is a game killer, especially in those situations.

I never minded the long at bats. Made it feel more like an accomplishment when I got them out. A 10 K game from a starter used to feel like an amazing accomplishment. Now it’s every single game.

Same. How can you not appreciate a good battle at the plate? If you don't understand that you either never played any form of baseball or understood the game. I know the MLB wants nothing more than games to be over as fast as possible, but some of us older fans still remember when guys were encouraged to do more than hit HR's at the plate. Wearing down pitchers, even if you strikeout/make an out has always been good baseball.

[bcruise]

Re: Too many strikeouts

There are a few factors to consider when discussing this topic, and it's been on my mind ever since the tech test. Sample size is a big one, as Josh mentioned - it's unlikely that any of us have played enough innings to really draw solid conclusions on if/how this part of the game is any different this year.

But that doesn't mean there's nothing to discuss right now - some things are evident in how the game played in years past vs. how it plays now, and also we have some information from the devs on actual changes they did make to the gameplay for this year. The key is figuring out who's being affected by what, as there are many many many different options in the game for hitting and pitching,

Let's get this out of the way first - there are a few significant changes to how Competitive hitting/pitching works this year vs. Simulation. According to the in-game guide, Competitive makes very early/very late swing timings misses instead of having the possibility of weak contact. This, by itself, can lead to a big discrepancy in K's on Competitive vs. Sim. But there's more - as they discussed in the gameplay stream, the vision ring for hitters has been decreased in size by 50% on competitive. I've gone into custom practice and can confirm this is the case, by changing the mode from comp to sim within the same at bat - the size change is noticeable immediately. This has a direct impact on K's, for both the player and the CPU - the CPU operates on its own "PCI" mechanic under the hood and is subject to it as well.

Now for some speculative/personal experience stuff...

While I have noticed an uptick on K's for the more input-driven pitching modes such as pinpoint (and especially in competitive as described above), classic still seems to give me a very good balance of walks/K's versus balls put into play. So, what does that mean? It's too easy to hit my spots with the tougher interfaces, basically. With ace pitchers I can consistently have first pitch strike %'s over 80, which leads to many more opportunities for strikeouts. There are plenty of ways to fix that even before changing interfaces, fortunately - decreasing the general accuracy/increasing PAR size (control), increasing the miss penalty for bad input (consistency), or by making the CPU more fearsome to hit against (any of its offensive sliders). I'll be experimenting with all of these as I try to dial in my own ideal settings - because I really want to be able to play with the more input-driven modes and not just dominate on the mound.

[jcar0725]

Re: Too many strikeouts

There are a few factors to consider when discussing this topic, and it's been on my mind ever since the tech test. Sample size is a big one, as Josh mentioned - it's unlikely that any of us have played enough innings to really draw solid conclusions on if/how this part of the game is any different this year.

But that doesn't mean there's nothing to discuss right now - some things are evident in how the game played in years past vs. how it plays now, and also we have some information from the devs on actual changes they did make to the gameplay for this year. The key is figuring out who's being affected by what, as there are many many many different options in the game for hitting and pitching,

Let's get this out of the way first - there are a few significant changes to how Competitive hitting/pitching works this year vs. Simulation. According to the in-game guide, Competitive makes very early/very late swing timings misses instead of having the possibility of weak contact. This, by itself, can lead to a big discrepancy in K's on Competitive vs. Sim. But there's more - as they discussed in the gameplay stream, the vision ring for hitters has been decreased in size by 50% on competitive. I've gone into custom practice and can confirm this is the case, by changing the mode from comp to sim within the same at bat - the size change is noticeable immediately. This has a direct impact on K's, for both the player and the CPU - the CPU operates on its own "PCI" mechanic under the hood and is subject to it as well.

Now for some speculative/personal experience stuff...

While I have noticed an uptick on K's for the more input-driven pitching modes such as pinpoint (and especially in competitive as described above), classic still seems to give me a very good balance of walks/K's versus balls put into play. So, what does that mean? It's too easy to hit my spots with the tougher interfaces, basically. With ace pitchers I can consistently have first pitch strike %'s over 80, which leads to many more opportunities for strikeouts. There are plenty of ways to fix that even before changing interfaces, fortunately - decreasing the general accuracy/increasing PAR size (control), increasing the miss penalty for bad input (consistency), or by making the CPU more fearsome to hit against (any of its offensive sliders). I'll be experimenting with all of these as I try to dial in my own ideal settings - because I really want to be able to play with the more input-driven modes and not just dominate on the mound.

Definitely there must be various factors at play, because not everyone is seeing huge K numbers versus the CPU in franchise. I know I'm not.

[DarthRambo]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Strikeouts would be OKAY, not perfect if all the unnecessary backward Ks were cut in half at least. For example, on 3-1 count, they foul off an obvious ball 4. Then, look at a fastball down the middle to strike out. Another example, it's a 3-2 count and I throw a 85mph slider right down the middle and Rhys Hoskins looks at it for strike 3. Those things there isn't a slider to fix it. That's purely what SDS wanted to have more of I guess this year.

I've upped contact to 9 and timing back to 5 and it's a lot better now, but the backward Ks just hurt them badly. Like at least foul off some of those instead of looking lol. And I am on AS pitching with 0 control and 2 consistency slider using classic pitching as always if that matters. It's extremely rare I see less than 10Ks vs the cpu this year.

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[jcar0725]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Strikeouts would be OKAY, not perfect if all the unnecessary backward Ks were cut in half at least. For example, on 3-1 count, they foul off an obvious ball 4. Then, look at a fastball down the middle to strike out. Another example, it's a 3-2 count and I throw a 85mph slider right down the middle and Rhys Hoskins looks at it for strike 3. Those things there isn't a slider to fix it. That's purely what SDS wanted to have more of I guess this year.

I've upped contact to 9 and timing back to 5 and it's a lot better now, but the backward Ks just hurt them badly. Like at least foul off some of those instead of looking lol. And I am on AS pitching with 0 control and 2 consistency slider using classic pitching as always if that matters. It's extremely rare I see less than 10Ks vs the cpu this year.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I totally get what you're saying but my point is not everyone is seeing crazy K numbers vs the CPU. So maybe its not the game, but some other issue.

[DarthRambo]

Re: Too many strikeouts

I totally get what you're saying but my point is not everyone is seeing crazy K numbers vs the CPU. So maybe its not the game, but some other issue.

Only other thing it could be is user skill level then if not the game. No offense to anyone not seeing the high Ks.

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[djflock]

Re: Too many strikeouts

That sucks man, I know what you mean. I have been trying to tweak sliders to combat K's lately. I have noticed that if you spam a fastball high and inside with 2 strikes that it is an easy K most of the time. That's not me trying to cheese the CPU or anything, it's just how I play. You can get a solid game of baseball doing it in 20, but in 23 it is just too easy. Hopefully they address it soon or down the road, because taking strikes like that is a game killer, especially in those situations.





Same. How can you not appreciate a good battle at the plate? If you don't understand that you either never played any form of baseball or understood the game. I know the MLB wants nothing more than games to be over as fast as possible, but some of us older fans still remember when guys were encouraged to do more than hit HR's at the plate. Wearing down pitchers, even if you strikeout/make an out has always been good baseball.

I will say about sample size, this isn't real life. This is a coded video game. If I play 10 games and get 30ks each game, I dont need a large sample size.

[KnightTemplar]

Re: Too many strikeouts

I totally get what you're saying but my point is not everyone is seeing crazy K numbers vs the CPU. So maybe its not the game, but some other issue.

Another game today (see my previous posts in thread). 5 K and 2 BB vs. CPU. DEFAULT sliders on AS, classic pitching, no K zone, no hot/cold zones, no pitch fade.

I’m just not wrapping my head around this. Trying to understand what else is going on to get 17, 18 Ks a game.

[KnightTemplar]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Only other thing it could be is user skill level then if not the game. No offense to anyone not seeing the high Ks.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

But what user skill level would have Goldsmith and Arrenado both take strike 3 down the middle with the bases loaded in their last at bat….game over?

[jcar0725]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Only other thing it could be is user skill level then if not the game. No offense to anyone not seeing the high Ks.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Maybe, but you did say the CPU was letting pitches go right down the middle. So, it's probably something else. I'm guessing its more of a slider setting / difficulty setting combo that's throwing your game off.

[Caulfield]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Only other thing it could be is user skill level then if not the game. No offense to anyone not seeing the high Ks.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

exactly. unless you play on legend with human sliders set to zero and cpu sliders set to 10 and totally dominate, win 130 plus out of 162, then anyone should be able to get things set up where you have a reasonably close to real stats exerience. if a person wants that experience only with default rosters w/o any slider changes and cant get that, this game probably isnt for them

[DarthRambo]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Maybe, but you did say the CPU was letting pitches go right down the middle. So, it's probably something else. I'm guessing its more of a slider setting / difficulty setting combo that's throwing your game off.

Wait, so you're not seeing an unusual amount of backward Ks? Maybe it's not high compared to real life. To be fair, I haven't kept track of those vs swing and miss Ks. But altogether the Ks are unusually too high.

I always try default sliders. It ends up me throwing 80% strikes and around the same first pitch strikes. It's this way every year. So I end up always dropping control and consistency a ton until I get realistic strike %.

I don't see how combinations of any setting would cause the cpu not to swing at pitches. The cpu offense has been the same for as long as I've been playing this game. Maybe the backward Ks feel like more than past years cause of the increase of swing and misses this year. Probably so if I were to track backward Ks.

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[DarthRambo]

Re: Too many strikeouts

But what user skill level would have Goldsmith and Arrenado both take strike 3 down the middle with the bases loaded in their last at bat….game over?

None. That's just poor programing lol

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[jcar0725]

Re: Too many strikeouts

Wait, so you're not seeing an unusual amount of backward Ks? Maybe it's not high compared to real life. To be fair, I haven't kept track of those vs swing and miss Ks. But altogether the Ks are unusually too high.

I always try default sliders. It ends up me throwing 80% strikes and around the same first pitch strikes. It's this way every year. So I end up always dropping control and consistency a ton until I get realistic strike %.

I don't see how combinations of any setting would cause the cpu not to swing at pitches. The cpu offense has been the same for as long as I've been playing this game. Maybe the backward Ks feel like more than past years cause of the increase of swing and misses this year. Probably so if I were to track backward Ks.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Man that sucks. I really am trying to help is all. No I'm really not seeing anything crazy K-wise. There are probably much smarter people on this forum that could help more than I can. The only reason I mentioned your settings is because it seems to be varied on this forum as to what people are seeing in their games.

[KnightTemplar]

Re: Too many strikeouts

None. That's just poor programing lol

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Well, if it’s poor programming why aren’t I seeing this? I can assure you I’d hang up the game in a second if I was getting the amount of Ks and caught looking in clutch situations like you are. This is the only game I play and the only sport I’m fervent about. If it was obviously ruined by their poor programming that’d be it for me.