Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

[Dolenz]

Okay, I have played some conquest games on my normal difficulty (veteran) and here is what I have noticed.

The PCI is noticeably smaller. It looks more like an All-Star PCI. This is going to hurt a lot of people who are not that great at positioning the PCI. My first game was an 8 inning loss to the Cardinals where I only managed a couple of hits.

The variation on pitch speeds seemed greater because fastballs felt like they got to you quicker. I can't say for sure that they sped up the fastballs but it felt like it.

XP definitely felt like it had been nerfed on the Offensive side. Even a good inning where I had 3 hits, scored a run and made the pitcher throw probably 15 pitches ended up being only 400 some odd XP. That number would have been much higher before. I could almost always average around 1,000 or more XP an inning but my 4-3 win over the Astros in 5 innings I only averaged about 600 and some odd XP per inning

The bottom line of this is that I had less fun. I have absolutely no confidence that I can accomplish a Showdown based on the way I hit against the Cardinals and Houston's #3 starters on veteran. Grinding Program stars in Conquest just became harder if they really did nerf the XP gains. Harder hitting will mean all of the Moments will be harder.

I will continue to play occasionally and see how it goes. But the hitting patch definitely seemed like it is really going to hurt those of us who rely on offline play modes at the lower two or three difficulties. This may become another '18 for me when I was done with the game by May.

[papadell]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

I haven't really played too much since the patch because I've been busy. But it has been absolutely blasted from all the places I read. Optically it looks terrible on them, too. A lot of us joked that they would fix hitting and get good reviews and then patch it and thats kinda how it looks right now.

I was really enjoying hitting so far. If it reverted back to 2019 then I'm done because I stopped playing that game for a reason. I don't need to get bogged down in terrible moments with terrible hitting or play online with terrible hitting AND terrible pitching.

Obviously have to play for myself yet but man is it disappointing that they would do this so early.

[BigOscar]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

No idea why they insist on messing with offline every year just because the online guys complain. Didn't hear anyone complaining about offline hitting, yet they go and change it anyway because the online guys are moaning. THey did it last year as well, it's so annoying.

[hyacinth1]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

played a lot yesterday on offline vet and really didnt notice much of a difference.

[papadell]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

People weren't even really complaining about hitting either. It was how bad pitching was. Instead of adjusting pitching and, ya know, making it better, they basically reverted their new engine to what last year's ****fest was.

I said before I was optimistic about the game moving forward without baseball because they had a huge chance to capitalize on being our only form of baseball. And they basically pissed off 98% of us at once.

I bought this year to give them another chance. This is crazy how they so unapologetically change a game mere days after POSITIVE reviews. Even with the new consoles and moving to Xbox idk if I'll buy next year if they do this stuff. It's nuts.

[mikeq672]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

Ive noticed little to no difference since this patch.

[BigOscar]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

Tbh, I am still hitting fine on All Star and Veteran most games, although it is still the random mess it was last year at times (some games it seemingly doesn't matter what you do). Definitely seems harder though like I'm playing on a tougher difficulty or with worse players, but I'm not really testing myself at these levels so it's hard to judge how much. I mainly just feel like I have to concentrate a bit more and be more patient as a meatball is always coming sooner or later with this pitching system.

Pitching is the biggest issue though, still seems to just throw it wherever it wants, regardless of user input.

[Dolenz]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

Maybe I am noticing the difference because I am currently playing with an all Cardinals team in conquest. When the likes of Harrison Bader, Tyler O'Neill and Paul Dejong's PCI gets smaller then it is noticeable.

I think I had only 2 perfect perfect swings in 16 innings. One was with Yadi who hit a high pitch Perfect Perfect only to see an exit velocity under 100 and fly out to CF. The second one, who I forget the player (maybe Carpenter) hit a perfect perfect lineout to an infielder.

Maybe when I switch back to my actual team with better hitters things will improve.

[shark547]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

I can usually tell when they mess with stuff. Maddux is missing his spots by 3 feet at times.....that wasn't happening in early access. Pitching seems to have been randomized.

I am kinda bummed about this game in general. i still think that pitch speeds are off for different pitch types. Sliders and curveballs are by me before I can swing some times which is weird when the next pitch is a 97 mph fastball and I am "too early." Some times I wait on them and make perfect contact. It just isn't consistent.

I did play some RTTS and everything was buttery smooth. Maybe it is online mode related.

They really need to stop patching at every little complaint.....

[mikeq672]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

Maybe I am noticing the difference because I am currently playing with an all Cardinals team in conquest. When the likes of Harrison Bader, Tyler O'Neill and Paul Dejong's PCI gets smaller then it is noticeable.

I think I had only 2 perfect perfect swings in 16 innings. One was with Yadi who hit a high pitch Perfect Perfect only to see an exit velocity under 100 and fly out to CF. The second one, who I forget the player (maybe Carpenter) hit a perfect perfect lineout to an infielder.

Maybe when I switch back to my actual team with better hitters things will improve.

My lineup has been affinity centered as well. Guys like Jorge Alfaro and Jose Iglesias(who I actually just hit a bomb with)

[MOJOMORRO]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

I've been playing Showdown and I don't know if the sliders are skewed or if the patch messed that part up beyond belief, but the hitting makes literally no sense. I've probably played about 15 showdowns through and lost because of the game physics not making any sense and the window being warped due to the patch.

I feel like the window of hitting used to be like 40-15-5-40 for early-good-perfect-late and now it is something like 60-5-2-33 for the same scenario. Everything I hit is "early" or "just early" and I know for a fact that it isn't. I have been going into replay mode on certain balls I cannot believe I didn't square up and I am watching frames where the ball is going through the bat and causing a swing and miss even though the timing is close to perfect, and the ball sometimes doesn't even travel all the way to the bat and like stops then sticks to the bat and gets pushed foul. If you guys are struggling with the hitting go into replay mode on balls you hammer just foul or you know you timed well but didn't get credit for, you'll lose your mind.

I was smashing showdowns left and right 3 days ago when this thing came out and it was so much fun, simulating to the end straightaway and having little room for error was the most nerve wracking after a great draft, but feeling the pressure to win the smaller challenges and build a team and get better perks when the draft screwed me was almost as fun. Now I'm spending just as much time in the replay booth tilting myself because I'm getting absolutely hosed out of 3 run jacks that blow foul in the cutscene 2-3 times a game. I'm hitting balls with good timing and the top third of the zone that are lazy pop-ups and then when I'm apparently early and it isn't even in the actual zone somehow it goes 100 feet over the fence.

If they made the timing window smaller that is absolutely fine, but the fact that the game physics are wrong and the timing zone is off infuriate me. More than 50% of the time when you're hitting and perfect-perfect the ball it rarely ever result in HR's (often doubles or singles) with power freaks like Eloy Jimenez, Sano, Stanton, Judge, and Bellinger is ridiculous.

The timing window is off it's making everything "early" when in the replay it's not early then when you try to wait that fraction of a second longer then you're late. They've got to buff pitching instead of nerfing hitting because god dammit this game was the most joyous thing to play when I got it early but now it is just making me want to rip my hair out. I have all 4 of my showdowns saved with anywhere between 5-10 runs needed at the last mission and I refuse to play any of them until there's another patch because hitting is absolutely awful at the moment and I always get screwed over.

[Mercury112491]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

I’ll echo what others are saying. I haven’t noticed any difference whatsoever in the hitting.

And yeah it’s the pitching that’s off. Analog input misses are going in crazy odd places even with super control guys like Maddox. And for the love of god can I get more than 1 outta 10 pitches on the black called for a strike.


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[NDAlum]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

For the record online guys weren't really complaining about hitting, they were complaining about pitching.

Strike zone is small and balls on the corner were often not being called which resulted in needed to throw the ball more over the plate to get strikes. When you add that with the fact that the analog pitching has a fair amount of built in RNG you get tons of hits because we're being forced to throw strikes and balls tend to drift into the zone.

Hitting was fine at launch but people wanted slight improvements. I would say slightly increasing pitch speed at the lowest level would've been great.

Instead they made PCI a little smaller and for some reason there is an input lag randomly. So you can load into a game and you'll have a different experience hitting the ball.

I'd classify myself as an above average player. Two BR runs of 10/11 wins with me blowing it in the final games. Last year I did flawless a couple times and made WS every season I put in the time to get the games in.

The changes online guys wanted would've been welcomed by you offline guys

Instead they went after hitting which wasn't even the complaint

[Mercury112491]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

Did they even change offline hitting though? The Patch notes specifically say changes to Diamond Dynasty Hitting. Unless you mean offline DD players are annoyed?


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[goillini03]

Re: Post Hitting Difficulty Patch - Thoughts

I’ll echo what others are saying. I haven’t noticed any difference whatsoever in the hitting.

And yeah it’s the pitching that’s off. Analog input misses are going in crazy odd places even with super control guys like Maddox. And for the love of god can I get more than 1 outta 10 pitches on the black called for a strike.


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I agree with you on the pitching aspect. My hitting has gone down a bit, but I feel that Veteran isn’t the same across the different modes. I am not sure if tut makes sense, but I feel that porch speeds vary on moments, conquest etc. while playing on veteran.

The last part is what is killing me now. I have had no less than three losses on M2O (which I hate playing btw but am trying to use it for a TA) due to not getting any calls on pitches in the zone. I ended up almost having to place the ball in a sweet spot which ends poorly for me.

I hear that you can adjust the balls and strikes calls in the settings using a slider that forces perfect calls in the zone? I might try to look into this today.