Sliders explained.

[Bobhead]

Re: Sliders explained.

Yeah that too. I can't pretend to know Gagnon's skill level, but personally I don't stand a chance pitching on HOF. It's quite hard. My preference is to start on All-Star and make things a little harder with sliders/shrinking the meter.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Sliders explained.

I think the issue with Gagnon, all due respect, is that he continues to pitch on a difficulty level that is too hard for his ability. For years and years.

And I don't mean that to be negative. I've just been following this forum for a long time.

HOF is brutal. It's been this way for awhile. Now I will admit, AS was too easy last year. But 15 is hard as nails. I'm on AS and everything is great!

AS+ could possible be your sweet spot too, Gagnon. Some long time players of the series have settled there so maybe that's a good starting point.

Or...we could go another year with you starting threads about being overmatched. LOL!

With all due respect, I've played on Hall of Fame pitching since MLB 12 and I'm consistently in the top five in the Majors in ERA, runs allowed, hits allowed, etc. I just don't quite have the strikeout numbers. So I'll have to disagree with you. I'm much better at hitting than pitching. And I've done it with a laughable Cubs rotation for quite some time now. So again, everything on Hall of Fame is good with me, except I'd like more of the outs that I record to be strikeouts as opposed to groundouts and flyouts.

Also, how exactly do you get to All-Star+? And furthermore, how do you stay on that level?

[SupremeYankee]

Re: Sliders explained.

CPU Contact affects plate coverage (PCI size, basically) and how well the CPU reads pitches in terms of location. Lowering this slider makes more balls look like strikes, and more strikes look like balls. It also makes the CPU less accurate in terms of overall location... maybe it swings just under more pitches, instead of right on them. It might completely miss a few more pitches... etc...

CPU Timing affects the size of the window of time the CPU has where it can actually make contact on a pitch. It also affects the size of the "sweet spot" within that timing window, ie: how easy it is to get perfect timing. Lastly, it affects the CPU's ability to approximate the speed of an incoming pitch. Lowering this slider will, for example, make the CPU way late on a fastball more often, because they misread it.

Human Pitch Control affects how easy to read your pitches are, regardless of location and execution. All other things equal, the higher this slider is, the more often the CPU will fail to read your pitches properly. It also, of course, affects your ability to locate pitches.

Those are the three sliders that most affect the CPU's ability to make contact. There's other sliders that hold small amounts of influence, such as Pitch Consistency, but you'd have to make a significant change, making the other sliders an inefficient and un-ideal solution.

Changing any one of these sliders would help with the problem you described, but of course, they all carry other effects and consequences. CPU Contact and CPU Timing both affect BABIP, foul balls, and pitch counts. Human Pitch Control affects your strike percentages, ERA, and walk rates.

I'm personally fond of CPU Contact here, because you can easily balance those side effects by increasing CPU Solid Hits.

Edit: Oh and one more thing. You say you have already decreased Human Pitch Control? I'd say that is most likely playing a big role in your problems. I'd put that slider back to default before trying anything else. You'd be surprised at how little control you'll still have, as long as you decrease Consistency (which you've already done). The slider certainly affects control, but it also affects much more, as I stated above. "Pitch Quality" would probably be a more accurate and descriptive name for the slider.

Hope this helps.

good read, wish you did the whole set of sliders like this but I will take what I can get

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Sliders explained.

I can't pretend to know Gagnon's skill level

I can because...

With all due respect, I've played on Hall of Fame pitching since MLB 12

...of the 10 threads a year he makes on how HOF pitching is to too hard. LOL

and I'm consistently in the top five in the Majors in ERA, runs allowed, hits allowed, etc. I just don't quite have the strikeout numbers. So I'll have to disagree with you. I'm much better at hitting than pitching. And I've done it with a laughable Cubs rotation for quite some time now. So again, everything on Hall of Fame is good with me, except I'd like more of the outs that I record to be strikeouts as opposed to groundouts and flyouts.

I'm not saying you haven't felt that there were elements you've liked on HOF pitching. But let's at least agree you've found the level brutally unrealistic. I said it last year and I'll say it again; Gagnon, try a different pitching level man! I think you'll enjoy the game much more. AS is especially good this year! AS+ may be a perfect fit for you!

Also, how exactly do you get to All-Star+? And furthermore, how do you stay on that level?

Turn Dynamic Difficulty on in your difficulty settings. It needs to be set for both pitching and hitting. What I did to level up fast was spend time only hitting in games (while fast forwarding pitching), and then spending time only pitching in games (while fast forwarding hitting).

I turned the DD slider to 10 and maxed out my hitting sliders and decreased the CPU pitching sliders (and vice versa).

Quick Counts will make the leveling up happen even faster (not because it moves faster with QC's but because games do).

Once you level up, it is safe to fast forward to the end of the game. You can graduate a level only once per game.

Once you reach AS+ on one side of the ball, feel free to do the other.

At the time in which you hit AS+ on both sides, zero out the DD slider. This will lock you in.

I'm really pulling for you to settle in this year. I was just like you several years ago. This game is exceptional once you lock in and just play and I really want that for all OS Vets around these parts.

HOF has its merits but I just feel like as a whole, it's too punishing to feel like real baseball.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Sliders explained.

I can because...



...of the 10 threads a year he makes on how HOF pitching is to too hard. LOL



I'm not saying you haven't felt that there were elements you've liked on HOF pitching. But let's at least agree you've found the level brutally unrealistic. I said it last year and I'll say it again; Gagnon, try a different pitching level man! I think you'll enjoy the game much more. AS is especially good this year! AS+ may be a perfect fit for you!



Turn Dynamic Difficulty on in your difficulty settings. It needs to be set for both pitching and hitting. What I did to level up fast was spend time only hitting in games (while fast forwarding pitching), and then spending time only pitching in games (while fast forwarding hitting).

I turned the DD slider to 10 and maxed out my hitting sliders and decreased the CPU pitching sliders (and vice versa).

Quick Counts will make the leveling up happen even faster (not because it moves faster with QC's but because games do).

Once you level up, it is safe to fast forward to the end of the game. You can graduate a level only once per game.

Once you reach AS+ on one side of the ball, feel free to do the other.

At the time in which you hit AS+ on both sides, zero out the DD slider. This will lock you in.

I'm really pulling for you to settle in this year. I was just like you several years ago. This game is exceptional once you lock in and just play and I really want that for all OS Vets around these parts.

HOF has its merits but I just feel like as a whole, it's too punishing to feel like real baseball.

I may give it a try. But with Dynamic Difficulty can you still make slider adjustments? I really like zeroing (or close to it) out my pitching accuracy and consistency. Like I said, last game I issued four walks.

Also, how do you get it to stick to a particular profile? If I get All-Star+ on exhibition how do I get it to roll over to franchise? It seems that SCEA should just include all these levels. I'm really not sure why they wouldn't. In fact, to be honest I'm skeptical that there are actually different difficulty levels in between the one's we know of. I know it says, All-Star, All-Star+, All-Star++, etc. But who's to say that there's actually any changes taking place from one + to another. Perhaps it's just showing that you're getting closer to the next level.

I could be completely wrong on that, but has Russell or anyone stated that things actually change and have they been specific about it? I'd like to read it if they have. And again, I really don't want to be playing on any difficulty where I can't make my own personal tweaks. I want to miss spots and walk guys at a realistic rate.

Lastly, don't mistake my desire to get more strikeouts on Hall of Fame with not enjoying the game. I love this game more than any other sports game. I like every single thing about the Hall of Fame difficulty, except that I don't get enough outs by way of the strikeout. That is it.

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Sliders explained.

You want more strikeouts yet insist is on playing on a level that's too hard (HOF) and insist on zeroing out control and consistency on top of it????

I just watched a video of bcruise playing on AS+ with Meter. It is very wild this year (in a good way). Which interface are you committing to this year? I saw you talking about Classic in another thread so I'm not sure what you're using these days.

DD attaches to your profile. And don't confuse the progress marks with the levels and half levels.

For instance, I'm on AS Progress +. I can essentially go up to AS Progress ++++ before I reach the actual level of AS+. The progress portion is just an indication of how close you are to your next promotion or demotion, not a separate level in themselves.

I wish we could select them too.

[bcruise]

Re: Sliders explained.

I'll go ahead and post the video H&V is referencing, so you can see what he means.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mzrNpBcDf-8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Pitching with the meter isn't all that different from analog (you mentioned analog in one of your posts) - the only difference is you have a little less control over effort. And you might be a touch more inaccurate than me depending on how good you are with the analog meter (I find it tougher to use, personally).

As for the gameplay, it's a mindset I have to use when playing this game - I'm NOT going to allow a bad random miss to come over the plate to get mashed. So I aim off corners and let the randomness either push a pitch even further outside, or right on the corner. It leads to walks, and when the difficulty is right it also leads to swinging or called strikeouts. There are a few reasons I'm not on HOF pitching, but one of them is that I just can't get the CPU to bite enough on close pitches for K's. On AS and AS+ they definitely do.

In this game I walked 6 batters and struck out 8.

[Smallville102001]

Re: Sliders explained.

I may give it a try. But with Dynamic Difficulty can you still make slider adjustments? I really like zeroing (or close to it) out my pitching accuracy and consistency. Like I said, last game I issued four walks.

Also, how do you get it to stick to a particular profile? If I get All-Star+ on exhibition how do I get it to roll over to franchise? It seems that SCEA should just include all these levels. I'm really not sure why they wouldn't. In fact, to be honest I'm skeptical that there are actually different difficulty levels in between the one's we know of. I know it says, All-Star, All-Star+, All-Star++, etc. But who's to say that there's actually any changes taking place from one + to another. Perhaps it's just showing that you're getting closer to the next level.

I could be completely wrong on that, but has Russell or anyone stated that things actually change and have they been specific about it? I'd like to read it if they have. And again, I really don't want to be playing on any difficulty where I can't make my own personal tweaks. I want to miss spots and walk guys at a realistic rate.

Lastly, don't mistake my desire to get more strikeouts on Hall of Fame with not enjoying the game. I love this game more than any other sports game. I like every single thing about the Hall of Fame difficulty, except that I don't get enough outs by way of the strikeout. That is it.

I agree that they should make things like all star + a selectable difficulty but yes there is a difference I am 100% sure. Last year on DD with pitching when I was on all star the game was to easy for me on default sliders but when I got to all star+ I got hit hard! Now when it said like all star+++ that is telling you it is getting closer to the next level but when it just said like all star+ that is a difficulty. I think it will say like all star+, +++ where you are getting close to going up to the next level and just all star+ when you are at a level. Yes you can adjust sliders with DD just like you always can.

[BillBixbe]

Re: Sliders explained.

For me in my franchise it's HOF for both, classic pitching, Zone hitting, auto everything(I like to remove the human element as much as possible) to let the animations, and simulation play out. I think the CPU hitters on HOF aren't smart enough.

Maybe it's the classic pitching I use(I don't like meters and pulse), but I would like to miss the strike zone more and have the CPU hitters work the count. I'm only 10 games into the franchise so I'm hoping my pitcher's arms will weaken and generate more CPU walks and deep counts. I'm in the middle of the pack with pitcher strike outs and batter walks. So I'm happy with that aspect.

[BillBixbe]

Re: Sliders explained.

For me in my franchise it's Default sliders, HOF for both, classic pitching, Zone hitting, auto everything(I like to remove the human element as much as possible) to let the animations, and simulation play out. I think the CPU hitters on HOF aren't smart enough.

Maybe it's the classic pitching I use(I don't like meters and pulse), but I would like to miss the strike zone more and have the CPU hitters work the count. I'm only 10 games into the franchise so I'm hoping my pitcher's arms will weaken and generate more CPU walks and deep counts. I'm in the middle of the pack with pitcher strike outs and batter walks. So I'm happy with that aspect.