MLB 22 SLIDEROLOGY 101
Welcome to my slider guide and set for MLB 22. My goal is to provide better, real-world descriptions of the sliders as well as a set that incorporates quick counts and fast play. Of course you can use these with any settings or styles with some adjustments based on your knowledge of what each slider does.
One of the most important takeaways though is that all sliders are dependent upon each other. Lowering one or raising one does not have much of a significant impact. Multiple sliders need to be tuned at a time to get a strong impact on gameplay. The descriptions below impact both the User and CPU equally unless otherwise noted.
I will only go over the more ambiguous hitting and pitching sliders. Anything not listed works exactly as expected or noted.
THE SLIDERS - EXPLAINED
Contact: This simply impacts the PCI in any hitting mode. At the extremes of 0 or 10 this decreases or increases the PCI. This does necessarily improve contact (as in bat-on-ball) but improves the chance of getting the PCI on the ball to improve your chance of solid contact or quality hits. This should be tuned in conjunction with Timing to increase or decrease batting averages and strikeouts. For the CPU this does seem to improve plate discipline and vision as stated in game.
Power: The amount of juice in a hit. Specifically, when good timing and solid contact is made how far a batted ball will go. This should be tuned in conjunction with Solid Hits to increase and decrease Homeruns and extra base hits. Pop flies will also go a bit further when hit within the PCI.
Timing: The timing window for swings. This stretches or contracts the windows to get early, good, perfect, or late swings. This should be adjusted based on your configuration such as cloud gaming, input lag, or latency. Skill level also applies here. If hitting is too easy or hard I would recommend changing Pitch Speed first. This should be modified with Contact especially for the CPU to improve offense and reduce user strikeouts.
Foul Frequency: Contrary to what you might think, this does not influence strikeouts or contact. It's a modifier on poorly timed swings (early or late timing) and borderline PCI coverage that dice rolls whether a ball should go foul or fair. This could be the difference between a weak grounder or pop fly and just fouling it off. Think of this as a batted ball in play modifier. At 0, more balls will be batted in play leading to more outs. At 10, batters will foul off more pitches giving them more time to square up a pitch.
In a lesser sense, a higher foul ball slider can lead to more overall hits while a lower slider can lead to more outs or balls in play.
Solid Hits: When timing is good and the PCI is on the ball this is the chance for a hit to be a "Solid Hit". These are line drives, crushed hits, and no doubter home runs. To a lesser degree they can be hard hit grounders or pop flies. If Contact is the ability to get bat-on-ball then solid hits is the quality of that hit. Increasing this does increase base hits but more so increase x-base hits. This should be tuned with Power as it has the highest modifier on Solid Hits.
Starter Stamina/Reliever Stamina: Simply a modifier for how fast or slow stamina drains. This is the only effect this slider has. There are other factors at play when stamina is high or low, as well as pitcher confidence, but these are not changed by these sliders.
Pitch Control: Strictly determines how off a pitch is from it's intended location based on early, late, or good/perfect timing. When not using classic pitching user skill determines release point (early, late, good/perfect). In classic pitching these are still determined but are a dice roll based on RATINGS. Lowering or raising Pitch Control does NOT influence the timing of a release to occur more or less often.
Pitch Consistency: When increased, allows more borderline pitches such as curveballs to get caught in a glove when aimed low. Possibly to a lesser degree affects confidence. I did not see much of an effect for this slider on any pitch mode for the user.
However this has a large effect on the CPU as you will see more/less hit batters and wild pitches near the extremes.
A quick note on pitch sliders: I'm not sure which version it changed but pitches are only rated on "release" timing. It used to be that bad timing got you a meatball but this no longer appears to exist. Instead, early release timing a pitch will go high and late timing a pitch will go in the dirt. Pitch type also determines the extreme of this. A batter is no more likely to hit a pitch hard that has early or late timing than a pitch that has perfect timing. This ONLY modifies how accurate a pitch will be.
DS's All-Star Slider Set
Settings:
I go clean screen and no pitch marker. I also use button timing (not directional) and classic pitching. See Armor's set as my settings closely mimic his.
Hitting Difficulty: All-Star
Pitching Difficulty: All-Star
Quick Counts: ON
I believe All-Star gives the most ratings based challenge. Higher modes give the cpu and user unfair modifier that effect ratings such as artificially increasing the CPU timing window and PCI as well as decreasing the users.
Sliders:
USER/CPU
**See the spoiler tags for additional info/observations**
Contact: 6/6
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Power: 5/5
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Timing: 5/5
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Foul Frequency: 3/3
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Solid Hits: 6/6
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Starter Stamina: 10/10
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Reliever Stamina: 8/8
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Control/Consistency: 5/5
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Strike Frequency: 5/5
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Manager Hook: 0
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Pickoffs: 5/5
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Pitch Speed(s): 5/5
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Fielding Errors (ALL): 7/7
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Fielder Run Speed: 1/1
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Fielder Reaction: 5/5
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Fielder Arm Strength Infield: 3/3
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Fielder Arm Strength Outfield: 5/5
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Baserunner Speed: 5/5
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Steal Ability/Steal Frequency: 5/5
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Wind: 5/5
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