Online was supposed to be the shining accomplishment for this year's game, and in some respects, it succeeded. It is relatively lag-free, it is pretty, and it doesn't crash. But in many other ways, it has failed.
It is a glitch fest. 9/10 players let you steal second and then pickoff over and over again till it works. Sometimes, after only the second try, the game recognizes this and you get a W and a quit. Other times, they are allowed to do this all game.
It teaches you to cheese as a pitcher. You quickly learn two rules online:
1. Any pitch in the strike zone can be a HR, with almost any batter in the game. In my last game, I saw two HR's that were pulled by a right handed batter, when a cut fastball was thrown (cutting away from the batter mind you) starting at the far edge of the lower-away most corner of the strike zone.
2. It is very difficult to check swing, and without check swings, very difficult to decide whether a pitch is a ball or strike at the appropriate time. This is only exacerbated by the fact that pitchers can put the ball on any square inch they want to, taking all of the risk out of the risk/reward that is nibbling at the zone.
Taken together these two principles incentivize the kind of pitching we all hate to see. It tells you that you get burnt when you throw strikes or even near strikes, and you succeed when you throw wild-pitch-style balls. The result is pitching that throws pitches 8 miles wide until forced to come inside.
To rebut the argument that I know is coming, I will say that it is not cheap to throw balls like this. I frequently don't swing and make the pitcher come back to the plate. But it isn't as easy as it should be to shut someone like this down, and it ends up in a parallel evil: HR fests. The typical 2k game for me, goes something like this: don't swing for 3 straight innings, accumulating walks and high pitch counts to gather info on the pitcher. Then get his habits down, and start hitting HR's. He switches up, rinse and repeat. On the pitching side, the same incentives apply to me. I know what pitches to throw that are hardest to detect as crazy balls, and I know that the more I use them, the more I will win. I also know what I think would be the most effective strategy in a given situation IRL, which is the pitch I would like throw. This brings me to my main point.
The game shouldn't be making you choose so harshly between being competitive and actually playing baseball/having fun. It shouldn't make you choose between the mini-game of which wild pitches will look like strikes out of the hand, and a realistic duel between pitcher and batter. It shouldn't punish you so harshly for throwing strikes, and reward you so handsomely for throwing balls that don't begin to approach the plate.
And finally, the shortcoming that makes all of these shortcomings possible: the community. Not you guys, but the vast majority of those who play the game online. I expect them to abuse these exploits because (sadly) that's what always seems to happen. But what I don't expect, is to find the custom lobby empty every single day, regardless of the time, within weeks of the game's release. This cuts off the whole option of playing with classic controls, playing with custom sliders, and against sim gamers whose reputations you could see. It cuts off a lot of the potential.
I suppose the only route left is playing with those you know and enjoy playing with, which is not a bad option. It's just sad that in this day and age, there is still not a significant place in the general community online for those who want the strategy and depth of the game to carry over to online. And that to find these things, you are forced to leave the game's community environment, turn off your console, and search them out online. Thank goodness for OS, but it shouldn't have to carry this much weight in making sporting games palatable.
It is a glitch fest. 9/10 players let you steal second and then pickoff over and over again till it works. Sometimes, after only the second try, the game recognizes this and you get a W and a quit. Other times, they are allowed to do this all game.
It teaches you to cheese as a pitcher. You quickly learn two rules online:
1. Any pitch in the strike zone can be a HR, with almost any batter in the game. In my last game, I saw two HR's that were pulled by a right handed batter, when a cut fastball was thrown (cutting away from the batter mind you) starting at the far edge of the lower-away most corner of the strike zone.
2. It is very difficult to check swing, and without check swings, very difficult to decide whether a pitch is a ball or strike at the appropriate time. This is only exacerbated by the fact that pitchers can put the ball on any square inch they want to, taking all of the risk out of the risk/reward that is nibbling at the zone.
Taken together these two principles incentivize the kind of pitching we all hate to see. It tells you that you get burnt when you throw strikes or even near strikes, and you succeed when you throw wild-pitch-style balls. The result is pitching that throws pitches 8 miles wide until forced to come inside.
To rebut the argument that I know is coming, I will say that it is not cheap to throw balls like this. I frequently don't swing and make the pitcher come back to the plate. But it isn't as easy as it should be to shut someone like this down, and it ends up in a parallel evil: HR fests. The typical 2k game for me, goes something like this: don't swing for 3 straight innings, accumulating walks and high pitch counts to gather info on the pitcher. Then get his habits down, and start hitting HR's. He switches up, rinse and repeat. On the pitching side, the same incentives apply to me. I know what pitches to throw that are hardest to detect as crazy balls, and I know that the more I use them, the more I will win. I also know what I think would be the most effective strategy in a given situation IRL, which is the pitch I would like throw. This brings me to my main point.
The game shouldn't be making you choose so harshly between being competitive and actually playing baseball/having fun. It shouldn't make you choose between the mini-game of which wild pitches will look like strikes out of the hand, and a realistic duel between pitcher and batter. It shouldn't punish you so harshly for throwing strikes, and reward you so handsomely for throwing balls that don't begin to approach the plate.
And finally, the shortcoming that makes all of these shortcomings possible: the community. Not you guys, but the vast majority of those who play the game online. I expect them to abuse these exploits because (sadly) that's what always seems to happen. But what I don't expect, is to find the custom lobby empty every single day, regardless of the time, within weeks of the game's release. This cuts off the whole option of playing with classic controls, playing with custom sliders, and against sim gamers whose reputations you could see. It cuts off a lot of the potential.
I suppose the only route left is playing with those you know and enjoy playing with, which is not a bad option. It's just sad that in this day and age, there is still not a significant place in the general community online for those who want the strategy and depth of the game to carry over to online. And that to find these things, you are forced to leave the game's community environment, turn off your console, and search them out online. Thank goodness for OS, but it shouldn't have to carry this much weight in making sporting games palatable.
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