Re: Any questions?
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1. Whats the new "power pitching" like?
2. New pitching interface? I'm going to assume you meaning pushing A, B, X, Y for pitches..
3. I've bought every WSB that has been released since the Dreamcast days, all the way to the Xbox. And I'm hearing that they've added the zone style hitting. Does anyone know exactly how the new hitting works in ESPN? I really like the new MVP hitting this year, sounds great.
4. Are spring training games playable this year?
5. Will HR Derby be playable in franchise/season mode when you make it to the playoffs?
Thanks FP, hope to get some questions answered..
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1. Just a fancy name for having the "effort meter" there. The more effort you put into it, the more it breaks (for breaking pitches) and the faster it goes (for pitches that are better when faster, not for changeups, palmballs, etc.). More effort also makes it less likely that you'll hit your spot with the pitch, and uses a little more stamina than a normal pitch. We toyed with "arcade pitching" (MVP's system) last year when we didn't know anyone else was doing it, but we found that once the novelty wore off and you got good at it, it was just tedious extra work and trivialized the sim aspect of the game.
2. Yes, and having the pitches spelled out. I watched people walk up to our game at E3 last year, and they had no clue how to choose a pitch...they'd just do FB after FB. The new selection interface is now newbie-friendly and makes it easier to select pitches in general (no more getting shaken off when your aim isn't just right). You can also (usually) select your next pitch when your pitcher is returning to the mound, speeding things up a bit.
3. We've had certain aspects of MVP's hitting system in for the last couple years...if you pull an outside pitch, for example, you don't hit the ball as hard. This year, we've put in a cursorless system that does a couple things for us. First, we could speed up the pitches to real-life speeds because aiming your swing at the pitch is instant (as opposed to the batting cursor moving, took some time to get where you wanted to go with it) and because the aiming is more intuitive and therefore easier. Second, we got the cursor out of the way. I dislike anything that draws your attention away from the action, and I hated having to keep track of the cursor's location and watch the ball coming in at the same time. Plus the cursor would cover up the pitcher, which is silly. I also dislike having the strike zone on the screen, and I recommend turning it off when you get the game. So anyway, back to the hitting system and how it works. Pretend your left thumbstick, when centered, is in the middle of the strike zone. You aim the stick at the ball where it is relative to the center of the strike zone. So if it's up and in on a righty, you aim up and left with your stick. Wait! you say. That's just zone hitting! Not exactly. Let's say the pitch was more up than in. You'd need to aim more up than in to make the best possible contact. So it's still "point the stick at the ball" but instead of 9 possible directions to aim, you have 360 degrees to work with. I prefer this system over the 9-zone system because it relies on your skill instead of us rolling dice to determine if you got a good hit or not. It's too easy to aim "perfectly" when you only have nine zones to choose from, so games with this system have to force you to gets outs even when you did everything right.) This system doesn't have that weakness--chances are, you aren't going to get it just right, so if you do, you'll be rewarded with solid contact.
4. No
5. No, we don't have a home run derby this year or the Big League Challenge from last year. We have a new mode called The Duel that hopefully people will find at least as entertaining as those modes.
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
1. Whats the new "power pitching" like?
2. New pitching interface? I'm going to assume you meaning pushing A, B, X, Y for pitches..
3. I've bought every WSB that has been released since the Dreamcast days, all the way to the Xbox. And I'm hearing that they've added the zone style hitting. Does anyone know exactly how the new hitting works in ESPN? I really like the new MVP hitting this year, sounds great.
4. Are spring training games playable this year?
5. Will HR Derby be playable in franchise/season mode when you make it to the playoffs?
Thanks FP, hope to get some questions answered..
<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">
1. Just a fancy name for having the "effort meter" there. The more effort you put into it, the more it breaks (for breaking pitches) and the faster it goes (for pitches that are better when faster, not for changeups, palmballs, etc.). More effort also makes it less likely that you'll hit your spot with the pitch, and uses a little more stamina than a normal pitch. We toyed with "arcade pitching" (MVP's system) last year when we didn't know anyone else was doing it, but we found that once the novelty wore off and you got good at it, it was just tedious extra work and trivialized the sim aspect of the game.
2. Yes, and having the pitches spelled out. I watched people walk up to our game at E3 last year, and they had no clue how to choose a pitch...they'd just do FB after FB. The new selection interface is now newbie-friendly and makes it easier to select pitches in general (no more getting shaken off when your aim isn't just right). You can also (usually) select your next pitch when your pitcher is returning to the mound, speeding things up a bit.
3. We've had certain aspects of MVP's hitting system in for the last couple years...if you pull an outside pitch, for example, you don't hit the ball as hard. This year, we've put in a cursorless system that does a couple things for us. First, we could speed up the pitches to real-life speeds because aiming your swing at the pitch is instant (as opposed to the batting cursor moving, took some time to get where you wanted to go with it) and because the aiming is more intuitive and therefore easier. Second, we got the cursor out of the way. I dislike anything that draws your attention away from the action, and I hated having to keep track of the cursor's location and watch the ball coming in at the same time. Plus the cursor would cover up the pitcher, which is silly. I also dislike having the strike zone on the screen, and I recommend turning it off when you get the game. So anyway, back to the hitting system and how it works. Pretend your left thumbstick, when centered, is in the middle of the strike zone. You aim the stick at the ball where it is relative to the center of the strike zone. So if it's up and in on a righty, you aim up and left with your stick. Wait! you say. That's just zone hitting! Not exactly. Let's say the pitch was more up than in. You'd need to aim more up than in to make the best possible contact. So it's still "point the stick at the ball" but instead of 9 possible directions to aim, you have 360 degrees to work with. I prefer this system over the 9-zone system because it relies on your skill instead of us rolling dice to determine if you got a good hit or not. It's too easy to aim "perfectly" when you only have nine zones to choose from, so games with this system have to force you to gets outs even when you did everything right.) This system doesn't have that weakness--chances are, you aren't going to get it just right, so if you do, you'll be rewarded with solid contact.
4. No
5. No, we don't have a home run derby this year or the Big League Challenge from last year. We have a new mode called The Duel that hopefully people will find at least as entertaining as those modes.
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