Zone Hitting

[Flaxseed Oil]

I have heard some excitement about this. What exactly is Zone Hitting? Have any other games had it before?

[Blzer]

Re: Zone Hitting

I see it as the way that players unconsciously program themselves to hit a baseball (even some less-than-professional players like myself). When you first learn to hit, coaches and parents are always bugging you to just place that bat on the ball, so you need to exactly match where the ball is to hit it. This is reminiscing of cursor hitting, where you need to line up where you swing to where the ball is coming. In reality, it's not that difficult, especially after playing for a long time.

Allow me to digress for a second. As I walk up to the plate, I'm already in the driver's seat because I have two strikes to work with before I need to worry about putting that ball in play. So on a 0 - 0, 1 - 0, 2 - 0, or 3 - 1 count, I'm looking more to hit a pitch that I like than just any ol' pitch in the strike zone. My personal favorite would be on the inside-third of the plate, preferably in the middle. Well, this is one of nine zones within the strike zone. The other eight make up the rest of the strike zone. There could then be a surrounding 16 zones outside of the strike zone if you want to get really fancy, but I'll get back to that later. If you ever watch a baseball game and look at a hitter's hot zones, they'll show this exact diagram, plus batting averages, with how they are on pitches down the middle versus pitches low and away.

Anyway, this is essentially how a baseball player hits. First they see whether it will be down the middle, inside, or outside; then they'll determine the height and either swing at the middle, top, or bottom of the strike zone. Obviously, anything outside of that they should take anyway. Somehow, their skills handle the rest, and it leads to contact.

You wouldn't believe it, but the main reason professional players swing and miss is because of poor timing, not swinging under/over the ball. I'm not saying that they swing so early or late that the ball is either way before or behind them by the time their bat goes around, but that their designed swing goes on a certain plane/path that, if not timed correctly, where they wanted their bat head to be at the correct time will result in a different height when approached if not timed correctly. I'm sorry for the terrible wordage there, but it's not too important either way. It's just a way to say that for these players, they really can almost make contact with their eyes closed, as long as they know what's coming.

Now, there's a fly in the ointment here. Obviously, they don't always put the ball in play, and that's because perfect contact as just a figment of one's imagination. We may just get under the ball, over the ball, be a bit early or late, anticipate a pitch down the middle that cuts to the inside, etc. All of these things can lead to foul balls, which are a big part of the game. With that said, if you correctly determine the zone of the pitch, you've completed half the battle. Some players are worse at making contact but are better at making pure contact (Adam Dunn, Pedro Feliz) while other players are not necessarily known for their solid contact, but know how to battle a pitcher to death (A.J. Pierzynski, Omar Vizquel). So hopefully with a contact attribute, there is a foul ball attribute for players as well.

Anyway, that's how zone hitting works: you use the left-analog stick to guide which zone you want your player to be swinging at. Now normally, if a player just swung down the middle all of the time, the path of their swing could actually make contact to the inside and outside zones, and perhaps even the top and bottom of the low and high zones, respectively. Of course, this could lead in poor contact or foul balls, but it's not a guaranteed swing-and-miss if you are not in the correct zone. I suppose their system could include the sensitivity of your inputted direction and extend contact chance beyond the strike zone to the other sixteen zones as well.

That's a pretty long post for a simple concept, but I hope that this makes much more sense for you.




As for other games that use it, refer to the High Heat series, the later ASB games, Interplay Sports Baseball 2000 for PSX, MLB Inside Pitch, and even look at ESPN Major League Baseball and MLB 2K5 for their interpretation of the system with True-Aim hitting.

[wsu_gb23]

Re: Zone Hitting

don't all baseball games have zone-hitting? I always use the left-thumbstick in the show to influence where I swing and it works. Example; if I wait for a pitch up and in in the zone I hold the stick up and to the left. If the pitch is thrown in that direction I will make more solid contact. If I don't use the thumbstick and swing down the middle, the ball will be missed or fouled off. Is this the same concept as zone hitting?

[Blzer]

Re: Zone Hitting

don't all baseball games have zone-hitting? I always use the left-thumbstick in the show to influence where I swing and it works. Example; if I wait for a pitch up and in in the zone I hold the stick up and to the left. If the pitch is thrown in that direction I will make more solid contact. If I don't use the thumbstick and swing down the middle, the ball will be missed or fouled off. Is this the same concept as zone hitting?

Yes and no. The recent MVP and 2K games have a timed, influential hitting system. Timing was the key factor in making contact, whilst solid contact was the basis of performing the "right swing" with the pitch. It was still flawed, though. That means that, as long as the pitch is in the strike zone and you time it correctly, no matter how you swing, you will make contact. Holding onto up would be to try and uppercut the ball, down would be to chop it, and left and right would be to push/pull. Zone hitting is actually swinging at said places based on where you aim the stick, so it's not the same thing.

I only said that players will make contact because, simply, players aren't realistically going to miss a ball by six inches. Their eyes, skill, hand-coordination... whatever it is that makes them good, allows them to do some things without thinking about it too much. As I said, they'll more than likely miss due to poor timing before simply misjudging where the ball was pitched. That's because a player won't tell you how many inches above and on the outside the ball was, because they don't do "cursor hitting." Instead, they'll tell you it was up and away, and that's where they swung, and that's where their trained hands told the bat to meet with the ball.

People that just get into the sport can't do the same kind of hitting, because they simply aren't skilled enough to do so. They do a cursor hitting sort of approach, if that makes sense.

[Blzer]

Re: Zone Hitting

Actually, this brings up another good topic of discussion: the guess pitch feature. As I said earlier, there are counts where I will not swing unless it's in that zone, and I may even lay off a pitch for a strike. Well, if I get a 2 - 0 fastball on the inside, you can hope your sorry *** that ball will hook foul, because I'm not missing it. In that regard, because I was looking for that pitch, knew when to time it and how to swing at it, I will reward myself. However, I don't know where that pitch will be before the pitch is thrown. With that said, allow us to reward ourselves. If we guess the pitch correctly, we will hit it hard on our own, not because the game told us the pitch was going to be there and we get a boost in attributes.

So I hope that, if there's a guess pitch feature, it doesn't tell us whether we guessed correctly or incorrectly, and instead it's more of an intangible than anything else.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Zone Hitting

don't all baseball games have zone-hitting? I always use the left-thumbstick in the show to influence where I swing and it works. Example; if I wait for a pitch up and in in the zone I hold the stick up and to the left. If the pitch is thrown in that direction I will make more solid contact. If I don't use the thumbstick and swing down the middle, the ball will be missed or fouled off. Is this the same concept as zone hitting?

The Show is a Zone system in theory. You do have the L stick to "aim" the swing and do have the different zones to guess.

The trouble with 08's system is that it is much too easy to hit the ball without using the L stick for aiming. You can just time the ball and be relatively successful. A true zone requires the aiming in order to make good contact. Otherwise all swings (in theory) are level over the middle of the plate, catching the three "middle" zones and (as Blzer mentioned) potentially grazing the top and bottom of the lower and upper zones, respectively.

I thought one of the better zone hitting systems I've played with was in 2K3 or 2K4. so there's hope that VC can get it done well, at least from a conceptual standpoint. The real trouble with utilizing a zone concept while coming off of a timing concept is the way the system itself works behind the scenes.

I would actually be in favor of a well combined system, utilizing the full timing (meaning from step to followthrough) of a swing stick system and the level of "aiming" that comes with a true zone system. I don't imagine that's in our near future though (at least at the level of functionality we'd appreciate)...especially since 2K baseball can't settle on a control scheme from year to year...lol

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Zone Hitting

Actually, this brings up another good topic of discussion: the guess pitch feature. As I said earlier, there are counts where I will not swing unless it's in that zone, and I may even lay off a pitch for a strike. Well, if I get a 2 - 0 fastball on the inside, you can hope your sorry *** that ball will hook foul, because I'm not missing it. In that regard, because I was looking for that pitch, knew when to time it and how to swing at it, I will reward myself. However, I don't know where that pitch will be before the pitch is thrown. With that said, allow us to reward ourselves. If we guess the pitch correctly, we will hit it hard on our own, not because the game told us the pitch was going to be there and we get a boost in attributes.

So I hope that, if there's a guess pitch feature, it doesn't tell us whether we guessed correctly or incorrectly, and instead it's more of an intangible than anything else.

See, this is what I've been saying. I like the idea of sitting on a 3-1 fastball. I like the idea of "looking" away fro a pitch. It's the power boost and indicators that screw it up. I'd like it to be maybe where the location locks in (meaning if you guess down and in then you swing down and in) forcing you to manually "fight" away from that location to adjust for a pitch out of that zone. Ratings could dictate just how much you have to work to adjust from a scenario.

All this would be done with no boost or extra audio/visual clues. Your reward for a correct guess would be solid contact. you are still responsible for proper timing and followthrough.

Also, for pitch guessing, I prefer a combo of MVP's system of trying to guess it out of the pitchers hand (pitch recognition) and simpe pitch guessing. I think we're still a ways graphically from actually being able to see pitch grip on release from the batter's box, but a system like that could work in other subtle ways.

I have about a million ideas for such a feature...lol...but to keep it simple, only the best hitters would be able to really take advantage of a pitch recognition system. Again, this should be something that naturally flows with the game...meaning no boosts, bonuses, or clanks/flashes to indicate you're correct. You should have to visually see it upon release and then of course, time it correctly manually.

Anyway, sorry to stray...back to zone hitting

[Skyboxer]

Re: Zone Hitting

don't all baseball games have zone-hitting? I always use the left-thumbstick in the show to influence where I swing and it works. Example; if I wait for a pitch up and in in the zone I hold the stick up and to the left. If the pitch is thrown in that direction I will make more solid contact. If I don't use the thumbstick and swing down the middle, the ball will be missed or fouled off. Is this the same concept as zone hitting?

BUT despite where you hold the stick the batter will still swing where the ball is. So you're right that picking the right area gives better contact but true zone = stick up and left means swing up and left. So basically the show has a watered down version of zone hitting but not true zone hitting.

[baa7]

Re: Zone Hitting

don't all baseball games have zone-hitting?

2K baseball went from zone hitting (2K5 and earlier), to timing-only with the user-ability to hit ground balls and fly balls (2K7), to timing-only with Ben Brinkman's game programming deciding ground balls and fly balls because a good baseball game is one that's over in 25 minutes according to him. And given the evolution of 2K's hitting, I fully expected 2K9 to include an auto-hitting option where you can go grab a beer from the fridge while your team is up to bat. So I'm pretty surprised and happy that zone is back this year.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Zone Hitting

2K baseball went from zone hitting (2K5 and earlier), to timing-only with the user-ability to hit ground balls and fly balls (2K7), to timing-only with Ben Brinkman's game programming deciding ground balls and fly balls because a good baseball game is one that's over in 25 minutes according to him. And given the evolution of 2K's hitting, I fully expected 2K9 to include an auto-hitting option where you can go grab a beer from the fridge while your team is up to bat. So I'm pretty surprised and happy that zone is back this year.

....good stuff.

The announcement of zone hitting (particularly since 2K's old zone was very good) had me pleasantly suprised. We'll see how it goes.

[Ckhoss29]

Re: Zone Hitting

....good stuff.

The announcement of zone hitting (particularly since 2K's old zone was very good) had me pleasantly suprised. We'll see how it goes.

I guess I am one of the few who really liked the swing stick.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Zone Hitting

I guess I am one of the few who really liked the swing stick.

If it wasn't timing only more would like it.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Zone Hitting

If it wasn't timing only more would like it.

We have a winner

[Brady2Moss81]

Re: Zone Hitting

Do you guys think that the zone hitting will work with the swing stick? That for me would be incredible.

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: Zone Hitting

Blzer, great posts. I understood exactly what you were trying to say.