The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

[Trevytrev11]

My intention is not to cause a war and trash 2K and if it turns into that, please close this up.

The Little things thread is a thread in which people point out little details that make their experience with the overall game more enjoyable. They may or may not impact gameplay, but they are just little things that add to the overall experience.

The purpose of this thread is to kind of point out the opposite...things that happen that kind of take away from the gameplay experience. It could be something visual, something gameplay related, etc. These aren't bugs and glitches in the game that are the result of an oversight by a developer or tester, but assumed intentional decisions that were made.

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First thing that comes to mind is the lack of a fading or invisable cursor when pitching. This takes away from the 2 player experience. You can lock in a location by pressing a shoulder button to try and trick your opponent, but this takes longer (as you have to fake them out with other locations) and also can still tip them off as you have to slow down to be exact with your spot.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Two parts:
1st: Whoever made the decision to go with the stick figures on the baserunner grid/diamond needs to be fired. How can you have something so archaic in a next gen game.

2nd and related. The design of these stick figures presents a bit of an allusion of to your runners location compared to the actual bag. The back leg is actually the marker, so event though 75% of the figure is already past 1st base, in actuality, your runner is 5 steps from it. It's something to get used to, but again it gives off the illusion that your runner is further along than he is.

3rd and kind of related. When on defense, the number will pop up for the AI runners final destination too early...Say you have runner on 1st (A) and 2nd (B). A guy hits a ball to the OF and you see that runner (A) is going to try and score as soon as the ball is hit and that runner (B) is only going to advance to second (as he would show a 2). Because of this you can throw to the plate with no risk of the other runner taking an extra bag. They can always adjust, but I find this rarely happens. It seems that 95% of the time they are committed to that first selection.

[jeffy777]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

When you are batting, certain pitchers have the ball come out of their hand in a really weird way. It almost seems like the ball goes in a different direction than it really should plus it looks like there are some frames missing at the end of their delivery. This doesn't happen for all pitchers. I notice it most with relievers.

I am also really annoyed by the lack of variety in animations, such as double play animations. One example that really annoys me personally that may not seem like a big deal to others is the animation when the pitcher is waiting for the catcher to throw the ball back, he does that stupid thing where me moves his glove up and down repeatedly EVERY SINGLE TIME, every pitcher does this. There's no variety there at all. Just shows lack of attention to detail by 2K.

[jeffy777]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Also the lack of a Manager Mode really disappoints me

[goh]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Overall the baserunning is flat out terrible but what really gets me is when they hold with 2 outs...on a bloop...that has no chance of being caught.

I noticed what I think is supposed to be chewing gum on the dugout floor but it really looks like pink throw up (or worse).

[jeffy777]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

I really miss the stats overlays from last year. It's a drag not being able to see the opposing pitcher's pitch count right from the batting screen, and your batter's stats as well.

[nyisles16]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

My intention is not to cause a war and trash 2K and if it turns into that, please close this up.

The Little things thread is a thread in which people point out little details that make their experience with the overall game more enjoyable. They may or may not impact gameplay, but they are just little things that add to the overall experience.

The purpose of this thread is to kind of point out the opposite...things that happen that kind of take away from the gameplay experience. It could be something visual, something gameplay related, etc. These aren't bugs and glitches in the game that are the result of an oversight by a developer or tester, but assumed intentional decisions that were made.

-----------------------------------------------------------
First thing that comes to mind is the lack of a fading or invisable cursor when pitching. This takes away from the 2 player experience. You can lock in a location by pressing a shoulder button to try and trick your opponent, but this takes longer (as you have to fake them out with other locations) and also can still tip them off as you have to slow down to be exact with your spot.

I have no issue with the thread.. The problems arise when people just say "it sucks" and offer nothing else..

I have an issue with the game - I know they tried to redo the game on the next gen consoles -- but I don't get why Citi Field looks more complete on the PS2 than the newer consoles, or why weather was taken away in the newer versions.

I like the game, but just some head scratchers..

[paysworld]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Why is it that when I pinch hit for the pitcher and I have to sub the pitcher out the next inning, the manager always takes the ball from my pinch hitter, it looks so awkward and it's definitely an oversight.

[Bwnarrow3]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

The roster editing limit completely nullifies the 2Kshare roster feature.

[rckabillyRaider]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Why can't we save our camera settings? Baffling.

[Lisa_Bonami]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

-players of all ratings still make too many web gem diving plays in the infield. And to make matters worse, there still seems to be no correlation with these types of plays and the actual player's fielder ratings.

-there's not enough variety in the web gem animations...they all kind of look like the same diving robotic belly flop catch with the outstretched glove

-many of the animations lack fluid transistions so they start to have that unpolished preprogrammed scripted robo player feel

-outfielders crow hop and fire into the infield even on routine outs and non threatening base advancing hits...it looks silly. To make matters worse, sometimes they crow hop and fire in a different direction then their animations would suggest

-Cant SIM to END of a game or SIM to an INNING. Every game must be completely played out...who thought of this bone headed backwards decision?....This used to be a feature in all previous MLB games.

-players morph thru each other...there's no collision of player models. No double play break ups, outfield collisions, etc.

[truckie16]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

The ridiculously huge B on the Red Sox hats. It just looks really silly.
The catcher throwing to 1st after a righty strikes out, just doesn't really happen.
I also agree with just about everything you guys have said.

[bkrich83]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Bullpen's at Petco Park are reversed.

Visitors warm up in the cushy bullpen in left field, and the home team warms up on in the bullpen on the field in right.

Also stadium colors are off and washed out for most stadiums.

[dano]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Some things others have metnioned plus my own:
Baserunning = Horrible
1. my runners holding up with 2 outs and a blooper?
2. runners on 2nd/3rd with flyball. I want to tag from 3rd but my runner on 2nd gets highlighted?
3). stick figures??

Fielding= Quite Horrible
1). super human diving catches by Manny? And Prince Fielder? Does not seem to take into ratings at all.
2). slow down motion

Hitting = medicore
1). cannot see opposing pitcher count
2). cannot see opposing pitcher name without clicking a button. why not put these two items on screen.
3). cannot pitch history. MVP had this 4 years ago.

Pitching = pretty good
1). cannot check opposing batter order?
2). cannot see opposing batter name?

Options = not good
1). not including a sim to the end is a joke.

[mattstl77]

Re: The Other/Anti Little Things Thread

Great idea for the thread. Hopefully 2k looks at this and uses it as a constructive to make next year's game better. Something tells me that I am dreaming because this thread wouldn't last 3 minutes on the 2k boards.

Presentation:
Maybe I am new to this style of menus, but I don't like the way one stick brings up the menu. Especially if every other sports game out there uses the right stick to do something else. It is great to be innovative, but I think this is just trying too hard to be different.

Even though the commentary is good, I have been noticing a ton of miscues... especially after the patch. The announcers would get the outs wrong and then they correct themselves. They will mistake groundballs for pop flys. If playing a fantasy draft franchise, they will talk about how a certain player from that team is making an incredible difference and they aren't even on the team any more (ex. "Ryan Ludwick is a serious threat to this lineup" Ludwick wasn't even on my team at that time).

Graphics
Bar none, the player faces and models are among the worse in current gen sport games. Well... it would be tied with MLB 2k7-2k8. Why is it that The Bigs from two years ago can get a better likeness and stadium design than a "sim" product? The player's faces look like they were burn victims. From what I have seen of the Show, the facial features and "body language" is much more fluid and life-like. The coaches look like something you would find out Star Wars. They look like aging monsters. Player's faces are emotionless and expressionless. Their expressions are forced. Do you ever notice that the players are looking out of the side of their eyes while they walk back to the dugout.

When animations occur within the game, many of the players are doing the same thing together. Ex. a manager and a player would wipe sweat from their brow at the exact same time. An entire bench will put their head in their hands when their team is down. Along with the animations, you will see that players will rotate without moving their feet.

Fielding is horrible. They totally took 2 steps back. Pitching is ok, but would like some feedback on how well I did with the pitch.

I am sure that I will have some more, but these are the little things that keep me from enjoying this game.