Confidence needs to be revamped

[Yankees2009Champs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vashyron.

I'm not saying it's literally impossible to hit a pitcher with high confidence, it's much too difficult. I would say once you get to the 85%-90% or higher confidence level, that's where it really gets bad. Also, C.C.'s confidence had to have been dipping if you had to do 3 mound visits as the only reason to do a mound visit is to up your pitcher's confidence if you're not buying some time for the pen. Confidence is the main reason why lots of people think this game has comeback code because the relievers' confidence is so touchy. Literally, one hit can cause a reliever to get low confidence. If you don't pay close attention to your relievers' confidence, you're going to blow a lot of games in the late innings. You always have to have at least one guy up in the pen just in case and ready to come in at a moment's notice even if your lock-down closer is on the mound. Also, there's no reason to bring in your closer for the save if your 8th inning setup guy just dominated, keep him in for the 9th as his confidence is through the roof.

Yeah I've been told to keep confidence above 50%, that's reason for mound visits.

I'm struggling with what to say because you're somewhat right. It's really on the player to battle out of it though. I play on veteran, and use Psychobulk sliders. If a pitcher gets hot you just have to take pitches until it's in your favor. That's when you can get to them, 3-1, 3-0, 2-1 counts. We, as players, don't take enough pitches. Probably because we want to swing. I'm sure you know this, you sound like you know baseball.

I hate for a fact when a pitcher hangs a curve down the middle and I pop it up. Then I check hit chance in the batter analysis and it's an X. This is the part where I agree with you.

[Black59Razr]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vashyron.

Hitters get hot and cold symbols when they are hot or cold, which shows on the before-the-game lineup screen and on the manage roster screens and such. Also, there is hitter confidence levels within each game. If you get a HR or a couple early hits, that player is hot for the rest of the game. If you're in a tight situation late in the game (tie game, runner at 2nd) and the batter at the plate has a couple hits already and say Albert Pujols is on deck and is 0-3, pitch around the current batter and pitch to Pujols as he will be a much easier out. Obviously, in real life, you wouldn't do that but it's a great strategy in this game. It doesn't matter if the 0-3 were 3 at'em balls either, the fact that he's 0-3 means he has low confidence and is rather unlikely to get a hit.

Do you have any evidence of hitter confidence in-game? I never knew that. I know about hot/cold hitters. But a hitter's ability increasing based on a previous at-bat? Where did you hear that?

Devs have posted here that pitcher's confidence only effects their control. If you are seeing a high confidence pitcher throwing meatballs down the middle for strikeouts, then it is coincidence. Either that, or the Devs are lying. Plus, I have never seen such a thing in any game I played.

As far as confidence being too influential in pitcher control, I disagree. Without that, A+ pitchers would pitch great every time and D pitchers would pitch poor every time. I love seeing a scrub shut me out for 8 innings while my ace gets rocked. This was all discussed in great detail by devs a while ago (I suck at searching; couldn't find thread).

[kjataa00]

I think tweaked would be better. I have seen several times where I crush a ball, good spot in the zone, great timing, great hitter and it goes nowhere, is a weak fly out or just seems to go right to a fielder even though by looking at where the ball was and how I hit it, it should have gone to a different area.

My main issue though is that foul balls give the pitcher confidence. I think fouls should give no confidence after 2 strikes. If you get in a long duel with a pitcher in real life, he doesn't gain confidence after you fouled off 3,4,5,8 pitches. Instead, he tires out, gets frustrated and usually makes a bad pitch eventually. In the game though I have seen pitch confidence meters filled up simply because I fouled off several pitches in a row. Also, I think if you crush a ball foul it needs to drop confidence. I don't get how I could miss a 400ft HR by 2ft foul and the pitcher gains confidence.

Confidence having an effect on the actual hit is ok, as long as it is minimal because if a team is getting worked by a pitcher it can get in the hitter's head. It does piss me off though when I crush a pitch and it somehow turns into a pop up or I make a great pitch and Jed Lowrie somehow takes it 400ft.

I think I can say I've noticed hitter in game confidence at times as well. JP Arenciba hit 3 HRs off me once and it was only the first one that I screwed up a pitch and left it down the middle.

[pberardi]

My main problem is once the confidence meter is high, it doesn't matter if you're facing an ace or 5th starter. They all pitch practically shutout ball.

Also, 3-2 counts are meaningless as the cpu refuses to give in on 3-2 with high confidence. I'm sure this reflects real life to some degree but there should be greater disparities bewteen 4th and 5th starters and aces.

[Yankees2009Champs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Black59Razr

I love seeing a scrub shut me out for 8 innings while my ace gets rocked. This was all discussed in great detail by devs a while ago (I suck at searching; couldn't find thread).

I don't agree with this one bit. I have the Yankees great offense, and I almost got no hit by Doug Fister. I wasn't loving it at all. It's not rational at all. Especially when he came in with a 4-13 record with a six era.

This is another example that contradicts the pitcher confidence issue he's raised. If pitcher confidence was supreme he would have got blasted by me.

[Yankees2009Champs]

Quote: Originally Posted by pberardi

My main problem is once the confidence meter is high, it doesn't matter if you're facing an ace or 5th starter. They all pitch practically shutout ball. Also, 3-2 counts are meaningless as the cpu refuses to give in on 3-2 with high confidence. I'm sure this reflects real life to some degree but there should be greater disparities bewteen 4th and 5th starters and aces.

So take the walk! Pitch count matters, if you keep working you will get him out of the game. And consequently if he keeps throwing balls, his individual pitches will lower in confidence.

[murphyHOF]

Quote: Originally Posted by Black59Razr

\ Devs have posted here that pitcher's confidence only effects their control. If you are seeing a high confidence pitcher throwing meatballs down the middle for strikeouts, then it is coincidence. Either that, or the Devs are lying. Plus, I have never seen such a thing in any game I played.

Black59Razr, why are you trying to discredit this guys thread? The OP has obviously seen a pattern in his experience and just want to get it out here on the forum. Plus, I don't recall him ever saying you would get strikeouts throwing meatballs with high confidence, just outs.

Regardless of the what the devs may say, posters have commented on the fact that pitcher confidence appears to have an influence on the probability of getting a hit. My observation is that it impacts pitcher control, as it should, but pitcher confidence increases too quickly with a few outs or strikeouts and turns scrub pitchers into aces in a hurry. I think the point is the impact on pitcher attributes and/or play results needs to be toned down.

[Vashyron.]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yankees2009Champs

I hate for a fact when a pitcher hangs a curve down the middle and I pop it up. Then I check hit chance in the batter analysis and it's an X. This is the part where I agree with you.

That's exactly what I mean, confidence DIRECTLY affects the end result of the batted ball. Confidence should INDIRECTLY affect hit balls by making the pitch easier to locate and/or giving it more break. That way, a hanging curve is a hanger no matter what the confidence level is. You'll just see less hanging curves when a pitcher has high confidence.

Quote: Originally Posted by Black59Razr

Do you have any evidence of hitter confidence in-game? I never knew that. I know about hot/cold hitters. But a hitter's ability increasing based on a previous at-bat? Where did you hear that? Devs have posted here that pitcher's confidence only effects their control. If you are seeing a high confidence pitcher throwing meatballs down the middle for strikeouts, then it is coincidence. Either that, or the Devs are lying. Plus, I have never seen such a thing in any game I played.

There is no proof of in-game hitter confidence unless I were to make some huge spreadsheet that depicts batting averages of hitters that are having an 0-for day and hitters with multi-hit days over a long period of time. I've played this series since the PS2 days, and I know this is true. I've played RTTS quite a lot over the years to know it's much easier to hit if my RTTS player hit a HR or has a multi-hit game going compared to when he is 0-3. Also, I've been burned a lot by crappy hitters late in the game who have been having a good day; I'll pitch around a hitter to get to that crappy #8 hitter to have him hit a perfect pitch for a double because he's 2-3 in the game. Now, I pitch around any hitter late in the game that's had a couple hits. I'll gladly pitch to an 0-4 Albert Pujols over a backup catcher who's 3-4. I pitch on Legend with increased CPU batting sliders and zeroed out human pitching sliders and I'm 2nd or 3rd in the league in ERA (my top pitcher has a 0.45 ERA), I know how this game works under the hood.

I'd like to see a dev post stating pitcher confidence only affects control. I've never seen the devs post really anything about confidence outside of that they've toned it down. If they did say that, either they were misinformed by one of the programmers or they were lying. Almost everyone that plays this game knows confidence does more than give a pitcher more or less control; you can throw perfect pitches with a pitcher with extremely low confidence and it'll get nailed more often than not. Everybody is probably prays that a mound visit will give back a good chuck of confidence and it's not because they can't locate their pitches anymore.

Quote: Originally Posted by kjataa00

I think tweaked would be better. I have seen several times where I crush a ball, good spot in the zone, great timing, great hitter and it goes nowhere, is a weak fly out or just seems to go right to a fielder even though by looking at where the ball was and how I hit it, it should have gone to a different area. My main issue though is that foul balls give the pitcher confidence. I think fouls should give no confidence after 2 strikes. If you get in a long duel with a pitcher in real life, he doesn't gain confidence after you fouled off 3,4,5,8 pitches. Instead, he tires out, gets frustrated and usually makes a bad pitch eventually. In the game though I have seen pitch confidence meters filled up simply because I fouled off several pitches in a row. Also, I think if you crush a ball foul it needs to drop confidence. I don't get how I could miss a 400ft HR by 2ft foul and the pitcher gains confidence.

They've been tweaking this confidence system for years now and it's still way out of whack. They need to completely rethink it and stop tweaking the current system. Confidence should INDIRECTLY affect hit balls by making the pitch easier to locate and/or giving it more break. That way, a hanging curve is a hanger no matter what the confidence level is, just like in real life. You'll just see less hanging curves when a pitcher has high confidence.

The problem is that any strike gives confidence to the pitch and pitcher. So, like you said, a foul bar HR gives confidence to the pitcher. Also, this causes strikeout pitchers to become overpowered compared to finesse pitchers. A strikeout yields more confidence than a normal out so strikeout pitches gain confidence faster, that is not fair.

Quote: Originally Posted by pberardi

My main problem is once the confidence meter is high, it doesn't matter if you're facing an ace or 5th starter. They all pitch practically shutout ball.

Exactly this.

Quote: Originally Posted by Yankees2009Champs

I have the Yankees great offense, and I almost got no hit by Doug Fister. I wasn't loving it at all. It's not rational at all. Especially when he came in with a 4-13 record with a six era. This is another example that contradicts the pitcher confidence issue he's raised. If pitcher confidence was supreme he would have got blasted by me.

That doesn't contradict anything I've said. If a pitcher comes into the game cold and you let him retire you in order in the 1st and 2nd inning, he's got he's confidence back and it's probably pretty high. You just need to have a good start to the game, and you can dominate the rest of the game much too easily. The problem is how well you pitched in the PAST dictates how you will pitch in the PRESENT and FUTURE of the game.