Mike Lowe MLB The Show 20 Sliders

[Mike Lowe]

Quote: Originally Posted by JWDixon120

Alright, so I've played 8 full 9 inning games with this in Franchise using Atlanta and these are my takeaways (Also I'm playing on Legendary hitting and pitching) Hitting wise, I was starting to think it was too easy as I was around a .360 AVG as a team through 5 games, however I moved pitch speed up to 10 for each and it has since leveled out more and I really like the skill level. Fielding still seems a little wonky. Partly because it is particularly hard to "lock on" to the ball this year it seems. OF reaction time could use a slight boost IMO as stated above in the replies. Fielders are already slow depending on their reaction attribute. Infielders feel decent I would say, but again that's more on SDS' end. The "assist" option sometimes makes my infielders run in on a hard hit grounder and it ends up rolling to the outfield when it shouldn't. Again, this is more so on SDS. (Personally I believe the rosters were rated pretty poorly this year across the board... examples being Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson only having speed in the 70's despite them being 88 and 86th percentile in sprint speed. Also Albies only has 79 fielding after having just 4 errors all of last year seems odd.) Pitching has proven to be extremely difficult so far. My pitchers seem to have pretty poor control all around. Even my guys like Soroka and Hamels struggle to hit their spots when I get the meter perfect. This has led to a lot of hits/HR's thus far. Unfortunately my pitchers are missing within the zone instead of outside of it. I believe i've had only one game so far allowing under 10 hits. Side note here: Not to "brag" (because personally I find no reason too) but last year using Mike's sliders, I played every pitch of a 162 game season and managed to win the WS, so I don't believe the pitching flaws are totally just user error. Mike Soroka who has over a 80 HR/9 attribute has given up 4 HR in just 13 innings. That's about 2.74 HR/9. He was at 0.7HR/9 Last year Also, Swings and misses still seem far and few between. I'm tied for 2nd last in team strikeouts with only 40 through 8 games. 0-2 counts are relatively easy to get into, but guys will foul every strikeout pitch away until they put one in play. Hope this helps and hopefully we can keep making progress! P.S: Has anyone else had the issue where the AI makes literally 15 trades on April 2nd? It seems to be only top prospects that get traded. Royce Lewis, Gavin Lux, etc all were traded and Lux was traded twice. I simmed through the date with the trade slider on 0 and it still occurred. Luckily I use 30 team control so I can correct it, however it is annoying SDS programmed the AI to move that many high profile prospects on the same day.

It's been disappointing to see the game's fielding "locking on" regress back to where it was about 2 years ago. It's really surprising. This set has always recommended using auto-fielding, and until further notice, that may be the necessary case for 20.

I'm definitely planning to make some changes this weekend to fielding, user pitching/AI hitting. I will say that I'm actually getting a lot more swings and misses by the AI this year. The issue you mentioned about 3rd strikes being much harder than strikes 1-2 is an issue that has plagued this game for years. The game just uses contact swing too much.

If you're seeing too many hit and run attempts (why, SDS? WHY?!) and/or getting crushed while pitching, you're likely around the plate too much. Throw more balls and try and get the AI to chase. At the very least, it'll help keep them honest.

As for the trading, I have in the top of my first post to adjust the rosters before starting a franchise. These trades are the game balancing out positional depth, and you can handle some of that yourself ahead of time. Turning the slider to 0 won't stop this, but what will stop it is to temporarily turn off trading. You may want to leave it off most of the first season, even but that balance is up to everyone else. I plan to spending time before the first season balancing rosters, and then simming ahead to test it before I bother playing any games. Keep frequent backups in April!

[JWDixon120]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

It's been disappointing to see the game's fielding "locking on" regress back to where it was about 2 years ago. It's really surprising. This set has always recommended using auto-fielding, and until further notice, that may be the necessary case for 20. I'm definitely planning to make some changes this weekend to fielding, user pitching/AI hitting. I will say that I'm actually getting a lot more swings and misses by the AI this year. The issue you mentioned about 3rd strikes being much harder than strikes 1-2 is an issue that has plagued this game for years. The game just uses contact swing too much. If you're seeing too many hit and run attempts (why, SDS? WHY?!) and/or getting crushed while pitching, you're likely around the plate too much. Throw more balls and try and get the AI to chase. At the very least, it'll help keep them honest. As for the trading, I have in the top of my first post to adjust the rosters before starting a franchise. These trades are the game balancing out positional depth, and you can handle some of that yourself ahead of time. Turning the slider to 0 won't stop this, but what will stop it is to temporarily turn off trading. You may want to leave it off most of the first season, even but that balance is up to everyone else. I plan to spending time before the first season balancing rosters, and then simming ahead to test it before I bother playing any games. Keep frequent backups in April!

I used the Auto Fielding all last year but tried to give this year's a shot. I'll most likely revert there.
Also, I'll look to do some balancing myself.

Thanks for the response!

[knucklecutter]

I played 3 games with the v2 slider set the other day and they played fine, no complaints. This morning I played 3 more games with a few tweaks. I upped human pitcher control and consistency one click and fielder run speed one click. Truthfully I didn't notice a difference in the fielders, but with my pitcher I felt like I was a little more in control of the outcome than before but not so much that I could pin point, there was still plenty enough randomness to it that it felt believable. Nothing about any of the 6 games I've played felt lop sided or far fetched. The slider set is definitely a good base to work off of. I'm not seeing an abundant amount of HR's like some people in and outside of this slider set are talking about, but I guess that has a lot to do with the individual persons skills, settings and the teams they use. All in all it's been some good baseball, fun yet challenging.



In all 6 of the games I've played using these sliders I've used HOF for both pitching and batting with classic / directional inputs and max pitch speeds.


Edit: I also used auto fielding with manual throwing.

[ninertravel]

I am enjoying the game so much more now had my first 1-0 game finally not seeing a home run Darby in every game now this is so much better!

[Mike Lowe]

First post updated for Beta v3. These changes based a lot on community feedback, so thank you. I think we're close to a v1.0, so look for that Sunday ish.

[tuckermaine]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

First post updated for Beta v3. These changes based a lot on community feedback, so thank you. I think we're close to a v1.0, so look for that Sunday ish.

Interesting ....saw the update ...lock and load...here we go!!!!

[itsmb8]

Forgot to get a box score for the game. But another play now game, V3 sliders with WarmWind's stamina and hook. Boston (me) vs. Baltimore (cpu). I personally dont do well making the pitcher work for strikes so that kept pitch count low, but gameplay was great. Both teams slapped some hits here and there, some loud outs, but the game ended 5-0 Boston thanks to two big flies by JD Martinez, one over the monster and one just to the right of the HR line on the monster in center field (literally in the little corner in between the monster and the taped-over bleachers). Both homers were perfect/perfect flyball.

Overall another great game, I might start a test franchise and play some games with Milwaukee and/or the White Sox.

[hockeyyt988]

Mike, great sliders bro. I’ve been using your sets for years, I used armor and sword for a big part last year cause couldn’t find yours (till I found simsportsgaming).

These sliders have been awesome. I’m noticing dribblers squeaking to the outfield, hard hit balls that end in tough outs, etc.

One thing that’s been awesome about this year is you really don’t know if a ball will be caught (i play with auto fielding so no catch icon). That slicing fly ball... will it get over the outfields head, or is he tracking it well?

That’s obviously part of the gameplay upgrade but your sliders have help influence allowing these plays to be organic and unpredictable.

Only played a handful of games but scoring has varied, 9-6 highest score, 2-1 lowest.


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