Is batting harder or is it just me?

[Smallville102001]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sycecg

the pitch that completely fools me right now is the changeup, i just can never get proper reads on it and i early swing all the time against it.

I have always had a hard time hitting both changeups and curveballs in these games and slider to lol. I have only had a changes to play a few games but I am finding it easier to not chase sliders this year and to pick up curveballs to. In the past sliders looked like fastball to me only with very very late movement. So because of that a lot of times I would end up swinging at sliders thinking they where going to be a good pitch to it only to end up swinging over the pitch by a little bit or it would end up like a inch or 2 out of the strike zone when it looked like it would be a strike. With curveballs in the past a lot of times when the CPU looked like it was going to be hanging curveball I would swinging and then it would end up at the knees or I would think it was a strike only to swing at one in the dirt. I fell like changeups I am seeing better to but I still cant time them while even when I try to want longer on them I am early like all the time.

[CanOfCornCobb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Turbojugend

I've been pretty awful at batting this year, but I think some of it comes naturally with getting accustomed to the new game. For instance, I'm waaaay out in front of change-ups now. Can't explain it, they just look different coming across the plate.

Theres too much of a speed difference between fastballs and changeups this year. The average speed difference seems to be about 15mph which is absolutely ridiculous. It makes it darn near impossible to hit at a pitch speed any higher than 7 or 8

[therewillbechud]

I've had more success hitting this year. Through 9 games with my Cubs franchise I'm hitting .290 as a team with 15 homeruns. The problem is only 16 walks, which is very low. The last two games I've taken about 60% of the pitches I saw, which is the highest I've ever seen in any of my games, still hard to get a walk. And only about 50 strikeouts in 9 games, the CPU just doesn't want to walk me even after messing with sliders.

[lv2bll]

I feel like the PCI changed for the worse too. It's crazy when I track a ball perfectly through the zone only to make contact and got a pop up. Then at the next at bat to review my swing it shows my PCI drastically lower/higher than I placed it. This is sucking fun out of the game for me when I didn't have issues in 14. My rtts hitter with 96 contact can barely break .200 avg now. I don't feel this is right.

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[BL8001]

I agree lv2,

I watched a replay of miggy hitting a pop up to 2nd over and over last night. I would swear I hit it flush and it was a touch up in the zone bordering on a meat ball pitch and I timed it perfectly.

The replay showed the bat hitting the ball squarely like it felt in real time but the next frame the ball moved almost directly up to start the animation for the pop up.

I then watched a replay of a HR CPU machado hit off of a sinker I almost threw in the dirt. He squared it up too (with the barrel angled down for the low ball) just like the miggy replay but the ball just lept forward off his bat with the HR trajectory immediately.

This is where I am losing my mind. I know, a blind squirrel blah blah blah. But Miggy and a meatball is a pop up and manny and a sinker is a homer?

I would easily accept Miggy hitting a liner to CF and Manny hitting a grounder or low liner towards RF.

[BL8001]

So far this to me seems to be the best approach to batting in this version of the show.

This is using directional hitting, strikezone off, pci off, camera move on.

Never, never, never never never never...swing at the first pitch. Even if it is right down the middle. For some reason I am finding that the success rate of hitting the first pitch even if it is a gift pitch is crazy low this year.

It's better to go 0-1 than to pop out or ground out. So pitch one is just a coin flip, ball or strike. Sometimes I will even sit the controller down first pitch so I don't have any possible inclination to swing at it.

Now for pitch 2 pick a plate location. inside middle or out. 85% of the time you can pick middle and be ok. If you choose nothing (middle) and you are sitting on a fastball and the pitcher throws anything middle in/middle/middle out and a neutral height you can get a hit off of it the majority of the time.

That works for every pitch for the remainder of the at bat.

What you will see is if you get fooled, say you are a righty, if the pitcher slings one down the middle and it slides to the right of you towards the outside of the plate and you swing this could be a weak grounder or a pop out. BUT if you had moved the left stick to the right (before the pitch) so you were looking outside, that pitch would be a hit if timed right.

Same idea for an inside pitch.

Basically just think of inside middle or outside as pitch framing as a batter.

Next thing is contact works really well this year, particularly for good batters. I have hit liners to the gap and even HR's with a contact swing.
Again, you have to pick one of the framing zones and time it right.

What I am seeing is that with directional hitting we now have to cover these 3 zones, you have to time the pitch and you must select a pitch that is hittable.

Compared to last years timing where you just had to time and pick a pitch.

As far as hitting an intentional fly ball by holding up or ground ball by holding down? This is flat out wonky. I have hit grounders to fly balls at a 50/50 rate holding LS up. And I have hit HR's and flew out holding LS down.
It's not reversed or anything, it just seems to be another coin flip.

I wish it at least worked as ground ball to line drive holding down and line drive to fly ball holding up. It should have almost an 80% guaranteed chance of influencing that type of flight. The result is a whole different thing, but you should be able to go up to bat, look to elevate and do so if you get the right pitch. Instead it's 50/50 ground or fly.

[Nomah5]

I'm a mess. I have played 4 season games and am batting .111 as a team. Scored ZERO runs. Brutal.

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[vrtkolman]

I'm having a great time with it this year. The only issue I have is like others have posted, I'm having a super hard time drawing walks. I like to work counts but there is an awful lot of at bats where the AI pitcher has an 0-2 count on me. Even garbage pitchers can throw their breaking pitches for strikes more often than not. Altering sliders helps but they seem to have the magic touch when they get up to a 3-1 or 3-2 count and I almost never see pitches out of the strike zone.