MLB 17- Fielding

[ch46647]

Hey guys! Nice to see the overall positive reviews on this years game. I have a question regarding fielding. I've never felt The Show did a great job of replicating playing the field.

What I mean by this is players seem to generally take a direct path to the ball and the game tends to warp your player the extra few yards to make the catch. There is very little risk/reward in trying to make a challenging play because the game seems very forgiving in giving your player a small boost to their makeup speed when tracking a ball. This also eliminates the need to ever really have to dive for a ball in the outfield.

Has this been improved upon for MLB 17? Any insight is appreciated!

[SoxSoxSox]

It definitely HAS with the ball physics. I've seen balls go over heads due to guys playing too shallow, and the wind is also a factor, it can carry balls deeper and even out of the park, not to mention to the left or right.


I had one this morning where I hit it at Fenway to left, near the line, and the Orioles LF came running on and I just assumed it would be out. He came up a step short and it bounced into the seats for a ground-rule double.

I actually assumed it had gone foul until Sandoval stayed on second base then I went into replay and looked at it.

[lil frier]

I've just done RttS so far (well, and the intro game), so I don't have a great sample. However, I've noticed that defense is really forgiving in this game. I'm playing at AA, and seeing glove flips and jump throws across the body for double plays is pretty standard. Infield hits are nigh-impossible, and this is against AA competition. I haven't seen a chance for a single diving catch in the OF I can recall, and my character JUST got the chance to start playing then field (was the DH for 2 months, then got a few games in CF, now they're moving me to 2B). That said, I had a few flies drop on me, if I took a bad route in RttS (first step movement is terrible in the OF). I didn't feel any great boost of speed to make up mistakes.

[smokines3]

Quote: Originally Posted by SoxSoxSox

It definitely HAS with the ball physics. I've seen balls go over heads due to guys playing too shallow, and the wind is also a factor, it can carry balls deeper and even out of the park, not to mention to the left or right. I had one this morning where I hit it at Fenway to left, near the line, and the Orioles LF came running on and I just assumed it would be out. He came up a step short and it bounced into the seats for a ground-rule double. I actually assumed it had gone foul until Sandoval stayed on second base then I went into replay and looked at it.

First time I saw that happen I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for 5 minutes.

[TotesMaGotes]

I agree the ball physics have made fielding for players and CPU totally different. You'll see CPU fielders dive and miss balls right out of their reach, misplay balls in the air in out outfield. Wind was blowing from right to left field in a game and Jorge Soler had the hardest time judging the ball and there were two or three balls he ran after then floated then ran then float and just didn't make it.

[The Left Shark]

I feel like the defense is really smooth in this game...like the smoothest fielding in a baseball game since MVP 05.

[timothythefirst]

I've seen an outfielder in tampa straight up lose the ball in the roof and then track it back down and make the catch, it was pretty cool. they really fixed it this year

[Jon Arbuckle]

Ball physics have definitely made fielding more interesting this year. Judging trajectory is very important when trying to cut off gaps and the ball does insane things when it hits walls. You will absolutely be punished if you go too aggressively toward the wall or fail to anticipate the direction of the carom.

One aspect of fielding that remains frustrating to me is squaring up under fly balls. You rarely see errors with these plays in real life baseball unless the sun/lights is blinding or they're playing under a white dome. The Show OTOH will kill you if you fail to glide in just right. Now that improved ball physics have presented realistic challenges to outfielders I think it's time to make arcing fly balls more realistically routine. I always end up moving the outfielder error slider to the left to compensate but I don't like that I need to make all outfield play easier just to fix the fly ball issue.