04-02-2018, 06:19 PM
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#660
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MVP
OVR: 12
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 3,267
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Re: MLB The Show 18 First Impressions
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Originally Posted by Armor and Sword |
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"We really focused on gameplay this year and rebuilt our hitting system from the bottom up" "We cleaned up the catcher animations and tagging system" "We added over a 1000 new fielding animations and really improved the ball physics and spins so you will get an ultra realistic experience on the diamond" "We revamped our online servers and expect online to be the smoothest it has ever been".
This is what was talked about when the annual hype started for MLB The Show 18. I am very very happy to report after playing over a dozen games inside franchise mode that indeed we have a special game here.
I have been playing the series since MLB The Show 09. And every single year without fail, the team at SDS has made incremental improvements to the overall gameplay with each new cycle. Have there been some bumps and forks in the road along the way? Oh yeah for sure. But the one thing that always kept me going was the hitter/pitcher showdown. This for me has always been the heart and soul of this series and MLB The Show 18 has taken this to a brand new level for us offline Franchise Mode players. So let's get into all the improvements first.
And let me preface this impression/review with my personal settings.
Offline - HOF Classic Pitching/HOF Directional Hitting - no visual aides, Auto Fielding, Manual (ratings based button) Throwing.
Hitting - The first thing I noticed immediately was Directional hitting was vastly improved. The control you now have with the bat can be felt and seen. Turning on middle in pitches has never felt or looked better. The ball trajectories this year are improved over MLB 17 (and I loved MLB 17 and was dazzled by the ball physics on that one). The balls spins, rise, sink and skip all over the diamond and just look so much more natural. Going opposite field is so rewarding now as well. The sheer amount of hit variety already has been very impressive and I am sure I will see new hit types throughout the year as well. I was still seeing new hit types on 17 up till 18's release. I have a great feeling this will be the same case again on 18.
Pitching - I really loved the ball spins on 17 and again they are improved here on 18. Setting up the CPU in pitchers counts works great and they will chase out of the zone filthy, nasty and K like they should. My strikeout numbers thus far look excellent. But the real improvement in pitching is on the CPU side......
CPU Pitching AI/Bullpen AI/Lineup Logic AI - Wow.....this has been a lovely improvement. Pitchers will pitch around your stars if the situation calls for it. I have already drawn 6 walks with Judge in 3 games!!! The CPU AI refuses to give in to him so far. But that's ok.....I make them pay with Stanton the very next AB or Sanchez if they pitch around Stanton too!! And they have! Stanton has 3 walks in 3 games. Starters will go deep for the CPU if they are rolling and have a lower pitch count, bullpen decisions are making sense, I love how when a pitcher is injured they will call up another pitcher and not stick a short reliever into the rotation! Closers can lose their role if they struggle. Just a huge improvement. On HOF hitting (and All-Star too but to a lesser degree) pitchers will work the edges, corners, down in the zone etc. They are really making you earn your AB's. If you can't work a count....stay away from All-Star and HOF levels, otherwise you will struggle badly.
The CPU pitching AI is the best it has ever been in the series and this is vital to my enjoyment of baseball. The hitter/pitcher dual is the heart and soul of the game itself. The Show captures this so well. No other console baseball game has ever been this realistic with this core aspect of the game we love.
Humanity AI - Introduced on 17, this has been taken up another notch. Infielders will throw with urgency when needed, or take a casual approach when they know they got a guy by a mile. And fielder ratings as well as player quirks definitely play into the paradigm dice roll result. A perfect example of this was a game I was playing with The Rockies. Arenado fielded a routine ground ball. The runner speed was 85.....he still took his time because he has a cannon. He then fired a dart to get him by 2 steps. It was beautiful to see.
The outfielders are not taking perfect routes on line drives and fly balls anymore. This was on 17, but again...incremental improvements folks. It is even better now. Not only that, I love the new 3rd out catch animations!!! They drastically improved that. Pitchers are covering home, pitchers are getting over to cover first. Players are all rotating and backing up bags as they should.
Catcher Animations/Throwing/new tagging system/CPU AI Fielding - Wow.....just wow. SDS heard our cries about this glaring wart on the otherwise excellent MLBTS 17 and man they really tuned this. I tried taking 3rd base with Stanton on a wild pitch and it got a fortuitous bounce off the padding back to Russell Martin.......but unlike last year where he would have floated a wounded duck throw to third (preceded by a mitt tap or two to boot) he fired a dart and nailed me by a step...and the tag was great. Speaking of tags....steals are far better on 18. Get a great jump with a real deal swiper and you will steal the bag. Get an average jump.....you still have a chance because guess what? Not every throw is perfect from the AI and middle infielders have balls that will pop out and you get a break. Pitchers will slide step, pitch out as usual. But also they removed that annoying slo-mo animation at 2nd base (thank you guys!). Tags are far more sharper and better this year and taking extra bases is now a game within a game. It was a long overdue improvement. Catchers react far better to nubbers but are not OP on them either. The balance just feels and looks so much better than any previous version of the game. Also errors. Now I can only speak to those that auto field/manual throw....at default you will see plenty. I actually lowered all four error sliders to 4 coupled with fielder reaction and fielder speed at 3. I am getting (IMO) true ratings based outcomes here. Elite plus gloves are just that. Below average gloves will hurt you!!!! Not every play is made. Defense matters again.
Presentation - Ok folks......here me on this one. For all the moaning and groaning about the booth, Derosa was a heck of an addition. I liked Harold....but I actually love Derosa. He brings a nice calmness to the booth this season. He has some great dynamic stories and I look forward to hearing these play out in my franchise as I move along. But the real stars are the new "Theme" redesigns. WOW!!!! I am loving the makeover Theme 1 and Theme 2 have received. Just really really sharp. I also love how with Sounds of The Show (more on that later) allows us to create 3 different ballpark environments in conjunction with all 3 themes (thank you SDS for hearing us on that too!). I have to say all the new camera angles, cut scenes, are simply fantastic. It feels like a new experience and I can't believe this is not being talked about more! Not only that the broadcast presentation has been drastically improved and it is the best it has been since MLB 11. No we don't get every single batter step out and reset like back then......but the pace of play is vastly improved from the streamlined package we had been given on 15,16 and 17. They really added back a lot of natural pace to the game. batters are stepping out, resetting, and stepping back in a lot more than before. I am so happy about that. Pitcher emotions are better, batter emotions are far better. I love the assumed ball four animations we are getting, the pitcher managers jawing at the umpires on borderline calls, or how about these new dynamic crowds!!!! Not only is that really well done now.....but the swelling of the crowds during rally's, big pitches, big moments...then if things go bad....that groan and dead silence. It really is a vast improvement. The atmosphere at the ball parks are really well done and vastly improved.
Visuals - This game is gorgeous on a 4K HDR TV. All I can say is if you are not playing the game on a PS4 Pro on a 4K......if you can afford it....do it. Clean. Colors are popping. The lighting is simply jaw dropping on day games. Weather effects are freaking on point! And we finally got Rain Delays! But player face scans look great. New Equipment, I am not a uniform crazy person.....they all look sharp to me. Ball parks look beautiful. Yankee Stadium, Atlanta's new park.....The bay in SF...PNC, Bush Stadium. So many amazing looking parks yet again. The Classics also look excellent again.
Franchise Mode - Ok....let's get this elephant out of the room. No new addition in terms of owner or GM duties. With that being said the new User Interface and color scheme change was urgently needed. Yes a new coat of paint. But whats wrong with a new coat of paint on a house you love. I love the home they built and it needed a new coat of paint. I love the new menus and as a veteran of the series where I knew where everything is......I love the more centralized menu. It was a nice touch and refreshing. I don't think this is all we will get moving forward. We will get more. With that being said, I am liking the new lineup AI (I still use 30 team control though in all my franchises except my fantasy franchise files) and on single team control I am seeing logical moves and an active AI trying to improve. Speaking of AI....fantasy drafts...the AI pulls the trigger on "A" prospects a lot earlier. So you can't stock up like in years past. Our hope is Franchise get's some more features added in terms of GM abilities.
But they made a lot of much needed under the hood improvements with logic and draft pools. But scouting and drafting needs to be re-thought in terms of immersion. I will withhold judgement as well on any new immersion the booth can bring with dynamic storylines as my season progresses.
Road To The Show - So at this time I have not even transferred over my 1987 Yankees AAA RF (was moved to RF early in my AA career and have been their ever since). I can't really comment on this yet. But I loved what I saw on the streams and I have received some great feedback from some OS'ers who love the changes.
Online - Yep.....so far....excellent. I have played a few DD games with some friends and have had a buttery smooth experience in terms of connectivity and servers being stable during the game. They did improve this 150% from 16 and 17 which were painful for me. I literally could not play online at all those two cycles. On MLB 15 it was great....then Diamond Dyansty really took off after they revamped it on 15. Word got out and the servers could not handle the traffic on both 16 and 17.
Diamond Dynasty - I dabble in this mode. I actually really like Conquest and am playing that mode and doing some card missions. I love collecting baseball cards and this mode is exactly that. We have a supporters league which will be holding our first card draft April 30th. That is the real reason I play DD. The missions are a huge grind and for the most part...I will be sitting a lot of those out. What I do is play the market, build my stubs and wait for market crashes on cards I want. i also love speculating on bronze and silvers that I feel will go gold. Hell I bought 10 Aaron Judge commons last cycle at release for peanuts.....all became high level golds. It's fun. period.
So let's talk about some negatives.
Sounds of The Show - we lost 5G of space this cycle. That really stinks after getting 5G more for 17. So I had to make some choices and it really was not hard to do in that regard since I play in the AL with my proper Yankees Franchise (carried over from 17). All teams on my schedule will be fully loaded with walkups, stadium sounds and vendor yells. I was able to fit all of that. But they need to patch the volume and reverb. It is too low. I know they have been made aware of this by Cujomatty and Lowlight and I am sure they will adjust it. But losing that extra space was a bummer and hopefully we get it back for 19.
Season Mode - WTF. I mean wow. That was a stunning development. Because of that design decision I did lose some really awesome rosters I had been carrying forward since MLB 14. I was able though to re-create franchise mode files with a ton of fantastic classic rosters on 17 and move them forward so all was not lost....but there are players who only play season mode and they now have lost all their progress if they want to continue on 18.
I know SDS has been silent on the matter.....but my theory is they either did not have the resources or time to put n the new UI into season mode that they did for franchise mode. Season mode does not have minor league development etc etc and the new UI focuses on 40 man rosters, drafts, scouting etc. That is my theory. The silence though is deafening and I would like to know the official reasoning behind this decision. Not that it really matters as the mode is absent from 18. But I would really like some clarity as to the "why".
So overall.....MLBTS18 is a fantastic package with Modes that will appeal to many.
It is a truly upgraded experience on the diamond no doubt about it. The game of baseball is represented in a highly realistic manner if you approach the game from that angle and get your settings and sliders locked in. To be frank default out of the box the game was and is fantastic. But I always find some slight tuning I like to customize to my taste and minimal slider adjustments get that accomplished. It is by far the easiest sports game to tune sliders for and by far the most realistic console sports game on the market.
There are some minor OSD bugs, some minor commentary quirks (Derosa talking about how it has been a rough season but he has plenty of time to get his contract year better when it is opening day lol). Speaking of Quirks the Player Quirks bug of pitchers having batting ones and vice versa has been fixed. The check swing strike appeals and check swing animations are fixed and smooth and work!!! You will get some strikes called when you should and some controversial calls as well!!! Nice touch.
This is easily a 9 out of 10 for me. If they had not removed Season Mode and reduced our SOTS file size space it really would have been 9.75/10
As far as on the field this is as good as it gets. Gameplay on the diamond is a substantial upgrade over 17!!!
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Fantastic review Armor!
I'm picking this up on my way home tonight. |
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