Detailing the Changes to Hitting Coming to MLB The Show 19

[JoshC1977]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mercury112491

This this this this this this 1000X THIS!!!!!!! I swear it’s like some people on this bird just completely shut down if there’s any context given that what they’re fixing came from online feedback. How can people say they’re doing nothing when a ton of the GAMEPLAY(you know, the most important part of a game) changes this year will make for a smoother and more sim game of baseball across the board. I can understand the frustration of not getting a meaningful update to franchise mode for several years. I love playing online leagues with friends so trust me, I know your pain. But to just so blindly direct so much hate towards the DD community is ridiculous.

Very well said!

I don't play DD online (because I play no games online), but I have watched a lot of top guys stream and guess what, a lot of these guys know and understand baseball (and probably know just as much, if not more, than most of the "franchise guys" that are constantly bashing them).

Believe it or not, most of what those top DD guys (the ones solicited for feedback) want, gameplay-wise, is a realistic representation of the game. Most of the stuff that can be exploited online can be exploited offline because of some core flaws. Those things get fixed, that is good for all of us, no matter if you play online/offline, DD, RTTS, or franchise.

To assume someone is not "sim" because of the mode they play is disingenuous. To assume someone IS "sim" because of the mode they play is equally disingenuous.

[Therebelyell626]

I am in the camp that thinks fixing gameplay flaws for the online crowd by nerfing aspects of the game is a bad idea.

But then again there does seem to be a growing optimism that these fixes might actually lead to better offline gameplay. However I think you optimists are going to be very dissapointed the first time you throw a breaking ball in the perfect spot in the RIGHT situation. Paint the corner and it gets tatooed over the wall all in the name of making off speed pitches less efffective so that online players cannot stream a 20 minute video about the "meta" low breaking ball pitch.

Athlon sports released its annual MLB preview magazine this year and did a whole article on how he slider has become the most effective pitch in baseball. one of the highlights of the article was a chart that shows the preference was a 2 seam or sinking fastball low in the zone over a slider up until about 2016. In 2018 the slider was thrown more than the 2 seam/sinker by the widest margin in the history of baseball. The article also details how several players had career rennaisances after adopting a slider including Trevor Bauer who had at one point junked his slider completely for a version that more resembled a cut fastball, but brought it back last year and had a career year.

I only point this out because the statement "making breaking balls less effective overall" goes against the current trend of actual professional baseball which is not sim at all. This is the definition of nerfing something for "video game" reasons and has me very concerned for this years game unfortunately.

[JoshC1977]

Quote: Originally Posted by Therebelyell626

I only point this out because the statement "making breaking balls less effective overall" goes against the current trend of actual professional baseball which is not sim at all. This is the definition of nerfing something for "video game" reasons and has me very concerned for this years game unfortunately.

What if the reason were that breaking balls were unrealistically effective overall on 18 (which I happen to think that they were - it was pretty easy to induce the CPU to swing-miss on them, even on HOF)? Then toning them down for 19 would actually bring them more in-line with real life. (And yes, I am fully acknowledging today's environment.)

This is incredibly subjective (we'd need whiff rates consisting of hundreds of thousands of data points from numerous users with different pitchers to prove this) and no one is right nor wrong. Just offering a different way of looking at it

[Vercingetirex]

Quote: Originally Posted by Therebelyell626

I am in the camp that thinks fixing gameplay flaws for the online crowd by nerfing aspects of the game is a bad idea. But then again there does seem to be a growing optimism that these fixes might actually lead to better offline gameplay. However I think you optimists are going to be very dissapointed the first time you throw a breaking ball in the perfect spot in the RIGHT situation. Paint the corner and it gets tatooed over the wall all in the name of making off speed pitches less efffective so that online players cannot stream a 20 minute video about the "meta" low breaking ball pitch. Athlon sports released its annual MLB preview magazine this year and did a whole article on how he slider has become the most effective pitch in baseball. one of the highlights of the article was a chart that shows the preference was a 2 seam or sinking fastball low in the zone over a slider up until about 2016. In 2018 the slider was thrown more than the 2 seam/sinker by the widest margin in the history of baseball. The article also details how several players had career rennaisances after adopting a slider including Trevor Bauer who had at one point junked his slider completely for a version that more resembled a cut fastball, but brought it back last year and had a career year. I only point this out because the statement "making breaking balls less effective overall" goes against the current trend of actual professional baseball which is not sim at all. This is the definition of nerfing something for "video game" reasons and has me very concerned for this years game unfortunately.

In the hitting stream they said offspeed were nerfed, with the exception of the slider. So sliders will still be effective

[Therebelyell626]

Quote: Originally Posted by JoshC1977

This is incredibly subjective (we'd need whiff rates consisting of hundreds of thousands of data points from numerous users with different pitchers to prove this) and no one is right nor wrong. Just offering a different way of looking at it

Definitely! And I think different view points are what makes debate fun. I guess none of us really know until we get our hands on the game. I just think this is going to be the year of the hitter for the show. I can see how the changes to contact hitters can be good. I even saw the counter point that the defensive changes were to counter balance the changes to harder exit velocities. But pitchers need to be able to get batters out to. Balls in play cannot be the only way to get bathers out, we have to be able to strike hitters out as well or the in game stats are going to be a mess. If fastballs are my only consistently effective pitch I could see a problem where a lot of balls are getting put into play way above major league averages. Now this great if I am an online competitive player. Fast paced high scoring games, sign me up. But terrible if you are a sim player

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by BigOscar

I don't like the pitching change, I think it's the wrong way of doing things and pretty much the opposite of how things actually work. In real life, the more I throw a pitch (successfully), the better feel I will get for it, not worse. If I throw that pitch and have success, I will keep throwing it and my confidence in it will grow. Pitchers frequently lean on whatever pitch is feeling best that day. (just ask Lance McCullers and his endless curveballs) The downside to throwing the same pitch too often isn't that I lose control of it, it's that the hitters get to see it more and they also become more aware I'm going to throw it, so might sit on it. So to punish my control for throwing that pitch is the wrong way of going about it and doesn't make any real sense, if instead you want to improve the hitters success rate(hard hit %, speeds of the bat etc) when they actually read it correctly, that'd be much more in line with how it should realistically work.

Yeah, and this hearkens back to the underlying issue being with online gamers cheesing one another. The offliners get caught up in the crossfire. This is where the "why" is important.

The real way to fix spamming pitches would be to make the opposing human player smarter and to make that player lie in wait for offspeed. But, this is not a dev tool Sony has available to them. So, they go the route of doing something they can control, which frankly sounds like making pitching/pitch sequencing more arcade-y feeling, as the pitches depreciate with use. Which is, again, absolutely the opposite of how "sim" pitching/pitch confidence should work.

Making the offspeed pitches less effective overall is a different issue, I think.

[nemesis04]

I hope less effective does not mean meatballs over the plate.

[TheWarmWind]

As an offline franchise only player, I still thought that offspeed pitches were too powerful. My fastball to offspeed ratio is way out of whack compared to real life pitchers, because it works way to well.

Even when facing it, there are times when I think "Man, this CPU just needs to throw nothing but changeups and I won't get a hit all game." Curveballs especially were too powerful in 18. I don't think I ever saw a single one get hit for a home run, either by me or by the CPU.

I'm way more worried about the new tier system with pitchers. I've been playing a carry over since 14, and I've got pitchers who developed their 2nd, 3rd, 4rth, or even 5th pitch into their best pitch. A few of them even have the perk relating to the pitch, confirming that it is really good.

I have a guy who just recently managed to crack the rotation. The majority of his ratings progression came from his secondary pitches improving, and he now has the splitter perk, showing that he throws an exceptional splitter. His splitter is his 5th pitch. Right now he's a solid addition to the bottom half of my rotation, but now I'm worried that he's just going to become a useless turd when carried over to 19. This change just restricts pitching development so much. People can and do change what their best pitch is over the length of a career.

It's so frustrating because under the current system I do have guys that only have 1 or 2 truly effective pitches, and their other pitches are only for once in a blue moon, and then I've got guys with a 5 effective pitches. Under the new system I feel like I'm rolling the dice on two pitches, and I'm worried that anything below that will become ineffective on every single pitcher. That is neither realistic or fun, and like I said before, leaves no room for creative growth.

This is just my concern though. I'll have to wait to see how the new system is actually implemented before giving my final judgement.