05-02-2018, 05:36 PM
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#1
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Rookie
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Celebration Animations
Long post alert!
Let me preface this by saying, in most cases, this game is truly one of the best games I have ever played gameplay wise. I don't have many problems at all and it is yet another step in the right direction from a franchise that should pride themselves on gameplay. BUT. Having said that, I have to mention this to this community just for the possibility that it gets read by someone who agrees with me because it is absolutely incredible.
If I'm being 100% honest here I would be one of the first people to tell you I was stoked about the new bat flips, home run and on-base celebrations for this game. Something that I felt had been robotic for the life of this game had finally gotten an upgrade. More ways to customize and give personality to players! Why would anyone ever be opposed to that? Is what I thought... Then I got The Show '18 and where can I even begin? It's almost as if the developers have never played or watched baseball before in their entire life. It's one thing to pimp a home run and flip your bat defiantly, but holy moly. It goes straight from "tame and how we used to do it" with HR Swing Animations 1-6 to "if this ever happened on a baseball field all hell would break loose and someone's getting head hunted" with all of the others. As Drake would say, that went 0-100 REAL quick.
I hate to compare NBA 2K & MLB The Show, but one of the best parts about the personality that 2K gives to the players is that they are things that are feasible. If someone makes a big three pointer, you can scream and yell while running back, flex, or do something that's generally cool that you'd want to see your player do in a big moment. There are MAYBE, if I'm being generous, five or six new HR Swings that I would actually equip to one of my players... And the problem with even that, is that the only useable bat flips are all exclusive to righties with one-handed follow throughs... Which is almost as if they were mo-capping these new animations and realized... Wait a sec, we don't have any lefties here... Ahh F it. Lefties don't play baseball anyway. I'm a 29-year-old former baseball player, and I think that bat flips and emotion are the part of baseball that makes it so great and unique... A match-up of batter vs pitcher, especially in a high stress moment is something that can't really be described. It's like boxing, golf, tennis and chess all in the blink of an eye. So when you take a pitcher giving his full effort deep, you just beat that person - you won - it's like you just knocked him out. Nobody and I mean NOBODY who has ever actually played the sport, would EVER think to themselves - "yeah, after I win this extreme battle of wits, I'm going to start riding my bat around like a pony and doing cartwheels before I start trotting around the bases". I absolutely, 100% can NOT believe how tone deaf a group of developers can be.
Home Run Swings
-A whole section of righty, 1-Handed follow throughs where the follow through itself is awkward with all the weight on the front foot as if the person's never swung a bat before
-Every single righty, 2-Handed Follow Through HR Swing that was added this year is obnoxious other than the one where you throw the bat away, which is still less than ideal
-No new lefty HR swings... Because, you know, why add anything for lefty power hitters. It's not like there are any lefty power hitters in the league.
HR Celebrations
What can be said about the generic HR celebrations that I haven't already said? This is the most infuriating to me because there are literally no (ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH) generic HR celebrations that make even the slightest bit of sense. How does a team of developers look at literally Every. Single. Player-specific HR celebration that they have already and be like... "yea, I see a lot of salutes to the heavens and pounding of chests, but what this game needs is MOONWALKING TO THE PLATE AND BEING A DOUCHE TO THE 3RD BASE COACH YEAHHH"
Would it be so terrible to have guys be excited, but not in an acting like a five-year-old kinda way?
On-Base Celebrations
I love that they added these because every single team has their own celebrations to the bench for when they get hits... I just wish it played to the situation a little more. If it's the 1st inning, then maybe just a little subtle point to the bench would be fine. In a big situation, then maybe you can bust out the stirring the pot into super dab animation. I don't know.
TL;DR - Come on SDS... You're better than this. Tone it down a little bit and make it a little "cooler" when you're celebrating. Just take a look at all of the player-specific animations you all already have. Be more like that!
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