Timing hitting
-
Did SDS modify the sliders? Seems alot more difficult.
-
The hitting in general this year feels awful compared to last year I don't know what they did I don't know why they screwed with the hitting personally It was fine there was no need to mess around with it this year the hitting just doesn't feel as rewarding and the pictures seem to throw faster than your hitter can actually catch up to it at least that's from my experience so far I'm having a really hard time figuring out what's a fastball and what's not because the game doesn't really give you anything this year where in previous years you could kind of read it off the pitch's hand not this year I don't know what they've done to the hitting but they need to reverse it because it's dreadful
-
Not sure, never used it till now.
Lost against Valenzuela in MS and 3 times in DQ showdown,couldn't touch him, so I said F it I'll use timing, (directional was iffy too) beat him 2 of the 3 times and beat him easily.could be beginners luck though -
The timing windows all feel much different. Fly balls don’t travel at all unless you square them up. Lots of late movement on all pitches makes squaring up pitches significantly more difficult. Fastballs get on top of you much faster and change ups make you either miss or hit foul balls. Lots of line outs and low exit velocities. The hit variety is much better than HR or bust but the quality of contact is abysmal. Hitting is extremely unrewarding. If I was new to the game I’d quit for sure. On rookie or veteran the game should be pick up and play and it’s very far from it.
-
@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Timing hitting:
Hitting is extremely unrewarding.
My brother in christ, you hit the nail on the head there. I'm all for not having that "HR or bust" result you mentioned, because not everything hard hit needs to be a home run. But it shouldn't NEED to be a P/P most of the time to get a non Texas leaguer. But good lord, the exit velos need to be adjusted/tweaked, because the results simply aren't matching the contact. And I've got two different examples below
Example 1: I turn on an inside fastball with a righty, just to the left of dead nuts center of the PCI. While not right bang on the sweet spot, that batted ball would more than likely be scorched down the third base line at bare minimum of what is considered a hard-hit ball (95mph +)...but it's not, it's producing a 70 to 80 mph or even a dribbler.
Example 2: Squaring up a pitch PERFECTLY, and in this scenario I'm talking bat is even with the top of the plate...this thing should be ripped right back up the middle, or hit the pitcher...but it's not, it'll yank down the line. Now I stopped playing competitive baseball two years ago (big ol' middle finger to my knees for that one)...but I've never had a ball smoked that even that didn't rocket back up the middle.
The timing windows don't feel like they're properly synched with the swing/ball mechanics at the moment to me
-
Yep, completely agree it’s off. I’m not asking for last years game but there has to be a happy medium.
-
You have to remember that we're all used to using max everything and now we're using 86 or lower overalls that don't have max everything
-
@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Timing hitting:
The timing windows all feel much different. Fly balls don’t travel at all unless you square them up. Lots of late movement on all pitches makes squaring up pitches significantly more difficult. Fastballs get on top of you much faster and change ups make you either miss or hit foul balls. Lots of line outs and low exit velocities. The hit variety is much better than HR or bust but the quality of contact is abysmal. Hitting is extremely unrewarding. If I was new to the game I’d quit for sure. On rookie or veteran the game should be pick up and play and it’s very far from it.
I agree with everything you wrote up until the last three sentences.
Fly balls shouldn't travel unless you square them up. Pitches from major leaguers should break late and make contact more difficult. Fastballs should get on top you quickly, and change-ups should make you miss if you don't anticipate them. The average exit velocity in MLB is 89mph, so think about how low the exit velocities are on many batted balls when you figure in the almost 6,500 HRs and scorched liners... to average 89mph, there is an astronomical amount of lazy contact.
These are all good things, and I'm thrilled with the current state of hitting. This is a lot more realistic, and if failing in a simulation of a game where failure is the norm makes people want to quit, I'm okay with that. Getting hits when it's hard is rewarding; getting easy hits when you shouldn't is not.
-
I understand it’s a delicate balance but at the end of the day it’s a video game and should deviate more towards fantasy than reality. Reality is that hitting a baseball hard consistently is the most difficult thing to do in sports. My argument is that this is fine to implement on middle to higher difficulties. Low difficulties should be much easier. If the game is too difficult and unrewarding people will leave in masses leaving only the sweats and whales behind. It’s a very slippery slope.
-
I agree it is a delicate balance, and I lean more towards appreciating the realistic aspect of the game and the variety of hit/no hit results I am getting right now. (Not every hit can be a HR or perfect/perfect timing, even though it seems every streamer/YT video I watch, they can connect and mash them out of the park every time they swing).
-
That’s because they play the game for a living so are super talented at it. Plus they write off stubs so they have all the best overpowered cards at their disposal.
-
@TripleH-4481_PSN Agreed. Still, it's frustrating to watch as a weekend warrior, lol! I want to mash 'em, too, and rock my all-diamond squad after 10 lucky pack pulls in a row. LOL
-
Oh I get it. It’s all a show in the end so can’t compare ourselves to them. Completely different scenarios.
-
@The_Joneser_PSN I agree with both of you You both make some very good points I just feel like the hitting needs to be tuned a little bit I mean it can be done in a patch It's not the end of the world but I definitely like to see some work done with the hitting
-
They need to nerf the CPU defence on the left of the infield (those SS dives are ridiculous) and maybe tune down the OF range by 5-10% and it will be perfect.
As far as quality of contact/timing/ev, loving it so far (playing on AS).
Another thing contributing, CPU has a quick hook this year; you used to be able to drain the pitchers and hammer them; now a RP gives up 2 straight hits and out the manager comes. I remember in 21 when playing Conquest the SP would never sniff the 2nd inning; now it’s back unless you go 1-2-3 with less than 10 pitches.
Every year early in the power creep my strategy was to take pitches and then go on the attack once the P got tired, until better cards came out and I could be more aggressive. It’s tougher this year for the grind, but makes MS more competitive and fun.
-
@TripleH-4481_PSN And every year, I think that I can compete with that level while playing five to ten hours a week, and I throw my preorder money at SDS like a good little gamer. They have me trained well. lol
-
@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Timing hitting:
I understand it’s a delicate balance but at the end of the day it’s a video game and should deviate more towards fantasy than reality. Reality is that hitting a baseball hard consistently is the most difficult thing to do in sports. My argument is that this is fine to implement on middle to higher difficulties. Low difficulties should be much easier. If the game is too difficult and unrewarding people will leave in masses leaving only the sweats and whales behind. It’s a very slippery slope.
It is a delicate balance, and, please, understand that I'm not bagging on you when I say this (because your opinion is certainly as valid as mine): if the game claims to be a baseball simulation, which it does (this was said explicitly in the streams hyping the improvements to add realism), then it should lean more toward realism and embrace it.
I understand the sentiment that middle and higher difficulties should be more realistic and difficult, and that lower difficulties should easy, and I largely agree with you, but I guess where I disagree is that I think that the low difficulties are already pretty [censored] easy. Even for the moments in which people "fail," I ask if it's really failing to perform at a level that often exceeds the prowess of the very best major leaguers... for example, Aaron Judge led MLB players in 2024 by homering in every 9.6 ABs. So, if it takes someone 10 tries to hit a home run in some random moment on Veteran, is that really indicative of it being too hard? Making it too much easier makes it something that is not baseball.
If someone struggles so mightily that they can't find any success against the CPU on Rookie or Veteran as those difficulty levels are right now, using Directional or Timing, then I think it's fair to say that that subset of players is not the subset of players that the game should be designed around.
I get that I'm probably in the minority, but I like to play Conquest and Mini Seasons on HOF... and not because I'm good (I'm not), but because I like knowing that I have a decent chance of losing. That consistent hard contact is so hard to achieve is not a bug, but the game's best feature, so I guess my argument is that if someone can't handle failure, then baseball isn't the game for them. Yes, this is a video game, but so are the games that comprise the entire Souls-like genre; video games don't need to be easy to be popular and/or good, and a video game that claims to be a baseball simulation shouldn't ignore the sport's central tenets to appease those who want easy wins and no resistance.
-
@xsawxsaw2121_PSN, I agree with a lot of what he's saying, too; there are a lot of us playing, and no way to make everyone happy.
I'd like to see hitting tuned a little more, too... I'd like to see it made a little more difficult
-
@The_Joneser_PSN on the higher levels definitely but it's when you're playing franchise mode there needs to be sort of a middle ground if that makes any sense
