Hitting is not fun
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To be fair... starting with MLBTS19 as your base is not going to help...
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All of these points are true for me as well. I play basically just offline and on rookie or veteran. The content this year is fantastic. The hitting grind is brutal.
Perfect summary of this year's game happened to me in mini seasons yesterday on rookie. Scoreless game in the top of the 4th because, you know ... hitting. I strike out Babe Ruth with Rollie Fingers, but the pitch gets away in the dirt and Ruth reaches first. Why, why, why are there so many wild pitches this season??? These are major league catchers blocking here. Juan Soto then turns on a 1-2 fastball up and in for a 3-run bomb.
Bottom of the 4th, I've got Tim Raines ghost running on 2nd. He takes off for third (not my call), but I get a outside fastball to Craig Biggio, who smokes it to right "perfectly." First baseman makes a leaping grab of the 103mph hit then throws to second for the easy double play.
This game has always had a double play fixation, but the wild pitch thing and lack of offense this year are mood killers.
As it stands, I'm about 22 games into this mini season and I still need six hits by Barry Larkin for the Ryan Braun card, seven extra-base hits for the jumbo pack and 300 PXP for the pipeline pack. -
I understand most of what you're saying; I get that registering P/Ps only to hit into outs is frustrating for you and others, and I agree that the CPU plays too fine a defense, though I don't have the same frame of reference because I really don't enjoy playing below AS (though my understanding was that the lower levels slow the pitch speeds down and make your PCI and pitching inputs more forgiving, not that it necessarily changes how the CPU reacts)... but I don't understand this:
@Orcin_MLBTS said in Hitting is not fun:
... turning solid contact into lazy fly balls.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, here... I just don't know what this means. If you hit a lazy fly ball, what is it that makes you think you should have had solid contact? Is it just because of the feedback window? And, seriously, do any of us really know, definitively, what that shows? Is it reflective of where the ball would have or already had crossed the plane of the plate (because if you swing early, it hasn't, and if you're late, it's already past that point)? Does it show the point where contact was made (likely not, as it shows the PCI as it was on the batter screen, but, depending on your timing, you would have swung through that point in space if early or not yet reached it if late)? And I'm referencing the black screen when I talk about the feedback window; that overhead bat graphic is nonsense and clearly does not show anything close to what happened.
I guess I think I'm saying that too much is being made of the feedback screen. I don't think we have a clear enough understanding of that, and I'm not so sure it works, anyway. Where offense is concerned, reliance on that window seems to be ruining people's lives.
On defense, you're probably right that some sliders were turned up to stop easy grinding (the CPU is quicker than I am to react, on AS, anyway, but still makes errors with realistic enough frequency, in my experience), but I just don't see the issue with hitting; it's just less forgiving and exit velocities are more realistic, statistically.
I think that not only makes hitting more fun, it finally makes pitching and defense fun, too. That makes for a better overall baseball game.
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@The_Joneser_PSN said in Hitting is not fun:
I'm not trying to pick a fight, here... I just don't know what this means. If you hit a lazy fly ball, what is it that makes you think you should have had solid contact? Is it just because of the feedback window? And, seriously, do any of us really know, definitively, what that shows? Is it reflective of where the ball would have or already had crossed the plane of the plate (because if you swing early, it hasn't, and if you're late, it's already past that point)? Does it show the point where contact was made (likely not, as it shows the PCI as it was on the batter screen, but, depending on your timing, you would have swung through that point in space if early or not yet reached it if late)? And I'm referencing the black screen when I talk about the feedback window; that overhead bat graphic is nonsense and clearly does not show anything close to what happened.
Between the feedback screen (where the PCI is relative to the ball such as if you miss under or over it, or if you’re right on it; and, where the swing timing is within the green/yellow shading on the overhead view) and analysis screen (PCI rating on the scale of 0 to 15; and, timing as categorized in the analysis), you can get a good idea of the quality of input from the hitter. Once you account for pitch location, hitter attributes like power, and hitter swing type (balanced, contact, or power), you have a good idea of potential outcomes.
All of that then goes into the RNG and that spits out the randomized outcome.
Generally, once you understand all of that, what people are describing generally relates to two things:
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More “okay contact” outcomes on good input than past years. The contact outcomes are perfect, good, okay, weak, or other. Great swing input on strikes is typically perfect or good contact. Good swing input on strikes is typically good or okay contact. The more good swing input translates to okay contact, the less rewarding the game feels. The more good swing input translates to good contact, the more rewarding the game feels. Okay contact is often routine fly balls.
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Less exit velocity on good contact. There’s a lot of 90 to 95 mph fly balls occurring on good contact.
I haven’t looked at this year’s offline slider options but a staple of the game’s sliders for years has included a “solid hit” slider. It basically deals with how often good swing input translates to good or okay contact. This year feels like that slider has been turned down a couple notches. It doesn’t really impact great swings, that are typically perfect or good contact, and are what typically lead to big innings. It seems to be in that good but not great category that input just feels very unrewarding.
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@The_Joneser_PSN said in Hitting is not fun:
but I don't understand this:
@Orcin_MLBTS said in Hitting is not fun:
... turning solid contact into lazy fly balls.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, here... I just don't know what this means. If you hit a lazy fly ball, what is it that makes you think you should have had solid contact? Is it just because of the feedback window?
Yes. The feedback window says that my contact was "good". I think it is reasonable to then assume that my contact was good. I have no other data.
I don't believe you are in a position to understand the concerns expressed by myself and others in this thread. You say that you don't play on anything below all-star. I never play above veteran. You talk about the pci placement, but I use directional hitting. I think your skill level is too high to relate to our difficulties. Again, I don't want to change your experience. I just think that rookie and veteran should be a bit more forgiving.
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Upvote upvote upvote
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As someone who plays exclusively offline Rookie, I think I’m usually the one to blame when I get into a hitting slump. It almost always means I’m getting impatient and chasing bad pitches. When I’m patient and not chasing pitches out of the zone, or even taking pitches in the zone but not “my pitch” (eg. low and away or high and inside) I’m usually rewarded with very hittable pitches down the middle and enjoy running up the score to 29-0.
Maybe it’s different for the Switch version but with the slower frame rates I find it harder to chase pitches on Veteran (I despise moments) as they are almost always thrown to the edges of the zone. I happy to play my little patience game on Rookie instead.
Most of my players are batting .400+ and I have all programs and conquest maps complete. It’s a nice little sweet spot for me.
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agreed with everything you said. Grinding this year is a big problem and slow. They nerf the hell out of mini seasons. Pitching is a mess you either getting dotting to death or walk to death. Hitting is randomly as hell to. Rookie plays like all star, veteran plays like rookie, hall of fame plays like all star, legend play like Goat, and Goat plays like legend this is all offline playing. And cpu can go from hitting like a toddler and the next minute plays like a top 10 player with eyes of a eagle. -
They are doing this to support their power creep. In '15-17 or so, they allowed you to just mash fastballs down the middle and grind all day on Rookie vs CPU. You could even play a (grind friendly) user created team named the "Yetis", and get even more stats/xp etc., with ease... Nowadays, while grinding vs CPU is not difficult, it is a lot more time consuming and tedious. Basically, grinding vs CPU on Rookie/Veteran/AS etc. is working as intended.
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How does making low difficulty offline play tedious as heck with nerfed results and CPU rarely throwing a hittable pitch support the power creep? Their release of cards should support the creep plain and simple. This year is far worse than the previous 5 and I just don’t get it. Maybe it motivates others to play more but it makes me want to play less and the fun factor is diminished 10 fold.
As an offline player no one cares what card I do and don’t have. All this does is make the game less fun and rewarding for me which is ridiculous. I play to chill and unwind from life. If players want to be challenged let them do so online at higher difficulties.
Make rookie play like rookie plain and simple. Rookie mode in most other games has this figured out but in the show rookie is just slower pitch speeds and bigger PCIs. Otherwise there is almost no advantage to playing on Rookie or Veteran because the CPU will still super dot and drive up your pitch count by taking pitches just off the black and fouling off 10 pitches if the inning is going just a bit too fast. Makes no sense.
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Strongly agree with most of whats been said here. Its actually refreshing that there are so many people liking and sharing their similar gripes as opposed to what you see on alot of forums like this, fanboys, undercover interns etc dismissing valid concerns and or defending the game as some beacon of perfection.
Hitting is ABYSMAL. Particularly as others have said for offline low difficulty players. I get that there have been years where EVERYTHING is a homerun and no one wants that either. But this is the opposite extreme and its just as bad, if not worse.
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@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Hitting is not fun:
How does making low difficulty offline play tedious as heck with nerfed results and CPU rarely throwing a hittable pitch support the power creep? Their release of cards should support the creep plain and simple. This year is far worse than the previous 5 and I just don’t get it. Maybe it motivates others to play more but it makes me want to play less and the fun factor is diminished 10 fold.
As an offline player no one cares what card I do and don’t have. All this does is make the game less fun and rewarding for me which is ridiculous. I play to chill and unwind from life. If players want to be challenged let them do so online at higher difficulties.
Make rookie play like rookie plain and simple. Rookie mode in most other games has this figured out but in the show rookie is just slower pitch speeds and bigger PCIs. Otherwise there is almost no advantage to playing on Rookie or Veteran because the CPU will still super dot and drive up your pitch count by taking pitches just off the black and fouling off 10 pitches if the inning is going just a bit too fast. Makes no sense.
Your first paragraph is confusing to me because you seem to be putting together three different thoughts of mine as one. Otherwise I think we are in full agreement. As we usually are from the posts of yours I've read in the past.
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@SquishySoldier_MLBTS said in Hitting is not fun:
Strongly agree with most of whats been said here. Its actually refreshing that there are so many people liking and sharing their similar gripes as opposed to what you see on alot of forums like this, fanboys, undercover interns etc dismissing valid concerns and or defending the game as some beacon of perfection.
Hitting is ABYSMAL. Particularly as others have said for offline low difficulty players. I get that there have been years where EVERYTHING is a homerun and no one wants that either. But this is the opposite extreme and its just as bad, if not worse.
It's hard to argue against our problems with the game when, we know, the game is so good otherwise. It's the "I like everything but..."
It's the people that have one problem with the game and state the whole thing is "trash." It's not trash. They've done a lot of work to make MLBTS25 better and, mostly, succeeded. As I said, there are always growing pains. Hopefully it gets fixed.
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"Make rookie play like rookie" is a valid point, but you forget that people are involved.
For years (between 2017-2020 mostly,but after too) people bragged all over these forums about playing the Rockies on rookie at Coors and putting up 50-0,75-0,etc. and finishing programs in a game or two.
It was even derogatory too," you can't hit unless you are beating up the Rockies at Coors on rookie".
This experience you are having is a direct result of people ruining a good thing.
I've said it many times, when something isn't working the way it should, it ALWAYS is because at some point somehow people ruined it. -
Agree 100% on the pitching. Commons and bronzes shouldn’t pitch like diamonds.
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I’m ok with pitching stats mattering to cause the hits you guys are talking about. But in moments and challenges, NO. Reward the swings so I’m not stuck grinding so I can play. Especially if I know how to hit perfect perfects for a moment.
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@PAinPA_PSN I would argue that adding something like diminishing returns where after so many home runs, hits whatever the xp and parallel progress gets to practically nothing. Why ruin the game for everyone when it's simply easier to penalize the bad apples. Apply the same thing to xp from different game modes so actually playing a nine inning cpu game is worth it instead of ruining entire game modes. Honestly how many people play MTO this year because it's a lot of fun but theres zero reason to play it now.
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@PAinPA_PSN My opinion on that has always been "and?". That's not a fun way to play, I certainly will not be playing that way, but if that's how people want to do it, I never saw the problem with it. It was certainly a MUCH better state than what we have now. Look a the lowest difficulty on NHL. Yeah, you can score 30 goals a game, and it's the most boring thing you will ever do. Sure, some choose to do so, but nowhere near most. The lowest difficulty should not require actual skill in the game (and Rookie, as it stands now, very much so does) or you are preventing any new players from sticking around. People get the Show to play baseball, not Elden Ring, and if you are brand new to the franchise right now, that's probably exactly what it feels like.
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100%. I’ve mentioned in other posts I’ve tried to get my son into playing the game so we could enjoy it together. He loves baseball, is already a good player in real life baseball, but doesn’t like playing the show because even on rookie difficulty the learning curve is way too steep. He can pitch a bit but the hitting is so ridiculous it’s just not fun for him so he has moved on.
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@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Hitting is not fun:
Make rookie play like rookie plain and simple. Rookie mode in most other games has this figured out but in the show rookie is just slower pitch speeds and bigger PCIs.
And the bigger PCIs don't even seem to matter to the people that would rather just use timing or directional (and I would wager this is not remotely a small amount).
And the absolute nonsense of 100% of pitches with good timing on the edge of green being foul balls just prolongs at bats. These dont need to line drives, they should be soft hit balls, but soft hit balls in play
