Community Forum

They adjusted the range of the PCI to allow for perfect-perfect hits on the low and away corner last year, meaning you can cover a larger area with the PCI. While it fixed the issue of the "impossible PP", it also allows for more foul balls and hits on balls out of the strike zone.

In short: It feels like MLB 21 with more pop-ups and less power.

For context: I played more than 600+ hours of MLB 21, and while the hitting engine didn't suck, I found that there were times when players, particularly lower-skilled players, were being granted foul tips on balls a major leaguer would have very little chance to hit (ie. very late on an inside slider, 8 inches away from the PCI at the bottom of the zone). That's not so say that there wasn't give and take, like hard hit lineouts and bloop singles. That's baseball, I get that. I just felt like when I'd thrown 3 "out" pitches in a row and my opponent was able to foul them off, I was almost being forced into a mistake that my opponent would capitalize on in every other game.

During the tech test, I noticed a lot of similarities to the way 21 played. The biggest changes were the power on balls directly in the PCI, and the number of pop-ups that came from being on the edge of the PCI. I don't hate these changes, but when you show me two identical PCI placements and one is a homer while the other is a pop-up, I just can't see how that makes for a balanced gameplay experience.

All I want is consistency. While this is just a tech test, I feel like there should definitely be some changes to hitting in the early game cycle so that MLB 22's hitting isn't just MLB 21.25.