@The_Joneser_PSN said in Timing and directional hitting are so nerfed:

@sauciestburrito_PSN said in [Timing and directional hitting are so nerfed]

I have a couple of counterpoints for you. As you say, zone is more difficult than timing or directional. There are two aspects to zone hitting - pci placement and timing. Directional and timing rely solely on the user's swing timing. To say that zone is more lenient with swing timing is only partially true. Yes, it is true in the sense that you can have slightly off timing and still make good contact, but that is because there is another aspect, the PCI. If you square up the ball with your PCI, you can still make good contact even if you are early or late.

To say that zome is more lenient than timing or directional is misleading though, because they only have one aspect of user input - timing. If you aren't perfect with your timing on those settings, then you didn't do the one thing you are required to do correctly, and therefore should not be rewarded. With zone, if you at least place the PCI correctly, you did one of the two inputs correctly, and should then have a better result than someone who had the same timing input with directional.

On the flip side, with zone, you can have perfect timing, but if your PCI is way off, you can completely whiff. Yes, you can hit pitches out of the zone, but that is a result of getting the PCI to the ball. In my experience, it is very rare that someone actually makes good contact on pitches way out of the zone. It's more of an issue with fouling off those pitches.

Regardless of whether or not you think zone is realistic or not, the fact is that zone is more difficult. When it comes to h2h online play, you have to reward skill, and zone is higher skill, higher reward. If you gave timing and directional the same "leniency" that you say zone has in regards to timing, and all you had to do was have good timing and you could hit any pitch, pitching would be impossible. Offline, who cares, use whatever you want, but online h2h, zone is the only setting that should be competitive at high levels, as it should be.

Thanks - I appreciate the well-reasoned response. Of course, I have some counterpoints as well...

While your points about Zone having two aspects to manage are correct, your assessment of Timing, as I use it, is incorrect; I use analog stride, which requires timing the batter's stride, timing the swing to hit the pitch, and a less complicated version of placement (analog "swings" use straight up for a pitch located in the middle, and the diagonals for inside/outside – and that “swing” location matters very much). So, there's much more to it than the swing timing alone, but, and I've already conceded this, none of those aspects (there are three) are, on their own merit, more difficult than properly controlling the PCI.

And my saying that Zone is more lenient than Timing where timing the swing is concerned is absolutely accurate; you do not get good contact with early or late swings when using Timing, let alone HRs. At least on AS or above, it simply doesn't allow you to swing early or late and get good results.
I'm also not advocating for Timing to be any more lenient where swing timing is concerned; I agree with you (it's in the name, after all) that it should be precise in that mode and, if anything, made more difficult rather than easier. My contention is that swing timing should be equally important in Zone, despite having to deal with PCI placement.
Those who state the inherent difficulty in Zone nearly always go on to say that it's difficult to master and thus, should be more heavily rewarded… I’m not necessarily opposed to this. But mastery involves addressing both aspects of the mechanic; if you place the PCI perfectly, but screw the pooch on the timing, then you have mastered nothing and deserve no reward. That’s my issue… it isn’t that the way I use Timing is too difficult, but that Zone isn’t as difficult as people say it is if it rewards users with poor input where timing is concerned (aren’t many of the complaints from Zone users that bad input is rewarded?). If that’s the case, then people are getting the benefit (high reward) from using Zone without using it well enough to merit that reward.

That’s what I’m saying. Tighten it up, and I think the result will be a widening of the skill gap and it will only benefit truly proficient users of the mechanic while taking that reward away from those who really don’t deserve it.

Me, I’ll go on losing to good Zone players and marvel at their prowess… when deserved. I will keep using Timing (my way) in Ranked, and don’t agree at all with limiting RS to Zone only (if people like me want to handicap ourselves, we should be allowed to; if Zone players can’t beat us, then they don’t deserve wins).

Thanks for not being a jackass and laying out your argument nicely.

Absolutely, I see where you're coming from. I think it just comes down to the fact that you have to try and have a level playing field when it comes to online h2h, and zone is just the best way to do that currently. If you're going to let people use different input methods when playing against each other, then you have to reward people for using/mastering the harder method, and punish them for using the easier method. I see what you're saying about people being rewarded for poor input with zone, but I think it's still harder to put bat to ball, and have decent timing, than to simply have perfect timing and point to the right general direction.

The main point of contention seems to be that the PCI negates some of the difficulty of swing timing when using zone, which is true to a degree, but I would argue that it's actually more realistic than solely relying on timing. In real life, you could square up a ball, but be late or early, and you're still gonna hit it hard, just down the line or maybe foul. If all you're relying on is swing timing, there's no bat to ball aspect. Granted, I have not used analog in years, so I can't speak to exactly how it plays, but I think that zone still is gonna have the widest skill gap no matter what. The skill gap would be significantly smaller if timing is the only aspect of user input that matters.

Could the timing aspect of zone be tightened up? Probably. But you're always gonna have some fluky hits no matter what input you're using, and I think the higher the difficulty, the truer it plays. I haven't played a ton of online games yet this year, but from what I have I feel like my good swings are rewarded and my bad ones aren't.

It's not a perfect system, and I don't think it ever will be. Trying to realistically replicate hitting a baseball in a video game is a wild concept when you think about it, but I think at the end of the day, zone offers the most competitive, skill based way to go about hitting in an online h2h environment, even with its flaws.

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