Community Forum

@ebbets1957_XBL, ouch... yeah, having fun is all you can do. I consider myself fortunate for pulling that Marte in the first place; even after screwing myself, it was still almost 84K more stubs (after the fee) than I'd had before.

@DoIHearBossMusic_PSN, that stuff is hard to stomach after the fact... I'd pulled Marte and sold him at 93K a little over a week ago.

@GooseOnEm_PSN, thank you, kind sir!

I'll give it a shot... appreciate the info.

@GooseOnEm_PSN, do you use the soft rings? I bought a pack without thinking much about it, first, and ended up with a pack that contained only medium and hard... was too much of a hindrance to fielding, for my taste, but I do tend to overshoot with my PCI, so was thinking of trying soft to find a happy medium (not the sad, sad medium that I bought).

@Jayseearr_PSN, everyone with a brain, huh? Classy way to inflate your own opinion.

I've played this game since it was a thing, and, honestly, this is the best that hitting has felt to me. It's hard because it's supposed to be (and that's why hitting feels better this year). It's "inconsistent" because it's difficult to replicate results in baseball and, to reflect that, this year feels like even slight variations in placement have large effects on the batted ball rather than everything being a home run. My god, it's almost like they want even good players to make outs, like, 70% of the time. Weird.

Look, I get that you don't like this iteration, and that's fine. In your opinion, hitting isn't as good as it has been. Great. Lobby for change, as that's your prerogative. But not everyone is experiencing what you are, and throwing out insults because you're frustrated doesn't make you or the people who agree with you right or more cerebrally endowed.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm even playing the same game as some who come in here to grouse. When I get around on an inside pitch and scorch it down the line, it feels pretty good. When I'm off even a bit in my placement (i.e., the center dot is slightly on the left side of the ball--but barely--when hitting right handed), turning on that same pitch with the same timing results in a weakly hit ball... that feels like I didn't get it right. That feels like baseball.

I also don't think the feedback window that you're taking umbrage with is accurate at all; that is a problem, but it isn't necessarily a problem with hitting. Rather than exposing something wrong with the hitting mechanic, it seems more like it isn't reflecting the hitting mechanic properly. Two different things. Someone else posted about that being an unforced error by the developers and I'd have to agree... it simply gets it wrong sometimes, but if you ignore it and just go with what happens when you're actually batting, the feel of hitting, itself, is pretty good if you aren't trying to reconcile it with that silly, two-dimensional re-creation.

My PS5 (horizontal, because that's how they need to be to work properly because of how the thing is cooled) doesn't overheat, nor does it even sound like it's working very hard, and I'd venture to guess that the overwhelming majority of PS5s don't have an issue. I'm not going to pretend I have the answer, but maybe what people are saying is more indicative of a hardware problem that this game reveals. Maybe they did do something odd (like the Skyrim example where devs broke the game pre-launch by having ants cast individual shadows), but there have been plenty of complaints online about overheating PS5s before this, so that certainly isn't particular to this game only. Maybe it is unintentionally intensive enough in certain views to cause faulty hardware to fail... that's still a hardware issue if it only affects a small number and a PS5 functioning as designed can handle it. The point is that neither you nor I have any idea with the data available to us.

I'm not going to insult your intelligence because you have a different opinion, but I will put mine out there in juxtaposition because I like this year's changes. Not everyone with a brain comes to the same conclusions.

@Kolah_MLBTS, I don't doubt at all what you're saying, but curious if you have dynamic difficulty turned off.

I turned it off to start the year, and while the defense is still plenty better than they probably should be, in my experience, the CPU makes errors and errant throws at about the rate I'd expect when playing against lower rated defenders (the reaction, I think, will always be better than us since the CPU "knows" where the ball is going without needing a puny, meat brain to process what it sees). I've even seen a ball I hit into the corner appear to bounce of a fielder's head as he chased it down.

That's just a guess, though, at something that might help the experience a little... not even sure if that's how it operates, but if you're doing well and difficulty is adjusted on-the-fly, it may manifest as runners getting faster, infielders throwing seeds off their back foot, etc.

@dougyhowzer_MLBTS said in Perfect perfect being outs compared to opponent having late homeruns:

They outta just remove this perfect mechanic thing . I grew up playing baseball and there is no such thing as a sure hit no matter how well your swing and timing is. A well hit ball can turn out to be an out . That's just the life of baseball . Anyone who has played softball/baseball in real life knows what I mean

Yep. I, too, think they should just scrap the terminology... largely because it's misleading. It isn't as if you've somehow managed "the perfect swing," as you'd think that might be good for more than a line out to a middle infielder. People get too hung up on the word "perfect," and, honestly, it is a poor choice of words that plays on peoples' expectations of perfection.

In reality, you've just timed it as well as you could have, and you've put the ball in the middle of your inner PCI, but as @bostondirtdog21_PSN said, the trajectory of the pitch has a lot to do with where that "perfect" swing sends the ball. For a slider low and away, darting down toward the bottom right of the zone (right-handed batter), the swing resulting in the hardest possible hit might send that thing straight into the ground, heading somewhere toward the second baseman... which doesn't feel very perfect at all.

I'd say just change the sounds a bit. Time it well, get it in the middle, and hear the difference in the crack of the bat (like the sound that was weirdly applied to Josh Gibson). But enough with the "perfect/perfect"; it just engenders misunderstanding.

@w1ck3dx24_PSN said in Mini season God Squads:

Going against some of the best cards in Mini Seasons makes it way more exciting and separates it from Conquest. I get that it sucks trying to grind stats or win playoff games, but you can control the difficulty when you enter. It also gives you a chance to go against some of the top tier cards without much stress or worry.

Agree 100%. Playing against the best cards makes it immeasurably more fun... just finished my first Mini Seasons to grab that Sabathia card and had a blast. I'm not that good, but I like being challenged a bit, so play all MS games on HOF (many might breeze through, but that isn't me)... went 17-11, and had a little scare in the finals, but ended up squeaking by.

Really enjoying the power creep.

@xsawxsaw2121_PSN, I was actually pointing out the situational irony, there, with the guy essentially complaining about errors in the developers’ code in a post riddled with errors; grammar was simply the means through which he invited the observation.

If I was to rail against all affronts to writing that I came across in this forum, it would indeed be quite silly… and exhausting.

Interesting that you choose to jump in to defend bad grammar against insult in a thread whose very title was meant to insult, and whose body was comprised of more insults fueled largely by criticism of unimportant things… no issue with that?

I also see that you’ve no concern for punctuation, but I implore you to adopt some, as it could someday mean the difference between life and death. Consider the following: Lets eat grandma vs. Let’s eat, grandma.

Now let’s go play some baseball.

Jaison Chourio is a nice little card… small sample online, but hitting .400, and quite well offline; really nice swing. His speed (87), reaction time, and fielding make him fit well on the outfield corners.

@OPD188_PSN, the issue at hand is that you provided a nice bit of unintentional comedy with your crying about others not checking their work by proceeding to do exactly the same in your petulant little post.

Even in your clumsy retort, your list of 6 unacceptable transgressions became one thing that wasn’t minor (sorry, it still is), so even you have tossed aside 5 of the 6 trivial matters you were initially crying about.

That you think tending to such things in the midst of a launch is how SDS should be spending their time is indicative of your immaturity and self absorption, and also doesn’t reflect well on the fictional fantasy type franchise players community (though one has to ask… are those players real, or fictional?).

The minor issues in this game will be addressed in due time. Personally, I don’t care for the Albert fixation that has become all the rage with the NPC fan base, but I think the game—you know, the baseball part—is playing pretty well right now, so I’m not going to fret about it much. As an adult, I can understand that it might be further down the list of things for SDS to do at the present time.

@GoozeFn_PSN said in Homage is weak sauce:

@Tylerslikewhoa_XBL Canada really needs to understand their place in the world. They are like the old couple in an apartment above a really good party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9H-uT64Wo

@OPD188_PSN said in SDS has issues:

To release an AAA game in this condition is unacceptable then not to have any transparency concerning releasing a statement as to realizing these issues and commenting on when they will be addressed is even worse.

This sentence is atrocious. If you're going to write about something that has been released to the world without first being checked for errors, you should heed your own advice. Also, I don't think you quite know how to use the word "transparency."

Perhaps your expectations of getting a response in less than 24 hours for a bug report ticket pointing out minor issues are unrealistic, considering the game launched less than three days ago...

An exit velocity of 100mph with sufficient backspin can travel over 400 ft. What we’re seeing now is more real… hitting at velocities in excess of 100mph isn’t all that common, and not everyone can do it with any consistency, so this is another sign of things moving in the right direction (though all will be lost when the power creep ramps up).

@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

@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Timing hitting:

@The_Joneser_PSN

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.

@TripleH-4481_PSN said in Timing hitting:

@xsawxsaw2121_PSN

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.

This is admittedly a minor thing, and probably down on the list for developers so close to launch, but I (and other A's fans, I'm sure) would love to see more of the skyline at Sutter Health Park.

Aside from the structures in the outfield just behind the fence, there's really only one building visible in the background during gameplay (though the stepped building to its right shows up in the field selection screen before play)... and the bright yellow Tower Bridge is nowhere to be seen (and that's even on a jersey patch for the A's as it's such a prominent marker for the Sacramento area). There's really quite a lot out beyond right field in real life that is nowhere to be seen in the game.

Would be lovely to see when time permits... but very much appreciate Sutter's inclusion!

Edit: Actually, they are there… but perhaps out of scale? From being there, and from photos, it definitely seems more prominent. I went to replay to get different viewpoints, and they’re hidden behind trees… I think that’s happening because the features are too small.

The game is much more enjoyable with the commentary simply turned off. You start to realize how many sounds you were missing because of the incessant prattling.

@Dolenz_PSN, I agree with you that some players are going to feel a little daunted... and that it's also a good game. I dislike the grind in general, and far prefer just playing games with cards I like rather than being strategically "efficient." And there's a lot this year, with the way that TA was rolled out.

While I've essentially ignored TA (and usually do, until I notice that I'm getting close to something organically by playing games without regard for TA stats), I pretty much flew through the Spring Breakout and Pipeline programs. It was pretty easy to put a team together with Pipeline and Spring Breakout players, and, happened to fit nicely for me because I tend to like playing with those Future Star-type cards. Anyway, I didn't complete most of the missions you'd listed earlier, just K's with Rockies (Jimenez, Dollander) and K's with Dodgers. Only did the Showdown once. Through Conquest (only completed one map), Diamond Quest runs, and a few games vs. CPU, both of those pretty much finished themselves (that 1000XP repeatable goes really fast, and takes the place of a lot of those missions).

I didn't bother with the Spring Breakout collection... I didn't like the collection reward's swing when I used him in a moment.

Anyway, not at all as daunting as it looks. And I think you'll like that Wetherholt card... beautiful swing, and by far my favorite to use in the game so far.