No, the worst is actually when you get up 2 strikes. Dot your pitch on the black 3 times and get check swings that obviously fooled your opponent and they're all called balls. Then they foul off a couple until they draw a walk or get a blooper and then hit a HR with the next batter on a pitch away that they pull for a no doubt HR. Follow it up the next inning when you're hitting and get a perfect/perfect fly out to the warning track with Soto or Griffey.

Pitch location should absolutely, 100% of the time be user input based. The argument that it would take away the b/9 and control ratings isn't valid. That's up to the game developers to make pitching harder. Make the targets we have to hit smaller/bigger based on b/9. Make the meters move faster/slower based on control. If those aren't options, think outside the box. RNG based pitching is the easy out way of saying b/9 and control matter. On top of that, if they want it to be so RNG based, then things for hitting have to be tweaked. Pitches on the black, have to be called strikes and swings where the PCI isn't touching the ball should always be whiffs, no exceptions. At least doing that shortens some AB's and doesn't give the hitter an excess amount of chances to get a random hanger, and don't even get me started on check swings. No MLB player can check swing at 4 pitches and not get rung up. Home plate or 1b ump is punching that guy out on principle after 2 check swings.

I've had Judge who is a diamond (90+ fielding rating) have 5 missed catches because he doesn't lock onto the ball or because he gets the animation where he's camped under it but starts looking around like he can't find it and it falls behind him. Infielders have way too many errors as well. I don't understand how this game has the same problems at the beginning of every single year.

How about fixing pitching? The randomness of pitching has made things even worse. Go back and play MLB 17 or even 18 and see how many times you hit your spot and the pitch goes middle middle or hangs up a ton when you’re throwing below the zone. Hitting will always be somewhat random, but pitching should be 100% user input based as far as pitches going to the location you’re throwing to.

Pitching is so jacked up this year. Even last year when they started moving towards more of the RNG pitching inputs, I could figure out where I needed to release the ball as far as early/late or left/right of the release points (analog) to get the ball to go where I wanted to. This year it's totally random. One game FOTF Oriel is dotting everything where I throw it. Next game my inputs don't matter, he simply is going to hang 6-10 meatballs. It's super frustrating, especially against when that's the only reason your opponent hangs in games.

@Maverick31762 said in Randomized hitting.:

@DanTheThriller said in Randomized hitting.:

@theu715 said in Randomized hitting.:

How about fixing pitching? The randomness of pitching has made things even worse. Go back and play MLB 17 or even 18 and see how many times you hit your spot and the pitch goes middle middle or hangs up a ton when you’re throwing below the zone. Hitting will always be somewhat random, but pitching should be 100% user input based as far as pitches going to the location you’re throwing to.

Yeah, I've lost A LOT of games to a perfect pitches completely missing their spot: how do we account for doing everything right and RNG taking over?

1. Baseball has more chance elements than other sports
2. Player ratings impact outcomes in conjunction with user input
3. Pitchers missing spots isn’t always a function of mechanics.
4. Pitch confidence is real. If you have low pitch confidence and you throw a pitch bad things happen. Regardless of player ratings and user input.
5. There are elements of hitting that arent acuratwly captures in the hitting mechanic.

6. While everything you said is true. It’s also obvious that this game just forces meatballs, hangers, and pitches to completely miss the location.

7. If I hit my target perfectly, the pitch should go where I was aiming every single time.

Seriously though, the game is just too random.

@Kovz88 said in Hard for me to have fun anymore....:

This is actually the problem, too many people think they are better at the game than they actually are and therefore they buy into all the conspiracy theories. I know its hard for people to accept but most of us will never even sniff the top 50.

I understand to an extent the idea that some people think they're better than they are. At the same time, there are issues in the game that keep some people from reaching their potential in RS. I by no means believe I'm a top 50 player. I do believe that I could make WS, but never have. This year I've never put the time into trying. 716 last season was highest I've been. I play better on HOF than I do on AS, but it takes me forever to get out of AS.

Again, not saying I'm incredible, but I get "good" timing and have my PCI in good locations of the ball consistently, but I rarely get the HR results. This game plays HR or bust when it comes to winning games and I only seem to get HR on perfects or hits where my PCI is barely touching the ball. Perfects make sense, but the poor PCI HR don't. No conspiracy that the game is against me, but simply I cannot figure out what the game actual wants input wise to get HR.

As someone who has played The Show since 08, I'd just like more transparency on what makes the hitting engine tick if it's left as is. If not, I think two things would help hitting. One, reward good/good with more hits if there's not going to be adjustments to the engine at all. Two adjust the hitting to fine tune timing a little more. Give us Perfect just like it is (~.800 avg), but add Great (timing/contact) that has a higher rate of solid hits and avg in the .380-.450 range. Good (T/C) becomes more of the .280-.320 avg type results. Okay (T/C) that is low .200 and under. Lastly, PCI placement that doesn't touch the ball should be a swing and miss every single time, no exceptions. That has always baffled me.

Anyway, sorry this got super long, but I'd love to hear thoughts on this type of tweaking to the hitting engine.

@ComebackLogic said in One thing I miss from older mlbts games:

‘17 was the last year pitching was roughly equal to hitting. It wasn’t just CC Sabathia who was lethal, remember how nasty Vida Blue was? Verlander? Kershaw was a nightmare too. That’s because pitching was generally relevant in ‘17. When you aimed the ball somewhere and made good input, that’s exactly where the ball would end up.

‘18 was the first year we saw major problems with pitching. First, they reduced pitch speeds so much that you could take a nap between the pitcher releasing a 4 seamer and it actually reaching the plate. When people constantly complained, in what I can only assume was a hissy fit of petulance and frustration, SDS then released a “F you” patch, that made AS look like legend difficulty. The PCI was tiny and extremely sensitive, had a huge range of movement and even though pitches were still too slow, swing timing windows were narrowed as much as possible. Then when everyone inevitably complained again, they reverted to the “spamming low off speed” meta for the rest of the year.

‘19 was another terrible year for pitching in MLB the Show. Not only did we have the HR/9 debacle, where it didn’t do anything, then it made everything die at the track, then it didn’t do anything again, we also saw the introduction of the random hanger with good input. While most people were singing the praises of SS Kershaw and making up superlatives to describe how good he really was, the rest of us were scratching our heads as to why good/good was almost always a line out. It wasn’t that Kershaw was that good, he just scored highly in most RNG stat vs stat dice rolls. It was like having the best card in the deck at Top Trumps, no matter which stat it came down to, he usually had the upper hand. In any case, by the end of the year, pitching was pretty much exactly as it is in ‘20 currently. At least it shows they’re working on ideas and implementing them as the season wears on, I suppose.

The state of pitching in this game is not good at present. Input isn’t the determining factor in hanging a pitch, giving up a hit or a run, or hitting a spot in a crucial situation. You can still pitch to contact effectively at times, if I want a ground ball into the shift, or to try and get a hitter to pop up, I can often execute what I’m going for. That said, you can’t really dominate a game with a pitcher, unless you’re facing a bad opponent who will assist you by chasing a lot of bad pitches. Accuracy is more of an issue than pitch speeds and speed differentials, which aren’t that bad this year. A fastball is effective enough to set up an off speed pitch and vice versa. Even a good hitter can be blown away by an unexpected heater at 96mph, which suggests that pitch speeds are fine. The random hangers are not, the lack of accuracy is not, the fact that there’s pretty much nowhere you can pitch without the batter getting ridiculous foul tips and extending ABs until the random hanger comes is certainly not fine. Pitchers need a little more help, but the problem is it’s now baked into the game to have useless ineffective pitchers who throw the ball anywhere they feel like on reasonably good, albeit not perfect, input.

Everything you said is accurate, but I don't agree that it shows they're working on pitching. It shows that they recognize it has to be harder, but just like with hitting, they aren't taking the time to change the mechanics, they're simply trying to use RNG to make it harder.

They need to actually change the pitching mechanics and make good inputs harder to accomplish. Stats should matter for how fast the meter moves or how sensitive the analog movements are. It should affect how big the targets are to hit on meter and analog as well. Heck, this would probably make people mad, but make pitching clutch matter for the user, not RNG by making the ball shake slightly and controller vibrate when you're trying to hit your release points or aim. The more confident they are the less it moves and for dominant closers, have it be completely still. Have stamina factor into this as well. Show me that when I'm not confident my breaking pitches cannot break as much, don't just make it random and not let me know why.

These are the problems with pitching and how they need to really look at fixing them, but it would take a COMPLETE overhaul to the pitching system and they haven't really changed the mechanics of pitching in the game in who knows how long with the exception of adding pulse pitching.

Jim Abbott

@bhall09 said in MLB 21 Product Description (Interesting Note):

My question about that is they said stick skills over card ratings. So, can someone use a common and be better than someone else using a diamond? I guess that's good, maybe, but can't say for sure. And what would be the point of getting better cards then?

This would be a lazier way to look at it. Card's ratings should matter. They just shouldn't matter in the outcome. They should matter in the way the card is used. Lower contact, noticeably smaller PCI. Poor vision, smaller timing window. Low power, lower exit velo ability than high power guys. Pitchers with high control should have bigger contact spots on the meter or analog bars. Low BB/9 should mean the ball cursor is shakier when you try and pick your location. These are ways you can make the game have more importance on user input, but still make card ratings matter. Problem is, it would mean a total overhaul to the game's mechanics and SDS won't do that.

@locutusofburg said in Analog hitting should not be usable online.:

@theu715_psn said in Analog hitting should not be usable online.:

What's funny is that I play in a league and I actually know who uses analog and who doesn't. The analog hitters are actually significantly easier to get out than the good zone hitters. With a proper pitch mix, the CPU controlled PCI will not track the pitch properly. Even if their timing is right, they tend to get more weak contact. Key is hitting your spots and mixing the pitches. If you hang a pitch to someone doing analog it gets crushed though.

It isn’t so much that it leads to amazing contact, it’s just that it leads to everything being put in play….which opens you up to
Some random garbage happening.

That is the issue…not the fact they are just hitting home runs.

But even that isn't true. I was playing a guy who uses the Dodgers and traded for Acuna, so his team is stacked. He is patient using analog and usually has a mid .300 avg. In 2 of 3 games I struck him out 20 and 22 times and allowed 4 total hits and 1 ER. It's possible to get swings and misses too, but you have to pitch right.

What's funny is that I play in a league and I actually know who uses analog and who doesn't. The analog hitters are actually significantly easier to get out than the good zone hitters. With a proper pitch mix, the CPU controlled PCI will not track the pitch properly. Even if their timing is right, they tend to get more weak contact. Key is hitting your spots and mixing the pitches. If you hang a pitch to someone doing analog it gets crushed though.

@untchable704_psn said in Welp…There goes online play thanks to the Gutfoxx video:

It’s a pretty easy fix. Make it so after any 3rd IBB its grieving and bam done. If you need to walk somebody intentionally 3 times in any other scenario maybe you should just take the loss anyway lol.

I think if you currently IBB 4 batters it does that, so yeah, make it 3 and at least one problem is solved.

@sullysull08_psn said in CAP Catcher:

For some reason my cap has secondary at all positions so u can see if it’s does too. But I do not recommend. The fielding other than primary is soooo bad

Correct. It says secondary, but it’s not right. He plays like he’s out of position. If it was a valid secondary I’d leave it. I can’t believe there wouldn’t be a catcher primary cap arch type.

@dcmo3_psn said in CAP Catcher:

None****

Seriously? There’s no way to have a CAP at catcher?

Does anyone know which arch type will let me have a CAP at catcher in DD? I can’t seem to get my RTTS ball player to be catcher primary in DD except when I use the bronze slick fielding arch type. Currently I’m at the gold iron man or el mago and when I put him at catcher he drops tons of pitches and then is very slow reacting to getting the ball and catching pop ups. Thanks for the help!

No love for Tyler Glasnow??

It happened to me this morning. Here's what I figured out. When you go to link the account you have to link with a new "my show" account. I'm assuming this is being done because the game is multi platform and not a PSN exclusive. When you link your account you have to register a new my show account and when it asks which account to link, you have to link the old PSN account, not the new one you created. It will link both accounts together, BUT it's making the PSN account the default account and not the newly created my show account. I did unlink my accounts in game on my ps4 and it did work, giving me back all my cards and stubs. When I re-linked again and did the PSN account, not the my show account, all my stubs and teams stayed the same and it shows on this website that my accounts are linked. Hopefully this makes sense and is helpful.

Last year they swapped in a runner for them. This year I guess they penalize us for not getting them in by the time 8 other hitters come to the plate.

@vipersneak_psn said in Thank god 21 won’t let check swings bail people out as often:

I lost because of check swings! Get rid of it! LoL. Did you know you can check swing too and that check swings are part of baseball?

They did say check swings would be solely user input based in 21 and not go by discipline rating at all. With that said, they always adjust this type of stuff after launch. As far as it being user input, you're totally right and anyone can check swing. IRL though, you aren't going to check swing at multiple pitches in an at bat without getting called on it by the umpire at home without an appeal, much less the first base ump.