Community Forum

User input is completely irrelevant in this game and there is clearly a momentum swing/predetermined outcome in every ranked game.

Sitting at 796 rating, I go to play my World Series entrance game, and proceed to have maybe my best hitting game I’ve ever had in my life.

I socked 20 hits, including 5 doubles and 9 home runs. These include FOURTEEN perfect perfect swings. FOURTEEN. Good for only 13 runs scored.

My opponent? 17 hits on 3 doubles, 1 triple, and 4 home runs. His perfect perfect total? A resounding 4.

Batter analysis shows the same story, I racked up a total of 18 batted balls over 100, getting a hit on 15 of them. My opponent? A total of 6 batted balls over 100, getting a hit on four of them.

Batted balls on 80-99mph, I went a very respectable 5-12. Nothing crazy, maybe slightly lucky compared to the norm but with how many perfect perfects I had it’s safe to assume the contact was closer to the 99mph range rather than 80. Opponent went 12-22 batting .545 on the same batted balls, and yet he wasn’t hitting perfect perfects at all.

Does user input even matter in this game? I more than tripled his perfect perfects, tripled his batted balls over 100, more than doubled his HRs, and had 6 more XBH to lose 14-13 in my WS entrance game?

Don’t hit me with the bs “that’s baseball” excuse, this is way too skewed to chalk up to bad batted ball luck this is an inherent flaw in this game and in an arcade baseball game the better player should be rewarded for EXPONENTIALLY better input.

Genuinely need SDS to make this right. This is beyond pathetic.

@The_Joneser_PSN

80-99 is one of the 3 available options for filtering based on exit velo, not some random range I pulled out of nowhere to manipulate data.

Spare me with the “you both had good offensive games” when it’s clearly lopsided in favour one way, and not in the way of the player with objectively better user input.

Ever have those games where you know you’re squaring up the ball more than your opponent yet still get crushed?

Batter analysis after the game is very telling.

Lost a game in the 900’s 14-9.

Opponent was 6-7 on exit velos over 100, 5 of them were HRs, sure.
Then he also proceeds to hit .600 (9-15) on exit velos between 80 and 99. What a joke.

Compared to myself, who was 10-13 on exit velos over 100, 5 of those being HRs. Nearly doubled the amount of balls hit over 100 yet have the same amount of HRs, whatever. Hit .357 (5-14) on batted balls between 80-99. Just a slight .243 point difference in BABIP.

Not to mention the perfect-perfect contact hits, which were 7-2 in favour of myself.

So to recap!!

I had nearly twice as many batted balls over 100, batted .243 points lower on balls hit between 80-99, had more than three times as many perfect perfect swings yet had 6 HRs to my opponents 9 and lost by 5.

This is brutal SDS.

And to those who are gonna reply “that’s baseball” what else do you expect me to do? The games hitting engine is basically randomized for how swing timing and pci placement impact exit velo. You’d rather me swing just late a touch under the ball for a HR than perfect perfect for a single? User input should matter. Can we have a complete sim/arcade mode where the winner of the game is entirely based on user input and not just random calibration of the hitting engine? thanks. Would love to stop losing games to opponents getting bailed by the engine.

@JDHalfrack

Even if you want to read it that way, I did note a .280 point difference in batting average on balls in play between myself and my opponent, so take that for whatever it’s worth.

Again, biggest issue is the timing windows. People don’t get punished enough for taking bad swings when they result in harmless foul balls 85% of the time. If your opponent has you off balance on nearly every swing during a 7-8 pitch at bat should you not get punished for taking bad swings?

This game does NOT play the same as previous versions.

@x814xmafia

Good job completely missing the point of my post.

It isn’t about the win-loss column, how good or how not good anyone is at the game, but how there are certain game mechanics that are being exploited to help players win.

I’m the first one to understand when my opponent puts up a good wing or I make a bad pitch, that’s on me.

Bad user input on my end and good user input on my opponents end equals a good result for my opponent, everything is working fine. My issue is the timing windows and the foul balls allowing players to put in bad input in 6 of 7 pitches during an at bat and not getting punished for it. If I take 6 bad swings during one at bat should I not be rewarded with an out? a bad outcome? The hitting mechanics and timing windows of the game are allowing players to almost compeltely neutralize any penalty for bad input, and that’s where I find issue.

Take your assumptions and go somewhere else please.

@Shauwn

I totally get what you’re saying, and have often thought about this with my own hitting/pitching. Most of the time a lot of my own misses when hitting aren’t on the pitches dotted on the corners but kind of the weird in between spots that aren’t quite right on the corners but not down the middle either.

The problem is that I am 100% getting my opponents off balance and off time, as you said is the key to pitching on high difficulties, but that every “miss” my opponent has is a foul ball. They’ve mastered the timing window so that every swing they take that isn’t on time results in a harmless foul ball and they do this continually until they time one up.

During one at bat, if my opponent has taken 6+ swings with very early or very late swing timing have I not done my job keeping them off balance? In the current state of the game it doesn’t reward pitchers for this, it simply allows the opponent to foul it off until they do get the one pitch they can time up.

Obligatory “I’m a consistent World Series player so my opinion is made slightly more valid”

Dude. What is going on with the hitting and pitching in this game.

Good luck once you reach 800 rating. Every player you face has absolutely MASTERED the broken timing windows in this game. Every non perfect-perfect swing is a foul ball, whether very early, just early, late, just late, or very late. These guys will get to two strikes in just about every at bat, foul off 3-6+ pitches, and end it with a perfect perfect.

On the pitching side, doing some quick and dirty math, I have given up 418 hits across 273 IP this year, striking out 210. That works out roughly to a Batting Average On Balls In Play Against (Including HRs) of .684. SIX-EIGHTY FOUR. My opponent gets a hit 68% of the time they just put the ball in play??? Are you kidding me? For reference, my own BABIP works out to roughly .400

If that doesn’t scream broken hitting, pitching, defence, I don’t know what does. I’m not sure what the solution is, but this needs to be fixed somehow.

@bearsfan217_xbl said in Timing Windows & Thoughts on Online Hitting:

Yea inside sinkers still rule mlbts. I can purposely sit inside on a pitch and still miss that mofo lol

I genuinely think you could throw me only sinkers and not a single other pitch the entire game and I wouldn’t win, and I’m 34-3 this year!

The timing windows during ranked seasons games this year feel very odd to me. I’ve only played about 35ish ranked games but the timing window, specifically on inside pitches on higher difficulties such as HOF feel like it’s a perfect perfect or its an out. (Sometimes both).

I’m previous years I have not struggled to hit in R/R matchups at all, and felt the hardest matchup to hit was LHP/RHB on inside pitches coming across the zone. Felt like it was get jammed, hit a perfect perfect, or yank it foul. This years game I struggle to hit RHP in general due to the tendency to spam sinkers and outlier fastballs inside to RHB.

Wondering if anybody else is experiencing this and what they have done to help fix it for themselves and make it more enjoyable to play ranked this year.

Cheers

@mrad2010_xbl said in Harper or Lindor?:

@vortexnukezz_psn said in Harper or Lindor?:

Looking to replace Clemente in my lineup. Options are as follows.

Option A

99 MVP Harper straight up replaces Clemente

Option B

99 Sig Lindor moves to SS, Turner to CF and Clemente out

Harper or Lindor?

I had Harper and he was good but Im not so sure hes better than Vlad in RF. Vlad has been really good for me so far.

Yup, my other two outfielders in this scenario are Vlad and Mookie.

Looking to replace Clemente in my lineup. Options are as follows.

Option A

99 MVP Harper straight up replaces Clemente

Option B

99 Sig Lindor moves to SS, Turner to CF and Clemente out

Harper or Lindor?

@yankblan_psn said in Most Toxic Player Ever:

If you can make WS and still pull this shlt, it’s pretty pathetic

My thoughts exactly. He pulled all this [censored] just to still be losing 4-1 in the 9th.

Matched up with another WS player, who just so happened to have his created player pitcher on the mound.

Left handed submariner throwing 99 cutters, 97 sinkers, as well as a slurve, screwball, and a circle change. Good luck trying to hit him.

He bunt cheesed with Dee Gordon every single time he had a plate appearance, shifting my defence into bunt defence did not help at all either.

Every baserunner he got, he tried to immediately steal second, third, and home plate by manipulating the poor defensive animations found in this game, luckily I was able to thwart this for the most part.

Managed to take a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth before a freeze off occured. With the events that had already occured in this game, I wouldn't be surprised if he intentionally made the freeze off happen somehow, and I guarantee he isn't going to leave anytime soon.

Also had his PS messages turned off, probably because he knows hes toxic af and couldn't stand the hate.

If you are this player, do everyone a huge favour and uninstall the game immediately.

@untchable704_psn said in HR with pci not even on it?:

How many outs did he get with good timing and ball inside the pci. Nobody ever cares about that for their opponents tho.

Hard hit balls get put away for outs, thats baseball.

Never seen a HR when the guy missed the ball with his bat, though.

@hoboadam_psn said in Possibly the worst inning in the show history.:

Let's see.

• You're playing at Shitpit
• You're spamming high and tight sinkers on the black

Looks like it's the Karma perk.

We've all been on both sides of these. You gave up 7 hits in 3 innings at Shitpit. Consider yourself lucky.

Ladies and Gentleman, the absolute worst thing you can do in MLB The Show 21.

Play at a stadium

Throw a pitch in the strike zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbjKIJLPqss

Lost the game. 2-1.

I have no words.

Who’s got good netflix recommendations?

All-star hitting difficulty is laughably easy. Guys will just foul off the slow pitch speeds because they have so much time to react, and then hit a nuke on the pitch on the black.

Had a 15 pitch at bat against ls bellinger that ended in a bomb on a pitch out of the strike zone, after countless foul balls on very early swings against pitches no where near the opponents PCI. Go figure.

Having to start at a 0 rating, having to work your way up to HOF difficulty is just an unfortunate reality we have to deal with, but damnit it’s annoying.

Don’t even get me started on trying to face lineups of full live series diamonds, not to mention Trout, Ortiz, Soriano, and Chipper, with early game pitchers on all star difficulty because your opponent shelled out 1000 bucks on stubs on launch night...

Yes Jimmie Foxx does have a 3B secondary position...

I made WS last night again and took Albert only to sell him immediately and buy piazza and foxx for 3B. I’d much rather two end game cards than one, especially considering a large majority of players hate Pujols swing, while loving Foxx’ including myself. If stubs don’t matter to you try out both swings and see which you like best.

Walter Johnson: 9IP, 0H, 0BB, 0R, 16K, 85 pitches.

Threw a nine inning perfect game against an opponent with a World Series banner and a rating of 840 going into the game. I am usually about an average to above average pitcher who wins all their games on offense, but man whatever I was doing on the mound in this game worked.

Anybody else throw any perfect games/no hitters this year?