Community Forum

there a difference between challenaging and just being unreasonable. RN MLB is the second one

This next patch is probably going to be the most important patch of the year for SDS and all us competitive gamers. The reason for this is because IF there is no fix for outfielders trying to catch balls with there face then it means that they can't fix it and we are going to be stuck with it for the remainder of the year. It is also gotten to the point where SDS's rushed decision to make hitting more RNG based as been a flop in a lot of peoples eyes and there unwillingness to change to back just shows us that they never had any intentions of having a game where shitty players get lite up and good players can dominate people who are not on the same skill level.

These are somethings that I would hope are addressed in the next patch or patches.

Fielding, is honestly just a complete mess so if there is no mention of some kind of fix for it we may as well just give up on the game all together. This is the worst shape MLB has been in since the 17 Server errors and even then when they got the servers up and going it was actually a pretty good game.

Hitting. Some of the adjustments in patch 1.04 were warranted such as the PCI size decreasement and smaller timing window but the way it was rolled out leads me to think that this was planned from before launch which is extremely distrubing that they would change something so quickly that they were getting great reviews on.

The changes I would like to see to hitting would be, an increase and more consistent pattern to exit velocity on pitches that are inside the inner circle of the PCI and a reduction of PCI size on AS so that it is closer to HOF then it is to Veteran. I doubt that SDS will ever be able to figure out what is happening to sinkers and cutters but that would be a welcomed addition if they could get those pitches down to a consistent timing window relative to there respected pitch speeds

Pitching: is probably the least of SDS problems right now and im ok with how it currently is because it is the least of this games problems RN and it's a decent combination of RNG and user skill.

@ryansitko11 said in Patch 1.05:

@derfturf0530 said in Patch 1.05:

@bhall09 said in Patch 1.05:

I mentioned this somewhere else, but if they want to make perfect-perfect tough to do, I'm fine with that. And whatever they want to call the next best outcome (good-good, I think, or good-squared up?) that is fine too. But hopefully this exit velocity switch makes those good-good, and good-squared up a bit more rewarding. I think that's the thing. I still get perfect-perfect a few times a game. I'm OK with that. But if good-good is the next best thing, it should still be giving us some good exit velocities; hard hits and decent results.

I agree but the attributes are all in play. All things equal, then yes, a good/good or whatever should have a higher percentage hit. Otherwise what is the point of all of the per 9's.

Point of the per 9s is to make it harder to get good PCI placement by making the PCI smaller as H/9 and K/9 increase. A squared up ball is a squared up ball regardless of who threw it. But squaring up Nolan Ryan should be significantly harder than squaring up, say, Bartolo Colon

Dont you underestimate 2005 Bartolo Colon and his 98 MPH FB

Perfect perfect isnt a 100% chance of a hr.

So I've played about 12 games on the new patch and overall it seems better than what we currently had but there are some things that I think need to be added to the game before SDS is done tuning the game

1. Strike Zone. If any part ball is in the strike zone its a strike. Reasoning for this is because its way to easy to check your swings on boaderline pitches which results in them always being called balls which is a huge advantage to the batter(the check swing engine is still broken IMO) Players should be able to work with a slightly bigger strike as opposed to a smaller strike zone online.

2. Swing and timing Feedback. Can one of the developers please explain how the timing window and swing feebacks works because im completely lost. I'm placing the ball slightly above the center with neutral swing timing and for the most part its being labelled at a Good/Okay swing. I know a lot of people have been talking about this and it would help if we had some clarifications of what exactly we are doing wrong because from my prospective I'm squaring up the ball with a power hitter and a good swing (which is all I can do) and it's still resulting in weak flyball. I've also hit HR on pitchers that were out of the PCI and popouts on pitches that were slighty above the centre of the PCI which makes no sense to me

Edit: 3. The ability to swing and miss on very early swings. this has been carried over from last year but if you are very early on any swing it should be a whiff, the game still manges to make it so ever very early swing make contact with a ball if it's in the strike zone. IMO very early should be the same as very late, a swinging strike with no contact

Pitching. The changes to pitching were a welcomed addition and I 100% feel like it would be fine if they left it like this for the rest of the year

IDK how many times i've had an ump in this game just flat out miss an important call that lead to more runs or a big inning but its enough times to become a major issue.

Simple fix is to just call all balls that catch a part of the strike zone called a strike because there is nothing like hitting your spot with a perfect pitch to have it called a ball and then it leading to a big inning all because of something you can't control

So a couple of years ago i made a thread about how i thought pitcher confidence had too much of an effect on the outcomes of hits. It was midely popular but didnt really catch any tracking in the community. But recently I found a thread on Reddit that has gotten a lot of trackion with the communtiy and with this years addition of showdowns I think we can all say its 100% easier to hit when a pitcher has low confidence and almost impossible to hit when a pitcher has a high confidence level. I believe that pitch/pitcher confidence should have 0 effect on the result of plays because it just adds an unnecessary amount of RNG to outcomes that are already out of our control and it adds an unrealistic aspect to the game. For example if I give up 2 hits in the first 3 batters that basically renders my pitcher useless for the rest of the inning and often leads to multiple runs being score because of his low pitcher confidence. IRL we often see pitchers give up 3/4 runs in an inning but they are still able to go 6 innings without getting light up. IMO in mlb 20 that is impossible; The minute i see my pitcher give up back to back hits or even HRs it's basicallly game over for that pitcher because his confidence is too far gone to be able to locate and he often just ends up throwing meat balls over the centre of the plate. Sure pitchers get rattled IRL but those pitchers often dont last a long time in the majors because they can't perform at a high level consistently. As for the competitive aspect of gameplay it just makes user skill take a backseat to a stat that is out of everyones control since it's already very random with what is rewarded with a hit and whats not rewarded with a hit in MLB 20. It also doesn't reward players for picking up on another players tendencies because, sometimes it takes 3/4 inning to learn another players tendencies and by then a pitcher could have full confidence. So even if you are squaring up pitches at a high rate its often not being rewarded enough to make a difference.

Here is the Reddit thread for those interested
https://www.reddit.com/r/MLBTheShow/comments/gdd8oz/pitcher_confidence_is_the_reason_hitting_feels_so/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Tons of edits because I really hate the format of trying to edit a thread/comment on this forum

SDS likes how hitting and the rest of the gameplays is so this is what we are going to get for the rest of the year whether you like it or not

After 7 RS games on AS here are somethings that I would like improved

Pitch accuracy on equilivant of Good/good, when the line is just early or just late of "perfect perfect"

A more accuracte strike zone anything that catches a part of the plate should at least have a 50/50 Chance of being called a strike.

Increased Exit Velocities on Good/good hit lows in the zone as it is almost impossible to hit a HR on pitches at the knees even with 100+ power guys and more often than not it's a lineout or hard ground out

Reduced reaction him for infielder on linedrives or hard hit balls

The removal of pitch confidence as i think it has too much of an effect on gameplay

Reduced Stamina recovery of starter when used out of the pen

Just like to remind everyone has when the annouanced patch 1.04 and the notes said they were tunin hitting everyone was saying "Here we go again" and sure enough SDS didnt disappoint in ruining what was a fun hitting engine.

Less we forget.

I find it really annoying that kyle has to always say he's top _ in the world. Like dude we get it your good that doesnt mean your opinion is more or less valuable then everyone else opinion. I know he's been like that for years but often just stream rolls his opinion on everyone because "Im a top _ player in the world, and my opinion is more vaulable than everyone elses"

If they dont fix all the fielding issues by may 5th its going to look a whole hell of a lot bleaker. If they went into a nationally televised event with the current state of fielding they would never recover from the amount of backlash they would face.

Im extremely bored because i cant play MLB in it's current state so heres another useless thread

Basically they game us a game where skill mattered at release saw people getting pumpled by good players and said nope that enough time to hand up participation trophies for just being able to load into a game

Hitting is exactly where they want it. which is why they aren't changing it

so this year developement cycle is basically over for gameplay patches and we have accomplished nothing. You could say im disappointed but honestly after the previous 2 years of the same thing im not surprised. I stopped playing almost immediatedly after that first patch and havent looked back since. Its a shame that the advertisment that we were feed during the month leading up to the game turned out to the biggest PR stunt i've seen by a sport gaming company in recent history. The fact SDS made changes 1 week into release was a mistake and as a consumer has made lose all interest in preorder mlb 21 because they are jsut going to do it again and again until it hurts their sale numbers.

I remember in 2014-2016 where video games were flawed but still fun to play, the last half decade has made me wonder why im a even playing these games, the companies dont care about the user experience and sure as hell dont care about anything besides turning out the most profit per $ invested.

Victor can you confirm that the fielding improvement also affect infielders?

Its kieran so its 95% Chance its a troll

I agree with the guys who say it would go a long way if SDS explained patch 1.04 and the purpose of it and be transparent with the community about possible ways to tune it. They way they rolled it out this year was a slap in the face to everyone who bought the game because we were basing are opinions of the game based on what we were seeing in the streams and to completely do a 180 right after release when everyone already has the game with no explaination or communication with the community which has breed a lot more toxicity towards the devs and higher ups because it very much seems like they don't at all care about us or our opinions so why should we show them any level of respect? I lot of people in the community just want to try and make this a great game but the blatant defiance of a good majority of the community just shows us that they will do what they want when they feel like it.

Saw this coming for a mile away when they annouanced the patch. WHY ARE YOU MAKING CHANGES WHEN EVERYONE IS ON AS AND VETERAN.......