It has to be right? Literally nothing works consistently or make sense

Hitting: Hitting is a complete mess. The hitting outcomes are as random and arbitrary as ever. And to add to that, people are hitting HRs (at least against me) at an insane rate. I feel like I'm back in '17 or '18 (don't remember which one) where literally anybody could hit a HR on any pitch. Perfect flyballs are low exit velos and then early/ok swings are HRs. And obviously everybody knows the problem with PCI placement. Balls in the middle are "ok" contact but balls completely outside the PCI are "good" contact. The other day I had a swing where the ball was COMPLETELY outside the inner PCI and it was a "good" contact HR.

Pitching: Pitching is a nightmare. Nobody has any control over their pitches. Fastballs are now at warp-speed and the high sinker is making a comeback. You see the same 3 pitchers in every game.

Fielding: Outsiders don't lock on and infielders make way too many errors

Seriously....what is good about this game? The content. Maybe, but who cares when every aspect of the game is atrocious. Follow CardinalBird on Twitter. The dude is an MLBTheShow OG and basically does nothing but complain about the horrible gameplay

• A strike zone that blatantly doesn't match the rule book
• Baserunners that go back to 2nd to tag up on balls off the wall and in the gap
• Wild pitches that hit the back stop and bounce straight back to home plate 95% of the time
• Check swings not being strikes 90% of the time
• 2 strike check swing appeals not being strikes 99.9% of the time
• Outfielders that don't care about getting the ball in quickly to get baserunners out or keep them from advancing
• Elite power hitters putting perfect swings on balls but not having the strength to hit HRs
• Base stealers waiting for a RHP to basically throw the ball before starting their steal attempt even though he's using a huge leg kick
• Not being able to score from 2nd base on a base hit to a corner outfielder
• Every throw from the outfield to a base being perfectly accurate
• Pitchers throwing 102MPH in the 9th inning 100 pitches into their outing
• High sinkers being one of the most effective out pitches
• Every pitcher having 15+ MPH difference between their fastball and changeup
• 90% of runs being scored via HRs
• Pitchers with elite control not being able to consistently hit their spots

But besides those things the game plays super realistically! Just like real baseball!

Earlier today I played a game and within the first 3+ innings, my opponent had SIX "ok" contact base hits (including 4 ground balls). During that span, I had a good/squared up swing with FotF Torres against a LHP that was a lineout. Jump ahead to the 8th and I'm losing 9-8 (it was All-Star so it was a low-scoring game). My first hitter is FotF Soto who hits a perfect line drive and lines out to the CF. Going into the 9th I'm still down one and get a lead-off single. On a 3-2 count, I send the runner and have a good/squared up swing with FotF Devers against a RHP and line out to the RF who then doubles off my runner from first. So over the course of the game, I have 3 high-power guys have good/squared up or perfect swings for outs. Meanwhile, my opponent does not have a single good/squared up or perfect swing out the entire game and I end up losing by one.

Now, I'm NOT arguing that there shouldn't be hard hit outs or that there shouldn't be weak contact hits. Those are part of baseball and should be somewhat represented in the game (although you can argue to what extent). And then by that logic, I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be RNG to a certain extent. However, it seems to me that what you can't argue is that there is RNG at play in these games, and sometimes it can be the deciding factor. And for people who play this game competitively, it can be incredibly frustrating to do everything perfectly on your end and not get rewarded while your opponent does everything wrong and DOES get rewarded. And yes it goes both ways, but whether it helps you or hurts you doesn't change whether or not it is too prevalent in the game.

So the question becomes "how much RNG is acceptable in a video game based on a sport that does have an essence of randomness to it"? Should it be so prevalent that we all (and I'm sure we all can) can look back at games that we've won AND lost and say "I won/lost that game,not because of my input or skill, but because something out of my control went against me/went my way"? Should the "that's baseball" excuse really transfer over to a video game? Or should a video game focus more on cause & effect (or input/reward) than trying to replicate randomness which, by the very nature of randomness, is impossible to replicate.

I'm going to put up another post now as well that takes this question and applies it to another popular style of game that might help us come to an answer. I'd love to get an actual discussion going that SDS can actually look at instead of people just trolling each other.

Honestly what percentage of runs are via the HR? 90%? It's gotta be close.

At this point everyone has already stacked their lineup with all power hitters. Combine that with the fact we have no control over pitches and that it seems swinging early or only making "ok" contact isn't deterring the HRs and basically you've got a game where anybody can hit a HR on any pitch with any decent swing.

People are saying there's a skill gap? I don't see it as much. As long as you've got a good enough internet connection or are playing on a screen with a good enough response time that you can catch up to fastballs, the game just becomes who gets the RNG to give them the most solo HRs

Doesn't every major league stadium in the game have some placard or something that says "the chase for 56". I'm assuming that alludes to the 56 game hitting streak. And since I'm sure SDS didn't say "let the chase begin" for no reason, maybe it IS Joe DiMaggio!!!

They don't communicate because they don't care. That became obvious last year when they were caught on camera making fun of the community and never addressed it. Ramon is great at his job because he has magnetic personality and is well spoken with a good sense of humor. But think for a second he cares one bit about this community or the actual state of the game

When they threw fastballs 95% of the time because SDS knew people were playing that level to grind and not for any sort of challenge. Now I swear rookie level pitchers are the exact same as HoF level...the only difference is pitch speeds and the size of your PCI. I seriously get pitchers in rookie who throw their secondary breaking balls more often than fastballs. And coming from HoF hitting there ain't no way I'm sitting back long enough to hit those haha

I totally get it! I've always been in the camp that says "make the input harder and then reward me for it." Yes, if every squared up ball was a HR (or even a double) then there would be too many HRs. Ok...I agree. But rather than that being an argument for RNG, I'd say that's an argument to make the input more difficult. Make it HARDER to square a ball up (or get a perfect pitching input) and then reward me for it when I do it.

Using your pitching input example, make it incredibly hard for a pitcher with bad control to get a perfect release, but when I get it, then pinpoint that badboy. And scale how far I miss the "perfect" input with how bad I miss my spot. If I barely miss perfect, then I barely miss my spot rather than having a barely missed input mean the ball can literally go anywhere the RNG happens to decide on that particular pitch

So I'm stuck in the AS level hell that we all love so much. I'm 1-3 in games tonight where my opponent didn't quit before a pitch was thrown and in those 4 games I have 38 hits compared to my opponent's 41. So things are pretty even.

However, I've noticed that games in AS difficulty are basically decided by who the RNGods just decide to give HRs to and in those 4 games my opponent's have HRs on 17/41 hits compared to me having a HR on 5/38. In one game, at one point, I was losing to a guy because I had 14 hits and ZERO HRs compared to him having a HR on 6/10 hits. And it wasn't that he was putting better swings on the ball. I had three perfect swings for 3 singles while he had HRs on a "just early" swing and an "early" swing.

I understand that baseball involves some "luck" or "chance" or whatever you want to call it. But it just seems weird that year after year we accept a game where that luck is the major deciding factor in everything but the highest difficulties (and even in those a lot of times too).

Because this strike zone sucks and is just begging me to argue and get ejected

@raesONE-_PSN said in I wish SDS understood how hitting works even a little:

@xIAmJumpMan23x said in I wish SDS understood how hitting works even a little:

@jaychvz_XBL said in I wish SDS understood how hitting works even a little:

I agree it's un realistic, but the very good players( I'm not one) seem to hit very well on legend. ‍️

I think the faster the pitch the less control no matter the pitcher .

I get this, but it's kind of ridiculous to be OK with something because the top 1% (or less) "seem to be fine." You can make something infinitely hard and there will always be a small demographic that figure it out and can do it.

So what's your suggestion, because I only heard a complaint without offering an idea/concept how to improve this situation you seemingly want changed.

I'm glad you asked! Here are some things I think SDS could do to improve:

1. Stop giving high sliders such extreme break. Right now I'm fairly consistently seeing guys throw high sliders on purpose because they basically just turn into cutters. That's obviously not how pitching works. I think high off-speed pitches need to "hang" more

2. Make it harder to throw 4th and 5th pitches with accuracy. Lots of times when you look at a guys pitch breakdown, his 4th or 5th pitch is something he throws less than 10% of the time. But in this game, if you like the pitch, you can throw it as much as you want

3. Make it harder to throw "front door" pitches to opposite handed hitters. This would be like a RHP throwing circle changes and sinkers to a left-handed batter. Basically the ball coming across the plate to the pitchers glove side, starting it off the plate inside, and then having it come back "front door". This is such a hard pitch to throw in real life, but it's done so easily here in this game.

4. Stop with the extreme velocity differences between fastballs and change-ups. Every pitcher shouldn't be throwing 15+ mph difference between their fastball and change-up.

@jaychvz_XBL said in I wish SDS understood how hitting works even a little:

I agree it's un realistic, but the very good players( I'm not one) seem to hit very well on legend. ‍️

I think the faster the pitch the less control no matter the pitcher .

I get this, but it's kind of ridiculous to be OK with something because the top 1% (or less) "seem to be fine." You can make something infinitely hard and there will always be a small demographic that figure it out and can do it.

@jaychvz_XBL said in I would give my first born to have a hitting engine actually determined by input:

@xIAmJumpMan23x said in I would give my first born to have a hitting engine actually determined by input:

Just got done playing a game where in the first 5 innings my opponent had 3 weak ground balls for hits including a late swing weak grounder that hit second base and then led to 3 runs.

But when I have good swing timing and put the ball fully in the PCI, it's "okay" contact for a routine flyout (which, fwiw, I still CANNOT figure out why this happens and what to do different).

I understand it's frustrating, but irl it happens , the other day the angels vs Texas, in the first 4 innings I don't think the rangers hit the ball over 90mph. All excuse me hits , soft singles , they were up 5 -0 , matt thais hit a 103 mph liner for a dp out .
It happens.
I'm an Angels fan , I couldn't tell you how many 2 strike bloopers Angels pitching has given up this year .

I get that "it happens" in real baseball, but you're NEVER going to come even close to representing "real baseball" in a video game. There are WAY too many elements that go into swinging a baseball bat the correct way that you'll never be able to replicate that simply by pressing buttons and moving a stick on a controller.

I get the idea behind the "it happens that way irl sometimes" argument, but the fact of the matter is this is a video game, and input should reign supreme. You can't even come close to replicating what goes into a major league swing so saying the outcome should replicate something when the input doesn't, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

We HAVE to get past accepting mediocrity because "that's baseball." It's not unrealistic, or even that unordinary, for gamers to want input to reign supreme and be the major deciding factor for outcome. Right now RNG plays WAY too big of a role in outcome to the point where it can literally determine the outcome of a competitive, 9-inning ranked seasons game. A little RNG is fine, but to say it's ok to have it be the biggest determining outcome of a competitive game is, in my mind, ridiculous.

Man I am getting tired of trying to hit 4-5 different pitches at different speeds being thrown on the black or an inch off the plate in any count.

First of all, you will NEVER be able to replicate real-life hitting when, on a video game, you're trying to hit a white dot on a 2D screen. So much of hitting is picking the ball up out of the pitcher's hand, seeing how the seams look, etc that you just can't even come close to replicating that on a screen. I'm so tired of trying to pick up sliders by the break, which is obviously NOT how you do it in real life.

And the fact that anybody with decent stick skills can throw 3, 4, or even 5 different pitches anywhere they want in any count drives me nuts. I'm sorry, but if pitchers in real life could throw 100+mph on the black to all 4 corners AND throw 3 different offspeed pitches whenever they wanted and consistently break them an inch off the plate, baseball would be the most boring sport ever because there would be ZERO baserunners.

Trying to differentiate, and hit, a front-door sinker on the black, a backfoot slider 1-2 inches off the plate, or a 103mph fastball that stays straight and hits the black is getting really old.

Just got done playing a game where in the first 5 innings my opponent had 3 weak ground balls for hits including a late swing weak grounder that hit second base and then led to 3 runs.

But when I have good swing timing and put the ball fully in the PCI, it's "okay" contact for a routine flyout (which, fwiw, I still CANNOT figure out why this happens and what to do different).

@theBlindRhino said in I would give my first born to have a hitting engine actually determined by input:

Really? Your first born? I mean if it is a daughter I get it...

That's too funny! Me and Noah Syndergaard over here just giving away our kids for things LOL

If they just changed it to "innings played" instead of "full innings pitched by pitcher" it would be a lot better.

I remember the good old days too when Rookie level meant crappy fastballs 95% of the time. I don't like that CPU pitchers on Rookie are dotting offspeed pitches when behind in the count, but if you're going to do that, then don't give me a PCI that can't get to it. There's nothing more frustrating than recognizing a pitch in the strikzone and then not being able to hit it hard because the PCI literally can't get to it

I will be the first to tell you that I also have instances where the insane RNG plays to my advantage - we all do. But today has been an absolute nightmare.

1. I lost a game today because my opponent had a two-out early swing grand slam that ultimately decided the game. And even that wouldn't be so bad except TWICE I had the bases loaded and two outs and then proceeded to line out directly at somebody with a good/good swing.

2. I played a guy who was obviously sitting fastball the whole game. So in the middle innings he goes ahead on a three-run homer with an early swing on a absolutely dotted low, outside splitter. I came back and went ahead in the bottom of the 8th and then he hit a go-ahead homer in the 9th on an early swing on a low off speed pitch that was actually out of the strike zone.

I understand that sometimes you're going to square the ball up and hit it hard for an out. And I understand that sometimes you're going to do things wrong, get weak contact, and get lucky with a base hit. But why on God's green earth are we allowing people to have horrible input and then rewarding them with THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME. This blows my freakin' mind! We've taken the hardest thing to do in sports, which is hit a baseball, and diluted it down to literally only two things: the timing of when you hit the button and if you put the PCI on the ball. And then SDS, in all their glory, has basically decided to make one of those things meaningless. I don't get it and I don't understand how, over the years, the RNG aspect has actually gotten worse instead of better. We now have a game where you can literally be told your input was "perfect perfect" and fly out to the warning track but be "very ealry" on your swing input and rocket one over the wall.

I am so tired of playing this game right now and there being absolutely no rhyme or reason as to how the ball comes off the bat. Perfect perfect with 120 power? Fly ball to the warning track. Early swing? 450 foot no doubter.

I just played a game that would have potentially gotten me into WS where my opponent, with 2 outs and nobody on, proceeded to go 1) early swing HR 2) very late swing single 3) early swing 2-run HR and that was pretty much the end of the game.

The next inning I hat a guy on base with 99 Soriano up and hat a "good" swing timing with the ball right in the inner PCI and it was a routine flyout to end the inning.

I legitimately cannot figure out how the ball comes off the bat right now in this game because squaring things up with good timing is not rewarded with ANY consistency.