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In the past, I've always struggled more with hitting and pitching has been my strength. This year, with how easy they've made hitting, things are switched for me. I think this RS I'm hitting around .330 with my team with an OPS right around 1.000. But my ERA, which is usually around the 3.00 mark, is significantly higher than that

It blows my mind how we're not talking more about gameplay this year and how hitting online is an RNG-fueled nightmare, but recently it's felt like something was even more off. I made WS last ranked season and got to 700 pretty quickly this season. Then apparently I woke up one morning and just forgot how to play because I've now lost 5 RS games in a row. But something felt off so I went and looked at the box scores and in those last 5 games that I've lost:

• I've outhit my opponent 59-52
• I've struck out almost half as much (23 Ks compared to their 40)
• However...out of my 59 hits, 20 were XBH and 8 were HRs
• Out of my opponents 52 hits, 32 were XBH and 19 were HRs

So, 34% of my hits went for extra bases and 13.5% went for HRs. But 61.5% of my opponents hits went for extra bases and 36.5% went for HRs.

I understand there will always be a sense of "randomness" to the game because it's baseball and that's how it works. But 5 games in a row of this is insane. And it makes it super hard to compete when you're trying to string together a bunch of singles to score runs and your opponent can just come up, strike out twice as often, and then just hit a bunch of random HRs and win.

@Blind_Bleeder_PSN I was wireless but after it happened I plugged it in and still nothing. I eventually fixed it by holding down the PS button until it turned off and then I turned it back on and it was fine. But it was super weird!

@dsparks_PSN I stopped playing 24 around the All-star break but picked it back up a few weeks before the release of 25 just to get back into it. Started a new ranked season and went like 12-0 before 25 came out. Went right into the new game and just nothing.

I'm the same way with timing. I find myself consistently behind on off-speed pitches. It's the weirdest thing...almost like the timing window changed this year and I still haven't adjusted to it.

I was playing a game today and right in the middle of the game, my controller stopped responding. The game was active, and my controller was on, but all of a sudden it just wasn't responding to anything. I couldn't choose my pitch so my pitcher was just throwing it right down the middle and I couldn't move my fielders to field the ball. It was like the controller was turned off even though it wasn't.

In years past, I've always been able to get into the 800s pretty consistently (and hit WS at 900 occasionally). And every year when I'd start at 0 at the beginning of the game, I'd always win a ton of games in a row and start like 15-1.

This year is way different. I'm like 7-5 to start and haven't even cracked 500. Feels like it's a coin flip how the ball's coming off the bat, there's tons of weak base hits, and most outfielders have no urgency getting to the ball.

Anybody else feeling like ranked this year is playing way different? Or did I just forget how to play since last year?

Is there a way to tell that on some of them? Like one of the cards that works is the team captain Adalberto Mondesi and there's no year.

Like, does the subway series 90OVR Jeter represent a specific year? Because the card doesn't say.

Just seems really weird

I grabbed the Stanton card as my cornerstone captain for S2 thinking I'd have a number of players that worked with that boost. However, guys like Sal Perez, Jeter, Adam Dunn, and Griffey aren't being recognized as part of the captain boost. They all played during the 2010s. Am I missing something about what qualifies players for this?

@Simple-Jack3998_XBL I get the "hitting in real life" thing, but I don't think that should apply here. There are SO MANY little aspects that go into hitting a baseball in real life. Yes, you can be out in front of a pitch and still hit it hard or hit a HR, but that's because there are a whole slew of things you did right (kept your hands back, kept your weight back, still transferred your weight through the ball well, etc). You can also do almost everything right, but if you have the tiniest hitch or something wrong with your swing, then you're not hitting ANYTHING. SDS is taking ALL of that and boiling it down into just two things (swing timing and PCI placement). And that's TOTALLY fine, because obviously nobody wants to do 35 different things on a controller to hit a ball, but it makes it much different than real life and, essentially, non-comparable.

We HAVE to get away from this idea that "because it can happen in real life that makes it acceptable in the game" idea. Hitting in real life and hitting in a video game are not even remotely close things and shouldn't be compared.

In addition to that, why is it that being "early" on a pitch means you're simply out in front and can still hit the ball 400 ft, but being "late" MUCH more consistently means you're jammed and not hitting the ball hard. Why is a "late" swing a jam shot but an "early" swing not hitting it off the end of the bat?

If you're going to take the hardest thing to do in sports and boil it down to two things on a controller, then at least eliminate some of the RNG and make input much more meaningful than it already is. Otherwise you're just relying on luck or a favorable random outcome. And although there is some of that in baseball, to look at a player who was "out in front" of a pitch and still hit a HR and saying that's the same as RNG randomly deciding a poorly timed swing is a HR is just not true.

@Simple-Jack3998_XBL I would argue it shouldn't matter where his PCI was though. They are boiling hitting down to only 2 different things (the timing at which you hit a button and the accuracy at which you move the joystick). If you do one thing wrong, which is literally HALF of what goes into hitting, then you shouldn't ever be rewarded with the BEST possible outcome (which is a HR).

I'm not saying you shouldn't ever get a hit, but if you're going to be significantly off on half of what goes into making contact, you shouldn't ever be rewarded with the best possible outcome

Just got done with an online game in DD. We were playing on Legend difficulty and were pretty evenly matched. I'd say both of our strengths were pitching, but we were hitting decently and overall our hard hit balls were mostly rewarded and there weren't any bloops. It was a really good game!

Then the RNG decided to step in. I was up 1 run in the 6th. He lead off the inning with an "early" swing groundball that 16-hopped through the infield and then the very next batter hit an "early" swing HR to go up 1 and that was the difference.

And as if to just rub it in, the next inning my first out was "good" swing timing with the ball inside the inner PCI for a "weak" contact fly out LOL

I understand I'm essentially an old man yelling at the clouds because SDS obviously wants the game to play this way, but it's frustrating to play such a close, well-contested game on the HIGHEST difficulty and still have it decided by something like that.

I just wish there was at least an option or a specific game mode you could play that was REALLY input-determined instead of just hoping the right things land your way.

The 93 Classics Kenta Maeda that you get from the Classics Program is not registering as eligible for Seiya Suziki captain boost. Is that a glitch? Or am I just missing something?

@BJDUBBYAH Like I've been saying the entire [censored] argument dude, I hit more balls hard. That's all I've ever said. I didn't mean "outhit" literally; I meant "outhit" in the fact that I had better hitting input.

I'm talking about the general state of the hitting engine and you're saying the fact that I struck out on a fastball in the 9th somehow discredits the entire argument.

I don't know how to explain in any more detail how individual, specific examples don't do anything to credit or discredit what we're saying about the general state of the hitting engine and how it doesn't do enough to reward input.

Literally nothing you've said has disproven what me or the OP have said about how the hitting engine generally works.

Like I said...I don't know if you're trolling me (in which case congrats because you got me) or if you just generally don't understand. Either way...whatever

@BJDUBBYAH Yes, in specific situations there were things I could have done better. There were also WAY more times when my opponent could have done better as well.

There are ALWAYS moments when you could have avoided striking out. Or you could have hit a ball hard instead of being jammed. Or you could have laid off a pitch instead of rolling over on it for a ground ball. That's the nature of baseball. If you're argument is "hey, you weren't perfect in every at-bat for the entire game so you have no right to complain" then you've created a situation where nobody has a complaint ever.

What we're saying is, over the course of 9 innings, looking at the entirety of the game, we obviously outhit/outplayed our opponent, but because RNG played a bigger role than the overall input, our opponent won.

And that's the complaint. Not that I lost...that happens. I'm going to lose. But we just want to feel like our user input plays a larger role than seemingly arbitrary hitting outcomes.

@BJDUBBYAH I can't do this with you...Jesus Christ

You're using extremely narrow examples to try and disprove a point about the general state of the hitting engine.

I struck out with a runner in scoring position. Ok. Do you know why he didn't? Because he didn't have a single at-bat with a runner in scoring position the entire game becuae his 6 hits were 4 HRs and 2 rolled-over ground ball singles.

If you focus on the "bad", you also have to focus on the "good." Yes, I may have struck out with a runner in scoring position...I also squared up more balls than he did and hit more balls hard than he did. But mine were not arbitrarily rewarded as HRs. And THAT'S what I'm saying.

You're so laser-focused on trying to prove your point that you're missing literally EVERYTHING OP and me are trying to say

@BJDUBBYAH Ok...but my opponent's record does nothing to change literally anything I've said. He can be 17-7. He can be 117-7. Or he can be 7-117. It changes absolutely nothing about how my game with him played out. Regardless of his record, he still struck out 18 times to my 8 times. He still only hit 5 balls hard. He still arbitrarily got rewarded with HRs on an insane 80% of the balls he hit hard.

The only way his record, or how good he is, plays a role in ANY of that, is if you're claiming that the better your record is, the more likely you are to have the balls you hit hard be HRs...which would be asinine.

@BJDUBBYAH Go for it dude! I've only talked about one game and you won't find any evidence from that game that's any different from what I've claimed.

And you can look at 1000 games from before that and nothing in there that is good, bad, ugly, or anything else applies to the theoretical nature of what me or the OP is talking about.

You can be good at the game; you can be bad at the game; you can be that guy that has 300 freakin wins already. We're talking about the theory of how the hitting engine works and the arbitrary nature of hitting outcomes. Our individual skill does nothing to change that.

But then again I don't expect you to understand that or understand the nature of anecdotal evidence and how it doesn't apply to something like this...

I understand certain game modes being this way...but if there's ONE place where user input reigns supreme, it should be online ranked.

But you're right about the extracting money. As long as they hit their quarterly goals, nothing will change. They're a business after all, so their idea of "success" is hitting those monetary goals, not creating a game that a certain percentage of people like. So if people keep buying stubs, and they can create an RNG-fueled game experience that leads to casual players sticking around and playing more, they'll keep doing it.

I understand it - it just sucks

@BJDUBBYAH But that's what we're saying...we don't have nearly enough control over if those balls we put into play ARE hits. For my example, I put significantly more balls into play than my opponent. I hit more balls hard than my opponent. I just was not arbitrarily rewarded with as many HRs. We're literally saying we don't have enough control over if what we hit hard becomes a hit.

Like...I don't know if you're being purposefully dense because being a troll is your identity and it's weirdly how you get your jollies. Or if you're an actual moron that doesn't understand what we're trying to say. Either way, you're essentially the dog [censored] on the bottom of the shoe of this conversation.

You stink
You add nothing
And most of us want to just scrape you off and move on...partner

@BJDUBBYAH I'm not saying "it's the game's fault." I'm saying if you're going to use a strikeout differential of 4 to discount OPs original point, then I have a similar example where the strikeout differential was 333% the OTHER direction. It shows, to OP's point, that user input is too often secondary to random RNG in determining the outcome of at-bats.

Instead of using a minimal strikeout differential to discount the OP's point for no reason, maybe add something constructive...or just sit this one out