Show Q&A with CD Guys
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-q-thread.html
Nemesis does most of it, then TheSlab takes some later and Nomo17K even chimes in at the end. He must be a new CD guy.
Q: Own thoughts on gameplay
A: Personally I am excited about gameplay this year. Watching it like you are guys are doing does not give it full justice. It has a dramatically different feel when you experience it first hand. The onfield play has been slowed down which does wonders for the game. Animations play out better, players react better giving the game more personality so to speak.
Q: If you saw any hits down the lines, did the ball roll all the way to the wall or slow down too quickly like in previous games?
A: Some did and some did not. To note also, fielders are slower so even if a ball does not make it totally to the wall you are not losing out on your extra base hit.
Q: Catcher animations and cat like reflexes on choppers in front of plate, have these animations improved or been removed?
A: There is marked improvement with this, it is not flawless but better. For the most part the catcher can't tag out the runner on a dropped third strike. He has to throw it to first, he can't catch up to the runner so that should tell you things right there.
Q: There seems to be an abnormal amount of bunting with two strikes (and two outs!) in MLB 14, regardless of the batting bunting/speed ability. Has this been addressed in 15? Thanks!
A: In the games I played I rarely saw bunting, so to me bunting was toned down. It was excessive last year.
Q: Did you still see clipping with players?
A: I saw some clipping.
Q regarding New Slide Step System.
Perform a slide step while pitching to combat pitchers with a slow delivery to the plate, or runners who consistently get great jumps. This “game within a game” creates a risk/reward factor when performing a slide step. The pitcher will now have less control and slightly less velocity when a slide step is executed, but will be quicker to the plate. As a runner, you now have to worry about your opponent using a slide step when you are attempting a steal.
A: The slide step works as designed, you hold down R2 while you start your motion. It helps!
There were a lot of new animations that I saw. I was constantly replaying things in slow motion because there were many new animations playing out. Not specifically sure what would be classified in your quote but there is plenty to see and admire.
Q: Are the pitchers not fielding every ground ball hit at them?
A: I saw a mix, fielded, flubbed and some too fast to grab. In general I don't hit a lot up the middle personally, which I think has to do with my timing when I hit. I think that is why some see more issues up the middle then others imo.
Q: Any noticeable differences to
a) default batted ball velocity
b) physics interaction between the ball and different materials, i.e. friction of grass vs dirt; the loss of potential energy when the ball hits the padded wall vs the warning track/grass
A: Speeds off the bat felt more organic to me. To me the system does a better job relaying your quality and poor quality contact. I am sure there are behind the scenes calculations going on for this but visually for example I did not see balls deadened when they hit a padded wall.
Q: On the subject of hitting was there one style you preferred over another and were you able to recognize the pitches thrown better this year?
A: I am a zone guy so that is my mode of choice. I do encourage everyone to try the directional hitting even if you are a zone person, it is balanced very well and it is not overdone in its approach where just pressing up results in a home run fest.
Q: What were your impressions of the speed of fielders with range and defensive prowess vs slower, less defensive minded guys?
Also is the speed variance more noticeable this year on the basepaths between speedsters and average/slow runners?
A: To me there was improvement with this and is more noticeable now that things have been slowed down. With some of the slower guys you have to get on your horse to try and run balls down only to have that sinking feeling that you are not going to catch up to it.
Base running felt good and you can differentiate slower and faster runners. The speed paradigm they showed in the stream really adds to the experience.
Q: Can you guys talk about Dynamic Difficulty 2.0 and how it's been refined and/or changed from last year?
A: As was mentioned in the stream there is a slider. Moving it all the way to the left locks it into your current difficulty. Moving it to the right allows you to accelerate the promotions and demotions twice as fast. In trying it you have to start from scratch like last year. I did not see an option where you could cherry pick any of the plus difficulties or start higher then Rookie.
Q: Any new sliders aside from the Dynamic Difficulty "adapt rate" slider (I don't know what else to call it), and the speed sliders being broken up into IF and OF?
A: I saw:
Fielding errors (outfield/infield)
Throwing errors (outfield/infield)
Arm strength (outfield/infield)
Q: Does timing hitting still have the random PCI?
A: PCI has been removed for timing. It did not need to be there.
Q: Related to the directional hitting - did you notice if we can "inside out" a pitch now?
A: I had a few of them using the mechanic.
Q: Can you talk about the hitting and pitching interfaces? What is changed, remained and removed? How new possibilities work?
A: Might as well drop the bomb, there is no swing influence in the game anymore. Actually it has been disconnected for some time apparently. We all were having a dose of Placebo for the past few years.
Q: Is the traditional Zone plus analog still an option? If it is, has it been altered?
A: The analog portion has been as there is NO MORE STRIDE INPUT FROM THE USER.
Push up for a normal swing
Flick left or right for a contact swing
Pull down and then push up for a power swing.
Q: any improvement to the old fielder urgency issues.
A: There is quite a bit of improvement with this as most of the animations fit the situation. Once in a while you may see a questionable one but not to the extent of what we were seeing.
RUSSELL_SCEA Note: FYI for Year-2-year saves all of the MLB players will have their new unique skin tones. They won't bring over the old ones.
Q: Fielder Positioning: Do outfielders still play very shallow at default? By reducing speed and reaction sliders in '14, I was able to get more realistic fielding, but then I had issues with balls in the gap and to the wall being triples so often because the outfielders played so stinkin' shallow. It also hurts the number of bloop hits you can achieve.
A: I did not see any major adjustments to the default positions when playing. I move my defense around a lot so I might see these issues as much as you. Also the quick menu for defensive alignments is a great tool. You hit down on the D-pad to bring the menu up so you don't have to pause and leave the action. There is also a new OSD that shows how your defense is currently set up. This appears in the bottom left of the screen.
Q: Error Chances: In '14, it seemed like errors occurred on plays that should be easy (simple ground balls to the second baseman, where he has all day to throw, throwing it away) as they did on difficult plays. Did you see any signs of errors occurring more frequently on tough plays than easy ones?
A: Animations are going to play a role in this where fielders in more complex fielding situations could yield some more errors.
Q: Pickoffs: I had a lot of issues with how leadoffs and pickoffs occurred last year. The CPU pitcher would throw over far too often, regardless of where the pickoffs slider was set. Also, the pickoffs that did happen were ones where the runner was frozen for a full second after the pitcher made a move, resulting in very easy, clear pickoff play (nearly all pickoffs in real life are very close calls). Any improvement in these areas?
A: Pickoffs were under some maintenance so I could not get a feel for this. If the pitcher is throwing over excessively that usually means you are extending beyond the automatic lead and the pitcher views that as a threat.
Q: Player Hit Tendencies: In '14, players that had extreme pull tendencies would hit opposite field too often (even on middle and inside pitches). Has this been tweaked in any way?
A: I would need more time playing to give an accurate answer. In what I played it was a mixed bag of both situations.
THESLAB Comment on Animations (we are at post 113 now)
As for animations, I saw A LOT more animations than ever before. They played out in the right situations as well. There are different animations for casual/rushed/off-balance throws, etc. And they all felt very natural, and there was no speed up/slow down of animations to match the situation. If you tried to do something "humanly impossible" it would most likely turn into a bad throw. The animation branching is much improved too, IMO. And catcher reactions/animations are 10X better as a result. There are a few tweaks needed in that area, but I can't express how much better catcher play is... and this is for both HUM and CPU players.
Q: Do outfielders collide?
A: No collisions.
Q: Last year I had issues with the Hit n Run. My runner would always slide into second base instead of rounding the bag and seeing where the ball was hit which lead to being doubled up if the ball was popped up. Maybe I'm the only one who had that issue, but did you see any improvement in the hit n run?
A: No problem man. I don't think you were the only one to have that issue in MLB14. I didn't personally, but I kind of knew how it worked from the inside. I looked into this because of other people having issues, and it was actually an inherent fix due to the new baserunning engine. The window for a slide vs. rounding base animation is smaller (not really), I guess you can say it is more 'situational' where as your CPU-assisted runner is now more aware of where the ball is and you shouldn't see that happen now. I tested quite a bit, and don't recall any occurrence of the runner sliding into 2nd.
That brings up another thing. I left in my closing notes to revisit CPU baserunning aggressiveness as a whole (meaning CPU runners and CPU-assisted HUM runners) - I'm not sure what lowering that aggressiveness does for this phenomenon.
Q: were cutscenes a stable 60?
A: To me it seemed like there were less cutscenes and more in real time which kind of eliminates some of that. But to answer your question the game ran pretty smooth without any noticeable chug. looked promising to me.
Q: (Is) the PIP for baserunners is gone, both before the pitch and after (neither appeared in the video)? Are we going to get some kind of indicator that a runner is stealing (aside from crowd/commentary cues and maybe the catcher getting into a throwing position)?
A: The only one that is gone is the one in the middle of the base runner icon OSD. If you look closely they did some work to the OSD to help people struggling with default base running. The button icons are on the bases and you will notice that there is a circle in the center now with a arrow that rotates around to where your targeted runner is. Also to combat the no picture we asked if the icon moving up on the base path to mimic the runner rounding the base at first so you could tell what his status was, i.e.. Rounding first or running straight.
Q: Frame rate/FPS?
A: I left my FPS counter in the car, lol. Seriously though, frame rate seemed very solid, and was one of the first things we were asked specifically to focus on. So I think we are in for a much better experience, in that respect, since FPS optimization is one of the final steps in the process.
Q: Regarding the position of outfielders, it looks like from the Twitch stream they still play pretty darn shallow on default. If you notice the play where Puig gets the poor jump, he is playing really shallow for a batter like Kemp that has opposite field power.
A: It really is a chess match on where to put the fielders. I remember a few years back at CD when we were trying to get more doubles into the game down the line. Moving these fielders a little really alters the balance of game as a whole. So basically they are where they are for overall game balance.
Q: On drop third strikes are there less wild and or wide throws to first base from the catcher?
Maybe it was just me but it seems to happen a lot more often in MLB 14 The Show then it happens in real life. You will hardly ever see the catcher throw a wild throw to first base on a dropped third strike.
A: I only saw this once, and it was from a human player. The baserunning improvements and added fielding/throwing animations greatly improve these type of situations. The CPU catcher is more aware of the baserunner, and will 'make an angle' for his throw. Overall, I think the catcher corrals bad pitches better (unless it was placebo, lol).
A (Nemesis): Ha, tell Francisco Cervelli that! Anyway, I did not see any issue with this. I did not have any in my time playing and I think ThaSlab said he had maybe one. We were looking!
Q: On plays at the plate does the catcher or even umpire move the bat on the ground out of the way so it does not interfere with the play at at the plate? I think this would be a very cool animation to see in the game.
A: They don't do this.
Q: Is there an option to turn off the diamond shaped base running indicator (pre and post pitch)?
In the stream, I liked how there was effort on the devs part to allow gamers to remove many of the on screen displays for those who like it to look as broadcast like as possible while playing. (I'm also hoping for an answer regarding the option to turn off the blue icon under the player with the ball...I also use auto fielding / manual throwing)
A: No, unfortunately you cannot turn off the baserunner position OSD. At least I don't believe so. Not sure what happens on auto baserunning, but it is present even in CPU vs. CPU games. That's funny because you can turn off every other OSD, including the scorebug. I personally didn't check the fielder indicator icon thing, sorry.
Q: During gameplay, did you notice toned down activity of the crowd and vendors (getting up and walking around so often)?
A: Yes, it has been toned down. The fans are a lot less "antsy" this year. You will still see vendors walking all the way down and back up.
Q: Did you notice if fans better track where the ball is hit? Some years ago it seems the fans followed the action of the ball better (most noticeable in replay/slow motion).
A: Didn't particularly look for it, sorry. This is more presentation based and should be discussed during the presentation stream, maybe?
Q: Have you noticed any pop-up slides?
A: Yes! Saw a very cool pop-up slide at first. It was user controlled too.
Q: I just want to know if the blue circle in auto fielding but manual throwing has been removed.
A: No still there.
Q: One major problem with this game is the strike zone. Even if you go in the settings so that “all balls and strike calls are made perfectly,” many of the calls are still incorrect. The pitch track will show that the ball caught the strike zone but it was still called a ball anyway. This has been a problem since the beginning of the series. The entire ball DOES NOT need to be in the strike zone for it to be a strike.
Show Notes: Our strike zone logic is based on 50% of the ball being inside the strike zone for a called strike. With variable umpires this varies and there was a bug last year on the on screen display for where the ball actually landed. That issue has been fixed.
A: I left notes for this very subject. There needs to be wide strikes called. There were fringe calls but I would like to see pitches entirely just outside the zone be called strikes as well sometimes.
Q: How did the cut-off feature work in your minds? Was it pretty solid or did you think it still needed some fine tuning?
A: The cutoff feature works well, I used it several times. I don't like where the OSD is located on screen and I think it flashes too quick. The display shows at the top of the screen, it needs to come down to be seen better and stay on the screen longer. It works very well though and as they mentioned in the stream the situation has to be right for it to happen.
Q: Question about pitch effectiveness when using the slide step. Will we notice a drop in velocity when it is used?
A: Ramone's already confirmed yes.
Q: on a dropped 3rd strike it would be nice to see catchers tag out runners at home plate instead of the batters running like headless chickens to 1st base no matter what
A: CPU catchers actually do try to tag out runners on dropped third strikes in MLB 15. Sometimes even successfully. It brought tears to my eyes when I actually saw it.
(stopped at post #211 – page 11 on 20 posts per thread)
