Ideas for the perfect batting/pitching interface

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 2:49 pm

Prompted by someone's (I forgot who) brilliant idea for a pitching interface that mimics light from a flashlight, I thought it would be interesting to hear ideas for how you all might improve the batter-pitcher interface in videogames.

One thing that always bugged me about baseball titles is that it is pretty much impossible to read the spin on the ball to guess the type of pitch. Maybe you could have a beachball-sized ball appear when it leaves the pitcher's hand (showing spin), and have it be pea-sized by the time it crosses the plane. I dunno, let me hear your thoughts!

Given the fact that we now have so many companies competing for the same market, maybe somebody could pick up on something truly innovative for next year.

snate · Post by **snate** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 3:30 pm

I like the x,y axis idea Web mentioned a few days ago. It is similar to the free throw system used in alot of basketball games.

The meter goes right and left and you try and stop it in the center. Then the meter goes up and down and you try to stop it in the center. The meter goes faster for less accurate pitchers. If you miss a little to the right and a little up then that is where the pitch goes in relation to where you aimed.

To do a quik fix the MVP meter I would do a a bullseye cursor with a center and two outside rings. I would also add two more colors on either side of the green section on the pitch meter - yellow and red. You would also make the green section smaller b/c you would have more colored sections. You would still try to stop it in the green to throw it where you aimed, but if you miss it and stop on yellow, it would end up somewhere in that larger area. Red would be even a larger area than that.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:39 pm

I think whatever system is used, there needs to be an inherent difference between fastballs and junk. It should be so difficult to throw a strike with breaking stuff or a change up (at least with 95% of the pitchers) that you never feel quite comfortable throwing one when you need to get a strike.

Then, hitters counts would really be hitters counts.

I frankly think MVP is SO close, that it almost hurts. They just need to be meaner, and make it more difficult, basically emulate what the Madden kicking meter does, and make a much bigger difference with full pwoer vs. not-quite-full power.

And make breaking stuff inherently harder to throw strikes with or be accurate with than straight stuff.

Post by **Jared** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:17 pm

hugo wrote:I think whatever system is used, there needs to be an inherent difference between fastballs and junk. It should be so difficult to throw a strike with breaking stuff or a change up (at least with 95% of the pitchers) that you never feel quite comfortable throwing one when you need to get a strike.

Then, hitters counts would really be hitters counts.

I frankly think MVP is SO close, that it almost hurts. They just need to be meaner, and make it more difficult, basically emulate what the Madden kicking meter does, and make a much bigger difference with full pwoer vs. not-quite-full power.

And make breaking stuff inherently harder to throw strikes with or be accurate with than straight stuff.

That is such a good point. The fact that it's just as easy to hit the corner with a 4-seam fastball as a knuckler (as long as you hit the "green" right) is absurd. They could make it such that control of the pitch aim thingy is harder and make the green area smaller for harder pitches (and this could be smaller or larger based on player abilities with that pitch). It seems like the pitch ratings make it less likely that the hitter is gonna get good wood off that pitch, and not necessarily that it's easier to aim and hit the corners.

And they need to grade the green zone. Hitting green and aiming for a corner is easy, and it always results in perfectly hitting the corners. You should only be able to do that if you hit the very middle of the green area. As you go out from the green area the pitch should be ever so slightly more inaccurate. This would make aiming for the corners very risky because even a slight mistiming will make it a 50-50 chance that the pitch goes out of the strike zone. I agree Hugo...the core of the pitching interface has promise, but it needs to be made harder.

GROGtheNailer · Post by **GROGtheNailer** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:30 am

How about when pitching, labelled beside each pitch is the percentage that you are able to throw in that zone where you are aiming? Not pin-point aiming but the zone. As the game goes on ( or even 1st inning until you find your stuff) and inning to inning those percentages change. Example:

Number 2 pitcher in rotation:

Fastball: 76 %

Slider: 62 %

Curveball: 35 %

These percentage can change during the game, perhaps go down if he's getting rocked a bit or up a tad if he get an important K or ground-out.

Hitting is a hard one, I don't know if you can beat zone hitting in my opinion. Maybe have left joystick as aim and right joystick as the swing.
Right you would pull back and "cock" the bat and then you can have full motion upward as the follow through ( ala Tiger Woods on xbox).

Ed_Farias · Post by **Ed_Farias** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:59 am

Hello all, I am brand spanking new around here. PigPen pushed me over this way.

Anyway, I love this thread so I thought I would just chime in an idea I have had for a while...

In theory, really good hitters can either see the spin on the ball, or see how the pitcher is holding the ball before it is released. I say in theory because I never could, been a guess hitter my whole life

.

Anyway, my idea has always been to show a little popup window just as the pitcher is about to release the ball. Either 1. Show a snapshot of his hand gripping the ball, just for a split second, or 2. Show a "matrix" style slowmo of the rotation during the pitch's patch to the plate, also for a short amount of time.

From there, just use the analog stick for hitting. Move the analog stick to the location in the zone at the right time. Just like throwing your bat head at the ball. (No button pressing involved, just the analog stick)

Did I make sense

.

GROGtheNailer, your batting idea sounds very similar to what ASB added this year. Pull back on the right analog stick and push forward to swing, while using the left analog stick to aim in the zone or move the cursor. not sure my mind can handle both thumbs moving at once though

.

Glad to be here by the way.

GROGtheNailer · Post by **GROGtheNailer** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 4:12 am

Welcome here Ed !

GROGtheNailer, your batting idea sounds very similar to what ASB added this year.

Are you sh1tting me ? Whoa....very interesting. I like the idea of being able to see the spin, that would be great.

Ed_Farias · Post by **Ed_Farias** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 4:54 am

Yeah, I think they dubbed it Analog Swing

. If you are not planning on getting ASB I will let you know how it is.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:14 am

Ed,
Glad to see you over here.

I asked about this new mode over at OS before I got banned...

The new swing mode is pretty sweet. I don't yet know if it will be complete. You know sometimes it looks good on paper but doesn't play right. I hope that's not the case here. I want something more than what we have in MVP and MLB in terms of swing mechanics. If they do pull this off it might be a pretty good mode to play baseball in. I really think it could lead to most control batting.

Ed_Farias · Post by **Ed_Farias** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:22 am

I agree. One thing ASB is great at is giving players options. 4 batting styles, and double that when you add analog or button swing

. I was so in love with 2004, I really don't think I can be dissapointed with 05. I am pretty make taking the approach that I am getting a newer version of 2004. If all the new stuff pans out good, then great. If not, I can still play it just like I played 04

.

You got banned huh? Seems to be a trend lately as Cub got banned not to long ago as well. I wondered why I had not seen you in a while

.

Yeah a friend at the veteran gamers board pointed me over here. Great place, wish I had known about it sooner

.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:40 am

I won't go into the ban, it's not really the time nor the place, Fossen got upset and I got the boot.

Anyway, I hope that ASB has done something more with their pitching mode. I haven't read much about it. It seems more of the same.

I do think that pitching/hitting modes are rather incompete this year excluding ASB (haven't played it). First off this pin-point pitching has got to go. It works decently well in MVP but still not to the level of real pitching. Snates idea is damn good and i like it for MVP.

Galley · Post by **Galley** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 7:52 pm

Interplay Sports Baseball 2000 had a great pitching interface in the pre-analog days. You used the d-pad to choose one of nine quadrants, along with the pitch type. You then selected one of nine sub-quadrants along with a pitch speed. In other words, you could choose 81 pitch locations. I sure wish I could find a good copy of that game for the PSone.

GROGtheNailer · Post by **GROGtheNailer** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:42 am

Wouldnt that be a little too pin-point?

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:32 am

MVP is knocking on the door right now and this is what I'd do to make it better:

1. Mimick MLB's aiming for starting pitch location instead of the current aim where you want the pitch.

2. Offer levels of pitching difficulty AND game difficulty. That way you can keep the game on Pro difficulty and use All Star pitching difficulty. Obviously the higher the pitching difficulty the smaller the green zone is.

3. This is the most essential of the bunch IMO. Don't just have the meter shrink when you go for extra muscle on your pitch but also when you're trying to paint the corners. And if you're trying to add a little extra to your pitch and your going for the corners then you had better be one hell of a joystick jockey or else you're missing your spot. This combination alone will provide the inconsistency found in the High Heat series but at least the user would know it's his fault instead of the cpu just deciding that statistically it was time to miss a pitch.

4. This one is an idea and I'm not sure if it would be any good or not but I'll write it anyway. Incorporate some sort of Confidence Bar into the game (similar to what ESPN is doing this year) that rises when you are hitting your pitches consistently and falls when you're getting wild. When it rises the pitching meter will grow just a little and when it falls the pitching meter will shrink just a little. Again, just an idea.

Well, that is what I'd do to make what I think would be a pretty damn realistic and good pitching interface that will prevent strikes from being thrown 85-90% of the time while giving the user the feeling that the missed pitches were a result of his/her mistake instead of cpu randomness.