ESPN Baseball - Two Button Hitting Method

[Lockdown]

Does anyone know if adjusting the Human Hitting Power slider will decrease the amount of dingers one can hit when using this mode and hitting the 'B' button?

It may sound like a dumb question, but I don't know exactly how hitting power is represented in the game. I always assumed it meant how far you would hit a ball. Example: A guy with an 80 power rating hits a random ball 450 feet. That same guy, with his power rating stat moved down to 50 hits the very same ball 410 feet (for example). That same guy with a 99 rating hits the same ball 520 feet... etc.. etc...

OR... is it much more generic than that? Is it simply related to his chance of hitting homers? And if so, how does the 'B' button fit into the equation exactly?

In a nutshell, I am trying to accomplish being able to use the two types of swings without totally wreaking havoc on my homerun stats because of the ease at which balls fly out of the park using the 'B' button.

Anyone know if the slider is the answer to this dilemma?

As always, your help is appreciated.

[FatPitcher]

Hitting power (as it pertains to the slider) is ball speed off the bat. I think the middle slider setting gives you a max of around 150 ft/s. Changing the slider will simply add a multiplier to the ball speed of any batted ball. It affects all hits, regardless of swing method, in this way.

[Lockdown]

FatPitcher -

Thank you. As usual, Sega/VC/BlueShift does it the RIGHT way, not the wrong way.

This should (in practice) help my problem then. I will simply lower the power slider.

By the way, two things:

1 - How does the "power swing" actually work? What does it do exactly? My guess always was that it added "X" feet to the ball distance at the expense of "ball contact" attribute points. But maybe that is not correct either.

2 - I know you really don't need to rehash the crappy memory, but I was wondering if you feel at all vindicated by the fiasco that was the ESPN Baseball previews? Let's face it, the community (at large) has spoken, and ESPN Baseball 2k4 is hands down one of the greatest baseball games ever. At least in my estimation anyway.

I wish I could personally thank all of you guys for what you have done with this title. It is truly a tremendous game, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I am having an absolute blast playing it.

Thanks again FatPitcher.

LD

[AJColossal]

I agree...this game along with games like ID show that the mainstream gaming press does not recognize substance in a sports sim.

And it kills me that they slay the game in reviews under the pretense that they offered nothing new this year, when all they did was fineplay the gameplay to near perfection.

Good job to all involved with ESPN.

[FatPitcher]

FatPitcher -

Thank you. As usual, Sega/VC/BlueShift does it the RIGHT way, not the wrong way.

This should (in practice) help my problem then. I will simply lower the power slider.

By the way, two things:

1 - How does the "power swing" actually work? What does it do exactly? My guess always was that it added "X" feet to the ball distance at the expense of "ball contact" attribute points. But maybe that is not correct either.

2 - I know you really don't need to rehash the crappy memory, but I was wondering if you feel at all vindicated by the fiasco that was the ESPN Baseball previews? Let's face it, the community (at large) has spoken, and ESPN Baseball 2k4 is hands down one of the greatest baseball games ever. At least in my estimation anyway.

I wish I could personally thank all of you guys for what you have done with this title. It is truly a tremendous game, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I am having an absolute blast playing it.

Thanks again FatPitcher.

LD

1 - The two swings have different hit physics. Basically, hits are determined by a formula that translates X/Y error (how much you missed the ball by, in terms of up/down and left/right), swing timing, batter ratings, pitcher ratings, and various other factors (such as a penalty to power for pulling outside pitches and pushing inside ones) into a pitch (up/down angle), yaw (left/right angle), and ball speed. The formula is different for contact swings, power swings, bunts, and the "classic" swings, and they were all tuned separately. We made contact a little more similar to the power swing this year, since last year it was a bit overpowered in terms of how easy it was to get line-drive hits.

2 - I think we got too much credit last year (and the year before, and the year before that), so it goes both ways. I think we could have done more than being the second coming of High Heat if there had been some better decision-making, but I'm glad that people are enjoying the game.