b.o.b. Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 Hi all, The 06 mod (MD's datafile at the moment) really cranked up the difficulty in my opinion. Had to step down from last year MVP mode to All-star this year. It's a great improvement to the game! Anyways, I'm experimenting with different approaches to the famous "protect mode" where you get defensive at the plate and try to fight of some good pitches to stay alive and hope for a cookie but I can't seem to find any good consistent method which I could stick to. I've had a over-10-pitch at-bat once in over a year of playing this game(several seasons) and if I can fight off one pitch with 2 strikes I'm happy. Problem with this is that it's really hard to get the pitch counts up there where they should be and I'm all for realism. So now I'm kinda curious how you guys do it? I'll tell you the different approaches I've tried. 1 Not moving the batter and holding the stick down and away is probably my fav to date. Good contact-hitters will even foul off a good inside pitch now and then. Problem with this approach is that way to many balls get put in play instead of just fouled off and you are very vulnerable to inside stuff. 2 Take a step towards the plate and hold the stick in. You are going to foul off outside pitches that are close but it's very hard not to pull the trigger on inside pitches, even way inside. 3 Thinking about trying this third method which a friend of mine uses. Don't touch the stick, don't move the batter, just stand where you are and swing on strikes or near strikes. Please fill in with your own approaches to 2 strike hitting as we can all hopefully benefit from this thread. Regards By the way, if this the wrong place, feel free to move this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleMo Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 Before the good responses begin to pour in, let me offer a reversal to your question re: what do you do when you have 2 strikes. I'm a free swinger. I swing at anything and everything (which, Fuzz, if you read this, is why I repeatedly refused to play you online) My ideal approach, whether I forget to follow it or not is this: When the count is empty, 0-0, I don't swing at the first pitch. EVER. I then try to watch where the next pitch lands to see where I'm being worked and what two pitches came at me. No matter what the count is before the third pitch is thrown I make my guess as to what is coming next and its location. I swing at that pitch no matter what the count is. Everything else after that is me getting lucky. What happens more often than not: I swing at everything and get lucky. If I look like a bum, so be it. If I smack homers galore, so be it. Goes the breaks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSoxFox7 Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 My big problem with MVP05 is that it really is too easy to get hits. The method your friend uses is the way I bat 99% of the time if I'm just looking for contact hits, and it works very well as long as you're swinging at strikes. I've been playing MVP NCAA 06 lately, and the batting is top notch. It's still the same style of batting, none of that MLB2K crap where you've got to line up the cursor. The major difference is that you can't just swing at strikes without aiming the bat, and you can't sit on pitches holding the stick up and in looking for a moon shot. I'm still a little behind on pitches most of the time w/ NCAA, but I love the fact that you actually need to move to the pitch to make good contact. Sometimes you'll still manage good contact if you misread the pitch and move the wrong way, but at least 80% of the time you'll either foul it off or hit a weak popup or a slow roller, easy out. It's just a shame there's no PC version of NCAA, and no way to mod it into an MLB game. Hopefully next year they'll bring back the PC version, and have some kind of create-a-league feature to go along with their create-a-team and create-a-player features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southside_hitmen Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 I use your friends method with two strikes. I posted somewhat of a hitting tutorial a long time ago at Op. Sports. I'll see if I can find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roscosuper Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 It's really hard to protect the plate in this game, when a pitch is out of the zone, it's a lot harder to make contact and even if sometimes your timing is perfect, you'll miss it anyway. Maybe it can be adjusted in the datafile, to allow more contact for pitches out of the zone, but contact that is going to put the ball foul. If it could, it would be great. It would definately up the pitch counts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreLegend Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 Similiar to just protecting, something that's always bugged me about MVP is that you can't start the stick 'in' and work it 'out' to hit the ball the other way. If a pitcher runs a ball in on my hands, I can't ever inside out the pitch with enough contact to get a solid opposite field hit even when I'm expecting it. In fact, the only times I ever have it happen is when I mis-execute on a pitch that I'm trying to pull, but I'm way out ahead of it and it's basically a foul'd off ball that goes into left field. Very frustrating because I basically can't protect the inside of the plate unless I'm sitting fastball way out in front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JP_Frost Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 on a 2 strike count, I always hold the stick down and swing as late as possible. That way you'll fight off alot of pitches because you're generally late. Most of the time you put it in play though and AB's over 6 pitches only happen a handful of times. I consider myself a pretty patient hitter in this game, but it's hard to not to stress out with 2 strikes on you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edm Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 I like to think I'm a patient hitter, (sometimes a 7+ pitch AB feels just as good as a walk off HR). But I can't say I intentionally try to foul off close pitches to protect the plate. Basically, my strategy with two strikes is to take a ball and swing at the strike. One thing I don't do very often with two strikes is try to pull the ball. I usually try to look for something away that i can poke to the opposite field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JarOfMayo Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 I don't bat in this game cause I suck at it. I'm a free swinger. I enjoy pitching in this game though Honestly the best swinging system I've ever seen has been used and developed by Konami in their JP Baseball Series, ProYakyo Spirits and Powerful ProYakyu. Look at the screenshots: I never have bought Spirits so I don't know about the blue circle but you can see the bat cursor (moved by the left analog stick). You can move side to side in the box and move the bat target around very smoothly. (At least in PowerPro) Theres a choice between power swing and contact and honestly you can "fight" very easily if you have decent contact and can read the pitches well. ProSpirits3 Intro Thankfully Konami always puts up videos of PowerPro its most popular series, even though its Super-Deformed it works sooo well (training, school, career-manager, mylife, league, online, single season, data entry, minigame story modes). I believe they are venturing into making a MLB version soon. Some Game ASX and WMV, sadly the pitchers here are just winging it lol but you can get the idea. Not all contact zones are as big as it looks btw.Powerful Proyakyu 12 Game Video Powerful ProYakyu 11 Game Video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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