MLB 2k10 Wish List

[All Day CP3]

Why did EA get licensing for their baseball game? They should have went after licensing for the football or basketball game. Stupid, stupid, stupid 2k...

This baseball game hasn't impressed me since it was on the Dreamcast.

Bring back High Heat or MVP baseball, please.

[TheFrontline]

My ONE wish...

2K loses its exclusive contract with MLB, and EA begins to resurrect it's "MVP" series.

It won't happen, therefore that is why it is a wish list.

2K7, 2K8, 2K9.

Strike one, strike two, strike three.

2K will never get another cent of my hard earned money. I'm just simply done getting burned by them.

[TheFrontline]

Quote: Originally Posted by yanks1

I disagree. Technically speaking, VC has never directly developed a baseball game. It's always been a different company. Under the Sega Sports brand, WSB went through multiple developers. 2k1 was a disaster due to no control over fielding. 2k2 was produced by Blue Shift for Dreamcast and played a decent, but offensive heavy game. 2k3 was an absolute gem- the game produced extremely realistic results, but lacked in presentation. 2k4 I passed on due to a few subtle changes. Blue Shift was fired and Kush (a former subsidiary of Visual Concepts) took over for 2k5, which I though was alright, but definitely not as good as 2k3. 2k6 I skipped, and 2k7 was pretty horrible in my opinion. And then 2k8... VC has, to some extent, brought this game back to its roots. Cursor hitting has returned, and everything feels closer to what it used to. I'm not sure what everyone's fascination/obsession with the MVP series is. Personally, I never got into it. I guess it's just taste. But let me say this, I don't want EA taking over VC. After all, who's to blame for your precious MVP disappearing? Oh right, it was EA that bought up the NFL license, and 2k got back at them by buying the MLB license.

Uh... I'm not drinking your Kool-Aid. Not trying to be rude, either. VC has put out a horrible baseball game. Possibly the worst ever for a next gen console.

There is no sugarcoating that.

[Scooter3]

To each his own, to me this game is a very good game. It's not great yet but I think it's headed in the right direction.

It's ten times better than what 2K has offered over the last few years. I'm very optimistic now that VC is in the drivers seat.

Can't wait to see what improvements are made for 2010, until then I'm planing on enjoying the heck out of this much improved baseball game.


scooter....

[yanks1]

Quote: Originally Posted by letsplaybeanthechink

But then again, being a Yankees fan, I wouldn't expect you to make much sense as far as what's good and what's not. Do me a favor and go pull a Cory Lidle.

It's obvious what you are (one post, signed up in the past 6 days...). I won't even entertain you with a real response. The only person out of their mind is you, with that user name.

RedSoxFox7: K-zone isn't the only saving grace this game has seen. 2k3 was one of the best baseball games ever made.

And you're wrong, Blue Shift developed 2k2 for the Dreamcast, and World Series Baseball (no year in the title) for Xbox.

http://dreamcast.ign.com/objects/016/016539.html
"Independent videogame development studio located in Palo Alto, California. The company, which started off by developing the World Series Baseball 2K2 for the Sega Dreamcast, was founded in summer of 1995. Blue Shift develops games for all console platforms." http://games.ign.com/objects/027/027432.html
http://www.blueshiftgames.com/

[Trevytrev11]

Looking back on my 2K9 list, there are some things that aren't as important to me or are more little touches that would be nice additions, but there are still a few things that I would like to see added as well as some others.

From that list:

#6) The addition of a contact swing. I still think this is a must for a baseball game. In real life there are situations where a hitter will choke up, shorten his swing and play pepper to put the ball in play. There should be a sacrafice in power, but not enough so that a player still can't jack one on occasion if everything is perfect. This swing would have a wider contact window, but would result in weaker hits. Think of this as the swing you use when contact is imperative and power is not (hit and run, hitting behind a runner, etc.) It would only get used probably a handful of times a game at most, but they would be important situations.

#7) Still bugs me when a pitcher doesn't have their proper pitches. I think someone said Sanata has a curveball in the game, but doesn't ever throw one in real life. With Inside Edge, I don't know how this happens.

#9) Different team personalities. There is definitely different types of teams that have different approaches to the game. Chances are that if Jeter is up with a man on second in the top of the 1st and no outs, he will be swinging away, but on other teams that is a sacrafice situation almost all of the time. Some coaches are station to station and some create action.

Team or Manager tendency sliders/ratings would be nice for things that cover all facets of the game like:
-How often a team tries to steal
-How often a team will risk an out by trying to take an extra base and go 1st to third on a single up the middle or try and score on a sharp single to a shallow outfield, etc.
-How often a team is willing to give up an out with a bunt
-Whether or not a coach is quick to pull his pitcher when he gets into trouble or whether he will leave him in.
-How dependent a coach is on pitcher vs. hitter matchups (lefty/lefty).
-Defensive subs late in a game, etc. Do you risk sitting a good hitter late in the game for defensive stability?
-Does the manager allow mutliple inning saves for closers. Some closers are off limits in the 8th inning.

It would just be nice to face different teams in similar situations and see them act completely different. It would help to add a lot of variety in the game

Those are the main leftovers from last year. Everything else still would be appreciated, but they are more fluff than actual substance.

I'll add my new ideas on another post.

[bakesalee]

I've got some big ones that are HUGE in presentation and game play.

-Camera follows the ball in the outfield (think Sega Home Run King of 2002, or Ken Griffey Jr. baseball from SNES)

-Bring back the foul ball camera work from WSB2k3/2k4. A high hit foul ball going upward by the stadium lights looked remarkably close to a real game on ESPN. Since 2k5, not at all.

-Bring back the home run no-doubter cam from WSB 2k3. This is different than my first suggestion. This one cuts to a majestic cut scene if you will, of a panned out camera shot of the stadium while keeping the ball in view.

-Bring back zone hitting (but keep the cursor "zone hitting" you have now). In zone hitting, please let us have seperate contact and power swings.

-No more arrows in the outfield. I know I'm playing a video game but I'm trying to forget. If the proper camera system is in place (actually follows the ball), this isn't necessary.

-Bring a new graphics engine. As much as I loved the gameplay of WSB 2k3, the current game looks exactly like it but in higher resolution.

[Trevytrev11]

Pitcher Accuracy Variability (sorry about the length)

-One of the dev's said in one of the Q&A's that if you execute your pitch perfectly then your pitcher should should hit is spot perfectly.

The problem is that they system is the same for every pitcher so regardless of your pitcher, once you figure out the timing of the system, anyone can't paint a corner like Greg Maddux in his prime. And unfortunately most average pitchers on their best days aren't as good as the best pitchers on their bad days.

There are two ways to achieve this:
1) Make the system harder for pitchers as they get worse. Being consistant with an ace pitcher should be a lot easier than being consistant with a #5 who is struggling to stay in the rotation. So something would have to be done to the mechanic to achieve this (variable speeds, stops and stutters, etc.-something that would require complete focus to achieve solid results with a crap pitcher and less focus for a stud).

2) Keep the system the same, but use pitchers ratings so that as pitchers get worse a perfectly executed pitch has more and more variability to it. Basically make the location circle icon different sizes for different pitchers and then different for each pitcher's different pitches.

Personally, I prefer #2 and think that it would lead to very realistic results.

Here is how I envision the system (and I know I've detailed this out several times and as recent as yesterday in other posts):

Take two pitchers of different calibers: Roy Halladay (39 walks in 246 IP or about 1.5 walks per 9 IP) and Barry Zito (102 walks in 180 innings or 5.1 walks per 9 IP).

Looking just at fastballs: Halladay, on a perfectly executed pitch would be able to locate his fastball within the diameter of say a softball (something just larger than a baseball). Zito, however would be within the size of a basketball. He's not going to nail spot after spot, but should get the ball in the area he was aiming. The pitch would end up randomly in this circle.

Now think of a game with Zito. Obviously you want to still stay on the outer edges of the plate, but to do this, you have to lineup your basketball sized circle on the edge of the plate, which means a larger portion of your circle will be out of the zone leaving a good chance of throwing a ball. You do this twice and miss and now you can't be as fine. You are forced to bring your circle all the way in the zone. Well now you have a large portion of the circle near the middle of the plate, which means now you have a good chance of throwing a very hittable pitch to the hitter.

I think this emulates the struggles that guy like Zito has (especially his last year in Oakland and the last two with SF). He tries to be to fine, but doesn't have the control to do so. He ends up getting behind and falling into situations where he has to give into the hitter and ends up giving up a 2 run double or a homerun, etc.

Now as the game goes on, similar to Payoff pitching, if you continue to execute quality pitches and have good results, your zone will begin to shrink and will kind of emulate what happens when a pitcher is on his game (even bad pitchers can have great games). And the same on a bad day. If you continue to miss and miss, the zone will stretch. By the third inning with Zito, if you have shut down the other team and have been nailing your pitches all of a sudden your basketball size zone is down similar to Halladays zone. However, if your pitcher has a low confidence rating, a few back to back hits could result in him being back to sqaure one, where as a guy with great confidence (Santana) will have to endure more than a few singles to get rattled.

Finally, this was all just for fastballs. I would then apply a rating to each pitch in a pithers arsenal to demonstrate the fact that the majority of pitchers cannot locate their offspeed stuff as well as their fastball. Halldays softball sized circle may be the size of a basketball for a curveball. And Zito's basketball may become a beach ball...well you get the idea.

The one other change this would encompass is to force a pitcher to actually select a pitch prior to actually pitching so that the size of the circle would be determined. Also, this is the natural order that happen in baseball.

[Scooter3]

Quote: Originally Posted by bakesalee

-Bring back the home run no-doubter cam from WSB 2k3. This is different than my first suggestion. This one cuts to a majestic cut scene if you will, of a panned out camera shot of the stadium while keeping the ball in view.

b,
Agree 100% BEST LOOKING HOME-RUNS EVER!

VC has put this game in the right direction, nows the time to put this game over the top...Just bring back 2K3's no-doubters...

I still play 2K3 just to watch those epic looking homers...

scooter...

[Trevytrev11]

Pitcher vs. Runner - Pickoffs

In real life, the pitcher has to look at the runner to see how big his leadoff is from the base. At first base, it's usually a slight tilt or twist of the head so that the pitcher can pick up the runner is his peripheral line of site. At second base, the pitcher will turn his head 180 degrees to look at the runner and at third base, he will turn his head 90% to pick up the runner. Flip flop 1st and third with a lefty.

In all three cases, the runner is aware that the pitcher is looking at him. It's unrealistic. You get a big lead and have no idea or not if the pitcher is aware of you or not. There is not really any kind of skill involved to swiping bags in this game. You basically get your lead and go. If the pitcher throws over, you are at the mercy of the game to get back. There is no cat and mouse game (as Ricky Henderson used to call it).

In video games, this has not been the case (can't speak for the show) and the pitcher has a huge advantage. He can look at the base runner icons or the pitcture in picture and know if the runner is leading off, but the runner has no idea he is being looked at.

The fix:

Leave the picture in picture icons up as well as the base runner icons. But now, once you are in the Batter Pitcher View, the runner icons do not move. They only stay highlighted to remind both players where the runners are. And then blank out the picture in picture base runner image (black it out, white it out or just make it transparent).

At this point the pitcher has no idea of the baserunners lead.

For the sake of this, lets say the Left Bumper is the "check runner" button and the face buttons are used for each base. The camera view is the standard behind the pitcher view.

You are at the set position and you have no idea if Juan Pierre has a 10 foot lead or not, but you know he is on first base. You press the L bumper and the "B" button and on screen you see your pitcher turn his head to give a look to first and in the picture in picture, you see the blanked out (transparent) area all of a sudden come up and you can see the runners lead. Third base would work out the exact same way, only you would use the X button.

Second base could be kind of cool. The pitching camera would be zoomed in just enough so that you could not see what was going on at second. When you hit the bumber and "Y" to check second, the camera would pan/zoom out (think of when you check your receivers in football) and you would see the pitcher turn his head and look at second and the runner, the base and the fielders would come into zoom.

Then to execute a pick at any base, you would just simply press the base button again. If you did not want to wait for the look and just make a throw (pitchers do this often at first with quick runners to set them up or on timed plays at second), you would simply press the Bumper and tap the base button twice. Different picks could also be tied to this-a tap tap would be a long move and a tap hold could be the quick move.

The same exact stuff would happen when batting (though at second there would be no zoom as it wouldn't be needed for you when batting). In a two player offline game, maybe when there is a runner on second, he is invisble on the screen until the pitcher looks and then he shows up.

Also, if you continue to hold the L Bumper when you execute your pitch, your pitcher would then throw the pitch using a slide step if he has one (another option that could be added to each players stuff).