Super Mega Baseball 3(!)

Yeah, I lowered my Ego to 45. I finished 9-7 (4-3 in the playoffs) on Ego 50 in SMB2. But I Just flat out can’t hit for crap. Even at 45 I lost the next game 4-2, and I scored tho ha se two in the 9th (and popped out with runners at 2nd and 3rd and two outs).

Messing with franchise, and it is really well done. It really is such a smart take on baseball.

One thing I’ve always wanted sports games to do is drop the obligation to mimic professional leagues rules on player movement. Instead of trying to teach an AI how to trade and negotiate contracts, find another way to move players around. SMB3’s system is pretty good.

There are no trades, and while there are free agents, it’s like old MLB rules, once you sign them, they are yours until you release them. There is one pool of FAs, and you sign them by dropping a player as you sign a new one.

There is a salary cap, so you can’t just go and sign the best players. Each player has a price, but that price will go down as they linger in free agency. Older players will retire at some point instead of lowering their price.

Against an AI, this is plenty. It’s strategic, and you have to decide how to invest your budget. I’m playing as the Buzzards in a short league, and have about 12.5 million in cap space. The best pitcher on the market wants 32 million.

For now, I’m not making moves. You also earn $$$ after each game. You spend that on player development. The more cap space you have, the more you earn to upgrade players. I’m still a little unclear on how all of that works. I know you can buy an upgrade, and they cost various prices, but I am not sure how permanent they are, but they are not cheap.

They range from about $500K to $1,5 million, and in addition to upgrades, may also have negative traits. I earn about $750K for player development each game. Not sure if upgrade prices vary more, maybe going higher later.

Really wish an online franchise was included. This would be a perfect way to run a league, but trades would have to be added.

Still have not played much Pennant Race, an am not sure how they will set that up to fiction as an alternative to league play with friends. I did play one game. My opponent was using Ego 49, and I was 50. In a five inning game he jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two. Then scored 5 in the third and I lost by mercy rule.

Part of it is getting used to the run mechanics, which I mess up. And defense freaking matters. My first baseman Bill Bucknered two balls at 1B, before I replaced him with a better fielder, but worse hitter. Pitching is tougher, but mostly because I cannot nail down a power pitch. Regular pitching is the same, but if you miss on a power pitch, it goes way wild.

But, mostly, I can’t generate any power with regular hitting. In SMB2, I hit plenty of HRs and balls to the gap without using power swings. So I need to work at both power pitching and hitting

Oh, and uniform and logo designer upgrades are pretty great. You know, I don’t really need a stadium editor. But it would be cool if they let us repaint and rename Current stadiums, to make them more personal, without having to create a tool to build stadiums from scratch.

Played my first franchise match. I picked the Sawteeth and our first match was against the Blowfish (the Mariner derby). We won 15-8... which seems like a really high score?? Again, as someone who doesn't really follow real life baseball I don't know if that's a common result or a bit of an aberration. Up until the 7th it was still a decent match, I was leading 8-5 but they had the bases loaded, I managed to get the third out and then started to pull away. Will see how the next game goes.

One thing I'm struggling with is the timing of hitting if I use either A or X. I've gotten pretty good at using the right thumbstick for my swings, but am not able to time it with button presses. Any tips on that? I'm kind of locked in to power swings at the moment unless I can get to gruips with it.

War Hogs, live or die! Recolored my team to pink and brown, naturally. Miss a couple of players from 2, but overall, I think starting the Ego on 40 was about right. Playing around .500 ball with a roster full of holes. Hogs have power and speed. I love how the same relief pitcher in all three versions (Drake) seems like he should be decent but always turns into a gas can that I am convinced I can turn around. 32 game franchise mode.

At 40, I struggled the first 6-7 games trying to remember the timing of hitting and then things started clicking, at least using contact. I am not fully there with power, yet. Have been losing heartbreaker as well. Last game got shut out but hit the ball on the screws multiple times. Didn't get pissed, because the other team was strong defensively and if just felt like one of those games you get in a real baseball game. Also clutched out a win with some rare patience at the plate on my part and a 2 out, grand slam from my one-star player.

Has to be a GotY finalist in the Sports Game category.

Yeah, this is really good.

After starting as the Jacks I made a new franchise as the Sirloins because the Jacks' pitching is in such a bad place and my first game of the season went into extra innings, which I won when I finally got the enemy's pitching to break in the 14th.

Even then I had to hold on to my new lead with a very average closer who was all velocity and no control and then was tired on top of that, which was genuinely tense.

Then the effects of game one carried over to game two as all my bullpen were shattered. I had to bring a Starter in in relief.

Combined with all the little personality traits from players and the good enough roster management, I really like it.

So does the auto-movement of the reticule to hit and auto-movement of the fielders to the ball persist at higher ego levels or is it just at lower ones where it does everything for you? Last baseball game I really played a lot of was Ken Griffey Jr Baseball on Nintendo 64, ha. In that one you had to move the reticule yourself to hit and there was a circle on the field that showed up when someone hit a fly ball and you ran to it yourself. I like that better. This seems too simplistic.

I loved Ken Griffey Baseball that was a great game.

From what I can gather the ego system just relates mostly to hitting/pitching and moving the reticle into the sweet zone. The higher you go the less the computer will auto move it for you. Also the computer team gets better as well.

The auto movement is noticeably smaller at higher batting Ego.

At the default 35 if you put your reticle into the low outside corner of the plate and the pitcher goes 93mph high and inside for a ball, auto movement alone will almost get you to the ball.

At 65 ego your reticle is smaller and on the same 93mph ball high and inside the auto movement barely makes it to the middle of the plate before the ball is past you.

From a fielding perspective, I think the higher the fielding rating, the more the player will move towards the correct position to field the ball. The lower the rating, the more manual control is needed. I am pretty sure that is why there is no icon telling you exactly where the ball will land.

Personally, I love it. Nothing is more frustrating to me that screwing up outfielders or overrunning a ball on the infield. That isn’t what I play a baseball game for. Also, the use of an intelligent cutoff throw mechanic! So good.

Because the GWJ Dorks Racing League needs a baseball team...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/TuIwwZ4.png)

It's kind of amazing how well the game recreates baseball. It's been a few years since I played The Show, but I'd put this right up there with how it plays.

I am finding it a bit difficult to nail down ego. I've climbed from the default to 55 at this point, but I'll still get blowouts (both by the CPU and myself) more often than I see close games.

I won won my first Pennant Race game online, and it plays really well. Took a bit of getting used to, but hitting and ouching versus another human is so much fun.

I’ve been posting clips and such to the GWJ Sportsball club I created on XBL. Would love to see more SMB3 stuff, especially to se anyone’s customized uniforms and such.

I really enjoy the demo on Switch... I’ve probably played 10 of the short games. One went in extras to the 8th inning.

That said, I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger and buy it, not for $45. There’s something about the lack of music during games that bugs me. If you aren’t gonna have commentary you should have music. Especially since the rest of the package evokes the first Ken Griffey game on SNES. I’ll buy during a sale though.

Haven't played any online games yet, but are you able to play against people on your friends list or is it just randos? We should get some games going. I'm on PC, and only have a few people on my steam friends list that have the game.

Very easy to play friends. Donan and I played some SMB2 last week.

Pennant Race is a competitive online mode. OIn that you play randos, and you get ranked based on wins and quality of opponents. But they are adding a custom Pennant Race mode this summer that will allow you to play with your friends instead of randos, and you can customize it some way to sort of mimic league play.

They have not really gone into detail, but I'm hop[ing it will work out pretty well.

My pitcher, Wanda Dregler (Blowfish), took a line shot to the head in the fifth inning of my first real franchise game.

I was not offended.

Took a swipe in the editor at creating a variation of the Braves old school lowercase "a" logo with the baby blues and added in the tomahawk. ha.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/vB1Igby.jpg)

billt721 wrote:

I am finding it a bit difficult to nail down ego. I've climbed from the default to 55 at this point, but I'll still get blowouts (both by the CPU and myself) more often than I see close games.

Meanwhile, I'm getting a lot of this:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/kpe06Uq.png)

My very next game was another 3-2 win over the Moon Dogs, this time with the hits 12-10 in our favour.

In this one the Moon Dogs' starting Pitcher was pulled after I nailed a line drive right back into his Groin Area™. He crumpled into a heap and was immediately removed from the game.

I restarted my franchise when I discovered (by playing against them) that Wild Pigs was the team I used predominantly in SMB2. I'd forgotten that. So far, using ego 46 I'm 2-3.

My results have been...
0-4
4-2
14-10
1-6
7-13

Since I don't follow baseball IRL (though I may start), I don't know if these are realistic results or not.

I'm also on Steam and happy to join any pennant race you guys set up, though time zones might make it difficult to arrange games.

As I have adjusted my Wild Pigs roster to add some better defense, contact, and add some more versatile arms in the rotation/pen, their description has shifted from "Speed Demons" to whatever the power moniker is to the current "Rotation Aces" or whatever. My defense bar now at least has a tick on in, where before it was fully empty. This is 22 games in of a 32 game Franchise mode season. Playing .500 ball with a bunch of 1 or two run games. Finally had my first true blowout. If that continues, I will move up from 40.

I wish the power hitting indicator was better in letting you know where you ended up. Pitching is great and power indicator is very clear. Not so much with batting. I know they have some baserunning things to clean up but I am confident they will. I did have a situation that my starter loaded the bases in the first with no outs and proceeded to get out of it my striking out the 4-6 hitters, the last on a full count. The umpire did the full on, Leslie Nielsen Frank Drebin, Naked Gun dance and spin for the strike three yer out call. Felt good.

Same team as me bhchrist. Who is your favourite player? Gotta love some Spanky Wagnerd, I'll bet his jerseys sell.

I've play several hours, mostly in Franchise (started one and went 6 games and discarded it...shouldn't have). In SMB2 I was doing well with ego 49. When I tried to go 50 I just couldn't hit. In 3 I started at 50 thinking...wrongly that it will be a real challenge but fun. Well imho hitting and pitching is tougher! I keep backing down a step till I was back at 45 and I'm STILL having trouble.

They really need to somehow make a pointer for deep fly balls, for me and can't quite figure where to put my players and I have had WAY too many ball drop between players that were all huddled around the ball drop, but no catch.

I really find pitching more difficult to hit the corners. I don't know if the umpires are different in how they call, but the zones seem to have really tightened up. Many more errors then 2 (which seem's right tho'). Love the little 'bonuses' some players have in certain situations at bat with a call count. As far as hitting, getting it HR is much more difficult ( I would actually say just hitting the gaps). AI seems to take advantage of any pitching error you make and pound out those HR's.

When playing Franchise mode I see all those numbers for different aspects of play for each player (like they did in SMB1). But I wish I could see more easily when the change up or down (although 'news' does tell you some of this). I keep wanting to change those numbers not so much to make a super player, but to fiddle with a favorite player, but I guess that is more in the custom Franchise mode (which I haven't tried yet).

I've change the name of teams, color and logo. Fun, but a bit of hit and miss 'cause I can at times never remember what I did to get what I wanted. Just more fiddling and practice will help.

Overall it's great game with so many little finesses to the game of baseball. But I may have to lower my ego more then I ever had to be competitive. Time will tell (the ego level for competitiveness is really an amazing feature).

kergguz wrote:

I restarted my franchise when I discovered (by playing against them) that Wild Pigs was the team I used predominantly in SMB2. I'd forgotten that. So far, using ego 46 I'm 2-3.

My results have been...
0-4
4-2
14-10
1-6
7-13

Since I don't follow baseball IRL (though I may start), I don't know if these are realistic results or not.

I'm also on Steam and happy to join any pennant race you guys set up, though time zones might make it difficult to arrange games.

Those results are in line with real life results.

Had a couple of crazy Pennant Race matches last night. First one was a crazy pitcher’s duel. I took a 1-0 lead in the third. He hit a 2-run bomb in the 4th. I scratched out a run in the top of the fifth, and went extra innings. Lost in the bottom of the ninth (5 inning game).

But it was so much fun. Every time one of us go a fast player on, we started trying to steal, while the new pickoff and step-off moves help combat this, along with pitchouts. I threw him out stealing twice with perfectly timed pitchouts. But it was the pickoffs and step-offs that ramped up the pressure.

The next game was more miserable, but I figured some stuff out. My opponent was clearly better than me, and was up 6-0 after two innings. And it took determination and luck for it not be worse. And I had made six straight outs.

But in the top of third, I started teeing off on him. I had started taking enough pitches, both balls and strikes, to start really making strong contact every at-bat. I scored 4 runs before making an out, and tallied 6 to tie the game.

So I was ready to beat down, and see if I could win a slugfest. My opponent scored 10 in the bottom of the third and won by mercy rule.

Seriously love this game.

kergguz wrote:

Same team as me bhchrist. Who is your favourite player? Gotta love some Spanky Wagnerd, I'll bet his jerseys sell.

I started a franchise with the Buzzards, but it just wasn’t the same. I went back to the Moose because I missed my players. I renamed them The Phog (for legendary Kansas basketball coach and namesake of the Jayhawks home, Phog Allen Fieldhouse.

I started changing some player names last night to famous folks from KU. I now have Gale Sayers at 3B, Paul Rudd in LF and porn start Samantha Ryan in RF. Oh, and Joel Embiid is my closer!

Not sure who all else I will get in. I want Lynette Woodard, first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters, for sure.

kergguz wrote:

Same team as me bhchrist. Who is your favourite player? Gotta love some Spanky Wagnerd, I'll bet his jerseys sell.

I am a fan of the unexpected player, or ones who exceed their assigned skills. In SMB2, my favorites were Earnie Blings, Wally Bacon, and Rosy Hardman, who were bench players that excelled in my line-up. Not so much in SMB3 for those, though Earnie and Rosy see fairly regular time, especially against RHPs.

In SMB3 so far, it has been SP Durbin Holmes. Enrique Goyo has been a shocker, as he has always been relegated to the bench but he has been a mainstay, hitting for good power at the bottom of the order. His abilities do not bear out the performance he has generated. I have always liked Bloop, but his power production is way down (2 HRs in 22 games). Donovan Drake was one game from getting cut and has been lights out the 10 games since out of the pen.

I actually really like the ability to sign and cut players in Franchise and watching new players thrive or disappoint. My 21 year old 3rd baseman struggled initially but has really turned it on and looks like a steal. Another FA was an overpay and rotting on my bench. I flipped him 3 games ago for a plug and play outfielder who is already establishing a regular spot in the line up.

Donan wrote:

They really need to somehow make a pointer for deep fly balls, for me and can't quite figure where to put my players and I have had WAY too many ball drop between players that were all huddled around the ball drop, but no catch.

When playing Franchise mode I see all those numbers for different aspects of play for each player (like they did in SMB1). But I wish I could see more easily when the change up or down (although 'news' does tell you some of this). I keep wanting to change those numbers not so much to make a super player, but to fiddle with a favorite player, but I guess that is more in the custom Franchise mode (which I haven't tried yet).

Overall it's great game with so many little finesses to the game of baseball. But I may have to lower my ego more then I ever had to be competitive. Time will tell (the ego level for competitiveness is really an amazing feature).

I was that way for a bit on fly balls then did a full reverse on it. I can think of 4-5 balls in 22 games that I felt was a screw up on control and half of those were before I understood the fielding system. Better fielders have more automated movement. Also, the manual movement is to generally get them in the right area and let the auto move take over from there. If I try and manually guide them the whole way, that is where I really screw things up. I have found the sound cues of the ball off the bat and the initial direction of the outfielder lets me know pretty quick if I need to apply some more direction on the thumb stick. It took me 10-15 games to get used to it though, but now that I have, I love not having the circle seen in so many other games.

Franchise is great. Hard to see playing solo for a season any other way.

You are totally right about the Ego system. So good.

I've been able to get really good games against the CPU, so it feels like I have my ego dialed in quite well. But any time I play another human I get smoked. Doesn't matter if it is pennant race where the mercy rule kicks in, or custom matches. They just aren't even remotely close. I know I'm not great at the game, but it feels like I need one ego for franchise mode games so the games feel close and compelling, and another, far lower ego in order to face humans who will properly exploit all my weaknesses.

bhchrist: thanks for making me realize I was over managing my outfielders(guilty!).

I don’t remember side-arm pitchers from other pitcher (or submariners). I love them. And there is a different pitch from other versions too...love it. Pick-offs can be frustrating as well as exciting (ie RL like). I made a real early move (after 2 games) of unloading a seriously bad C- SP for another (C+) that had half the accuracy, but twic the skill with their pitches

Donan wrote:

bhchrist: thanks for making me realize I was over managing my outfielders(guilty!).

I don’t remember side-arm pitchers from other pitcher (or submariners). I love them. And there is a different pitch from other versions too...love it. Pick-offs can be frustrating as well as exciting (ie RL like). I made a real early move (after 2 games) of unloading a seriously bad C- SP for another (C+) that had half the accuracy, but twic the skill with their pitches

Fun and frustrating at times when your B/B- pitcher performs better than your B+/A pitcher!

Just got my first complete game shutout in franchise mode. I was sweating at the end, trying not to mess it up as her velocity and accuracy dropped off, but she made it.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/yjRCb6C.png)

At one point in the fifth she had a runner on second and third with no outs, but got out of that with an unassisted double play from the third baseman and a pop-out.

Nice job. I got to the ninth with a shutout, but her stamina had so depleted that I had to take her out after 2 runs in. I ended up winning 7-2, but was bummed I missed the complete game shut out.

I do have a shutout using multiple pitchers, though.

Two consecutive 4-3 wins, both with come backs in the 9th! That's got my Wild Pigs franchise season back on track, we're now 4-4.

I made an early mistake in signing an overpriced contact expert... I was trying to compensate for the Wild Pigs poor stats in that area. It used up most of my teams salary budget. However, it took me a while to realise that the amount you get for player development is unused salary cap / number of games in a regular season. In my case it left me with about $5k per game which is never going to develop anyone. I've now made adjustments so that I'm getting over $100k so I should be able to afford some development soon.