MLB 2k11 (Only)

Who is buying the game early and who has interest in either a league or Tournament?

I'm definitely buying it tomorrow, but Dragon Age 2 is coming out as well. And I'm in two NCAA leagues. But I'm a baseball guy first and foremost. I might be interested, it would just depend on how it would work and the time commitment.

And I'm getting married on the 26th too...

I'm picking the game up tomorrow, but won't get a ton of time with it until I get back from Boston on the 18th. If the netcode is cool, I'm up for a tourney, at least.

I'm probably not going to buy it until it's either $30 or $40 on sale somewhere, usually it takes two months or so.

I got it last night at 11:58. I'm interested in either one. Mariners, Padres, or Giants.

I am also leaving for vacation, and won't be back until the 14th. I will probably pick the game up on the 16th. Once again claiming the Phillies.

I'm sure I'll get the game at some point, so count me in.

I'm a moderate Yankees fan, but I don't really want to play as them, and I know someone wanted them in another thread, so I'll think of another team and get back to you guys.

I will have mine today if anybody wishes to play tonight just add me to your friends list.

We can start and early tournament and give others time to buy it and see if they like it. Then we can start a league.

I'll be taken the Mets

I've put some time in with the game this morning. So far, it is all systems go!

Everything is solid and good. My only nitpick is they once again locked the pitcher into batting ninth. It only bothers me because TLR does the whole pitcher batting 8th thing most of the time.

I think the game looks great, and plays smooth. I have it on All-Star, but I am having to ease up on some of the settings. On All-Star, the fielders really do not go after the ball much at all. I bumped fielder speed from 20-30 in both OF and IF, and that seems to have made everything feel very smooth, without taking full control of your guy either.

Hitting has been hard so far, as it was in the demo when I bumped the difficulty up. I increased contact in the sliders, and am still having some issues making contact. But it is really just going to be a feel thing.

I played most of one online game, and it was pretty damn smooth. I was up 2-1 after six innings when the other guy dropped. We pretty much settled into throwing strikes, but I do think we will be able to play real baseball with balls and such. And really, with the lack of control this year, that's kind of big deal. Unless you are just grooving balls down the middle, you are going to miss location a lot. Sometimes it is a pitch you throw out of the zone that ends up in, but most of the time they are strikes that move out.

The trick is timing. I started hitting the ball pretty well in the online game. But when I went back to offline, I am swinging way too early, and it has really screwed up my timing. It will take some time to get used to it, but I might solve it by increasing the pitch speed so that it approximates the online speed due to lag. I have to believe that 2K will tweak the online play some to. They need to do the same bump in fielder speed, as that tiny lag results in some uncomfortable fielding.

On a ball to the OF, the guy will be standing there, waiting for your input, just like on All-Star offline. But that blip of lag makes it even harder to get to the ball. It's even worse hard groundballs in the IF. But offline, a simple bump in fielder speed made this a complete non-issue.

My overall impression is that the game looks and plays great. I'm sure more time will reveal some warts, but this really feels like MLB 2K10, but finished.

And there is a simple tournament mode for online play, or a 20 game season with several combination of an even number of teams. So the possibility of online league play is there.

Stele wrote:

Did someone with the million dollars yet? :D

They learned their lesson last year. You can't play for it until opening day. And it is not going to be as easy. Location is much more random. Not only will it make it hard to avoid walks, but that pitch you tried to pain the bottom outside corner with can find its way into the meat of the plate. It will be even more important to note the hot and cold zones of each hitter when deciding where to throw. You won't just be peppering the cold zones.

Did someone win the million dollars yet?

Ah well that's cool about the delay. I was sitting there thinking whoever ran out to Walmart/Gamestop at midnight last night would have an advantage. A little more fair to let everyone get the game in hand first.

If you are getting the game and want do a tournament this week. Just post your gamertag and team then I will created a tournament.

Time to Play Ball!!

My team is the Mets

You filthy enablers.

I was going to hold off on getting this for a while but the thought of an online league sounds pretty enticing.

Looks like I'll be seeing how much Fable 3 will fetch me on trade in.

I'm a Braves fan so I'd love a chance at them, if not I'd take the Orioles, Angels or Reds.

Thanks for the early review, Jay

SwampYankee wrote:

Thanks for the early review, Jay

No, bad Jay. That is damn near to enabling.

I will wait. I will!

I just lost 11-2 to Boston with the Cardinals. Carp made it through five, barely. He gave up five runs. One in the second, and third, and then 3 in the fifth.

Basically, you really need to hit a strong effort on your pitches. If you bring a 68% effort, the CPU will make you pay. I'm loving the lack of control. It's so well done.

I've actually gone to pinpoint over breakpoint aim. Because really, we are just aiming to the end of the arrows anyway, right. But now, if you are off, you are not hitting that blue box. It will easily move out of the zone, or into the red.

Right now, I feel like 2K nailed all three aspects, pitching, hitting and fielding.

I did hit a home run with Rasmus using contact swing. That is a great sign.

I am using All-Star, but bumped my contact from 40 to 50, but left power at 40.

I bumped AI pitch speed up to 70 from 60, as I was swinging early a lot. I was especially after playing an online game.

I then bumped fielder speed for both IF and OF to 30 from 20.

Right now, it is playing a fair game. I might try to make pitching easier, but for now I am just going to practice. I went into settings and set pitch analyzer to every pitch for now. I just want to work on getting it down more consistently. I set the swing analyzer to never.

I turned the strike zone off for pitching. I actually think with how it works now, the need to turn off the cursor is pretty much gone, unless you are playing with someone on the couch.

I left the zone on for hitting, because the hitter's eye needs it, and it does make reading balls and strikes easier. But it is nowhere near fool proof.

After all of that, I feel like I am damn close to having just a great set-up to enjoy MLB Today games until they get the bugs worked out.

There are a couple of bugs.

1. Apparently there is animation where an OF robs a HR, but the HR still counts along with the out.
2. Fatigue only seems to work in franchise. If you sim, everyone fatigues as normal. But if you play a game, everybody's fatigue resets to 100%. This kills franchise play.

So there is some un-enabling.

Jayhawker wrote:

There are a couple of bugs.

1. Apparently there is animation where an OF robs a HR, but the HR still counts along with the out.
2. Fatigue only seems to work in franchise. If you sim, everyone fatigues as normal. But if you play a game, everybody's fatigue resets to 100%. This kills franchise play.

So there is some un-enabling.

Reading your posts over the last couple years, it's interesting to see the differences in how we approach sports games.

The HR thing, that's lame. The bolded, though. I play with position player fatigue off in every game, so that doesn't even come close to killing franchise for me. I cannot stand having to give my starting catcher three days a week off. If it effects pitchers too, that's a little worse. I would never switch to a four man rotation even if I could until the postseason, but I'd have a hard time keeping track on my own of what relievers *should* be tired.

Is this on the 360, Donan? You might try installing it to the hard drive. I hope there are not a ton of bad AI decisions coming down the pike. So far, I really like the game. But the AI making bonehead decisions kind sucks.

And I do get what you mean, Blind. I always play with trades off.

But fatgiue is kind of core part of the new dynamic ratings. Basically, if a guy has a good four weeks, he gets a boost. Everyday ti looks at the last four weeks of play, priotitizes the most recent results, and boosts or nerfs a player's ratings. In MLB today, where players are rated by how thy perform in real life, this is awesome. But in franchise play, it is based on the game's results. So one randomly generated hot or coldstreak will be almost impossible to negate. Fatigue is the linchpin. It will cool a guy off. If a guy is cold, the AI will rest him for the back-up, and it will get him hot again. Plus, they face other players on their own streaks.

As a side not, the sim results are outstanding. I simmed a season and found the right players leading in the right categories with the right totals. It was pretty surreal how close they were.

But this fatigue bug does hit pitchers the hardest. Basically, I simmed a game, and the Angels Danny Haren pitched deep, dropping his energy to sub 30%. The next game I played, and pitched Santana, who went 8 innings. for the next game, Santana had his energy at 100%, but Haren was just 59%. The reliever from the first game was still sub 100%, but the guy I used in the second game was at 100%.

Basically, playing the game resets anyone that actually plays, back to 100%. While the guys on the bench only recover what would be normal. It's an odd bug, but it seems like it should be easy to squash.

Jayhawker wrote:

And I do get what you mean, Blind. I always play with trades off.

Actually this year I'm 100% happy with the White Sox lineup and rotation, so I'll most likely do very little in trades. Maybe get another lefty reliever and stick Chris Sale in the #5 rotation spot, I don't much like Edwin Jackson.

I didn't know that's how they're handling streaks. Good to know, hopefully it's resolved before I take the plunge.

I looked on the red box website and one of the grocery stores in town has a copy. I may be going there in the morning to get it.

I had a suspicion in the demo, but the lack of replay and the default stealing camera angle did not allow me to look into it. I was right.

Stealing is far too easy if your guy has speed over, say 85ish, because the catcher's throwing animation to second looks delayed. Hope they fix that.

One bug I remember on My Player mode in 2K10, was the use of the bullpen. I was a starting pitcher, and Charlie would let me sit out there with my pitch count in the 100s. I'd have a lead, and then I would give up a couple of hits, and he would wait until the game was tied or the lead was completely erased. On days he would take me out, he'd have Moyer pitch the 8th and 9th and he'd blow the game, leaving a completely rested Madson/Lidge on the bench. Or Lidge would pitch to the first batter, and he'd bring in another player. It was very weird how the bullpen was handled, hoping it's better in 2K11, which I will purchase after I return from Florida.

I've noticed some suspect AI. 1st and 3rd and 1 out. Squeeze play attempt but right back to pitcher. Instead of coming home, threw to first.

Also, this is more of a 'cut scene' problem. 2nd and third and fly ball to left. Error's galore which caused a inside the park home run. They had the dude from first on trotting around the bases as if he just hit a home run:)

I still seem lag from a hit to the outfield. I.e. right after I hit the ball, it stutters momentarily, then the ball continues on it's way to the outfield. This is mostly happens when it'a a looper in to shallow outfield.

Overall tho', it's an improvement from how the crowd looks, players in the dug-out and overall flow of the game. Love the pitcher to batter play. Graphics are great etc.

Hope the on-line play does well.

Jay': Yes on the 360. Thanks for reminding me. I always forget about the full installs option.

I won my first game in a White Sox franchise 15-0, Buerhle threw a CG 2 hitter. I need to set it to All-Star.

Also, after running my first fantasy draft, I found the best part in the game. It's way too obvious that some of the guys had their new teams' hats juxtaposed onto their heads. Take a look at Henry Blanco's player card.

Frankie and I got a game in yesterday. The game really does play nice online.

While there is enough lag to make hitting more difficult it is not too difficult. It was Frankie's first game, and I did throw a two hit shut out with Jaime Garcia, I had alsready gotten a feel for the hitting and scored six runs. Three were on a Pujols bomb.

This may also be sue to the fact that after my first online game, I bumped the AI pitch speed up in my offline games. So the online lag may not have been as severe.

But timing the pitching gestures and playing defense all works perfectly. Frankie turned a few double plays, and threw one of my guys out stealing. I threw Jose Reyes out to end the game.

it would be really cool if it was more like how EA does their online franchise and dynasty in their football games. But even then, it would be hard to sync up the schedule, as one guy could fall pretty far behind pretty quickly, Then he might have 20 games to make up in order to get his series in with another owner.

But 2K does have the ability to set a 20 game schedule among varying different amounts of teams. So a league is possib,e. Before committing to that, I think we should do a tourney. Let everyone get a good feel for how league play might work first.

That said, my flight to Boston leave tomorrow morning, and I won't be back until the 18th. So I can't do anything until then.

Good news from Jay' on on-line play. I imagine it would take that long to get things going anyway (and for folks to brush up on play in the game). Hope we can get a tournament or abbreviated league going. I'll be looking to go play on-line with folks when I can to get a feel for on-line play (and to see my already poor skills shape for on-line play:>)

You can't EVER throw a hittable ball to Pujols. EVER. Give him a base or make him swing at junk - although sometimes he'll hit that too!

I have it - still in the shrink wrap. Hope to get some time with it this weekend.

Played a full game with Donan. Online plays pretty much like last year hitting wise, meaning you have to decide if you are swinging as the pitcher lets go of the ball, meaning a lot of strikeouts....

SwampYankee wrote:

Played a full game with Donan. Online plays pretty much like last year hitting wise, meaning you have to decide if you are swinging as the pitcher lets go of the ball, meaning a lot of strikeouts....

Yes. Possible bug during play when trying to turn a double play and the graphic is doing a underhand toss to second. It seems to not want to throw to first. We also seem to notice that if you use the analog stick for throwing the ball on doubles, that the delay was noticeable. Not so much with the D-pad (except with the noted double play type above. All the 'b' smashing would not get the ball to first. This was quite frustrating and a definite effect on the game outcome.

Further, when a pop fly occurs near the plate, wether foul or not, it always defaults to the pitcher and you have to change it to catcher or third base. And that won't always be successful.

I think the hitting thing will just take time for folks to get use to. I truly did not see noticeable lag on a pitch, it just is a different timing then single player play.

Bottom line: I enjoyed it and hope we can get a tournament or short league going.

p.s. Oh! one big deal was the game froze on us once and we both had to reboot the console. Neither of us could get to the dashboard.