Coming in fresh with MLB The Show 24: any advice on baserunning, fielding, and batting settings?

Games
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I’m enjoying this game! It looks great, and it’s very satisfying to hit the ball solidly or to make a good fielding play, especially on groundballs. I bought one edition a few years back, but it’s been a while. I’m playing on the PS5. I would love some advice on how to play this thing. So far I’m playing vs the AI, but my kids are interested in playing, either sharing the couch or via the internet.

E.g., which pitching settings do you prefer? I’ve read that Pinpoint is the most fun, but I don’t fully understand it yet. I find the analog setting easier but not as interesting.

Likewise, advice on baserunning, fielding and batting settings? Is one really supposed to move the PCI depending on where the pitch is? I’m not sure I’m capable of that!

On fielding, I think I like the mode that requires you to time your throws, even though I suck at it.

Finally, the process for Twitch drops bewilders me. Some how I did manage to score one a couple weeks ago, when I watched a stream just for fun. But I’ve been watching a streamer (Ashley) for an hour now with no drops showing up. I linked Twitch to my MLB account (not my PS5 account); that’s the way to do it, right? Maybe I need to log out of everything but Twitch?

Anyway, so far I love this game. I’m about to try the Diamond Dynasty mode. Once I suck less, I’ll try the Road to the Show mode – I guess that’s a story mode? If anyone has other advice on how to enjoy this thing, please let me know.

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Road To The Show isn’t really a story mode per se. it’s like the ‘Be A Pro’ in NHL games. You create a player, start in the minor leagues, and work your way through the career. It’s all I play - wondering if there are enough changes to the mode to get this years version. If it allowed a two way player to bat in a game they were pitching in (wasn’t the case the last 2 versions) I’d get it.

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Thanks. That’s all I really need in a story mode. Some way to progress from the minors to the majors. You’re asking whether you can be like Shotei – play both P and hit? I’ll poke around and see if I can learn anything.

I see most Twitch streamers don’t enable drops, but Ashley_Sanders supposedly does – in fact I got one from her two weeks ago. But while her tag says Drops Enabled, I’m not getting anything. Frustrating.

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Wonder if they’ll ever officially release this for the PC?

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I haven’t bought this in 3 years also. I’m wondering if there’s enough improvements (especially for people who suck like me) to make this a purchase. The one thing I wanted the most was an upgraded stadium creator.

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To be fair, you can be a two way player. But the DH is in play, and for some reason, the pitcher isn’t allowed to bat in a game he’s pitching in. It’s annoying.

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I still don’t fully understand the Pinpoint pitching. I get that I need to replicate the gestures. But after I perform a gesture, which typically leaves my stick pointing up, do I return it to the bottom?

Likewise, I get that I want the blue circles to be small, or concentric. But I don’t understand how to achieve this. For a fastball, do I move down, pause, then move up, pause again, then move back down? I’ve looked at a dozen youtube videos and I still don’t understand.

Edit: I finally found a video that explained it okay. I’ll try again.

Is there a way to make the camera show us the relevant basepaths? Sometimes it doesn’t show me the result of a play at first base, say.

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I loath pinpoint pitching. Feels like I’m trying to cast spells not pitch. I think analog pitching is way more fun and I dot pitches all the time.

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Not really. There’s a combine at the start now and that’s about it. The game overall seems very similar to 23. If it weren’t on Game Pass I wouldn’t buy it.

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I would not buy it if you are happy with 23. There are almost zero noticeable changes from last year. Like I really can’t point to a single thing. I really wish sports games did 2-3 year cycles. You can’t do meaningful development in under a year.

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Tom, thanks for renaming the thread. I should’ve been more descriptive. I will try to level-up my thread-naming skills.

I gather there have been some changes to the Diamond Dynasty mode, but for all I know they’re relatively minor. They’ve replaced “sets” with “seasons,” a card-rotation system like those used in Hearthstone and Magic. There are now “cornerstone” captains, who give your team stats boosts and have synergy with players from the same team or era. Mine is Greg Maddux. He’s interesting to pitch with – he throws lots of sinkers and curves and relatively few fastballs – but all those groundballs tax my panicky infield-defense skills, lol.

I’m certainly better at analog pitching, but I kind of like Pinpoint pitching. I like the idea that controlling my curve or sinker is trickier than controlling my fastball – that my circle change has a more complex motion than my fastball. Pinpoint seems to be the standard among streamers and competitive players. Then again, I’ll never be competitive. Also, analog may be easier on my aging hands. We’ll see.

Edit: If playing on the same console as a friend, is there any mode that disguises pitch choices from the batter?

Do you move the PCI when you swing? I’ve tried a few times, but it’s very tricky. I might have better success just anchoring it in my “hot” zone and waiting for a pitch there. Then again, you can’t really wait long – three strikes and yer out, and all that.

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Haven’t played this in a long time. The only way I play is Career Mode/RTTS as a pitcher. I had a great time and I’m thinking about picking this one up, Xbox X or PS5.

The one thing that REALLY bugged me about the RTTS as a pitcher: when I was on the mound, there was no button or stick move to allow me to see my defense behind me. It used to drive me crazy to pitch a batter really well, throw him a low inside pitch and see him hit a slow grounder down to third, only to see my defense had aligned in a shift that left that side undefended.

I also really didn’t like, as a pitcher, having hittng training goals to progress.

Have those changed?

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I use zone hitting so ya I move the stick. The key is to try and cover an area. This also helps you not chase after pitches. You need ninja reflexes to try and cover the entire zone. I’ve swwn plenty of streamers using analog for pitching, but I also don’t play online a ton. I did go like 6-2 in the event, but haven’t touched it since laat weekend.

DD has almsot no changes that I would consider bew features. It’s juat content drops. I do like that they made it so you can’t have an all 99 team in a week, but I also just feel like they are just milking the game right now. It’s really almost nothing that chnaged from last year. I’m playing on gamepass so that’s fine for me. To pay 70 bucks for this if you have last years seems like a stretch.

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Is this even better than last year’s game?

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I haven’t played in years, so I don’t know if it’s better. I’m loving it though. Challenging but I feel like I have a chance. In hockey or basketball or football games i can’t do anything right. Also the diamond dynasty mode is neat. Lots of offline options for casuals like me.

@JeffL There are lots of cam settings, so maybe? You can pitch from the catcher’s perspective, which is actually good for locating pitches and for seeing the field. I’ve done that a fair bit. But I haven’t focused at all on my fielders while doing it. And I haven’t tried shifting at all. Of course now there are limits in shifts. Anyway, maybe I’ll try that view tomorrrow and report back.

@Octavious230 or @Ginger_Yellow , I’m trying to grok DD’s Affinity feature. I guess if I buy and field a bunch of Red Sox, I’ll level up the Sox affinity faster? But that might mean fielding less-capable players. I can’t tell whether there’s any team-chemistry bonus in this mode. Do you know?

Also for some reason my entire bullpen is only 85% rested even though most have never played. I’ve started Greg Maddox offline about 5 tiimes and he’s at 100%. A mystery!

Also, my roster seems different in some DD modes than others. Googling has not answered these questions. I may visit (shudder) Reddit.

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I only play in RttS, Conquest and March to October. I think team chemistry is just RttS, apart from the captain/cornerstone cards, but I can’t say for sure.

Does it not show you if you pause? I only play as position players in RttS but when I pause it shows me the fielding situation. Also, in the controls menu, it says RS will “View Defensive Positioning and Ratings”.

Progress is pretty much the same as last year, as far as I can tell.

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It has been a while since I played, but what I recall. playing RTTS as a pitcher, was when I paused while I was on the mound it just stayed locked on me/the pitcher.

But that was at least 5 years ago. I may just have to give this a try.

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This is the most fun I’ve ever had with an action-oriented sports sim. I am really enjoying the presentation, the amazing variety of single-player game modes, and above all the exciting games I keep playing.

I hasten to add that I’m basically new to this franchise. I bought it once a few years ago but bounced off it. Most other posters in this thread have played the game before, and many are saying this iteration isn’t all that different from MLB23, say. So I don’t want to mislead people that this version is a brand-spanking-new thing. For all I know, you all may be just as well off playing earlier versions. The game is just new to me.

Another thing I like is the difficulty level. It’s just the right challenge for me at the middle difficulty levels; I get exciting, tense games. But I also have a chance to win at higher difficulty levels! In games like NHL and NBA2K, I am hopeless against the CPU at anything above the two lowest difficulty levels. In MLB the Show, I feel like I have a chance at higher difficulty levels, and I romp at the lowest difficulty levels (the “minor league” levels), which is reassuring.

My favorite mode is Diamond Dynasty. Within that mode, I do Moments, I play 9-inning games vs the CPU, I’m playing both versions of the 30-odd-game mini-seasons, and I’ve played through the first collection of Challenges. I’ve also played the first the RIsk-like Conquest game. At first I thought it was sort of cheesy – okay, it is a little cheesy – but I still enjoy it. Conquering the east coast, especially New York, will be fun. :)

I also like that the game tries to address the staleness that overcomes other sports games as the season wears on. New seasons occur every few weeks in each of the modes I play, so I’ll have to reshuffle my decks, so to speak. Even within a given season, different modes have different card requirements: my “Team Affinity mini-season” team has to be different than my “Classic mini-season team.” Plus, within those season modes, pitchers get tired, so you can’t start Greg Maddux every game. Anyway, the bottom line is that I’m not incentivized to use the same 9 guys every game.

One more bonus point: this game tracks player stats even for offline modes. NHL does not do that for its offline HUT mode – only for online play. That annoys me no end. Thankfully, MLB the Show gets it right.

On top of all that, there are other, more casual single-player modes. If I want to play the current Red Sox, I can switch to “March to October,” which is a fun single-player mode that offers highlights of the current penant race. If I want to focus on a single ballplayer, I can do Road to the Show.

I have no plans, however, to play the mode showcasing the life and times of Derek Jeter. :)

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So my first season in RttS went a lot better than it usually does, even though I’ve been playing on Veteran difficulty throughout (my natural level is somewhere between Rookie and Veteran and never seems to improve). For the first time i can remember, I didn’t get sent back down to the minors shortly after making it to the bigs and failing to adjust to the much better pitching. I ended up as rookie of the year with respectable numbers, although nothing like the .400 plus average I had in the first month or so in the MLB. Second season has been bizarre and terrible though. I’m playing a slugging 1B and have now unlocked the top tier skill set, and while I’m leading the league in home runs, my batting average is .229 and was below 200 for a long time, and I regularly get 2 or 3 strike outs per game.

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I strike out a lot, too. I used to never walk, but lately I’ve gotten more disciplined about taking pitches, especially early in the count, and I’ve drawn a lot more bases on balls. It turns out all those baseball cliches (“wait for your pitch,” or “make him pitch to you”) have validity.

I’m not sure what my optimal difficulty level is. In some modes, like Diamond Dynasty’s Team Affinity and Classic mini-seasons, rookie and veteran give me plenty of challenge. But if I fire up a 9-inning game vs the CPU in Diamond Dynasty mode, I romp 10-0 in Veteran. Today I tried that mode on All-Star and it was a great game. I lost 4-2 to the lowly Nationals, but I could easily have won: I stranded a lot of runners and made some boneheaded fielding plays.