BREAKING... (The official RBI '14 Thread)

[BeefMaster]

Got in three more games, starting a season with the Twins.  Additional thoughts...

- Fielding has grown on me quite a bit, and I think part of the problem before was that in my first game, the CPU was just teeing off on me.  In my season games, they were no longer launching everything into the gaps like they did in the preseason blowout.  Also, I'm slowly figuring out the balls' trajectory and having at least a general idea where my outfielders are - it seems like the ball carries much farther than you would expect given its speed, and I've learned to account for that.  It's like playing the outfield in real life - your first step should be back.  Switching players manually is still dumb, for what that's worth - it should auto-switch to an outfielder as soon as the ball gets past an infielder.  That isn't rocket science; Griffey Baseball was doing that effectively in 1994.

- SO MUCH STATION-TO-STATION PLAY.  I think the problem is partially that I'm using the Twins, whose leading home run hitter had 18 last year.  In four full games, I have yet to hit a home run, and in one game I had 18 singles and one double.  In that way, it reminds me a lot of Griffey, in which a hit off the wall was often a single.  At least you can effectively score from second on singles - in Griffey, you spent a lot of time with the bases loaded.

- The rosters were apparently from early in Spring Training.  The Twins' roster has three guys who did not making the Opening Day roster - Alex Presley is leading off (he was waived and picked up by the Astros), and Chris Parmelee (passed through waivers, in AAA) and Chris Herrmann (optioned to AAA, although he's currently with the Twins as a DL replacement) are on the bench.  The Twins are probably a special case, since they're a crappy team whose roster was in a lot of flux, but I still found it interesting that they didn't update the rosters in the two weeks before release.  Jason Kubel, Aaron Hicks, and Josmil Pinto would be the new guys on the roster, all of whom would probably upgrade the terrible offense (Hicks can't hit, but at least he's fast).

[BeefMaster]

One more thing - I think the "retreat" still works.  I thought about it 7 innings into my last game, in a moment of frustration with my players never hitting anything out of the goddamned infield, and tried consciously attempting to pull back on the controller when swinging.  In that limited sample, it certainly seemed like I was hitting more balls in the air to the outfield when I did that, and the one time I pushed up while swinging resulted in a grounder.

[Gantry]

The rosters thing seems like a pretty glaring omission, though I assume they can do a game update and get the proper ones in at anytime?

I get what you are saying about "station to station play" but I have no idea what that term means

One more thing - I think the "retreat" still works.  I thought about it 7 innings into my last game, in a moment of frustration with my players never hitting anything out of the goddamned infield, and tried consciously attempting to pull back on the controller when swinging.  In that limited sample, it certainly seemed like I was hitting more balls in the air to the outfield when I did that, and the one time I pushed up while swinging resulted in a grounder.

   This would make me quite happy

[Turd]

I think they are doing a roster update soon.  That'd be good cause there are a few guys not on the team anymore either for the Crew.

Does it bother anyone else that there are three SP's?

[Gantry]

I'm sure all old school people would prefer 2RPs but not a deal breaker to me.   Seems weird though

[BeefMaster]

I get what you are saying about "station to station play" but I have no idea what that term means

It means advancing one base at a time, no more - runners rarely go first-to-third or second-to-home on a single, and there are not a lot of extra-base hits.  I assume it's a metaphor where the bases represent train stations.

Does it bother anyone else that there are three SP's?

A bit.  Partially, I'd like to replace Phil Hughes with one of the Twins' many non-shitty relief pitchers, but it also makes it more difficult to have a war of attrition, trying to gain an advantage by tiring out your opponent's pitchers.  Big strategy change there.

In season mode, it automatically picks your starting pitcher for you, and all three starters are available each game.  I haven't played a vs. exhibition game to see whether it starts up a 7-game series like it did in the original - if it doesn't, that would also be a pretty glaring omission.

[Turd]

I wouldn't consider that an omission.  I think the mindset is they have a season mode, so doing a series isn't as big of a deal...that was basically the original's version of a season mode. 

[BeefMaster]

I wouldn't consider that an omission.  I think the mindset is they have a season mode, so doing a series isn't as big of a deal...that was basically the original's version of a season mode. 

Sorry, that wasn't clear - I'm talking about for two-player games.  The original did 7-game series, and the sequels even staged 2-3-2 home field format.

RBI 2 and 3 even varied how the single-player games worked, based on what team you used.  If you picked a regular AL/NL team and an opponent in the same league, you'd play through the league in "season mode", like in the original (culminating with a faceoff against the Tengen team).  If you used a historical team or picked an opponent in the opposite league, you'd play a best-of-7 series against them.

[Turd]

Gotcha, I see what you mean.

[RBI Empire]

- it seems like the ball carries much farther than you would expect given its speed, and I've learned to account for that.  It's like playing the outfield in real life - your first step should be back.  Switching players manually is still dumb, for what that's worth - it should auto-switch to an outfielder as soon as the ball gets past an infielder.

I noticed the same thing on line drives. They carry like a baseball. I would compare that to the original RBI where the ball carries more like a softball in that game. Line drives go deep but then fall straight down like a softball. In this game line drives carry and descend like a line drive in baseball and high fly balls in this game ascend and descend in about the same arc. And the switching players thing is pretty awful. I've had to play defense on some hard hit grounders and it gets to my outfielder before I even see him. You have to trust that the CPU is going to get there.

- SO MUCH STATION-TO-STATION PLAY.

I haven't had quite the experience with this that you've had. I play mostly as the Braves and they hit their fare share of home runs. I'm 9 games into the season and I've hit a home run with everyone in the line-up except for the pitcher spot. I know pitchers can hit them though. Jose Fernandez hit a rocket 3-run shot off of me in a humbling 0-11 beat down by the CPU. I still haven't hit a pinch-hit home run either.

- The rosters were apparently from early in Spring Training.

I had the exact same beef about this. If they waited until the season was nearly 2 weeks old to put out the game you would think with a team of 40+ that they could have done a semi-quick roster update without messing up too much. I have read that they will have new rosters up this summer. Probably around the same time they add online play.

I'll have a more complete review in my next blog entry as well. There is a lot to talk about with this game.

[BeefMaster]

- it seems like the ball carries much farther than you would expect given its speed, and I've learned to account for that.  It's like playing the outfield in real life - your first step should be back.  Switching players manually is still dumb, for what that's worth - it should auto-switch to an outfielder as soon as the ball gets past an infielder.

I noticed the same thing on line drives. They carry like a baseball. I would compare that to the original RBI where the ball carries more like a softball in that game. Line drives go deep but then fall straight down like a softball. In this game line drives carry and descend like a line drive in baseball and high fly balls in this game ascend and descend in about the same arc. And the switching players thing is pretty awful. I've had to play defense on some hard hit grounders and it gets to my outfielder before I even see him. You have to trust that the CPU is going to get there.

I think my problem is that, at least compared to the original, it seems like the fly balls don't descend fast enough given how slow they are moving through the air.  I think that's by design, given that the outfielders are slow and have a lot of ground to cover, but it gave me fits my first game, and I'm only now getting somewhat use to it.

Also, fathed noted this earlier, and I will second the observation - batted balls don't appear to hook or slice at all.  In the original, you'd quite often see some curve on balls that were pulled or pushed toward the lines, but that doesn't appear to be the case at all in this version.

I'm reaching out to the RBIGame Twitter account to see if I could get someone from the dev team interested in an interview - I'd like to ask them about the technical aspects of the game, particularly how familiar they were with all the guts that nightwulf and the gang have discovered about the original, and how much of that they put (or attempted to put) into RBI '14.

[fknmclane]

I played a three inning game last night on the ipad.  I've never played any sort of game on the ipad before so it was certainly a different experience.  Still fun.  My timing on hitting was shit but did hit a game winner in the bottom of the third.  Will definitely be playing more, and chubbs is getting it for the xbox.  We're planning an RBI night in the next couple weeks.

[RBI Empire]

Also, fathed noted this earlier, and I will second the observation - batted balls don't appear to hook or slice at all.  In the original, you'd quite often see some curve on balls that were pulled or pushed toward the lines, but that doesn't appear to be the case at all in this version.

I've noticed that fair balls actually curve toward center field when hit in the air. Foul balls don't come back to fair territory, but if it's hit to mid-right field it will slowly curve toward center field. I'm not sure if it's a camera trick or if they meant to do that. Home Runs do it as well.

[RBI Empire]

And I got the jerseys up with all the unlocks on the rbi empire website. Click the sig

[Turd]

RBIEmpire, did you see the thread I started for you? We started adding rosters and whatnot for our teams to help your project out...

[Turd]

Also, a bunch of your links are broken...if you click into teams and then click any of the links, you get a 404 error...I also couldn't find the jerseys on your site...

[RBI Empire]

RBIEmpire, did you see the thread I started for you? We started adding rosters and whatnot for our teams to help your project out...

I didn't see it! Thanks! That will definitely help out.

As far as the broken links on the site go, I'm not sure what the deal is. Last night on my home PC it was broken like what you're saying but today here on my work PC it's working just fine. I'm not sure what the deal is. Gantry, Mr. Web Design, any ideas?

[Turd]

It's working now.  It must have been cached (or not published). 

[Turd]

Two tips, RBIEmp:

1.) Consider selecting the alt jersey and then taking the snapshot to get rid of that little checkbox in the corner

2.) Consider making the images single images instead of one large image so that you can link them to the team pages.  It's always a nice UX to have anywhere you see something involving a team that you can click it and drill into the team details.

[RBI Empire]

Two tips, RBIEmp:

1.) Consider selecting the alt jersey and then taking the snapshot to get rid of that little checkbox in the corner

2.) Consider making the images single images instead of one large image so that you can link them to the team pages.  It's always a nice UX to have anywhere you see something involving a team that you can click it and drill into the team details.

I thought about removing the checks about half way through editing the pics. I will get it done but it'll have to be something I do after I get the rosters going.

I didn't even think of making them into links to each team roster. That's a great idea. I'll have to figure out how to do that through the website builder.