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

[Gantry]

IVE CREATED A MONSTER!!!

Settle down guy

[RBIManager]

Anyone getting this for XBOX one or PS4 today?  Come and jump in the RBI 2014 pile

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=477430879059075&set=a.400398190095678.1073741828.397047537097410&type=1&theater

[RBI Empire]

I picked it up last night for PS4. It plays the same but the running seems more responsive. Maybe it's just me. It was a lot easier to get out of run-downs than it seemed to be on PS3. The lighting also seemed more crisp on PS4. Not sure if that's a system thing or because I was playing on a smaller/different TV.

[Turd]

Sweet, I'll be picking it up soon...

Do you have MLBTS?

[BeefMaster]

I picked it up last night for PS4. It plays the same but the running seems more responsive. Maybe it's just me. It was a lot easier to get out of run-downs than it seemed to be on PS3. The lighting also seemed more crisp on PS4. Not sure if that's a system thing or because I was playing on a smaller/different TV.

Haven't seen it on another system yet, but I can see more responsive running as being possible, at least.  One of my big complaints about the gameplay is that all the animations are very slow - runners take a long time coming out of slides and turning around, and fielders take FOREVER to get a tag down (so there are a lot of close plays that you think should be outs and are not).

UNRELATED: Currently leading the ALCS 3-0 over the Red Sox, with the DBacks doing the same in the NL over the Wild Card Nats.  The DBacks went 26-26 in the regular season, starting really good and then dropping to .500 with a 10-game losing streak late in the year to barely hold off the Rockies (who went 9-1 during their losing streak) and Dodgers.

[RBI Empire]

May be a dumb question but what is MLBTS?

[BeefMaster]

MLB: The Show

[RBI Empire]

Gotcha.

I bought the show back in '08 and got about 20 seven inning games into a season. Those games still took forever to finish and I'm not a sim guy so I gave up and sold it. For me nothing beats the simplicity of RBI. If we could mix this game play with the stat tracking of the show I would be in baseball video game heaven.

[BeefMaster]

I'm in agreement that leaving stats out of season mode in RBI was a pretty ridiculous decision.  Yeah, they're not going to be realistic, but so what?  I didn't get realistic stats in Baseball Simulator 1.000, either, but I still enjoyed seeing how well my players were doing and where they stacked up with the league leaders (who had similarly cartoonish numbers).

I also lack the patience for simulation-style baseball games.  I got MLB Power Pros '08 on the Wii (which is in a cartoony style but plays as a sim), and I just couldn't get into it as much as I'd hoped.  I want something that I can get through a game of during my 20 minutes on the treadmill.

[RBI Empire]

So I think I'm going to start a season on PS4 where I pick a player to feature and keep stats for him throughout the season. Just the basic stuff like H/AB/BB/R/RBI/XBH/etc., stuff like that. I want to be able to include video it but I've yet to find a simple way to take video on PS4 and be able to merge videos into one. I want to be able to record the ABs and put them all together in one short video per game. So each game would take about 30 seconds to watch for the viewer. Anyone have any experience with the new recording feature on PS4 and is willing to give suggestions? So far I can only upload to facebook but I don't want to flood my facebook with a bunch of 5 second videos of unorganized crap that no one wants to see.

[Turd]

I have gone back to the simpler games as well, but the Show is so awesome, and it plays pretty fast if you cut out the extra cut scenes.  Regardless, I'll always prefer the simple stuff first.

What are you guys finding in regards to difficulty? Is the CPU tough to beat?

[RBIManager]

So I think I'm going to start a season on PS4 where I pick a player to feature and keep stats for him throughout the season. Just the basic stuff like H/AB/BB/R/RBI/XBH/etc., stuff like that. I want to be able to include video it but I've yet to find a simple way to take video on PS4 and be able to merge videos into one. I want to be able to record the ABs and put them all together in one short video per game. So each game would take about 30 seconds to watch for the viewer. Anyone have any experience with the new recording feature on PS4 and is willing to give suggestions? So far I can only upload to facebook but I don't want to flood my facebook with a bunch of 5 second videos of unorganized crap that no one wants to see.

Hey if your interested in stat tracking, www.RBIManager.com is a great utility to track all stats related to RBI baseball.  The framework we have designed is quite flexible in allowing for additional features to be added that might be of interest to any RBI players Stat keeping needs.   Give RBI manager a test drive, if you have recommendations to how to improve for bettering the RBI experience for others, please feel free to provide feedback. Good or Bad and we will take much consideration in allowing the framework to evolve for every  RBI Players enjoyment.   RBI UP!

[BeefMaster]

What are you guys finding in regards to difficulty? Is the CPU tough to beat?

It starts out REALLY tough, while you get the hang of fielding and running the bases.  If you're using the Retreat for every batter, though, you'll outslug the computer basically all the time, and you can win pretty predictably once you've gotten fielding down - I ended up going something like 43-9 with the Twins, and that was after a 4-5 start.  At one point, I ripped off a >20-game winning streak, and I just made it to the World Series after sweeping both the ALDS and ALCS.

Big changes from the original:

- Only one fielder moves at a time.  It's very difficult at times to figure out which guy will be assigned to the ball, particularly for hits into the 1B/2B and 3B/SS holes - it seems like it incorrectly picks the corner guy over the middle infielder far too often.  Also, because of this, there is no way to cut off a throw, and the CPU is aggressive about taking an extra base if you throw in to first from the outfield.

- Holding direction+button before a runner gets to the base does NOT make him advance - you have to hit the button after he reaches base.  On potential doubles, then, you're holding up and pounding X (on Xbox) to make sure the guy turns as quickly as possible.  That change does not apply to fielding (even though I think it WAS that way on the original) - holding down the throw button while the ball is on the way will immediately throw the ball after it's caught.  I think both behaviors are identical to how Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball on the SNES worked.

- Maybe it's just me, but fly balls seem to carry more than I anticipate given their speed.  I let a TON of flies go over my outfielders' heads the first few times I played.

- As mentioned above, the tag animation is really slow.  Expect a lot of "OH COME ON!" reactions on close plays.

- Direct movement of fielders - you just walk the guy to a base rather than hitting direction+button to cover a base.  Not really a big deal, other than that the fielders move comparably slower than in the original when running to a base.  Also, if you run off a base, another nearby fielder will cover the base for you.

[RBI Empire]

BeefMaster pretty much nailed it. There is a learning curve, but once you figure out defense it becomes pretty easy. I touch on a lot of the differences in my blog series. It's 4 parts of review/comparison. If you want to check it out click on my sig and you'll find links to it there.

[VEGAS]

...For me nothing beats the simplicity of RBI. If we could mix this game play with the stat tracking of the show I would be in baseball video game heaven.

This quote fucking completes me.

[Rhinosaur]

It amazes me that even in the 8-bit era, you had Tecmo Super Bowl that could track stats for a full season, yet with the power of an Xbox One, they just couldn't either A) Figure it out, or B) Give a shit.

I think B is the answer. I think this game was made for mobile and ported to console. Their FAQ covers the no player stat tracking question, so you know everybody asked them about it being in the game.

[Turd]

I don't think it's a "we don't give a shit." Being part of project teams for software development for 14 years, I'm guessing it went like this:

"We have a shitload of features we could put into this game.  Stat tracking, online play, leagues, etc.  Let's make this teh awesome!!"

"Yeah, those are great ideas, but we're never going to make everyone happy. Still, we need to put these ideas on the backlog and focus on putting out a game that stays pretty simplistic and true to the original.  Hell, we were already delayed once on this just trying to accomplish that goal.  Once we put this game out and we see if people are going to buy it, we'll consider those features for the second iteration or as an update down the road.  We may piss off the hardcores, but we think the casual fan will love it."

I could be wrong, but I know there's a process and a lifecycle for software development, and it's not always just as simple as "some people are begging for these features so we must get them in the product right away."

I know in my own development of some of my stuff, I build the core to get it out the door and then add features as requested or as deemed necessary.

I'm not 100% defending them because there are a few things that fall short on this release, but I'm still holding out hope that they have some development sprints planned to enhance this thing while staying true to the simple spirit of things.

[BeefMaster]

I think this game was REALLY rushed into production - they got the IP and scrambled to get it out by Opening Day. At least, that's my hope, and that a sequel would be a big step forward.

[RBI Empire]

It might have been rushed into production, but I think they're taking the steps to make this a more complete game. Adding online play in July is only the first step, hopefully. From there they can add a bunch of other features like local and online multiplayer seasons, stat tracking, etc.

It seems they've had a good enough response that they will stick with the game for at least another year. (That's just my opinion with no factual info.) I hope they continue to build on it. There are definitely some things to clean up and if they fix those little things and add more features this game could be great.

[Turd]

Agreed.  A more polished sequel would be awesome and would garner my $20 every  year if it was featured enough.  I'd definitely like to see the CPU difficulty turned up a notch too...