how to turn off rubber banding

[Speve Berry]

12-0 going into the 7th then they magically hit everything i throw, no matter how outside the zone. literally had a pitchout get hit and turned into a 3 run homer. idc if you want to make a bad game just tell me how to fix it.

[View The Phenom]

There is no rubber banding, it's been confirmed multiple times by the developers and multiple players who regularly play at high EGO levels.

If you were up 12-0 in the 7th, you had to willingly throw the game in order to lose. It's also impossible to hit pitch-outs based on how far the hitting cursor can move, so I doubt you're telling the truth.

If you want to "fix" it without self-improvement, you can always uninstall the game.

[easytarget]

You knew a fanboy would be along to blame you, just surprised it took so long.

[MetalheadSoft]

There is no rubber banding in SMB3.

[Speve Berry]

Originally posted by MetalheadSoft:

There is no rubber banding in SMB3.

mhhhhh doubt

[Timberwolf]

Sounds like you're leaving pitchers in too long. If you are getting smacked, go to the bullpen. Also, don't get predictable and throw the same pitches every time. The AI will catch on.

[G Willikers]

Bet the Yankees felt the same way Thursday night

[THARN]

I noticed when i was winning by late in the game --the other teams batters appear to have learned my pitching style-- certain pitches were getting creamed- so either dont throw that low slider or get in a new pitcher with a different pitch type.

[Dorque]

Originally posted by THARN:

I noticed when i was winning by late in the game --the other teams batters appear to have learned my pitching style-- certain pitches were getting creamed- so either dont throw that low slider or get in a new pitcher with a different pitch type.

Definitely this. Even before my starter gets tired I start to see lots of "Anticipated first pitch 4F!" messages. Switch pitchers and it appears to reset. (Like they are tracking the pitcher and not the player, which is perfect.)

[MrProtista]

It appears more like the AI just decides that when it really matters (particularly late in the game) and runners are in scoring position, the AI is just going to hit anything very solidly that is pitched anywhere in the strike zone and particular with 2 strikes against them. I don't know how many times I've been pitching and had the AI batter at 0-2, or 1-2 and throw power pitches and executed them perfectly right on the edge of the strike zone, only to have the pitch crushed by the AI. The vast majority of the time it doesn't say that the AI batter anticipated that particular pitch type. The lack of reward when executing the perfect power pitch when it was a really important at bat has got so frustrating (at higher ego levels) that I just can't stomach playing against the AI anymore. I've tried either leaving in the pitcher that has been pitching great for several innings up until that particularly critical at bat, or putting in a new pitcher so the AI supposedly hasn't been able to learn any pitching patterns. No difference in outcome. Since the AI will rarely chase anything outside the strike zone (particularly when the at bat is a really important one), I'm at a loss as to what to do? If real-life MLB batters were that good at hitting with 0-2 and 1-2 counts, we'd be seeing some pretty horrific pitching stats each baseball season.
It's a shame that the developers can't get the AI batters to behave and hit more realistically at the higher ego levels. I find that the AI pitching against me and the batting aspect of this game is really good; some games I hit well, some games not, the element of luck involved when you hit directly at fielders etc... frustrating, but just like IRL. If they could just fix the AI batting, this game would be really fun.

[G Willikers]

I absolutely agree that pitching could be more realistic, while it's better than it was on release, it's still way to hard to get batters on breaking balls in 2 strike counts and I think tying contact to likelihood of chasing alone would add so much to the game.

[Timberwolf]

🙄

There is no rubber banding in this game.

Originally posted by Timberwolf:

Sounds like you're leaving pitchers in too long. If you are getting smacked, go to the bullpen. Also, don't get predictable and throw the same pitches every time. The AI will catch on.

Bears repeating.

[MrProtista]

Nope. I've been playing the game for hundreds of hours so I'm aware of all that. Watch carefully how incredibly well the AI batters perform once they've got RISP. They chase way less, they make great contact, and it doesn't seem to matter how great a pitch you make on the edge of the strike zone. You can occasionally get out of a jam with a pitcher with the highest of stats in the velocity and junk department, but if you've got a pitcher with medium velocity and junk, they are usually going to get rocked even when making terrific and appropriately mixed pitches.

As a good example of how unrealistic this is, I've been using the MLB players for SMB Franchise Mode and the Toronto ace pitcher (IRL) is Hyun Jin Ryu. In real-life, he is a great pitcher because of his command and variety of pitches, although he doesn't have high velocity or any one particularly outstanding pitch. He reminds me of Tom Glavine. In SMB, Hyun Jin Ryu is next to useless and he usually ends up as my worst starting pitcher each season and i get rid of him as quickly as possible. The problem with SMB (and really emphasized by the AI batters), is that it is far too easy for the batter to make good contact on pitches on the edges of the strike zone (or even off), and it is too easy to hit the dead center of the reticle with regular and power pitches.

What would make this game so much more realistic is a pitching mini-game where control of pitches was harder, so that hitting the reticle dead center was a very rare event, and making contact as a batter was harder and even more dependent than currently, on location of the pitch relative to the center of the strike zone. This way the accuracy stat for pitchers would play a much greater role in the game. The latest SMB patch headed in that direction but not enough, and it doesn't appear the developers made any adjustments to batting contact ability. Maybe I'm just looking too hard for realism in SMB and the developers are more concerned with allowing everyone to hit home runs, but it would be nice in Franchise and other offline modes to have a selectable realism mode that better replicates the difficulty of pitching and batting.

[View The Phenom]

There's no rubber banding, it's very easy to prove and with the developers constantly confirming it in multiple public forums there's little reason to believe otherwise.
It doesn't matter how close to the edge of the zone you pitch, or how good your aim on the target is, if you pitch in patterns the AI will punish you. You do not fool AI batters by pitching near balls, you fool them by breaking your patterns. It doesn't matter how good your pitcher is, the onus is on players to make good decisions depending on the situation.

What happens in the MLB does not matter, this is a video game where hitting well is dependent on placing a cursor in the right spot and pressing a button at the right time. Who cares what Hyun Jin Ryu does in real life, if you aren't mixing up your pitches and being mindful of how YOU pitch depending on the situation you're more likely to get rocked.

Anytime this comes up, Metalhead should give the same response and move on.

[G Willikers]

I don't read Mr Protista's post as complaining about rubber banding so much as suggesting that the pitching mini game could be made more faithful to real life pitching, which I generally agree with. It isn't perfectly implemented right now, hitters are still extremely disciplined and that takes a lot of the fun from playing at high egos.

Personally I can compete with the AI in the 60's but tend to play in the low 50's because they seem more willing to chase, which to me makes the mental mini game a bit more stimulating.

To me I don't really care because I really like the game at that ego level (although I would like to see more variation between hitters in general), but I can see someone who finds 50 ego too slow being frustrated, and I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss a valid criticism as complaining about rubber banding when that wasn't mentioned in the actual post.

[View The Phenom]

That's fair, it's probably a bad habit to assume it's immediately complaining about rubber banding at this point.