Are infield shifts meaningless?

[rg35]

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with infield shifts when managing in 3D view.

I'll routinely shift left / right, which will put the SS or 2B directly over 2B in most shifts. A player will hit a hard grounder up the middle which passes directly under the fielder, even though because of the shift they don't even have to move.

I feel this part of the game doesn't appear to be modeled particularly well, as the sim engine either isn't properly understanding that a player is in a position via the shift where a ball is playable to them, or the 3D engine is very bad at rendering these plays visually.

Anyone else find frustration with this?

[Yarideki]

Originally Posted by rg35

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with infield shifts when managing in 3D view.

I'll routinely shift left / right, which will put the SS or 2B directly over 2B in most shifts. A player will hit a hard grounder up the middle which passes directly under the fielder, even though because of the shift they don't even have to move.

I feel this part of the game doesn't appear to be modeled particularly well, as the sim engine either isn't properly understanding that a player is in a position via the shift where a ball is playable to them, or the 3D engine is very bad at rendering these plays visually.

Anyone else find frustration with this?

OOTP is primarily text based and the 3D engine still has a lot of catching up to do. I think that for now and likely well into the future, the text PBP is going to take the priority on what actually happens over the 3D, which I like a lot. I don't think the game techincally cares where the players are in 3D because the results might be determined in 2D with the shifts and then translated to 3D, if that makes sense. So while the shifts are important, the 3D engine isn't the driver.

Could the animation be better? Sure, and it will with time. However, it's still a young feature so let's give it some time. As for infield shifts as a concept, I find them extremely useful.

[Dyzalot]

Yeah I wouldn't judge the efficacy of shifting by how the 3D engine portrays it. It is like when the 3D engine portrays a 1st baseman fielding a ball right next to the bag yet still making a throw to the pitcher.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Yeah the animations often don't match the simulation so a couple plays a game might look strange.

But there's been some new studies that basically are saying shifts actually don't work.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2...next-big-thing