Tap Sports Baseball 2015 released last week for iOS and Android devices acting as the follow-up to one of the best mobile sports games of 2014.
The first Tap Sports Baseball was simple and quick in nature but strategic and true to the sport. It offered a friendly monetization structure (free-to-play model but users are rewarded for spending time with the game rather than penalized for it) and a rich level content which was even added upon through multiple updates.
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The latest edition retains all the positive qualities while offering a number of improvements. Check out my full review of the game here. With that in mind I went straight to the developers from Glu Mobile for some tips and suggestions on how to succeed with Tap Sports Baseball 2015. Thanks to dev team leader Michael Saperstein for taking the time to provide them.
Bryan Wiedey: In the opening tutorial you're taught to avoid curveballs and swing at fastballs. Should this always be done or can you hit off-speed pitches consistently also?
Michael Saperstein: You can definitely hit off-speed pitches consistently. However as in real baseball, it’s tougher to judge their speed and location as easily as fastballs.
So mostly it’s harder to do this than to sit on a fastball. When pitchers are lowly-rated, and especially when they have a low arm rating, it becomes a bit easier to watch and adjust to curves. We have specifically tuned down the difficulty of doing so against lower-rated pitchers for this year’s game. But against top pitchers, and especially those with high Arm ratings who pitches are extremely fast, being able to guess and identify the pitch, and only swing at something good, is a huge advantage.
The best path to success against those pitchers is usually to get ahead in the count and try to guess fastball.
Is there any advantage to working a count at the plate besides getting better pitches in hitter's counts? Are you draining the opposing pitcher's stamina or is that based on number of batters faced or some other factor?
Tap Sports Baseball 2015 tries to be true to real baseball within the confines of making sense for the many mobile users who only play an inning or two at a time. For that reason, pitcher stamina is more based on batters faced than total pitches thrown. Working the count leads to more walks, as well as better pitches to hit.
What would you suggest putting cash/gold into first, team-based "Upgrades" or players? What upgrades would be best acquiring early on vs ones to maybe wait on?
I personally like to go for players, and particularly batters. Since you play the offensive part of the game yourself, it feels most satisfying to me to get as many good batters on my team as possible and try to win games on offense. That said, there are plenty of users who have had great success in the game focusing on Starting Pitching, a great bullpen, and upgrades as well. They are all very important in building a top team.
As for the upgrades, I think beginning users would do best by Upgrading Hitting Coach and Trainer first. These categories impact hitting and power across all batters, and are often immediately noticeable for the user. Maybe Pitching Coach next, as that impacts all pitchers. The other Upgrades are all geared to more specific situations within games so they are more subtle; however our game takes that into effect, so you still get good value for each level you upgrade.
Which of these other categories is most important is more of a personal preference. For example, I recently noticed in the team stats that my team had already made 17 errors in only 10 games, so I immediately upgraded the Outfield Hands and Infield Hands a few levels each which has greatly improved a problem area for my team.
Can you explain the different reasons you might want to play the various modes (Playoffs, Events, Tournaments, Leagues)? From what I can tell there's a different cost/benefit to each one.
There are lots of ways to ratchet up the competition level in Tap Sports Baseball 2015, and as you mention they’re all a little different. But our goal in adding all these modes is to give users the intensity of harder-core competition, and making games feel extra meaningful.
Playoff Games allow you to move up in Progression Rank. I would rate this as the best thing you can do in our game in order to improve your team and status. Every time you move up, you get a set of great rewards. More importantly, going up the ranks triggers better rewards for every game you play, as well as more competitive leagues and tournaments for you to play, all of which have better rewards. The only real “cost” of Playoff Games is that you have to win a number of games to qualify, which can sometimes take a while. However you are constantly able to get bonuses and rewards as you do so, which will help you improve your team along the way.
Leagues are a great way to compete with other die-hard users in round-robin competition to earn great prizes and rewards. You can play all your home games immediately, without waiting, so joining a league gives you the ability to play at least 5 games immediately if you so choose. Often the top 3 finishers in a league get rewards, so you have a reasonable chance to get something even if you don’t finish in first place. Note that we hope to have Private Leagues in the future, where you can compete specifically against your friends.
Tournaments are in my opinion the most intense way to play our game. You have to win four straight games to win the Tournament Championship and capture the reward. You can play immediately without waiting, and the rewards are often really good players. And you often have the choice of various tournament difficulty levels, with corresponding rewards, so you have the ability to choose your risk and potential reward.
Events are the most competitive feature in our game. They are limited in time, but you compete with 1,000 people to go up the leaderboards and win the best prizes. These are geared toward competitors and gamers who want to prove that they can be the best out of a large group of people. You can win a lot of rewards just for passing certain point thresholds, regardless of where you finish in the final rankings. And you can get a lot of points for putting and maintaining long win streaks together, which just adds to the intensity.
In case you didn’t notice, playing any of these modes helps move you up our Daily and Weekly leaderboards, which have their own rewards as well.
The rewards are often different/changing in all these modes, so users should look through the UI to find what they like the most. I personally love winning Franchise Player Coins. Others may prefer going for a specific favorite player, a Number One Draft Pick, or something else.
Finally, a game update coming very soon will have super-cool Elite Draft Picks available for people who do well in some or all of these modes.
How would you recommend utilizing the Franchise players?
I personally try to maintain one Franchise Player at the position that is weakest in my current lineup. Right now I am weakest at Catcher in my core team, but have been able to keep Buster Posey as my Franchise Player, which gives me tremendous value from my Franchise Player.
At early progression levels all the Franchise Players should really mash. But as you move up the ladder, you may want to note that the available Franchise Players change regularly. So if you see someone there who would really help cover a weakness, you should grab him as soon as you can.
And for people who want to invest in having multiple Franchise Player slots, it gives them the ability to significantly upgrade their lineup quickly. The only downside is that they have to renew these players to keep their pop.
What are the best ways to earn cash/gold? Achievements seem to be a pretty big one.
You earn rewards for completing games in every mode, and for head-to-head games you get cash rewards for every inning completed. So just playing a lot will help you earn a lot of currency quickly.
Achievements are great way to get cash and gold, especially when you’re fairly new to the game, as a lot of the beginner level achievements are fairly quick and easy to accomplish.
Daily and Weekly Leaderboards are also a fairly easy way to gain cash and gold if you play a lot.You also get rewards for logging in daily, once per day. The rewards for this are usually cash, but if you can get a long streak going without missing a day you can get great other stuff too.
Can you break down the advantages/disadvantages of each category in the gameplan section?
Consider Bunting and Consider Stealing only affect how often the Bunt or Steal options come up for your batters. So if you personally favor either of these strategies, you should up the frequency that they’re offered. On the other hand if these slow down the gameplay too much for your liking, you’re welcome to reduce them as well.
Infield In affects how often your defense will come in against the opposition. When the infield is in, bunts don’t work as well and slow ground balls are often thrown home to cut down a potentially important run. On the other hand, harder grounders and looping flies can get over the drawn-in infield for hits, so there is definitely risk to bringing in the infield often.
Infield Shifts similarly affects how often your defense will radically shift against the opposition. At “Average” setting, they only shift against high-power hitters who would have a big advantage pulling the ball. At higher frequencies, they will shift more often and snag more pulled hard grounders. Of course when shifted it’s also possible for the batter to try to go the other way for a fairly easy base hit. So again it’s a risk/reward call to your liking.
I personally use Extreme for both Infield Settings, as I feel like a lot of users ignore how the infield is playing when they bat, which lessens my risk in shifting or bringing them in. As my team graduates to higher levels, I will likely scale these back some.
Intentional Walks directs how often your pitchers would intentionally walk opposing hitters. At Average frequency they usually only walk a great hitter in a key late-game situation with first-base open, and a weaker hitter due next. This one is definitely personal taste since you’ll play a lot of different teams with various lineup makeups. But I have noticed that some users get frustrated when their best hitter gets walked — which in turn can throw off their timing on their next batter!
Batting Order allows you to have either one standard batting order, or a separate batting order against LH Pitching and RH Pitching. I prefer the latter, as I think it gives me a slight advantage at least in the early innings. Sometime in the future we hope to add a Manual choice here as well, which would allow the user to put together his batting order manually.
►Tap Sports Baseball 2015 is free and can be downloaded for iOS devices through iTunes and Android devices through Google Play.
Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, is a regular participant in the Press Row Podcast and Press Row Hangout shows, and can be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre.