Metalhead Software has released some exciting new information for Super Mega Baseball 4. Today's deep dive discussed community requested gameplay features that are arriving to the game.
Super Mega Baseball 4 Expanded Traits & Team Chemistry
Traits were first introduced in SMB3, and they're returning back and better than ever in the latest installment. 75 Unique player traits are coming to the game, including all 20 from the previous entry. Most of the players in the game will now have at least 1 or two traits and give the player a little boost in different areas.
According to Richard Gibson, Senior Software Engineer, many of the new traits are designed to make batter-pitcher interactions more “dynamic”. This means you'll need to know your strengths, as well as the strengths of your opponent, before you come up with a game plan to beat them.
To further expand traits and team building, Metalhead has implemented a Team Chemistry mechanic. Every player in the game will belong to one of five chemistry types. Some examples include Spirited, Crafty, Disciplined, and Competitive.
Traits are assigned to the chemistry types, and more players on the team with the same chemistry type increases the boost of your traits. Having three will increase a small trait benefit to a medium one, or they can lower the effect of negative traits. Seven players with the same chemistry type will boost significantly increase their traits and make them much better in certain situations.
It'll be important to have a blend of players with the same chemistry to further improve the performance of your team.
Updates to Franchise Mode
Fans of SMB3 were vocal about players randomly leaving their team at the start of free agency for no reason. The developers have now added a player re-signing feature along with a loyalty grade for each player. At the end of the year, during the re-signing phase, every player will present their salary demands. You can choose to re-sign them on their asking salary, or you can try to keep them on their current one. Choosing the latter risks losing your player.
High loyalty players may demand less money, while low loyalty players may ask for more to see if you care. If a player's loyalty is high, then chances are they'll stick around if the money is right. If the loyalty is low, chances are they might go.
Manager Moments are another big feature coming to SMB4. Throughout the season, you'll have to make decisions that may affect the loyalty of certain players. One example shown in the video is two players feeling sad. You really have to go to the bathroom so you can only take care of one. The player you don't comfort will lose loyalty points, which may affect if they want to stay on your team.
You can also just release players too if you want to free up salary space.
There's more control but still a level of “randomness” that no one can predict.
Play Development & Merging Leagues
As the name suggests, there will be opportunities to develop your players. It offers the chance for position players to improve or downgrade their secondary positions, or it can allow pitchers to learn new pitch types. Random events can occur which could mean your pitcher loses a pitch type. It also means players potentially gaining or losing traits after the random event has occurred.
Leagues can also be customized to the point where you can have players from the Legends League or Creators Classic League join in free agency. Say you start a regular league with just Super Mega League Teams and rosters. After one season you can have players from the Legends or Creators Classic League join in free agency. This will replace the randomly generated players that gamers were accustomed to.
Shuffle Draft Mode
Shuffle draft creates a league of cleared rosters. You can then decide which leagues you want to be able to draft players from. If you want an online league with friends that's just Super Mega League and Legends League players, you can do so. But you can also have a league with players from every league, which includes custom players.
After all is said and done, you choose which teams to control in the draft. Each round has you selecting one of eight players selected randomly. This is great because it won't allow users to find out who's the best player in the game, and just choose them at #1 every time. Better players will obviously be available early on, with role players appearing later.
According to Gibson, “No two teams will ever come out the same – And it's a great starting point to jump into many of SMB4's other game modes.”
You can also use shuffle draft for exhibitions and elimination series as well, in case you don't want to jump into anything time consuming. But the option is available for franchise mode too should you want to create a league with friends. Speaking of online leagues, you can decide whether to have a shuffle draft once, or at the start of every season.
Drafts are also done asynchronously, which means you don't all have to do your drafts at once with your friends. This is music to the ears of those who try to manage their own real life fantasy leagues. You can even join a league after it's been created and draft a team then and join the season even halfway through.
Rosters
SMB4 adds an extra roster slot to the game for a total of 22 players. Additionally, there is no restrictions to how many types of players are allowed. This is convenient for those who only had one or two good pitchers, or needed a little extra firepower. Most teams now roster a ninth pitcher, except the Moon Stars, who have added a new first baseman.
Pitchers can also be moved out to the field, and position players can be sent to pitch. It may not be ideal, but hey, it's your game. You should be able to play the way you want, and Metalhead acknowledges that.
A new Free Agents pool has been added, which adds customizable players that can be signed throughout the season. Before randomly generated players become available, you'll have access to a wide array of free agents itching to play ball.
For custom league players, you can use the new player movement feature to move players in and out of the free agency pool. You can swap them with players on other teams, or other players on the free agents list.
On-Field Movements
Player scaling has changed so that there's more space on the ballpark. They'll still be super-mega sized, but the field will feel more open now. More in-game cameras have been added too for more immersion. There's a new line drive camera angle, as well as angles for pitching and batting.
The players also retain their wacky, larger-than-life personalities. There is all new character art, new animations, new stadiums, and new player/team celebrations.
Some other additions include:
- Automatic intentional walks
- Place an automatic runner at 2nd base
- Extra Innings of non-playoff games
Super Mega Baseball 4 Release Date
Super Mega Baseball 4 released on June 2nd worldwide. It will launch for Playstation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). Non-Switch players who pre-order the game will also get access 3 days earlier. For more details on the different editions and release dates, check out our article here.
For more information on Super Mega Baseball 4 and other sports games, check out ClutchPoints Gaming for more.
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