Baseball Mogul 2006 Preview Thread (Yes, Virginia, there ARE lefties and righties!)

[johneh]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

These are games, does EVERYTHING have to be +/- 0.005 of today's game?

Amen!

[jbmagic]

MizzouRah

do you recommend to buy the game now with latest patch?

how the latest version of the game now?

thanks

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

MizzouRah

do you recommend to buy the game now with latest patch?

how the latest version of the game now?

thanks

It's been fine since 8.12 for me so far, but I'll need a season or two before I claim it a good purchase.


Todd

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

It's been fine since 8.12 for me so far, but I'll need a season or two before I claim it a good purchase.


Todd

Thanks Todd

i trust you with other games you recommend in the past.

so please let me know for Baseball Mogul.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Thanks Todd

i trust you with other games you recommend in the past.

so please let me know for Baseball Mogul.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but Ben is probably more suited for a bbmogul recommondation than I am right now. He's been getting deep into the game while I've just been checking things out - it's a busy time gaming wise right now.


Todd

[mgadfly]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

8.12 and 8.13 didn't do anything to change in-season injuries, now did they? If they have, then that would explain why they are now too low.

I don't know about 8.12 or 8.13, but we had a big discussion about injuries back in the 8.0x days. You were very defensive about it to the point where you felt 90+ injuries per season, including 10-20 major injuries while at -100% injuries with the best medical staff in the league, was fine.

It wasn't. And Clay posted in the list of fixes (not sure if it was 8.12 or 8.13; I think it was 8.10) that the slider had been broken and was now fixed. You continue to defend the game even when it is obviously broken in places, which FOR ME, makes me question you objectivity and credibility when discussing the game.

I often wonder if you get a percentage of the sales.

Now, with that said, I basically agree with you now. The game works (including the injury slider) and if that is what is keeping people from buying the game, they should get over it.



Edit: I also wanted to add that I know you have put a lot of testing and given a ton of constructive criticism to make the game better. (Like the post below this one, or the age development.) I recognize your contributions.

[jbmagic]

8.13: *MAJOR* problem with predictability of decline By skydog

http://www.sportsmogul.com/vbulletin...threadid=72727

[Buccaneer]

Ben is very good at catching things like this. A developer's best friend (or nightmare) if you will.

[Ben E Lou]

Hmmmmmm.....there's a (for now) "mystery patch" to 8.14 up. I call it that because I see no mention of it at www.sportsmogul.com, either on the boards or on the web pages, but my game auto-updates to it.

[Ben E Lou]

Ah. It was a "stealth" patch to some degree. He edited an old "fix list" post without bumping it, so I think very few people noticed it. It is an "official" patch apparently. The game auto-updates.

Version 8.14:

• "Seasons" bug fixed (introduced in 8.06)
  
  
• Injury Frequency fixed
  
  
• Stat discrepancies fixed in Fictional Database feature
  
  
• Short contract lengths fixed in Fictional Database feature
  
  
• Aging algorithms adjusted, including AI
  
  
• Find Players no longer shows HOF players during Fantasy Draft
  
  
• Stat bugs fixed in "Simulator Mode"
  
  
• Batting stats re-ordered in Scouting Report
  
  
• Stats engine overhauled for Historical Seasons
  
  
• Expansion Teams move to correct cities
  
  
• Minor League Team Names loaded for Expansion Teams

[Buccaneer]

Stats engine overhauled for Historical Seasons

Interesting.

[Buccaneer]

Extreme (or even obvious) predictability in a sports sim is fatal, imo.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Interesting.

Both Clay's and Markus's styles of giving rather cryptic info on updates makes me appreciate Jim much more. For example, this...

" 19) Add a little more slope between mediocre starters and top starters to the algorithm determining player salary requests. "


...would have probably been described as "adjusted player salary requests" in OOTP or BM patch explanations.

[Buccaneer]

Or in some other games

• Stuff

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Extreme (or even obvious) predictability in a sports sim is fatal, imo.

Yeah...I see that it has been fixed, I can't play a serious career. As of 8.13, you could pretty much *know* that any rookie who is generated in 2006 or later would be useless after age 36. I'm running a long-term sim with 8.14 right now to see if this has been corrected yet.

[henry296]

SD,

If you think the player aging is fixed, then I think I am ready to buy. Let us know ASAP.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by henry296

SD,

If you think the player aging is fixed, then I think I am ready to buy. Let us know ASAP.

Will do. FWIW, if player aging is fixed, I would now, really for the first time, strongly recommend buying.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Will do. FWIW, if player aging is fixed, I would now, really for the first time, strongly recommend buying.

very cool

i need a Kleenex.

http://pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/27924/200.jpg

[Ben E Lou]

Not fixed. Guys are still falling off the table after age 36. Several 36-year-olds had productive seasons, but no 37-year old had >102 AB's in most recent season of long-term sim. Same with pitching, too. Every player examined has career peak ages 25 to 31. Most extreme case in current season? Here ya go:



I started a thread about this in 8.13. With Clay's "squeaky wheel gets the grease" policy, it would be good if others could voice their concern about this issue: http://www.mogulsports.com/vbulletin...threadid=72727

[Ben E Lou]

In the meantime, one comment on somethings that *has* improved--and rather drastically--since release: unpredictability of draft choices. Most very early picks become stars, and most very early late become scrubs, but busts and booms are happening, even with the 25-to-31 peaking guys. I'm looking right now at a SS drafted 6(12) who won two Gold Gloves, was an All-Star once, and had a best season of 104 R, 209 H, 28 HR, 102 RBI, 13 SB, .310 AVG. His peak at draft was only 65. On the other end, I'm looking at a 26-year-old CF, drafted 1(18), with a 96 Peak at the time he was drafted, who has never made the bigs, and probably never will; his peak is now only 70. Add scout variance to the mix, and I'm seeing a good number of 2nd and 3rd round picks who are solid players.

[Buccaneer]

I wonder if the same would hold true for historical players from Lahman - a wide variance upon the norm, if you will?

[jbmagic]

the forum at baseball Mogul is reporting 8.15 is out.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

jbmagic did you get my pm?

[Ben E Lou]

Well, gents, 8.15 is looking like the patch I was waiting for! I used fictional rosters (all other settings default), ran it to April 1st, 2104, with some very good results. Comments:

• 2103's average age of >350 AB players was less than .2 years away from real-life's 2004.
• 2103 saw one 20-year-old and one 21-year old play every day, no 18-year-olds get any AB's at all, and no 19-year-old position player get more than 22 AB's.
• On the other end, a 39-year-old hit .283 in 406 AB's. (career peak: 30-33), a 41-year-old hit .269 in 135 AB's (CP: 29-36), and a 43-year-old hit .303 in 155 AB's (CP: 27-35)
• Looking at a bunch of 30-year-olds reveals career peak ages starting as early as 22 and running as late as 36
• I only saw one 30-year-old with a beginning career peak of 23, (good in and of itself to see that being rare), and he was .286-37-116 at age 21.
• The one guy who had the career peak beginning at 22 is a great example of why I pushed hard for this change. His first contract ran out at age 25. In his contract season, he was .265-18-59-.790 OPS-the kind of 25-year-old you might have considered signing to a long-term in hopes that he would continue to improve. In actuality, he was already in his prime, and wouldn't get much better.
• On the other hand, our Julio-Franco-esque 43-year-old was not re-signed after a .311-14-52 campaign at age 39, but he has remained a productive pinch hitter for four more seasons: .293 AVG, 560 AB's, 164 H, 32 2B, 3 3B, 19 HR, 69 RBI over the course of that time. Right now, on 4/1, he doesn't have a contract, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him get picked up for one more season. He still has 79 contact and 92 eye. His fielding and health both suck now, though.
• The all-time HR leader has 822. He had a 23-32 career peak. He was an everyday player at age 20, hit 43 homers with a .266 average at age 22, dropped down to 36 and .249 at age 23--a contract year--(Oh no, is he an early-peaking guy????). He signed with another team for $11.2M, and promptly hit 61 homers at age 24, and had 34 or more every season up to age 36, dropped to 28 at age 37, but then rebounded to 35 at 38. In his final season, at age 40, he hit 10 HR's in 225 AB's.
• Most HOFers were Top 10 picks in the draft, but not all. RF Michael Cline, drafted near the halfway point (3(20)), had 680 career homers, an MVP Award, and was a 5-time All-Star. There are several other 2nd and 3rd round picks in the Hall. Didn't see any 4th-6th rounders, but that isn't too disturbing to me because...
• ...solid players come out of rounds 4-6, too. There's a SS who had a .303-24-84 season, has 95 range and 90 fielding, but wasn't drafted until 6(15). There are a good number of 4th, 5th and 6th-round picks playing every day in the majors.
• On April 1st, the unsigned Free Agent list looks MUCH better than it has in the past. There are 14 position players available who are rated 70-77, but only four who are 75 or better. The 14 70-77's average 37.0 years in age. The youngest of these guys are a 33-year-old, rated 75, and a 33-year-old, rated 73. Pretty much the same holds true for pitching: the best starter available is a 73-rated 38-year-old who had a 3.84 ERA in 185 IP last year, and still wants $2.1M for this year. Feel free to roll the dice on him, gents. In other words, it looks like pretty much nothing but mediocre-or-worse players on the back sides of their careers can be signed after spring training.
• More on free agents as of 4/1. The youngest pitcher, PERIOD, available at this time is 35 years old, and the youngest batter is 30. There's one 30-year-old scrub hitter, one 32-year-old scrub hitter, then all the others are 33 and up.
• The Dodgers led the sim with 18 World Titles. The Yanks and Mets had 17 and 16, respectively. All told, 19 of 30 teams won at least one World Championship. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay were the only two teams never to make the playoffs, although both did manage multiple 85+ win seasons. The Yanks led everyone with 84 playoff appearances and 33 pennants.
• Average MLB Debut age is much improved. It was down in the 20.5-21.0 range a few patches ago. It is now up to a much-more-believable 22.4. This appears to be primarily due to FAR few players getting 20-50 AB's or 10-20IP's at ages 17-20 than in earlier patches.

All-in-all, things look very promising with this version.

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:


Oh, and for those unfamiliar, the "Career Peak" ages are not something you can use to "cheat" unless you are trying to do so. You have to go into Commish Mode and use the "Edit Player" function to see the Career Peak years.

[Galaril]

Looks great! I am happy to see Clay and you, despite my sometimes, harsh criticism of this year's game, didn't throw in the towel. I want to apologize to Clay since it does appear now that he real has tried to keep us whiners like myself happy. And SkyDog you are right I was over the top on my criticism thanks for calling me out on it earlier.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Well, gents, 8.15 is looking like the patch I was waiting for! I used fictional rosters (all other settings default), ran it to April 1st, 2104, with some very good results. Comments:

Where do you get one of these stealth patches (or 8.15 specifically)?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by John Galt

Where do you get one of these stealth patches (or 8.15 specifically)?

You have to hit "Check For New Version" from within the game. What's funny is that, as far as I can tell, Clay *still* hasn't posted a mention that 8.15 is even out, let alone a fix list. Obviously, he changed it to allow for diversity of career peak ages...

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

You have to hit "Check For New Version" from within the game. What's funny is that, as far as I can tell, Clay *still* hasn't posted a mention that 8.15 is even out, let alone a fix list. Obviously, he changed it to allow for diversity of career peak ages...

Thanks. I always do the manual install of the patch and couldn't find it anywhere on the website.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Looks great! I am happy to see Clay and you, despite my sometimes, harsh criticism of this year's game, didn't throw in the towel. I want to apologize to Clay since it does appear now that he real has tried to keep us whiners like myself happy. And SkyDog you are right I was over the top on my criticism thanks for calling me out on it earlier.

No big deal. I recognize that I'm probably more patient and optimistic than most, and I also tend to be more "intuitive" than most males. Based on the past, oh, 5 or 6 versions of Mogul, there wasn't a whole lot of reason to be optimistic that Clay would see this one through to the end, but for whatever reason (and I can't fully put my finger on it even now), I sensed that Clay was going to support this version a whole lot more than recent ones. There are still probably a few "clean-up" things that could take care of some minor details, but right now, this is looking like a very solid game, one that I'd definitely say is worth a $19.99 purchase at this point.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

No big deal. I recognize that I'm probably more patient and optimistic than most, and I also tend to be more "intuitive" than most males. Based on the past, oh, 5 or 6 versions of Mogul, there wasn't a whole lot of reason to be optimistic that Clay would see this one through to the end, but for whatever reason (and I can't fully put my finger on it even now), I sensed that Clay was going to support this version a whole lot more than recent ones. There are still probably a few "clean-up" things that could take care of some minor details, but right now, this is looking like a very solid game, one that I'd definitely say is worth a $19.99 purchase at this point.

Thanks SD! I haven't had the time to post thoughts on 8.13 let alone 8.14 or 8.15.

Todd

[Aardvark]

How does 8.15 do pre 1950? Do you still get insanely high batting averages? Also, has he restored the ability to start with fictional players?

[jbmagic]

Still a big problem for 8.15 that stil exist.

Problem with At Bats and Career totals. this game can't even calculate batting average properly.

MAjor problem if you into stats.

being reported at Baseball Mogul Forum

http://www.mogulsports.com/vbulletin...threadid=72756

[Bee]

Decided to pull this game out and give it another go. Started in 1967 and was pretty impressed with some of the fixes. Trading block offers seem to have been tweaked a little and injuries are much better. Free Agency also has been improved dramatically. Everything was running fine until the expansion draft when all 5 of my top prospects who were on my protection list were drafted by expansion teams. I'm sure that will be easy to fix, but it's still enough for me to put the game away again until it is fixed. *sigh*

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Bee

Decided to pull this game out and give it another go. Started in 1967 and was pretty impressed with some of the fixes. Trading block offers seem to have been tweaked a little and injuries are much better. Free Agency also has been improved dramatically. Everything was running fine until the expansion draft when all 5 of my top prospects who were on my protection list were drafted by expansion teams. I'm sure that will be easy to fix, but it's still enough for me to put the game away again until it is fixed. *sigh*

Have you reported this to clay over at the Mogul board?

[Bee]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Have you reproted this to clay over at the Mogul board?

yes

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Have you reproted this to clay over at the Mogul board?

did you check before you posted this here? lol

[Buccaneer]

Sounds like historical players, when they come into the league as rookies, all have the same career peak values.

[Bee]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Sounds like historical players, when they come into the league as rookies, all have the same career peak values.

They're not all the same, but 99% of them are 25-31. I did find a few that were different...of course, that doesn't really make much of a difference since it's almost guaranteed to be 25-31. In any case, it definitely needs addressed (along with the expansion draft problem which I tested again and found the same problem).

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Bee

They're not all the same, but 99% of them are 25-31. I did find a few that were different...of course, that doesn't really make much of a difference since it's almost guaranteed to be 25-31. In any case, it definitely needs addressed (along with the expansion draft problem which I tested again and found the same problem).

I agree, Bee. If these two problems get fixed, I will buy.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by Bee

They're not all the same, but 99% of them are 25-31. I did find a few that were different...of course, that doesn't really make much of a difference since it's almost guaranteed to be 25-31. In any case, it definitely needs addressed (along with the expansion draft problem which I tested again and found the same problem).

yep

also stats are not being calculated right either. that a major problem if stats are not correct.

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by Bee

They're not all the same, but 99% of them are 25-31. I did find a few that were different...of course, that doesn't really make much of a difference since it's almost guaranteed to be 25-31.

Is this true for Historical Rookies in Verison 8.15? (I'm pretty sure I fixed it for Fictional Rookies with 8.15).

Clay

[Dreslough]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

Is this true for Historical Rookies in Verison 8.15? (I'm pretty sure I fixed it for Fictional Rookies with 8.15).

Clay

Update: I think I've found the code that's causing this issue. Should be able to fix it (and the batting average bug) for 8.16.

I'm sorry the Batting Average bug wasn't fixed in 8.15. I've been working hard at improving the engine in response to your feedback, but that means I occasionally introduce some new bugs (I think this stat bug got introduced around 8.11).

Clay

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

Update: I think I've found the code that's causing this issue. Should be able to fix it (and the batting average bug) for 8.16.

I'm sorry the Batting Average bug wasn't fixed in 8.15. I've been working hard at improving the engine in response to your feedback, but that means I occasionally introduce some new bugs (I think this stat bug got introduced around 8.11).

Clay

Clay, I just wanted to point out that your attention on these bug fixes isn't in vain - I'm this close to buying Baseball Mogul, just waiting for what seems certain to be almost certainly a bug fix in the next week or so that renders this game good to go.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Clay, I just wanted to point out that your attention on these bug fixes isn't in vain - I'm this close to buying Baseball Mogul, just waiting for what seems certain to be almost certainly a bug fix in the next week or so that renders this game good to go.

Same here.

[Bee]

Originally Posted by Dreslough

Is this true for Historical Rookies in Verison 8.15? (I'm pretty sure I fixed it for Fictional Rookies with 8.15).

Clay

Sounds like you already have found the problem, but I'll answer just in case you still need the information. Yes, it was with historical rookies. I had started in 1967 and it was the 1969 expansion draft when they drafted my protected players.

[Buccaneer]

Thanks, Clay.

[MizzouRah]

Yes indeed, thanks Clay.


Todd

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Clay, I just wanted to point out that your attention on these bug fixes isn't in vain - I'm this close to buying Baseball Mogul, just waiting for what seems certain to be almost certainly a bug fix in the next week or so that renders this game good to go.

same here

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

If Mizzou rah is playing it then it;s gotta be good.